How will technology impact our lives in 2007? At the Churchill Club’s annual “What’s Hot, What’s Not in Personal Technology” forum, held recently in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum, industry “thought leaders” demonstrated cool gadgets, including a talking star finder with built-in global positioning system and a marsupial teddy bear with twinkling paws playing an iPod in its pouch.
Three trends were evident: 1) the proliferation of personal video, 2) the time-shifting of broadcast events, and 3) the expanded use of USB ports.
Hot on the heels of Google’s $1.6 billion acquisition, Chad Hurley, YouTube’s co-founder and CEO, was bullish about video on cell phones. Veteran Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg opened the forum by proclaiming that 2006 was “not a banner year for great gadgets.” He joked about Apple’s elusive and much rumored iPhone. He liked the Motorola Moto Q phone and Samsung’s BlackJack — devices that look like RIM’s popular Blackberry. Helio, a joint venture of Earthlink and SK Telecom, resells Sprint’s phone service with hip video services and cool video phones.
Seriously, the 80GB iPod is available now and can show up to 100 hours of video — so do you really want video cluttering up your phone? Greg Harper, gadget guru and industry consultant, is readily recognized on a plane, muffled by his noise-canceling headphones and sporting dark glasses that enlarge movies playing on one of his many handheld devices. A belt buckle with a miniature video screen was also shown. Contemplating your navel has a whole new meaning in the world of personal video.
You may not need a new device to see movies. I use Pocket DVD Wizard (www.pocketdvdwizard.com) to convert a movie from a DVD via a Windows PC to a Windows PDA. It’s not very quick, but it works on most movies with Palm and Windows smartphones.
There’ll always be full-length feature films, but Chad convinced us that the real action is in do-it-yourself short clips. Educators must now teach children not only how to read and write, but how to make compelling video to help them get jobs, sell products, record their vacations and communicate professionally.
Panelists spoke about the tiny iPod Shuffle as the ideal gift for playing tunes. I use my iPod Shuffle to store podcasts and NPR radio programs, rather than songs. Meanwhile, time-shifting pioneer TiVo is expected to debut a service in early 2007 that will let you send home movies across the Internet to a TiVo subscriber’s TV, so there’s no need to send a DVD through the mail. In the future, having to listen to radio or watch TV at preset times will seem restrictive and primitive.
Kara Swisher, author and Wall Street Journal technology writer, showed how you can use your computer’s USB port for cooling champagne. The companion beverage warmer would be useful to keep my pot of tea hot.
Moixa energy (www.usbcell.com) has created standard-sized batteries that have a built-in USB plug so they can be recharged using your laptop’s USB port. This saves packing a battery charger, and possibly a power converter as well. USB ports are widely found in cigarette lighter connectors so that you can power devices in your vehicle. You can get a cigarette lighter connector that also plugs into a wall socket — again reducing the need for multiple connectors.
Greg had a USB-connected robotic hamster on a treadmill — but it crashed his PC. He closed the panel presentations by flashing his digitally enhanced T-shirt to the audience — a must-have for Silicon Valley high tech company gear in 2007.
Angela Hey can be reached at amhey@techviser.com.
