Technology Futures

Andrew Cohill, President of Design Nine, announced today that The Wired Road has begun full operations. An official ribbon-cutting takes place in Galax on April 20th, 2009 at 11 AM. The regional network is the largest integrated fiber and wireless open access, open services municipal network in the United States, and the high performance network will eventually provide services across more than 1,000 square miles of mountainous terrain in southwest Virginia.

Libraries have a bright future, particularly in small and medium–sized communities. As the Knowledge Economy continues to change the way business is conducted, both locally and globally, libraries can play an essential economic development role as well as enhance community and civic life. Indeed, by changing and adapting their role and mission slightly, libraries could enter a “Golden Age,” where the venerable institution plays a more central role in the community, with a commensurate increase in funding.

The Commonwealth of Virginia has announced a new educational program that puts learning materials designed to support the state's Standards of Learning tests on iTunes U. The focus of the program is on the development and distribution of applications for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that can be used by children to help them improve math, social studies, and reading skills.

A new study by Ohio State suggests a link between Facebook use and lower grades in college. The study found a link between the amount of time spent of Facebook, with a correlation between amount of time spent and lower scores (more time, lower grades). The study also found that students who did not use Facebook at all tended to spend more time studying and had higher GPAs.

As far back as 2004 I wrote about the potential to use supercomputers as an economic development tool. A few universities in the U.S. have made supercomputer time available as a fee, and New Mexico is probably farthest along, with an ambitious and visionary statewide project to make supercomputing capacity available throughout the state.

This report from TURN (The Utility Reform Network) has some excellent information about competition (and the lack of it) in wireline telephone markets, based on a study done in California. It is a lengthy report, but the Executive Summary does a good job of summarizing the findings.

Two different approaches to electric vehicle design hint at the changes we are going to see in the coming years as the price of fossil fuel heads up again. Segway has designed a more practical version of its two wheel all electric vehicle; the Puma lets you sit down instead of standing up, and has a cover that will provide at least minimal wind, sun, and rain protection.

I finally signed up for Netflix, largely because the local Blockbuster has fewer and fewer movies these days. And I'm not the only one that has noticed that the video store chain seems ill. Despite the fact that Blockbuster claims it does not have late fees, the company continues to annoy customers by simply billing your credit card for the full retail value of a late movie.

In a break with the past, Benjamin Media's Digital City Expo is going online. The entire two day conference will be conducted via the Web, using webinars, chat, and live two way audio to put speakers and the audience in direct contact. It is a bold and interesting experiment, and potentially will give a much broader audience access to the conference and the information provided by presenters.

The annual Broadband Properties Summit will be held on April 27-29 in Dallas-Fort Worth (at the airport). More information is available here. If you are interested in broadband technologies, this is an excellent conference. Design Nine will be there as an exhibitor.

Broadband Reports says that two states, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, are considering legislation to make it more difficult for communities and regions to invest in broadband infrastructure. As usual, the legislators sponsoring such bills seem to be saying, incorrectly, that such efforts are "anti-competitive." Oddly enough, they are right in the wrong way.

Skype is now available for the iPhone. Sound quality for iPhone to iPhone connections on WiFi networks is excellent, and if you leave the Skype app running (in the foreground) you can turn the phone off and still get calls. However, if Skype is not the main app, you cannot receive calls, so there are still some limitations on the usefulness of it on the iPhone.

The Kindle (version 2) is getting rave reviews, and Amazon has released a version for the iPhone. It suggests that we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the era of the book. Unlike music, videos, and newspapers, I don't think books will disappear entirely. Think of art and architecture books, how to books with lots of pictures and illustrations, certain kinds of specialty topic books.... but the Kindle hints that printing books on paper is about to become much less common.

iPhone users are speculating that the ability to "tether" their phones to their laptops to share the iPhone data connection may be coming in June as part of an iPhone software update. This would be a boon when traveling, as it is tough to do much work that involves writing on the iPhone (or any phone) itself. Even with the now widespread availability of free/fee WiFi hotspots, there are still lots of times when having a data connection on the laptop would be very useful.

A new study of smartphone Web browsing shows the iPhone positively crushing the competition. The Apple iPhone accounts for 33% of all the Web browsing being done by smartphones. The nearest competitor is a Nokia phone, the N70, with a measly 7.1%. After that, it goes downhill even more rapidly, with most of the other phones in the top ten barely breaking 3%. The iPhone has a good, fast Web browser, a large readable screen, and a touch interface; the combination is unbeatable at this time.

Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina has announced it's third Broadband in Cities and Towns conference on April 16th. The one day meeting will focus on the connection between broadband and community/economic development, and there will be a special focus on the potential for broadband stimulus funding to help smaller communities and Main Street economic renewal efforts. I'll be one of the speakers and am part of the Advisory Committee.

Remember the old days? Back when I was part of a corporate team teaching project management, we hauled in our presentations in milk crates--about a dozen of them for a five day class. We needed a van to haul them around.

In the nineties, overhead projectors were gradually replaced by the "modern" LCD projectors that initially cost many thousands of dollars, and required an oversize rolling suitcase and a strong back to lug them around.

It is pretty easy to find a report that looks at the number of landlines being dropped and then projects that soon, everyone will just have a cellphone. I have written about this before, but it has become a pet peeve of mine. Lots of people do not need a landline, but many others do, especially businesses. I spent a frustrating fifteen minutes on the phone today with someone trying to do business over a cellphone, and it was a mess--drop outs, fuzz, and noise made it almost impossible to carry on a conversation.

I'll be part of a Webinar on broadband stimulus funding, and my portion will address the kind of planning that may be needed for community broadband grant requests. Here is the link for more information; note that registration is required (but the seminar is free).

This is an idea that seems so obvious that you wonder why it took so long for someone to actually develop it into a product. Fast food restaurants use hundreds of gallons of fry oil a week, and it used to be just hauled to the dump. Lately, it has been possible to sell it to owners of biodiesel vehicles, but that has not been convenient or easy.