I’m firmly of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye this week.
Technology evolution
Tiny steps towards standardised communications in cars, but positive. The big, long term gambit must be to connect the cars themselves together to enhance safety and navigation, while reducing fuel consumption.
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/28/bmw_and_fiat_join_connected_car_consortium/
More bad news for AMD. This time they’ve compounded the error of creating an architectural dud by alienating the fab that makes said dud (and used to be a part of AMD). The implications are potentially disastrous for AMD’s 2012 and 2013 line ups as switching fabs means redesigning the product. Bad times in Sunnyvale.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/106217-manufacturing-bombshell-amd-cancels-28nm-apus-starts-from-scratch-at-tsmc
The rate of advance of ARM chips is startling, however I wonder whether we’re beginning to get to the point where successive iterations are bringing successively reduced customer benefits. The move from 600MHz to 1GHz was very noticeable, but how much better will 2GHz be then 1.4GHz. In any case, 3D capabilities are rumoured for the next iPad – Galaxy will go head-to-head.
http://hexus.net/mobile/news/android/32792-samsung-high-end-tablets-get-exynos-5250-dual-core-chip/
I’m of the opinion that 2012 will be the last year that the magnetic hard disk will outsell solid state alternatives. This hybrid of the two, which retails at $250 for 750GB, represents an intermediate step towards mass market take-up of SSD.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
With apologies for the old news (if only by a few weeks), my view on the wi-gear acquisition is that it enables Apple to add Apt-X high definition audio support to the iOS range – whether they’ll also offer a headphone range is unclear. Apple doesn’t have the best track record at providing accessories and benefits from the ecosystem of accessories around its device as they offer physical customisation of the user experience to go with the software customisation that iOS offers.
http://gigaom.com/apple/motives-behind-apples-wi-gear-bluetooth-acquistion/
New business models
I remember being really excited by the potential for location based advertising in 2006, but we were thwarted by the low penetration of the only smartphone that could actually serve it (the Nokia N95, if you remember back that far). Now that smartphones are becoming more ubiquitous and consumers more switched on to the
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/mobile-advertisers-take-up-location-based-targeting-20164/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink
Indoor mapping is a step towards a much more contextual (and invasive) mobile retail and advertising model. Or, to put it another way, one step closer to Minority Report by giving organisations the ability to manage demand on their media asset management systems by plotting where people are and caching content up close.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-frontier-for-google-maps-mapping.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29
Misinformation is the name of the game in the CDN industry, which always reminds of a kitten trying to make itself look like a tiger. Mass market IP-streamed video is still a decade away and 20,000 tiny customers won’t convince me otherwise.
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2011/11/amazon-says-it-has-20000-cdn-customers-but-what-does-that-really-mean.html
Mobile industry
2G switch off will be a story only for the most advanced operators and economies in the next 5 years. As usual South Korea are at the forefront.
http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/11/23/kcc-approves-kts-2g-switch-off-plan/
And this is why... consumer acceptance of smartphones makes LTE networks immediately commercially viable, particularly since the cost of acquiring spectrum is so much lower than for 3G. Notable that the UK is not one of the countries included in the 39.
http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/11/28/the-u-s-leads-the-way-in-lte/
Technology evolution
Tiny steps towards standardised communications in cars, but positive. The big, long term gambit must be to connect the cars themselves together to enhance safety and navigation, while reducing fuel consumption.
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/28/bmw_and_fiat_join_connected_car_consortium/
More bad news for AMD. This time they’ve compounded the error of creating an architectural dud by alienating the fab that makes said dud (and used to be a part of AMD). The implications are potentially disastrous for AMD’s 2012 and 2013 line ups as switching fabs means redesigning the product. Bad times in Sunnyvale.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/106217-manufacturing-bombshell-amd-cancels-28nm-apus-starts-from-scratch-at-tsmc
The rate of advance of ARM chips is startling, however I wonder whether we’re beginning to get to the point where successive iterations are bringing successively reduced customer benefits. The move from 600MHz to 1GHz was very noticeable, but how much better will 2GHz be then 1.4GHz. In any case, 3D capabilities are rumoured for the next iPad – Galaxy will go head-to-head.
http://hexus.net/mobile/news/android/32792-samsung-high-end-tablets-get-exynos-5250-dual-core-chip/
I’m of the opinion that 2012 will be the last year that the magnetic hard disk will outsell solid state alternatives. This hybrid of the two, which retails at $250 for 750GB, represents an intermediate step towards mass market take-up of SSD.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
With apologies for the old news (if only by a few weeks), my view on the wi-gear acquisition is that it enables Apple to add Apt-X high definition audio support to the iOS range – whether they’ll also offer a headphone range is unclear. Apple doesn’t have the best track record at providing accessories and benefits from the ecosystem of accessories around its device as they offer physical customisation of the user experience to go with the software customisation that iOS offers.
http://gigaom.com/apple/motives-behind-apples-wi-gear-bluetooth-acquistion/
New business models
I remember being really excited by the potential for location based advertising in 2006, but we were thwarted by the low penetration of the only smartphone that could actually serve it (the Nokia N95, if you remember back that far). Now that smartphones are becoming more ubiquitous and consumers more switched on to the
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/mobile-advertisers-take-up-location-based-targeting-20164/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink
Indoor mapping is a step towards a much more contextual (and invasive) mobile retail and advertising model. Or, to put it another way, one step closer to Minority Report by giving organisations the ability to manage demand on their media asset management systems by plotting where people are and caching content up close.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-frontier-for-google-maps-mapping.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29
Misinformation is the name of the game in the CDN industry, which always reminds of a kitten trying to make itself look like a tiger. Mass market IP-streamed video is still a decade away and 20,000 tiny customers won’t convince me otherwise.
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2011/11/amazon-says-it-has-20000-cdn-customers-but-what-does-that-really-mean.html
Mobile industry
2G switch off will be a story only for the most advanced operators and economies in the next 5 years. As usual South Korea are at the forefront.
http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/11/23/kcc-approves-kts-2g-switch-off-plan/
And this is why... consumer acceptance of smartphones makes LTE networks immediately commercially viable, particularly since the cost of acquiring spectrum is so much lower than for 3G. Notable that the UK is not one of the countries included in the 39.
http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/11/28/the-u-s-leads-the-way-in-lte/
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