08:31 PM by Brian in Miscellaneous | Lounge

In James Surowieki's book The Wisdom of Crowds, he explores the concept that large groups of people are smarter than the most brilliant individuals when it comes to solving problems, making wise decisions, and predicting the future. Several examples that support this notion are discussed in the book, which I highly recommend as it's one of my favorites. In one example, Surowieki tells how in 1906, a crowd of almost 800 people at an English county fair guessed the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox. The average guess of the crowd was off by only one pound, closer than any individual guess.

In another example cited in the book, the author tells how in 1968 the USS Scorpion disappeared in the North Atlantic. With only a few pieces of information that might help to locate the lost sub, a number of people in different fields were asked to individually make their best guess at the sub's exact location. When their answers were combined to form a collective guess, the location was a mere 220 yards from the submarine, closer than any single individual guess, allowing the Navy recover the submarine.

Following the "wisdom of crowds" concept, Google has created their own predictive market within the company, and their early results show surprising accuracy.

"The markets were designed to forecast product launch dates, new office openings, and many other things of strategic importance to Google."

I think this is one of Google's most intriguing projects yet, and it begs the question: What exactly are they up to at the Googleplex? How and when will they roll a "Google Wisdom" service out to the public, and what would they use it for? Please vote in the poll to show how much wisdom there is in the MobileRead crowd, and please don't view the results before voting.

[via Official Google Blog]

06:27 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

So you always seem to forget to bring your pda or smartphone? No problem. Just build the display and electronics into smart nanobots that flow throughout your body, and you'll never leave it behind. When it's time to watch that latest movie, you give them the command, and they all assemble into the perfect display device in your skin. One thing's for sure... when you use this display, you won't be typing with two thumbs!

Here's Engadget's own clever take on the technology ...

"Note to Hart and Huntington tattoo shop: you guys so need to hook up with Gina Miller, a designer and animator who is looking to make your business totally obsolete. Obviously seeing a bright future in implanted devices, Seattle-based Miller, with help from nanotech author Robert A. Freitas Jr., has finished her concept-animation project that envisions a dermal display system consisting of billions of nanobots that can self-assemble and emit photons to form text and graphics directly on the skin. While user-changeable tattoos are the most obvious implementation of this technology, Freitas proposes the more “practical” deployment of using pixelbots to display info gathered from the army of healthbots that will one day run amok in our bloodstreams. The futuristic system also promises to be touch sensitive, allowing you to send a message back to your nano-friends telling them to get the hell out of your prostate."

04:29 PM by Brian in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It looks like the official announcement of the Palm Treo 700w running the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system will be coming next week. Palm just posted this press release on the Palm.com website:

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2005--Ed Colligan, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) president and chief executive officer; Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect; and Denny Strigl, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, invite the news media to join them for a press conference on Monday, Sept. 26, at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco beginning at 9 a.m. PDT.

The press conference will be accessible via live webcast at links below beginning at 9 a.m. A replay, podcast and written transcript of the press conference also will be available starting at approximately 12 p.m. and listed in Monday's news release.

Related: Treo 700w aka Treo 670 - Engadget has it!

12:22 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Palm's fiscal first-quarter earnings dropped 7% as higher costs and stronger competition undercut stronger sales of its hand-held computing products. Meanwhile Palm CEO Ed Colligan gave a lower-than expected guidance for the second quarter. As a result, Palm shares dropped over 17 percent today in early trading.

Leading analysts to question whether the Treo — Palm's high-flying smartphone — is strong enough to carry the company while it moves focus away from digital organizers... Mr. Colligan said that sales of Treo smartphones —the hybrid device that acts as a cell phone and digital organizer — rose 163 per cent while sales for personal digital assistants fell 22 per cent. He added that Palm could see a deferred-tax asset valuation allowance in the second quarter, which may lead to earnings of between 60 cents and 66 cents per share. Without it, the company may report earnings per share in the range of 38 cents to 43 cents, far lower than analysts' forecast of 66 cents.

Related: PalmSource, recently acquired by Japan's Access, had a disappointing quarter as well. Revenues slid 13 percent and Net losses widened to nearly $2 million. More.

[via AP Wire]

12:19 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

We've all heard that "Time is money." I'm not sure that my time is money, but I do considerate important. Even the time I spend unwinding or wasting in the name of frivilous activities. You know, like things associated with mobile computing. I'm starting wonder if podcasts are the very worst way to pass information, or if it's just that it's hard to put together a really good podcast that justifies the choice of media.

What's the biggest weakness of the podcasting paradigm for information exchange? Plain and simple, it's time.

Think about it. When you read material, do you get stuck reading the parts that don't interest you? Not really, you can adjust your reading speed to match your interest in the material. And when you finish skimming the material, you are satisfied because for the most part you basically know what you missed.

But not so for podcasting. There are no indicators of when a topic changes, nor chapter marks or anything else that helps you skim materials other than a skip mechanism on your audio player. Some podcasts come with very nifty guides, like Tech Addiction or Engadget so if you are looking at the podcast agenda, it's a little easier to navigate and decide what to listen to. Some even have time indicators of when topics start and end. I like that, even though I don't have a screen in front of me when I listen to a podcast in my car.

So, do I really think that podcasting is a complete waste of time? No, of course not. And I listen to some, although not nearly as many as I did when I first tried them. There is something nice about podcasts, especially for car listening or material that you like hearing discussions about, or that are put together by people you enjoy hearing.

My plea is for a better podcast, and one that is considerate of my time.

Here's a few ideas that should make a podcast worthy of the listener:

* A summary of topics in the beginning of the podcast
* Constant and reasonable volume levels, including for music and sound effects and ads.
* Minimal background noise or whistles and pops and clicks
* Edit out the time wasting portions when there are long technology failures, etc, unless they have special interest to the listener.
* If you must have ads, keep them short and not at a higher volume level.
* Something worth listening to!

Surprisingly, most podcasters have something interesting to say. Maybe not interesting to everybody, or even as interesting as other podcasts that we could listen to instead, but it's good to have a lot of material out there. With the internet, the very best stuff will usually get found.

You would think my list is full of no-brainers, but that's apparently not true. I wrote earlier that podcasts hurt my ears, and I meant it. It's often not pleasant at all when sudden loud noises hit you and the volume is already high to hear over road noise. Or you turn up the volume because one podcast is barely audible, and then the next podcast almost shatters your windows with nightmarishly loud intro music.

Just think about almost any podcast not coming from a mainstream media outlet, and you'll see what kind of difference audio and production quality can make. I can understand that not everyone has the skills, equipment or even the desire to make a top-notch podcast like from BBC news, but after half a dozen podcasts from a source, I guess I hope for a little consideration for the listener on sound levels, background noise, and announcement of topics.

Do I still listen to the podcasts I'm most interested in despite these issues? Yes. But it could be so much better, with some simple consideration for the listener.

10:11 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

HTC doesn't seem to bother too much about insider leaks considering that msmobiles.com has just managed to reveal a full chart and roadmap of existing and upcoming models of phones made by the company - including interesting new names such as HTC Wallaby, HTC Falcon, HTC Star Trek.

10:02 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The Pocket PC-based browser Minimo turned 0.009 today. Major items addressed:

• 8.5% reduction in Minimo executable on-disk binary size.
• Added Social Bookmark support.
• Initial Preference Dialog landed.
• Support for external protocols (for example, callto://).
• Adding small screen PKI dialogs.
• Made improvements to font rendering and unicode support.
• Adding user ability to dump js console to aide in problem diagnostics.

Also fixed:

• 283409 URL Suggestion Mechanism Does Not Work
• 283264 Drop down menu's do not work as expected
• 305537 "about:" not working
• 305974 Close tab button.
• 305714 A Windows CE installer
• 305712 SNAV - When focused in a popup, do not navigate

Download link

09:41 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

It's a long shot, but the iPod nano might actually replace your current e-book reader device. That is of course only if you're a 100/100 vision sharpshooter. Tokyo-based company Voyager added support for the nano in the latest update of its reader software "azur". Babelfish translation is a bit unclear about it, but from what I could gather it's currently only working if you also have an Apple Mac.