GLIMPSES OF THE
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Sony e-Book Launches, But Is Kept Company by Competitors Sony finally launches its much-heralded e-Book reader and book download service, ebooksconnect, on October 1. The Sony Reader features an electronic ink display ('e-ink' - an MIT spin-out company) which is far superior to normal PDA displays. I have often predicted that it will take electronic ink displays to make books viable in digital form - now the revolution in reading appears to have started in earnest. In standard form, the Sony Reader can store up to 80 full-length books (memory expansion cards can increase storage) and one battery charge can power up to 7,500 'page turns'. That will cope with those long flights. (It even plays MP3 files.) I want one. Prices per book download are between $5 and $15 dollars and represent reasonable value (but these prices will fall - see paragraphs below). But Sony is not going to be alone. On October 2 a new Japanese joint venture called Words Gear Co. will debut offering its own electronic book reader and will provide e-books of novels and comics online. The new venture has been formed by Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co. Ltd.(Panasonic to you and me), the publishing company Kadokawa Holdings Inc. and Japan’s third-largest television station, Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. Amazon is also to launch its own e-book reader called 'the Kindle' and a new ebook download service. But despite Amazon's ownership of on-line book sales my money is on the Sony initiative. $100 Laptop Begins Rollout in Thailand Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Media Lab at MIT, has been championing a $100 laptop computer for the developing world for the last few years. Now the project gets underway properly as more than 500 children in Thailand are expected to receive the first production machines in October and November 2006 for quality testing and debugging. The One Laptop Per Child program, a nonprofit organization spun out of MIT, hopes to deliver 5 million to 7 million machines in Thailand, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina during 2007. Thailand's government is expected to buy 1 million in the first year. Now The Thyroid Cancer Biomarker Is Found The future of medicine is all about pre-diagnosis and prevention, rather than treatment and cures. To this end Upstream Biosciences Inc of Canada has just filed for a patent on a method of detecting 'biomarkers' in humans who are at high risk of contracting thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer kills 1,500 people per year in the USA and 350 in the UK. What makes this filing particularly interesting is that these mortality figures reveal that thyroid cancer is not one of the 'big killers' yet Upstream clearly thinks there is an important market for a product that may be developed from this patent. Two weeks earlier biostream filed to patent a system for detecting biomarkers in women at high risk of contracting ovarian cancer. In the USA 15,000 women die from this disease a year. The figure in the UK is 4,500 (86 women dying a week). Upstream is also developing diagnostic tests that may determine whether a drug will be useful or harmful to an individual patient based on his or her genetic profile. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, each year 100,000 people die in the United States due to adverse reactions to prescription drugs (almost 2,000 a week! - Doctor, do no harm). Acne and SAD Therapy From Your Mobile Phone The device formerly known as a mobile phone (we don't yet have an adequate word for what it is becoming) is now set to develop into a tool which will also provide medical treatment. A recent U.S. patent filing describes a phone which is covered in light panels which emit UV light to bring a simulation of sunlight for people who suffer from SAD - 'seasonal affective disorder.' The depression syndrome, caused by a lack of sunlight, is common in the Nordic countries which lead in mobile 'phone' design. The light-emitting phone is also said to be capable of treating acne. Home Workers Need To Sound Busy The trend towards home working is wonderful - flexible hours, an easy commute and minimal dress code in the office. But one thing is missing; when you call someone to make a deal, it doesn't sound like you're in a busy, happening environment. From the hush that surrounds you it sounds like you've been made redundant and you've been forced to turn your silent living room or spare bedroom into a temporary office. Help is at hand from Thrivingoffice.com. The company sells CDs and downloads that provide all of the background sounds necessary to make your customers think you're standing in the middle of a busy trading floor. Sound effects include background voices, ringing tones, computer sounds, desk drawers closing and more (screaming bosses?). The CD offers two tracks - 'busy' and 'very busy' - so you can choose your own level of distraction and harassment to convince your contacts that your environment is truly buzzing. Good Manners For Robots During September the robotics department of the University of Hertfordshire held a conference to discuss the development of future robots. Having established a 'robot house' in Hertfordshire researchers told the Guardian that they had come to the conclusion that domestic robots should not be given names as 'this can cause gender issues' which are 'undesirable.' The researchers also said that robots have to be taught how to approach people in ways that do not startle humans. I have had some contact with robots and I can't say I agree with these conclusions. We will anthropomorphize our robots and we will adapt to their presence long before they adapt to ours.
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Predicting Hits - And Finding More Of The Music You Like New software developed at the University of Barcelona is claimed to be able to predict which pop tracks will be a hit and which will not. Called 'Hit Song Science', the company marketing the product and service already claims to have produced songs which have entered the top ten of charts in the UK and Germany Now Music Intelligence Solutions, the San Francisco-based company which distributes the software, is offering it to major music download sites such as iTunes, Pandora and Last.fm so that browsers can use the 'matching algorithms to find more of the type of music they like, even if they don't have a particular artist or song title in mind.' Music Intelligence Solutions has recently been awarded a patent on their software which analyses over sixty various musical attributes including "brightness; bandwidth; tempo; volume; rhythm; low frequency and octave" to either match the template of a hit or to find tracks similar to a particular tune. The description of the process in the patent filing reads: "An artificial intelligence song/music recommendation system and method is provided that allows music shoppers to discover new music. The system and method accomplish these tasks by analysing a database of music in order to identify key similarities between different pieces of music, and then recommends pieces of music to a user depending upon their music preferences. An embodiment enables a user to evaluate a new song's similarity to songs already established as commercially valuable." So, if you think all pop music sounds the same, you're wrong. Only successful tracks sound the same. Google Gives There has never been a business phenomenon like Google because there has never been an infosphere before (expect more Google-type phenomena in the years to come). Now the company, not yet ten years old, is turning its rich collective mind towards philanthropy. Google.org is a foundation created to focus some of Google's wealth on issues associated with global poverty, energy and the environment. The new rage in philanthropy is to use 'business methods' to make the giving effective and Google.org has created the Acumen Fund to encourage entrepreneurial approaches to solving the problem of poverty, TechnoServe to foster technology start-ups (not for profit), Water Research which will focus on easing water shortages in Africa and PlanetRead which will seek to raise the standard of literacy in India by adding sub-titling to films and videos. Mobile Phones Ready For Galileo Navigation Services SiGe Semiconductor says that it is ready to launch the world's first Galileo-ready receiver for mass market consumer electronics, which will enable the integration of GPS-style navigation services into portable devices including mobile phones. Galileo is the new European satellite system that will greatly enhance navigation and positioning performance compared with the existing American-owned GPS system. Phones enabled to receive Galileo signals will be able to offer accurate location based services (e.g. local info and advertising) and personal tracking (keeping children safe, etc.). This is an important development. The Galileo system becomes operational in 2008. A Place To Sell Your Silly Videos Now there's a new market for content developed on your mobile phone. Actifone has announced a new 'white label' site which will allow you to upload and sell your multi-media items and videos from your mobile phone as if the site were your own. Once content has been uploaded to the platform, a Bango Service package is automatically set up, enabling users to log on to the momo interface to create and manage their own mobile inventory. It also provides complete visibility in the number of downloads that have been successfully completed and any payouts that are due to the content creator. In Case You Wondered About Film And Video Downloads In the first week that Disney offered feature films for downloading via Apple's iTunes website, Playlist reported that 125,000 Disney movies were downloaded, generating an income of $1 million for the company Yes, film downloads take time even on good broadband, but we used to load software from cassette recorders. It's only just begun. Forget HDTV, Get Ready For UHDV If you've only just installed your flat-screen HDTV, be prepared to want more. NHK, the Japanese equivalent of Britain's BBC, has announced that it is now developing TV screens and transmission systems that have 4300 lines. The resulting picture will offer 16 times the resolution of today's 1125 line HDTVs. Called UHDV, for Ultrahigh-Definition Vision, the new system really is a glimpse of the future. NHK don't expect the new system to be ready for consumer delivery until 2025. And Finally - Penthouse On Your Mobile? Yes, that venerable men's mag Penthouse has done a deal with Watt Media to provide its soft-core content to mobile phones. Offerings will include editorial, photos, images, games, audio and video clips from the Penthouse library including Penthouse Forum and Penthouse Letters; as well as new programming designed specifically and exclusively for mobile distribution. Back to the future.
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