FredericMartin - Blognotes 2.0

What are the latest trends in consumer electronics?

The big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES) has unveiled the latest consumer tech trends this week. I´ve twitted the most interesting products including pictures: follow me at www.twitter.com/FredericMartin. Key-trends include LED-TV with more competitors on board, internet capable TVs with embedded Yahoo widgets (Samsung, Sony, etc), 240Hz TVs (!), Netflix and YouTube streaming (on  TVs, players and camcorders), ultra thin TVs (1inch-), netbooks with new competitors on board (Sony, HP etc), picoprojectors (cute and tiny, Samsung, Toshiba etc), iPhone new rivals (Palm, Samsung etc) as well as compact & cute HD camcorders. An interesting and major point at CES: Cisco is entering the consumer electronics markets with big intentions (and big cash) and with a clear focus on video. By the way, they are showing a home theatre! Very Interesting move. I think  the point is not whether they succeed in establishing a strong consumer brand but how fast they will (to that matter, read my previous post on Cisco).

That much with your future mobile

This Japanese video gives some clue on future mobile capabilities. Amazing.

Control lights with Twitter

Twitter is used here in an unexpected way: to execute a machine-to-machine action. This video demonstrates the control of lights from a mobile phone via Twitter. The link gives more details.
Control Lights with Twitter from Justin Wickett on Vimeo.

Live from Amsterdam: IBC fair - "the World of Content"

I´ve spent three days so far in Amsterdam (another three to go), looking at the latest trends in the world of content creation. All major companies involved in content production, edition and delivery attend the fair (with the exception of Apple; they have some meetings around the city and a strong presence through the i-Phone which is everywhere). Key-subjects include high definition, new media, 3D, tapeless production workflows, digital asset management and digital signage (i.e. digital public points of information & advertising). Lots of conferences on the future of broadcasting and media enrich the fair; I´ve attended a couple of interesting ones on mobile TV, IPTV and social media. What caught my eyes so far?

IFA 2008 Consumer Electronics Trends

The biggest fair for consumer electronics  - IFA - has just opened in Berlin. After 'big' and 'sharp' in the previous editions, the key-word this year is 'thin' and 'light', or to put it more commercial 'super thin' and 'super light'. Super thin LCD-TVs, super thin notebooks, super light notebooks and mini notebooks. So, this year again, we are speaking more of design improvements rather than really breakthrough innovations. I'm posting pictures of this event on Flickr.

Tech gadgets: Who's the buzz master?

Three continents, three top buzzers: Nokia for Europe, Sony for Asia and Apple for the US. Who's winning? The Americans are still far ahead. After an amazing buzz in January with the MacBook Air at the Apple Expo, the Californian company is back with the launch of the new 3G iPhone. They do have a sense for launching products there. As shown on this Blogpulse graph, they set a new record today and equaled their january buzz. Sony and Nokia still have a lot to learn on how to organize a successful launching campaign online, despite doing pretty well in PR 2.0.

Mobile office 2.0 - 20x25cm high tech to work on anything anytime anywhere

I always carry my new mobile office with me. It consists of the latest technology to be able to blog and work on anything, anytime, anywhere with anybody. With it I can achieve and instantly communicate the most productive and creative work while sitting in the sun at a café terrace. The whole equipment cost me less than 500€ and fits in a 25cm cm tiny bag. Here are the details:
1x Asus Eee pc, tiny pc: 299€ - the perfect tiny pc which fits in one hand and with which you can work and connect to the world everywhere on the go
1x Logitech Io, electronic pen: 149€ - I write some documents and mails with it or draw some sketches and things get uploaded automatically to my pc.
1x Fujitsu Siemens, tiny wireless mouse 19€ - the ideal companion for my tiny pc
1x Eastpak, tiny bag: 25€ - my whole equipment fits in perfectly
1x Idea, blocknote: 2€ - sometimes you further need some paper
TOTAL fixed costs: 498€ + variable working costs: 1 drink at a café terrace (4€) + wifi network (free)
Additionally to this already perfect equipment, I also use a free iPhone I got from my company, a dream phone. With it I can connect to the Web anytime anywhere and read long articles without any annoyance. Last but not least, with my Samsung 1GB USB stick I can record mp3 voice memos on the go. For webconferencing, my Eee pc and its integrated webcam are perfect. This is for the hardware. On the software front, I use free online suites, mainly Zoho (everything there for free, including all kinds of documents, project management, CRM, database, wiki etc) and Google Apps with which I also work offline (my offline documents automatically synchronize with mw online documents). I also use Diigo to highlight, bookmark and prepare nice reports on whatever subject. Last but not least, my Netvibes intelligence platform is my eagle eye to track all worldwide news and market trends I need for my work.

Microsoft multitouch display demo

After showing the revolutionary surface computer last year, Microsoft demonstrated today another brand new concept: their new software transforms any surface into a multitouch display as seen in Minority Report. Really impressive. More on CrunchGear.

A stupid little robot

He can just pump it up. But he´s good at it.

Seen in Geneva: BMW ConnectedDrive

BMW presented unlimited Internet surfing at the Automobile World Exhibition in Geneva. It will be available as an optional extra in BMW's production models straight from the factory in the course of 2008. Read more on autoblog.com.