The New York Times has just published a piece on a technology we’ve written about a few times before (here, here, and here).  They’re covering research into its possible uses in the data center, whereas we came across it in a consumer electronics context:

Problem: Stakeholders in the preservation of the broadcast/cable television paradigm (networks, cable companies) are much less inclined to deliver content via the internet to your television than they are to your computer’s web browser.  That’s a shame, because your computer is essentially a single user, lean-forward device – not great for television.  In fact, that’s what makes it nonthreatening enough to be accommodated.  It’s a business-driven issue rather than a technological one, and it’s what has crippled Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee, and any number of other set-top box contenders to date.  It could be a while before a stable and sustainable internet television business model gets hammered out.   In the meantime, how to get that web content over to the television where it belongs, without running an HDMI cable under  the carpet?

Solution:  Use an  Ultra Wide Band wireless solution, of course!  Getting an uncompressed audio and video stream over to the television would require a lot more bandwidth than what even the most up-to-date flavor of  802.11 wireless technology can handle, but luckily, ‘short fat pipe’  UWB technology capable of moving a very large amount of data a very short distance does exist, and in fact it’s been around for a few years now.  It was surprisingly difficult to find, but over a year ago we found a simple and inexpensive  WiMedia-based solution that we’ve happily been using ever since: it consists of only a small (dongle-sized) USB2 transmitter at the computer and another small dongle-sized HDMI receiver at the television.  Install the driver on your computer, put that website or iTunes video into full screen mode, and you’re good to go (until you have to get up off the couch to pause the video – but hey).

The product (bought for under 100 USD) has ended up being a highly effective workaround for the ‘browser-only’ internet television problem described above.   Funnily, though, it’s remained something of a well-kept secret in the consumer electronics space – and since I imagine our particular use case will disappear once true internet television does indeed arrive (whenever that is), this recent New York Time piece on whether the same ‘short fat pipe’ technology has an unexpected future moving large amounts of zeros and ones between servers in the data center caught our eye.

Back where I come from, they like to say that “soccer is the sport of the future, and it always will be”.

You could say the same about internet television.  OK, sure – even as I type this, millions of video streams are being watched by millions of solitary computer users at this very moment – but while some folks (including us) have spent the last few years promising that internet television is right around the corner, the consumer electronics landscape has become littered with failed attempts to deliver the lean-back/multi-viewer/couch-centric user experience we know and love (and how we do love it – in 2010, Americans spent 2.7 hours per day in front of their televisions).

It’s going to happen, though.  Simply put, the benefits to the user (time shifting, long tail content, à la carte pricing) and the benefits to the advertiser (targeted advertising – need I say more?) are just too compelling for it not to.

So here we find ourselves on the eve of CES: time, once again, to predict the advent of internet television.  Let’s see: there’s Google, back with new and with improved Google TV – as well as a roster of hardware partners that now includes the world’s top two TV makers Samsung and LG (they join founding Google TV partner Sony).  And then there’s Apple – we’ve been speculating about this forever, but recent rumors about an impending Apple TV this year have achieved critical mass, based on word from both Apple suppliers and from the at-large tech media .

Make no mistake: internet television is, to use a technical term, The Big Enchilada.  Precisely because the stakes are so high, though, the incumbents (internet service providers, cable companies, cable networks) have been struggling to stay out in front of the  impending disruption (and avoid having what happened to the music industry happen to them).   Up until now, the best way to do that has been to deny these internet television services access to the same top-tier content they’re happy to be making available via your computer’s web browser (more on one viewer’s workaround: here and here).

The next step in the evolution of internet television is not going to have to do with processor speed or Siri voice-based remote controls – rather, it’s going to involve that vital third part of the internet TV equation: content.

The real thing to watch for in the Google TV announcements coming out of  Las Vegas this week will be what content agreements are in place.

It was Google’s inability to ink such agreements (and some less than well-received hardware) that made 2011 a disappointing year for Google TV.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt has high hopes for 2012, though: he was recently quoted predicting that “by the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded.“  That’s a pretty bold statement.  After the disappointing 2011 Google TV has had, it’s hard to imagine Schmidt going out on a limb like that without having some new top-tier content agreements up his sleeve.  And as for Apple?  Building an internet television has been their obvious next move for at least the past few years.  Why is it only now that it (finally) appears imminent?

The answer to both questions could be that that new business models for internet television content licensing and distribution have recently been ironed out – and we’ll be hearing about them later this week.  

Quick hit: I lost my phone in a cab last night, and while the sweetest kid EVER found it and got it back to me, it made me think twice about my mobile contingency plan. I realized I had a few holes, so I wanted to share what I’ve already done, and how I’m patching the holes. All of these are Android-specific; I haven’t investigated iOS options for my iPad yet.

• Contacts. All of my contacts are through my Google Apps account for deannazandt.com, so we’re good there.Apps. I’ve rooted my phone, so I use Titanium Backup Pro to create regularly scheduled backups of the application and application data on my phone. The free version sends the backups to your SD card; I bought the Pro version so I could have those apps backed up to Dropbox, too.SMS & MMS. I use Backup to Gmail for this. It automatically sends your SMS, MMS and Call Log to your Google account, and files them in the Archive with appropriate labels.

  Photos. This was the big one for me: I have a lot of photos on my phone that aren’t shared on my social networks. I was mourning the potential loss of some precious Christmas photos, for example. I’m now trying out SugarSync to back these up to SugarSync’s cloud, and then to my laptop; I chose this one because many services wanted to use public social networks for the backup. That was too risky for me. Plus, it seems that SugarSync has good reviews on managing battery and scheduling, and you get 5GB of free space.

  Locator. Tara Hunt turned me on to Prey, which is a full suite of services for a lost phone. You can locate the lost device, send messages to it for the finder to tell them how to get in touch with you, and if they don’t comply, you can brick the device.

  Those were the biggies for me. What else am I missing?

I picked up a few new books from the MIT Press bookstore and will be sharing my thoughts and impressions of them as I finish them.

First in the queue this weekend was The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done.

Thanks to the subtitle, you’ve got a good grasp of the book’s premise. The author, Peter Miller, is senior editor of National Geographic, and wrote the book very much like a solid long read from the publication. The only thing missing was the vivid photography.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and how Peter weaved together various research findings from the study of ants, bees, starlings, and fish. As I read the book, it triggered insights into the Tea Party/Occupy Wall Street movements, while also making me realize what’s been driving behaviors I’ve seen come from people using online and mobile technologies. Anyone wanting to improve what they’re doing to mobilize people will benefit from these insights, too.

Here is a collection of notes I took while reading this 269-page book:

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Google Forms are great: they’re dead simple to build, and they can be accessed on the web via Google and (through the use of <embed> code) any other website as well.  Support for email publishing is great, and Google Forms work seamlessly with Google Docs spreadsheets.  It’s been my experience that within small and mid-sized businesses that are already using Google Apps, the internal use of Google forms has become routine.

What’s interesting, though, is that you tend to see them being used much less often out there in the wilds of the public internet.

That’s because Google Forms have one major weakness: unlike within the Google Apps ecosystem, public submissions are completely anonymous – so there’s no way check against users submitting multiple responses to the same form.  Granted, it’s not an easy technical problem: browser cookies are one option, but users can always delete them. Comparing the IP address of each submission against those of previous submissions?  That’s not a perfect solution either: consumer ISPs typically issue dynamic IP addresses, multiple legitimate users could be sharing the same internet connection, and lastly, there are, as always, privacy concerns.

And that’s just the technical side of the issue – from a PR perspective, of course Google has to be very careful about being perceived as being in the business of anything remotely resembling the tracking of users out there on the public web.  Still, it’s hard to imagine why Google hasn’t yet implemented a transparent, user opt-in system to prevent multiple public Google Forms submissions (even if it might reduce the number or submissions).

In the meantime, for all the <embed> code and URL access, Google Forms is essentially crippled as a public web service.

OK, so that’s the web – what about Google Forms sent via email to a private finite set of known respondents?  Here, the privacy issues (both real and perceived) are much reduced – and technically speaking, identifying data could easily and securely be embedded within the ‘Submit’ link contained within each email – but yet, even privately emailed Google Forms responses are completely anonymous (and therefore uncontrolled) as well.  As a result, a Google Forms email survey subject could ‘game the system’ by clicking on the ‘Submit’ link in their single email any number of times.

Conclusion   As a public web service, Google Forms has great potential – but addressing the unique/multiple submission issue would involve technical challenges, privacy concerns, and a potential for third party misuse that are clearly beyond Google’s comfort level.  As a result, any serious use of Google Forms remains limited to within the Google Apps platform.

Sure, a nod has been made towards the public use of the service (Google URLs, <embed> codes, email distribution) – but it seems that Google’s comfortable with letting Google Forms remain merely a Google Apps value-add.

In the meantime, here’s a completely anonymous (and therefore completely meaningless!) Google Forms survey for you.

Vote early, vote often!

My friend and fellow disruptor, Brian Reich, has written a very important book, Shift and Reset, which is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to lead an organization in this hyper-connected age.

You can get a flavor for what his book has to offer by viewing these slides he put together outlining 12 Big Ideas for 2012.  And be sure to buy the book – it makes a great holiday gift to yourself or someone you know.

Briefly and simply, Facebook Timeline is amazing!

What launched globally this week, Facebook now affords anyone to post one’s complete life stream in chronological order. With that the ueber-popular social network introduces a powerful new form to feed back and forward one’s entire live story in one fell swoop.

Think your teenage 1978 Miss America picks alongside your favorite cheesy 80s movie flicks side by side your current day Philip Glass CD collection. All neatly timelined in chronological order and interspersed with plenty *foursquared* bars and clubs revealing exactly when, where and who you’ve been hanging out with over the years.

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I’ll admit it: I’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube, I’ve never subscribed to a YouTube Channel, I’ve never (ok hardly ever) used it to discover video (vimeo is more to my taste for long-tail/user-generated online video).  In short, I was never a big YouTube user  (it turns out YouTube is a big Brian Ales user, but that’s another story).

Then a few days ago, I received an email from Google regarding my seldom-used YouTube account:  I had until December 20th to log on and upgrade to the new YouTube, or my account would be deleted.

Deleted?  That’s one aggressive upgrade policy.  But when das Google sends you an email with a link to click on, you click on it, right?

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#1 Thing You Need to Learn from This Post:

Leaders in Port-au-Prince are hosting the #OpenHaiti Camp on Monday and welcome your online attendance to help them define a Project Worth Doing using open technology.

A More Detailed Exploration:

During my recent trip to Haiti, our group had the opportunity to meet with the organizers of this coming Monday’s #OpenHaiti Camp. This ideas came out of the recent TEDxPortauPrince event and will be hosted at the same venue, EPIH.

Do you have an interest in open technology and open systems? Can you spare 15-30 minutes or more to join in via Twitter and their wiki?  Be sure to RSVP on their Eventbrite page.

Here’s the full event description from the organizers:

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I made this list over on Foursquare to help folks who are visiting and want to have an easy-to-follow plan. This is inspired by the number of times friends and family from my hometown upstate have done one of the day-trip-to-the-city packages, and I’ve taken them around. There’s a million other things to add (taking suggestions in the comments!), but this generally works for the timeframe allotted.

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