new stuff – Steve Blum's Blog

The easy job was inventing wearable computing

3 January 2013 by Steve Blum
CES2019, geek stuff, google, innovation, mobile, new stuff, samsung, wearable computing

It takes mojo to make the glasses and cuffs work, baby.

Expect entrepreneurs to bring the best not-ready-for-prime-time wearable computing concepts to CES.

Samsung's flexible touch screen and Google's Glass project could be ready for market as early as CES 2014. The prototypes that'll be floated next week will show us if they've narrowed the gap between the clunky toys that are available today and the sleek artwork that designers have been teasing us with for years.… More

Get out of town to see new broadband horizons

31 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, new stuff, private capital, rural broadband, telecoms

One trend to watch for in 2013 is consolidation and growth in rural broadband in the U.S. AT&T and Verizon are backing – sometimes running full speed – away from the wireline business in less densely populated markets. That's an opportunity for entrepreneurs with rural telecoms experience to create their own kind of economies of scale.

Frontier Communications is well down that road, with five million phone lines under its management nationwide. Like Google, Surewest is looking to Kansas as a growth opportunity.… More

Five Geek ways to celebrate Boxing Day

25 December 2012 by Steve Blum
geek stuff, new stuff, Tellus Venture Associates

The Lensman series, by E. E. "Doc" Smith, the father of space opera and the muse of Tellus Venture Associates

Kinnison of Tellus. A Lensman always goes in.

Like a calm, sunny morning after a hurricane, Boxing Day is a time to wallow in the luxury of nothing so urgent to do as yesterday and dream of the future without worrying about tomorrow.

Some don’t look at it that way, preferring instead to run frantically around the beach tidying up. Let them be.

The day after Christmas is a day off work in much of the erstwhile British Empire, originally an occasion to give gifts to people who work for you: a Christmas box of hand-me-down clothes and left over food bestowed on grateful servants by the lord of the manor.… More

The weather is here

22 December 2012 by Steve Blum
blueseed, business model, funding, geek stuff, microwave, new stuff

A stormy morning on Monterey Bay got me thinking about Blueseed, a plan to anchor a high-tech haven twelve nautical miles off the San Mateo County coast, in international waters.

It looks like a floating city in conceptual images, but if it actually puts to sea version 1.0 would have to be a converted cruise ship. If it takes off, then maybe enough capital will be there for custom ship building. For now, they’re working with a six-figure seed fund.… More

RIP STB

6 January 2010 by Steve Blum
CES2019, consumer electronics, ibm, iptv, new stuff, set top box, sony, toshiba

The set top box is on the run, harried away by television manufacturers. Toshiba sounded the hunting horn this morning, unveiling its Cell TV product line. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s a classic case of branding in a vacuum. It has nothing to do with mobile phones. It’s a computer morphed into a set top box and wrapped with a big screen TV. The set top box is the TV.

Spot the set top boxToshiba calls the chip that powers it the Cell TV Broadband Engine, which was developed in a joint venture with Sony and IBM.… More

The buzz from CES Unveiled

5 January 2010 by Steve Blum
CES2019, consumer electronics, lenovo, marvell, new stuff

CES Unveiled was the usual mob scene. Maybe even more so this year. But its a good first look at what has the buzz and what doesn’t.

Lenovo tablet computer becomes a laptopLenovo was the only computer maker showing a genuine tablet computer at the event. And its a beauty.

It’s really two computers in one. The tablet runs on a mobile processor and has good, basic functionality. It docks into a laptop-like device. In fact, when it’s docked, it is a laptop.… More

ASUS aims for design and lifestyle driven brand positioning

5 January 2010 by Steve Blum
asus, CES2019, consumer electronics, new stuff

ASUS chairman Jonney Shih gambled that he could set a meet-or-beat benchmark with an early Tuesday news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show. Risky strategy, because if he doesn’t have a game-changing announcement, ASUS will end up looking diminished with every comparison made during Wednesday’s wall-to-wall press events.

Didn’t happen. No tablet computer or e-reader or smartphone to announce.

Turns out, the game they’re trying to change is their brand positioning: shift the ASUS brand from representing smaller, cheaper, geekier laptops and netbooks to being a full-on, mainstream portable computer maker, with a design-driven, consumer electronics edge.… More