Halo 3

One cannot buy or imitate - you are or you are not.

It is not just a game. It is life.

Live it!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

The World in Union

Rugby gives new meaning to that expression (just ask a number eight). It is a busy week in Paris. The Rugby World Cup is underway. The games are mostly being played in France (Scotland and Wales too). The All Blacks from New Zealand are the team to beat. Have you ever seen the Haka? Tonga has their own version. It would be something to see those two teams face each other in the finals.

You can get one of these at the Official Store just in front of Opera

Rugby is a difficult sport for Americans to play and understand given the greater interest and involvement in American Football. Likewise, Football in Europe (also known as soccer) is something entirely different (the new season of the Champions League is now underway - Go Real Madrid!). In Canada and Australia, there are other perspectives on Football, the former more American, the latter more like Rugby (the AFL Finals are also this month). Quickly back to soccer, the FIFA Women's World Cup is now being played out in China (Go USA!). In all cases, teamwork is the key to success. The World in Union is an excellent slogan for the RWC.

The Internet is the world in union too. Live sporting events via the net could become a very significant and galvanizing factor in platform standardization and common access. The Olympics will be in China in 2008. We will be there (THTF-Genesi). Adobe is making an error in not actively broadening the Flash support base beyond their allegiance to Microsoft. We can find another way to do what needs to done. We have time and teamwork is the key (OK, Folks! Back to the scrum!). The 5121efika will bring the world to a new level of union, just wait and see.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

THTF-Genesi

Tsinghua University in Beijing is China’s leading research institution, and one of the leading research universities in the world. A company was formed to commercialize the vast stream of technology innovations and inventions flowing from the university’s laboratories: Tsinghua Tongfang Co., Ltd (Public, SHA:600100).

THTF is one of the world's largest CE and PC manufacturers

THTF and Genesi will develop a family of consumer oriented products that bring the latest advantages offered by Freescale System-on-a-Chip (SoC) technology together with the Internet and enhanced communication networks to deliver rich media content and a suite of interactive experiences that can be enjoyed on or off-line. THTF will manufacture the products for distribution in China and internationally. THTF and Genesi will build on the developer and user communities that have developed around the successful EFIKA platform. THTF will bring the first three retail products (Personal Computer, Pad and TV) and associated marketing support to 8000+ consumer electronic and personal computer stores throughout China in 2008.

We will have more official details later...


The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

PowerDeveloper

This is just a test

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

QNX Hat-Trick

QNX Publishes Neutrino Source Code and Opens Development Process

The QNX move to a hybrid open source/commercial licensing model deserves some attention and praise. Every OS can't do this, but QNX can. They are uniquely positioned to do so. The first source release includes the code to the QNX Neutrino microkernel, the base C library, and a variety of board support packages (BSPs) for popular embedded and computing hardware.

National Instruments likes the combination

When Harman International Industries Inc. (Public, NYSE:HAR) purchased QNX we wondered where the operating system would evolve. Harman has driven QNX to become a standard across multiple embedded market segments. QNX now becomes a bridge to business development and partnerships that may not have been before. QNX is growing faster than ever and appears to be headed for more of the same.

In the course of that growth and in search of more, particularly as an operating system targeting the embedded market space, it makes sense to lower the barriers to familiarity and use. Having the ability to adapt the substantial code base against an open API will undoubtedly inspire a whole new generation of use. The OS market is commoditizing rapidly and yet it continues to require investment. Sun Microsystems wisely opened Solaris a couple of years ago attracting new developers and companies to Sun equipment and services. The strategy works.

QNX is inviting a community to form. QNX will continue to provide Intellectual Property protection, publish roadmaps, manage the release process and provide a professional support infrastructure. That sounds like good governance. An OS deserves the community it gets. You will have our support. Congratulations!

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Some fine print: Today, there are many very good kernels and many of them are even open source. What is really essential is the large part of the OS that sits on top of the kernel. That is much harder to find and takes time to establish (how many kernels can you Google and how many of them are graphical operating systems). Software such as the MorphOS 68K processor JIT for PowerPC is a good example. Developing such software requires a tremendous amount of talent and experience. MPlayer runs much faster on the EFIKA using MorphOS than it does with Linux. There is a reason for that. Solid development takes time and smart people. Getting them involved with access to all the required tools is step one. The next steps depend on many other things. Let's see what happens. It is a very interesting situation.

Engineering Engagement

We watch and listen. We interact. One pole is passive, the other active. We can define what we do daily between them, offline or on. Our ability to engage ourselves beyond our physical limits is something communication networks and the Internet have helped to extend. What only a short time ago could happen at the range of our unaided senses can happen nearly anywhere, anytime today. We will come back to that.

Technology-based companies, such as IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and Dell are all competing to process our progressive engagement. It is not just about the data, it is increasingly about doing more for customers through services. It stands to reason that as technology has continued to advance that the business processes based on the enhancements would improve and evolve to higher levels of efficiency and performance. The smart service provider won't throw every customer into the same basket. Ask yourself why Dell is now designing circuit boards, cabling, racks and power management systems to suit the needs of individual customers. Service is custom-made.

Can you see the opportunity!?

It is easier to throw away a PC than upgrade the software. Old PC's don't run upgrades. Hence, we have the latest craze in virtualization and the pull back to the datacenter (Keeping the PowerPC Dream Alive). As mobile and smart phones become more functional platforms they face the same dilemma. Apple has the jump on the bigger market. The iPhone-Pod will be customizable (iWhatever). Service is custom-made.

At Genesi we are evolving too. We are changing our business model. We no longer sell the EFIKA based on the 5200B (Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!). Directron does. There are others. That does not mean there won't be a new EFIKA - there certainly will be with the 5121e. It is on the way for our new customers and partners. They are the content, service and application owners. We will be working with them to give the customer custom-made solutions that allow people to watch and listen or interact as often as they want, wherever they want -- custom-made by them. What could be better?

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Superusers

This past weekend another collection of EFIKA users gathered in Chelm, Poland. There are a number of galleries online (#1, #2, #3). Marcin "marcik" Kwiatkowski (A Big Step in the Right Direction) made a MorphOS presentation. Sputnik, the KHTML web browser for MorphOS continues to progress. There were a number of EFIKA (and Pagasos) present in a variety of interesting configurations. The best thing about AmiParty4 was the people, their shared interests and the fun they had together. The organizers were Jerzy "Drako" Guc, Darek "Taurus" Wróblewski and Łukasz "Sir_Lucas" Kucharuk.

We will be announcing some big changes for Genesi this coming week, but one thing that won't change will be our desire to support such developers and users all over the world - especially this past weekend in Chelm, Poland! This is exactly the sort of event we have hoped to encourage over the last few years. It has been great.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

Converged Devices

Noel and Johan, Vaasa, Finland

The 6th International Workshop on Ambient Intelligence and Embedded Systems in Vaasa, Finland was a great success. We will post more on this later. The paper and presentation are now online.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

iWhatever

Personalization is key. The new iPod looks like the iPhone for a reason.

They will converge. Features will be options and on demand with the same hardware. The product evolution is being managed by a real pro. This is a classic step-by-step approach. They have no competition, so they have no hurry and will "milk the cow" at each step. They know they are in control. Drop the price of the iPhone? So what, the pods love us.

In somewhat related news (in the sense of an SoC being many different things in a variety of devices and uses), MIPS acquired Chipidea. That was a smart move in the whatever direction too.

R&B

iPod, iPhone, EFIKA Pad...

Today will be an interesting day with the Apple announcements (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL). We have been predicting a WIFI enabled Internet-ready iPod for a while (iPod NeXT). Skype works well on a Mac. With the iPhone leading smart phone sales in the USA for July it is not hard to see the continued convergence. Everything is at stake.

The EFIKA Pad is headed in the same direction
Note: there will be a razor small frame and we will get rid of that black border

The convergenced end user device brings with it a myriad of bundled service offerings. There are dozens of examples. Sony's HDTV-PS3-movie/music-Walkman package is on the horizon. Sony Ericsson has moved up the mobile sales charts and a seasoned Sony executive is now headed to London to take over the top spot.

Back in iPhone-land, the average US customer is willing to pay $99 for a regular phone and $199 for a smart phone with a two-year contract. Most folks consider network and voice quality as the most important factors for their choice of mobile carriers -- only a small percentage consider handset design as important. The iPhone sells for $499 and a two year contract. It will be interesting to see what the iPhone does next. It will be as interesting to see what the next iPod can do and whether 'network and voice quality' attracts a new sort of mobile user. We will be listening and watching carefully.

The Portable EFIKA Demo
Open Client with 7" LCD

Stop by and see the Portable EFIKA demo tomorrow and Friday at the 6th International Workshop on Ambient Intelligence and Embedded Systems in Vaasa, Finland. We will be there.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

New Ways To Do What We Do Already

This past weekend Rick Rubin, the extraordinary co-President of Columbia Records, was featured in the NYTimes magazine. He is on the cover.

Rubin has a bigger idea. To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, he, like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. "You would subscribe to music," Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. "You'd pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you'd like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You'll say, 'Today I want to listen to ... Simon and Garfunkel,' and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now."

We have written this before:

1. Technology needs to be focused on the end user experience and not the prevention of it.

2. More than anything else entertainment and communication are what attract people to change.

This too: The easier it is to copy music or video or whatever, the less of a problem piracy really is. When piracy gets easier, pirates will have less to offer or said another way -- all pirates will be fans. There are ways to organize an economy around fans -- especially when you can offer a better/cooler/more convenient way to do what they do already - see iPod success. An OPEN and "trusted" platform that leverages computing to do old things in new ways is key. The solution to DRM is a choice made in the name of a better technology inspired entertainment solution and user agreement. Think entertainment not "songs" or "videos." If we can create an environment that opens up a secure and accountable link between the artist and the audience they will both come. If we can create this possibility it will fuel the creativity to empower technology to meet a demand that won't go away. What we are doing is setting up an artist/audience oriented distribution network.

Also, this past weekend, we exchanged a few comments with anonymous posters on the Transformers blog we recently wrote about the movie industry.

Here is what we can say: sequels work. Have people bought Harry Potter books, seen the movies, and bought the merchandise - sure they have. This summer did they go see the third versions of Spider-Man, Shriek and Pirates of the Caribbean - sure they did. They even went to see Rocky IX (or whatever it was and now there is a Rocky statue in Serbia). Telling a good story is the key. Good stories, good actors and good singers can probably attract subscribers. Would you buy season tickets to see a good sports team?

In the meanwhile, billboards are going digital. Technology is moving the message one step closer to the user from another direction. As with television and radio, audience measurement will determine the success of the media. Of course, connecting the "buyer" and the "seller" is advertising. Can you really measure the value of an impression?

In the end it comes down to some fairly basic notions of connectivity: one way or any way. The device that can do both anywhere may bring people through technology to new ways to do what we do already.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B

P.S. And, some folks think it might be the PS3, ha! Columbia is Sony, but perhaps there is too much baggage, etc...