This was just awesome! Around 200 people for a private Rick Springfield concert. His new song “Venus in Overdrive” was really, really good. Both Cariann and I were rockin’ out!
I’m a bit surprised the explosions were not larger than they were, but we had only Minnesota legal fireworks in there which are pretty crappy. What you don’t see in this video is that about 10 minutes later as it was still burning some more fireworks ignited in the bag. Freaking awesome!
The promise of satellite phones to replace cellular phones has been around for years and has never come to fruition. There are many issues with satellite phones that make the cellular network a better idea, the biggest of which is capacity. On a cell network all I need to do is add an additional tower and I add a bunch of capacity. With satellite when I run out of capacity, I’m screwed.
Nevertheless I still believe that satellite telecom has its place and could eventually overtake terrestrial cell towers. Satellite has a huge advantage over cell which is coverage. One satellite can cover an entire continent whereas one cell tower only covers around 20 miles or so. I could drive coast to coast with a Satellite phone, but not with a cell phone.
How many users need to drive coast to coast? Not very many. But you may notice that your service varies greatly even in your own city as you drive around and bounce from tower to tower. This is where satellite phone service can revolutionize mobile phone service. No matter where you go you would always have full bars, so long as you never go indoors.
So why don’t we have satellite phones everywhere today? Well, several reasons. The phones are large and bulky. The antennae is amazingly huge and ugly. The cost is extremely high to make a single phone call. The devices don’t work indoors. It just is not as refined a technology as cellular. At this point satellite won’t be a viable option for, well, much of anyone.
Enter TerreStar.
TerreStar is getting ready to launch their next generation satellite phone network. Much like how the Globalstar network was designed, the TerreStar network is not just satellite but a combination of satellite and cellular. In the US if you have AT&T service the phone will connect to that and make the call there. If you’re out of AT&T range or need a little love the TerreStar phone will connect to the satellite network. This is all great, but as I mentioned Globalstar already did this (with Verizon rather than AT&T.) Where TerreStar differs is that their phone looks like any other smartphone. No huge ugly antennae.
Will this service trump current cellular service? At first, no. Satellite needs to be priced properly and add enough advantage to overtake cellular. As the service is proven it could supplement traditional cell service. If TerreStar is able to find a way to penetrate buildings, we could have a complete replacement to cellular on the horizon here. Just as people moved from telegraph to corded phones then to wireless phones and on to cell phones, it is completely possible they will move from cell phones to satellite phones.
That’s not what excites me though. Imagine a global network in which Apple can control the entire experience. The device works anywhere on the planet except the poles. Indoors, outdoors. No roaming, no long distance. A universal smartphone, an iPhone, that works anywhere on the device manufacturers terms. The only thing missing is the bandwidth which as I understand it is around 600Kbps. Very fast for satellite but a far cry from the 7.2Mbps next generation network AT&T is installing.
It is possible we’re witnessing a complete revolution in wireless phone technology. How cool is that?
One of my guilty pleasures is watching WWE in fast forward. Yes I know it is fake, but the theatrics are *amazing* and they do a great job of drawing an audience.
@Cariann has learned the valuable lesson that if you don’t want to know what I see on TV, don’t ask! I have completely ruined a bunch of television for her by pointing out things that many just don’t see or hear. WWE is no exception and now I’m to point out a very, very minor item to you.
One fun thing to look for on WWE are the slow moving superstars. There are only a couple. Most superstars run to the stage, or at least move with a bit of speed. Randy Orton is the exception and is one of the slowest moving people we have seen. I actually timed it once, it took 2.5 minutes for him to get to the stage/ring and be ready (music ended) from the moment the music started. It took over a minute just to get to the stage/ring itself! He moved so slow that the people behind him had to take half steps to try and not run him over. It was very, very funny to watch. Of course this was during a match with the Undertaker who is also a slow moving superstar who took a bit over 2 minutes to get to the ring and music end. He doesn’t need to run, he just saunters down to the stage/ring on his own time.
If you add that up it is over 4 minutes of just walking to the ring with no fighting, and yet they STILL make the entire experience amazingly entertaining. If you’re a WWE fan start watching for the fast vs slow moving superstars, it is a bit fun!
Oh, and if you want to know other things like the evil clown laugh in HHH’s theme music, why we hate reversed arenas, or how to predict who will win the match, just e-mail me and I’ll let you know. Be warned, after I show you some of this stuff you’ll never be able to watch TV the same way again.
This is my latest appearance on Twin Cities Live. I LOVE this round table format, it was a lot of fun and I think the segment turned out quite well. Kudos to the TCL crew for thinking this up, and great looking 16:9 feed (although it seems a bit soft to be true HD, I wonder if they are scaling the SD to HD?)
Oh Qwest. I want to buy services from you. I want to be able to recommend you to my family and friends. I want to believe that you understand this market. When you released fiber to the home in Minnesota I thought that you finally understood. Alas poor Qwest, you are still a fool.
While Qwest does offer fiber to the home, they cap the upstream bandwidth at less than 1Mbps. That’s right, you have FIBER TO THE HOME with less than 1Mbps upload speed.
$45.00 a month is not too bad for bandwidth in this region. Problem is that Upstream bandwidth is just as critical as downstream bandwidth. I think that Qwest assumes that all consumers are stupid and will only look at the bigger ‘20Mbps’ number and the price. Well that’s why I’m writing this post. If you don’t know what the numbers mean, let me just say that when it comes to bandwidth *all* of the numbers are important! You want a high download speed, a high upload speed and low latency. All of these things combined will get you a good Internet connection. While I’m at it allow me to suggest using OpenDNS.com as well. You would be surprised at how much a slow DNS server will impact your browsing experience and OpenDNS is very fast and very free.
For those who have a choice between Comcast and Qwest fiber in the Minneapolis area, allow me to guide you towards Comcast. No, I don’t work for them nor do I get a kickback in any way. I’m just sick of Qwest completely and totally missing the mark when it comes to bandwidth. While more expensive, Comcast does offer a 30Mbps down, 5Mbps up service for $63.00 a month with other Comcast services. Now that is a lot more than most people want to spend and I still take issue at the upload speeds, but it is at least a step in the right direction. Many people will go for the $55.00/mo package which is 20Mbps down and 4Mbps up. Notice that it almost the same price as the Qwest unbundled package, same download speed but over 4x the upload speed (comparing apples to apples it would be $45.00/mo from Qwest with a bundle and $55.00/mo from Comcast with a bundle).
I can say with confidence that the Comcast bandwidth BLOWS AWAY the Qwest bandwidth from every angle. While Comcast claims 20/4 service in reality I have seen more like 20/6 which means that I can upload at around 6Mbps. They seem to under promise and over deliver, at least in this market.
I know that every Comcast market is different and your experience may vary, this is just my experience with Comcast in the SW metro area of Minneapolis. I just hope that Qwest gets on the bandwidth bandwagon soon and starts offering competitive service to Comcast. I would love to get 50/50 service in my home via Fiber so I can start using next generation Internet applications. Qwest, you have a golden opportunity to convert a large amount of users to your service. Start showing some initiative!
896Kbps upstream. Qwest, I’m actually insulted you think I’m that stupid.
I have a development iPhone and as such I have the 3.0 firmware on mine. I also own a .mac account. Aaaaand I saw the latest WWDC keynote that talked about a really, really cool feature called ‘Find my iPhone’.
This feature in and of itself is very awesome. What if I want to take it a step further though?
I work in a position in which I could be needed 24×7x365. I am not alone. Many doctors may need to be paged, many other companies have their own Ben (albeit not as good looking) which run infrastructure and need to always be on call. Sure we can carry a pager with us, but LAME. Now you’re thinking, why not just use SMS on my iPhone? Ah, why indeed…
SMS is great, acts a lot like a pager, only problem is that when I silence my phone in a movie and forget to unsilence it when I get home and someone needs to get me, they can’t. If my phone is in my pocket while driving and I don’t hear the initial ping, then I may not get the message for several hours. There are many scenarios where either the phone is silenced or I simply need a more annoying alert. One could argue that it is a workflow issue, but I would argue back that many, many others have this exact same issue.
The solution is to extend the ‘Find my iPhone’ paging feature to trusted users. Allow other family members, or business acquaintances to page my iPhone and have the phone ignore its silent status, nagging me until I accept the critical message. Keep in mind this would only be used in a ‘my patient is dying, I need to get the Dr. NOW’ or ‘All servers are offline and you’ll be out of a job on Monday if you don’t answer’ type scenario. That way when I’m in the middle of a wedding, the bride is about to say “I DO!” and my iPhone starts making a pinging noise, I don’t have to get really pissed at whoever pinged me (although the bride will ban me from all future events).
I could give out my me.com account info to everyone who needs to page me (and I probably will) but that means that everyone can see my address book, read my e-mail and get other information that is personal. I *just* want to give them access to the ability to page my iPhone without the ability to see my information.
I think this would be an awesome addition to the iPhone lineup and would be very, very helpful for any professional that needs to be on-call 24×7. Why carry a pager when an iPhone can do it all? Alas, I have a feeling that this will never, ever be deployed by Apple and with the lack of background apps I don’t think this can be built by a third party either. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to set up a dummy Me.com account and give everyone access.
It sure would be cool though, no?
Cariann and I were at the Mall of America earlier today looking for birthday presents for my twin brothers. While there we noticed a huge dance presentation in the main rotunda. That reminded me a bit about an old business plan I had of bringing community access television to shopping malls. The plan was called ‘Focus Net’ and it would allow communities to have their own news program and shows local to them. Long and short of it is I was never able to make it go, but I have always thought that putting a TV studio in large shopping malls was a good idea.
I was thinking that maybe Spacevidcast should open a studio space in the Mall of America. Encased in glass and shifting the time of the show to a premium time that users would be in the mall, we could create a local and worldwide buzz by really, really engaging people in person. Allow for a live audience, or allow people to watch the control room, or whatever they want. When a shuttle mission (or Constellation, or whatever) is happening durning mall hours we could move to the main rotunda and do a live show from there with a huge HD projection behind us showing the live launch coverage. Big lights, loud noises, and people in-person, on-stage asking their questions.
There is a HUGE Lego ISS model hanging in one area of the mall (oddly enough over the Lego store) and it might be cool to have them make us another HUGE Lego ISS model that we can use as part of our set. When a new module is added to the ISS we could have a ceremony of sticking the new module on to the ISS Lego model. When we want to explain something we can walk around the Lego model, take that unit off and show it around. Thought that may be fun and interesting to look at.
The core idea here is that people like what they can get involved with. People also like bright shiny objects, loud noises, and cool effects. I think we can do all of that by taking over the old Planet Hollywood space on the 4th floor of the Mall of America. Why MOA? There are over 40 million visitors annually that visit the Mall of America. How many people is that? Well to put that in perspective the Mall of America attracts more visitors than Disney World, Graceland and the Grand Canyon combined, or 7x the population of the entire state of Minnesota. That is a LOT of people, and a lot of potential eyeballs that could get passionate about space again.
As always money is holding me back. I think a large vision like this may attract someone like a Boeing, Lockheed, NASA or other large space firm who really wants to get their name out that and stands to benefit from the upcoming boom of space travel. Imagine us broadcasting from the multi-million dollar Boeing Studios at the Mall of America. Great branding for them, great show potential for us and our ability to win over new space geeks helps everyone involved.
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this one. Do you think is is a good idea, bad idea or needs some work? I can get some numbers on what it would cost to actually take over the Planet Hollywood space, or a different more highly trafficked space as well. This can’t be done on my day job budget, so I need a HUGE sponsor. Anyone have any ideas/contacts there? We can make a nifty video showing it off and give out the bigger vision to anyone interested.
I’m excited. I think this is a good foundation for an idea and could really take Spacevidcast places. Thoughts?
A while back I made a post on TechnologyEvangelist.com talking about how I was a Technoholic. I came to this conclusion because I buy a lot of technology right as it comes out, which is probably the worst time to buy.
The Palm Pre release is imminent and as such I started thinking about how I would acquire one. Then I started wondering why. I have an iPhone, I really like my iPhone and I have no need for a Pre. The Sprint network does not work in my house and I’m still in an AT&T contract. What benefit would a Palm Pre bring me?
As I pondered this I realized that I’m not a technoholic but rather an infoholic. The reason I buy this technology is because I like to know first hand what it is and isn’t good at, how it performs in real life situations and if I can suggest it to other people. I become the go-to guy for all things tech because *I* have the information on the technology. Not just information based on reviews and other users opinions, first hand opinions. I love having the info, but I’m too stupid to monetize that information. Information is power, duh!
Reviews and opinions are great although usually too shallow. When people talk about the iPhone keyboard and they mention how much it sucks, but they don’t mention that after you learn to use it you can type very quickly on it, although rarely one handed and rarely in a car. They forget to mention that because it is virtual they can do a lot more in that space than they could with a physical keyboard. These details are usually left out of the reviews and instead all we get to read is, “keyboard sucks”. So here I am, eager for the real life scoop on the products, paying for all of them out-of-pocket and not making anything in return. Seems to be a bad habit of mine.
In the end it comes down to wanting the most information possible and I have found that to be an expensive habit. When it comes to the Palm Pre I may just have to leave it to my friends at TreoCentral.com to review it for me and just trust that the tools I’m using today and good enough.
As a final note, I hope Apple learns a bit about the cool factor that Palm is bringing to the table such as wireless power, unified address books from Exchange to Facebook, community networking, background apps and understanding that an incoming phone call or SMS message shouldn’t abruptly stop whatever it is I’m doing!
For anyone who knows me, you have probably heard me complain about e-mail. The concept of e-mail is over 40 years old now and was never, ever designed to make it do what we’re doing. The entire analogy is based on snail mail, which is completely wrong today. E-mail needs to be reinvented from the ground up.
Until recently I have not seen any plan that I thought could gain enough traction to offset the worldwide dominance that is e-mail. Then I saw this presentation on Google Wave:
Google is trying to create, in my opinion, not just a replacement for e-mail but a whole new way to communicate and collaborate online. While Wave won’t offset the dominance that e-mail has overnight it certain can become a new and vital communications standard in the next 10 to 15 years. This is a very cool product that I think deserves a lot of attention.
I’m not sure I care if it is Google Wave or not, but someone, ANYONE needs to come up with something to replace the horrid system that is POP/IMAP/SMTP. Maybe that is something simpler than Wave, maybe that new communications platform is Facebook? Doubtful.