Toshiba is using nanoparticles to some how charge lithium-ion batteries 60 times faster than today. This will be commercialized beginning next year. This is one of the first commercialized nanotech announcements I have seen; but in the coming years we will see of thousands of nanotechnology ideas getting to market. I think by 2020 much of our material world will be influenced by nanotechnology: housing, energy, clothing, transportation, communication, agriculature, medicine and manufacturing.
Category Archives: Gadget Watch
Portable TV
I\’ve been happy to see a decline in TV viewing as internet usage continues to climb. Even since reading Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neal Postman, I\’ve been worried about our civilization, as we slouch (as most couch potatoes do) towards gomorrah. But Microsoft\’s Portable TV initiative might give television a shot in the arm.
XM Satellite Radio Targets Cell Phones, PDAs, MP3 Players
In five years will we be carrying a portable device with 1 terabyte of storage that contains all of the text, audio, and video content that we want–wherever we go? Or will we carrying a portable device that has XM satellite radio channels and high-speed wireless access to all the content we will ever want on web servers around the planet?
USA Today: Gadgets on College Campuses
Here\’s a USA Today article that reviews the feverish adoption rate of technology on college campuses and some of the innovative experiments that are taking place. Duke provided 1,650 freshmen students iPods last year–for educational purposes. University of Maryland provided 400 MBA students with Blackberries. UNC-Chapel Hill requires all students to own a laptop. IT spending is way up at colleges.
Zopa: The eBay of Person to Person Lending
One of my Junto friends sent me a link about Zopa, a new UK-based company backed by Benchmark Capital (a top tier VC fund–check out the Benchmark Portfolio). Zopa apparently allows individuals to lend money to other individuals with good credit ratings–from 2,000 pounds to 15,000 pounds. Zopa takes a 1% transaction fee. There are insurance provisions and a spreading of risk among 50 borrowers so the lenders money should be safe.
Google Indexes Televison
Visit video.google.com and do a search. Google is now using data streams of closed-captioning to index TV content on certain channels. Eventually they hope to index all television. It\’s a great service.
In about 1989 Brandt Redd, genius programmer of Folio Corp. (at the time) figured out how to capture data streams from closed-captions and import them into a full-indexed Folio infobase. He demoed this to our team and we were all blown away.
Amazon\’s Amazing GPS-encoded Photo Database
Every few months or so an announcement is made that I consider mind-blowing. You just smile and shake your head and think, \”how awesome!\” Actually, the pace of such announcements seems to be increasing.
2 Million Blackberry Users
It\’s nice to see a great Canadian company hitting the hockey stick part of their growth curve.
Overcoming the Waste of Human Inefficiency: A Challenge to Skype
I bought the book The Genius of China after Joseph Schoendorf from Accel Partners (who had just returned from China) recommended it at the AlwaysOn conference at Stanford University this summer.
I\’m working my way through this fascinating history. In the section on Agriculture, author Robert Temple claims:
Powertools for Entrepreneurs
I write a monthly column for Connect Magazine. Recently I wrote about some of my favorite web sites and tools in hopes that other entrepreneurs might find them useful. Here\’s the link: Powertools for Entrepreneurs. Let me know what you think. Do you use other powertools that you think I might find useful?
