Implants with comms
Remember the $500 bet Cameron Reilly & I made about machines taking over in 2010?
Well posts like this one on in-body communications may add fuel to his fire, but then again….. nah!
SMH article today on Aussie Bloggers
The Sydney Morning Herald has an article in their Next (IT) section titled "Meet Joe Blogs" about the Australian Blogosphere.
Can’t believe they missed the Cameron Reillys, Mick Stanics & Frank Arrigos of the Aussie-Blog-Outback community. 
They listed Whirlpool as a blog and it’s come a long way from the old forum system they used to have. Good news is that they have RSS and I have susbcribed to that feed now as the Whirlpool community is the best source for Australian broadband conversations (Though why no RSS tag on your front page guys??).
Great to see the Australian Blogosphere get a positive spin from the old media realm and it introduced me to some new blogs in other market conversations too.
The Flybook is one sexy little connected beast!
I’ve just seen the sexiest, most connected little notebook (3G/WiFi/GPRS/Bluetooth) called a Flybook. It’s manufactured by Dialogue and is a full featured notebook that runs Windows XP, but also utilises tablet PC features.
It has built in 3G (UMTS) giving it mobile voice & data functionality that can make and recieve voice calls using the installed BVRP software.
It is a very well made & solid feeling notebook considering it is around 1Kg in weight and has the following specs:
- Processor – Transmeta Crusoe TM-5800, clock rate:1GHz
- Graphic Chipset – ATi Radeon Mobolity – 16MB VRAM – Support VGA-out and Video-out
- Main Memory – 512MB DDR (to 1.5Gb)
- Display – 8.9" wide-view 16:9 display
- Touch Panel overlaid for full screen touch control
- PC Card Interface – Support PCMCIA Cardbus Type-I/III
- Hard Disk – 2.5" Ultra DMA 66/100; 40 GB (to 100Gb)
- Bluetooth Version 1.1
- Built-in GPRS/UMTS
- Wireless LAN(WiFi) – 802.11b
- Built-in Modem (56K) (RJ-11)
- Built-in LAN (10/100Mbps) (RJ-45)
- Audio – AC 97; built-in two speakers (stereo)
- Keyboard – 80-key standard keyboard
- Battery – 3-cell Li-Ion rechargeable battery
- Operating System – Microsoft® Windows® XP Home or Professional Edition
- Dimensions:235 x 155 x 31 (mm)
- Weight around 1230g
- External Power – 100~240V / 50-60 Hz
Supposedly there is a optional CD/DVD burner too.
It’s recommend retail in Australia will be AUS$3400 and anything that comes in red wins my vote!
There’s a more detailed review @ Handtops.com.
Contact details for Australian Flybook australia@mailflybook.com
@ the metro:mobility Seminar today
Currently at the metro:mobility Seminar in Sydney today.
metro:mobility is a program of events about new opportunities in mobile media.
One of the interesting presenters was by Dr Silvia Pfeiffer of the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) which is Australia’s leading government run scientific institute.
Dr Pfeiffer showed of some of the work they are currently involved in regarding the annotation & search of hosted digital media. The presentation is interesting due to their work involving mobile devices.
Their research is about the creation, editing and search of annotated digital media and how it is accessed by different devices. The work is based on open standards too which is excellent as it uses XML as native code
Head over to their site for access to the free Firefox browser plugin (no IE version!?!?!) and mobile client.
Annodex – Open standards for annotating and indexing networked media
Something Google needs to look at for their video hosting.
‘Eye Ball’ Watches Out for Terrorists
‘Eye Ball’ Watches Out for Terrorists
More than 20 U.S. police forces are currently testing the $1,500 device, which is about the size of a baseball. It has also been demonstrated to forces in Britain, France, Turkey, Italy and Russia. Other potential users include firefighters, rescue teams and the military.
Yeah, but how does it go against hooligan birds! 
Interesting Survey on what customers want from 3G
Netimperative have an interesting survey of what I think is from the UK market (Someone let me know if this is incorrect) of what consumers would like to see enabled by 3G networks.
Now I’m not sure how much prompting goes on here with the people being surveyed, but I’m impressed with the number of services being heralded that are specific to digital identities.
Tomorrow’s Top Ten 3G Wish List
1 – Mobile coupon redemption
2 – Parking meter payment
3 – Loyalty cards
4 – Season tickets
5 – Credit/Debit cards
6 – Flight check-in
7 – Vending machine payment
8 – Retail checkout
9 – Marketing communications
10 – Using your mobile as a key
Over all there has been many discussions on how the mobile device will become a digital identity verifier as well as an electronic wallet. These converged services show a clear path to the device being used as an information retreival and distribution tool.
CeBIT in Australia
CeBIT Australia has been powering along the last 2 days and there has been a good number of attendees driving through the show. I have been quite impressed with the number of people coming through and the calibre of individuals approaching the stand. Having the 4 solution partners on the stand with us has attracted the attention of many an interested perambulator.
I haven’t had too much of an opportunity to go around the show as I have been mainly stuck on our stand, but I did take a quick look at some of the hardware manufacturers looking for a good large widescreen monitor for my new PC system that I’ve ordered. LG & Dell have some exceptional ones.
Today I was interviewed by Chia Seiler of Frost & Sullivan @ the show on the topic of 3G and the video will be available from VioCorp who did the webcasting on their CeBIT event site. (Titled "Webcast: 3G, Sponsored by VioCorp").
Of course today would have gone much better if I hadn’t been physically intercepted by an overzealous moronic bird, that decided to use my left eye as a landing strip as I was outdoors heading for the coffee shop. One short trip to the doctor and I was back in action with nare but a wee scratch. Yes, the bird had left it’s mark in the shape of a "7" scratched on my eye ball. Oh the dangers of looking for a good cup of coffee……..
Here’s some pictures of the stand taken with the Nokia 6680
Heading to Cebit Australia
I will be at Cebit Australia from Tuesday 24th May until Thursday 26th May, at our company’s partner stand, showing off some of the 3G mobile solutions that I’ve been involved with bringing to the Australian market. I will also be on a 3G discussion panel @ Cebit stand #S39 on Wednesday @ 1:30pm.
Come by and say g’day if you are coming along.
Stand #E29 in Hall 1
Some Spinach7 & MO:Life to go please
Head on over to Spinach7 which is a site for an Australian Magazine that includes topics on Culture, Issues, Art, Technology & Asia Pacific and sign-up for the great MO:Life e-newsletter on tracing the mobile media revolution.
I enjoy the interviews they do with prominent Australian Mobile Revolutionaries!
This is screaming out to be a Podcast BTW! No RSS feeds there yet though. 
Keep up the good work guys!
Universal Convergence 