i’m back from comdex 2002, las vegas NV. here are some interesting links from the show:
now some reflections from the show on monday and tuesday. this year, due to the economic collapse, terrorist attacks, and the republican administration, the IT sector is flat or down horribly. this made it possible to come out to comdex much earlier than normal, to hear the keynotes live. last night bill gates, chief software architect shared his vision of the future. what did gates and a 6 billion dollar research budget get him and microsoft? gates showed and stunned the world with a web enabled alarm clock. with this fantastic device, you can tell the time. you can set an alarm to wake up, and like some mystical omen, check the weather and driving conditions. is this an innovation, or just a small laptop with an embedded OS? i felt sorry for the 3 years of research. next up was the future of web services.
how could disparate systems communicate with legacy systems, ecommerce engines, and harness the power of 30 years on the ARPA NET? gates showed us the remote printing of a two page document to kinko’s. like some transcendency, the microsoft team showed us a print dialog box that looked like a print dialog box. instead of printing locally, the order moved over the web to a kinko’s printer. i could do this seven years ago with a PDF workflow. again gates had egg on his face. the few good nuggets he did show were smart displays, a LCD panel connected wirelessly via 802.11 network back to the main CPU, which allows the user to take her work away from the desk and onto the couch. using as simple stylus as a mouse, and a wireless keyboard, the knowledge worker has a new flexibility to share info. imagine a imac screen that not only swivels, but you can take off the G4 tower. so maybe the 6 billion was well spent, but not really.
in every show, the hope is to make strategic business decisions. the theme for the show keynotes, was nothing is impossible and do the solutions of today, instead of dream of technologies of tomorrow. for the last five years, i’ve been dreaming of ubiquitous heterogeneous wired and wireless networks, but as soon as my opportunity came around, the rug would be pulled from under me, as northpoint communications, rhythms network, sprint ion, @home, and other connectivity companies went belly up. i was the face of disaster, as my business ideas circulated around web services, so no broadband internet, no company. i’ll be concentrating on more mature technologies of today, and utilize and leverage over a large fulcrum my web experience, to create DVD’s, and on the side become an apple certified digital hub specialist.