Hardware and gadgets

AT&T may be headed back into the computer business. Back in the early eighties, AT&T was selling some of the best personal computers available, made by Olivetti in Italy under contract. The group I supervised at AT&T did site inspections at the Olivetti factories. AT&T also was selling the first Unix-based PC, made by Convergent Technologies.

I want one of these, but you can't buy it yet--a pocket-size projector that uses three lasers instead of LCD panels to create the images. What is not at all clear is how useful it really is. The projection distance and image size don't correlate sensibly with the light output (only ten lumens, where even modest LCD projectors offer 1000 lumens). But this is yet another pocket size projector that has been announced in the past year, so we'll eventually see these in stores.

Early reviewers of the RIM (Blackberry) Storm phone do not have many good things to say about the smartphone competitor to the Apple iPhone. The biggest criticism is the apparently clunky virtual QWERTY keypad. It must be bad, because I am not a big fan of the Apple "soft" keypad--I still make a lot of mistakes with it.

Apple's new 24" flat panel display has begun to ship, and it only works with Apple's line of newer laptops. This might seem puzzling, but Apple's sales of laptops (as well as other computer makers) has exceeded the sales of desktop computers for some time. The Apple display is a dock for the laptop, with built in power connector to charge the laptop, a mini video connector, and a built in Web cam and speakers. So with a minimum of fuss, you can have a big screen, power, and good audio with a relatively low cost laptop.

The NPD Group reports that the

Back in July, I traded in my aging Treo for a 3G iPhone. After using it for three months, it has exceeded all my expectations. I was a bit nervous about doing so, because I had heard so many complaints about poor service from the AT&T network. But I have found AT&T service to be widely available, even in the small towns and rural areas we visit from time to time. The sound quality of phone calls is noticeably better--crisp and clear. My one complaint about the AT&T network is that 3G service, when available (mostly in large cities), does not work very well.

Ford has announced that parental controls will be available on some of their new cars, beginning with selected 2010 models. The controls will allow parents to set the top speed of the car, limit how loud the radio can be played, and the car will beep continuously if the front seat belts are not in use.

Now if only they could also include a parental control that forces teenagers into the car at 11 PM and drives them straight home--that is a feature a lot of parents would be pay for.

Wired's Gadget Lab reports that new audio capabilities have been built into the new iPod Touch. The first generation Touch did have the necessary hardware to support voice in, so voice memo applications did not work, and neither did VoIP applications. But the new Touch has support for voice input, meaning you could run a VoIP app and make phone calls with the iPod when you have access to a WiFi hotspot.

3M may finally be the first to market with a real pocket projector. Numerous companies have pre-announced these gadgets for several years, but the sticky note company may grab an early jump in this emerging market space with their $359 device.

It does not have the light power to provide a good image for a large room full of people, but for desktop use, impromptu small group presentations, and even cheapo home theater use, it is likely to be very popular.

The iPhone continues to break records. According to some estimates, Apple has sold 3 million phones in the first 4 weeks after the updated iPhone 3G was released. Last year, it took Apple three months to sell 1 million. One estimate suggests that Apple will continue to sell 800,000 phones a week for many months.

AT&T, perhaps partly by accident, has probably created success story that is likely to become a business textbook case study classic. Its partnership with Apple has succeeded beyond the company's wildest dreams. Once a kind of also-ran in the cellular industry, customers are switching in droves to AT&T just to get an iPhone. And AT&T has wisely beefed up its network and is making massive investments to ensure its customers have a good signal in more places.

Apple's second generation iPhone was released for sale last Friday, and promptly broke every consumer electronics record. Apple and AT&T sold an astounding one million phones in just three days, making it not only the most popular cellphone in history but the most popular consumer electronics device ever. Even more incredible, there are still long lines of buyers waiting for phones--according to numerous reports, all 1800 AT&T stores are completely sold out, and most Apple retail stores are out of stock.

Seagate, a big manufacturer of hard drives, has released a new hard drive that breaks yet another capacity record--the firm now has a 1.5 terabyte hard drive. This is 1500 gigabytes. It was less than fifteen years ago that I agonized over the enormous expense (at the time) of buying a one gigabyte drive. It cost a whopping $1200. This new Seagate drive, with 1500 times the capacity, will probably cost less than a third of that old 1 gig drive.

When I tell people that I don't use a GPS device in my car, they are often shocked. The seem to assume that anybody who has a day job in the telecom business should be using the popular devices routinely.

There is lots of video on the Internet, but you don't always want to watch it in a little window on your computer. If you have ever tried to play a YouTube video clip with three or four people peering over your shoulder, all trying to see the tiny picture and listen to the tinny sound, you know what I mean.

This new device, called a Myka, is just one of a new generation of devices that takes IP-based video, movies, and TV clips and puts them on your TV (bigger, better picture and better sound) without a lot of fuss.

A new study of mobile Web browsers shows that the iPhone has captured the top spot, beating all other mobile phones and PDAs. The iPhone and the WiFi only iPod Touch not only have extraordinarily sharp and clear screens, they have big screens, and the touch interface makes browsing easy. Overall, the iPhone has a mix of features that makes it a very compelling device.

Sprint is touting a new Samsung phone that is very similar to the iPhone. One of the most notable differences is that the new phone runs on Sprint's EVDO data network, giving it email and Web access speeds 4-5 times faster than AT&T's EDGE data network. Apple has always maintained that it used the slower network to provide better battery life.

Here is a handy gadget that Belkin is marketing towards travelers, but would also be very useful at home: it is a small surge protector with two USB charging ports. This can help reduce clutter at home where you need, for example, a surge protector for your laptop charger, a charger for your cellphone, and a charger for your MP3 player. Note that not all cellphones can be charged from a USB port, but in my opinion, that should be a mandatory feature.

Apple unveiled the long promised SDK (Software Development Kit) for the iphone, along with serious support for business enterprise applications and services, including Cisco VPN (Virtual Private Network) support and Microsoft Active Sync support. The latter is needed to make the iPhone work fully with businesses using Entourage and other Microsoft business applications. The SDK allows developers to write and distribute iPhone native software applications, including games.

Hitachi is showing off a table top computer. It is a large, fifty inch display touch sensitive display screen driven by a standard personal computer. Installed in a table, it enables several people to work together comfortably, using the touch screen to interact with the current application--programs like Google Earth are apparently stunning in this format.