Last week, I attended the first HD Communication Summit, here, in New York. 

I have to confess, the concept of high definition voice transmission was new to me. 

Yet, by the time I left the auditorium, Jeff Pulver and team certainly made sure I was up to speed. (For the purpose of full disclosure, although I am a “telco guy”, I am primarily focused on market analysis and vendor scouting in the fixed broadband consumer data space. That keeps core voice service topics outside my purview).

So why HD-quality voice transmission, if for decades standard-definition 300 to 3000 Hz service quality has done just fine for most of us?

Among the arguments, once people have gotten a taste of what wideband voice communications is like, they wouldn’t want to turn back – ever!  

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The cell phone has been fodder for art projects for a little while now. Here are a few pieces I’ve come across recently – a few personal favorites…

This is an installation by a Boston artist by the name of Rob Petit. At the very least, you’ve got to give him credit for meticulousness – and the sheer number of discarded phones he uses in some of these pieces says a little something about how ubiquitous, disposable (and environmentally unfriendly) the devices have become. For more images of his images, go here. – this is clearly a guy who thinks a lot about cell phones.

    
Here we have an installation from the European art/technology collective informationlab.  “Cell Phone Disco” is basically a grid of sensors and LED that allows users to draw shapes with their with their active cellphones.  OK, maybe the concept strikes me as a bit shallow (an impression reinforced by the unfortunate title), but I think approaching technology with a certain amount of playfulness is almost always A Good Thing – and indeed the installation has proven very popular, showing across Europe and in several American cities as well.

   
I like cars. Like most car fetishists, there are a few websites I enjoy wasting a little time with from every so often, and one of my favorite bookmarks is rinspeed, a Swedish auto design firm with a soft spot for vintage Porsches.  At this year’s Geneva Auto Show, Rinspeed is showing the electric concept car the “ichange.”  What’s cool about the ichange is that most functionality (iginition, lights, ventilation, etc.) is controlled by an iphone app.  Not only is leveraging the power of a smartphone the driver already owns rather than building out a full traditional dashboard is an interesting take on green design – it also insures you won’t be able to make calls while you drive!