Eric Giler demos wireless electricity - WiTricity

Wal-Mart buys Vudu; enters OTT delivery fray?

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) has agreed to acquire over-the-top (OTT) content provider Vudu, according to a New York Times report today. Terms of the acquisition weren’t released, but the Vudu screen shot companies reportedly informed Vudu’s Hollywood studios and TV manufacturers of the deal today. The acquisition could make Wal-Mart, already a leader in DVD sales, a formidable competitor in OTT service delivery as well. more ............

Mobile SP - Apple's appstore and IMS Dilemma

Until now the Mobile SPs was successful to hold their value added services and earn good money from their business. SMS was the biggest success but not an innovation, rather a by-product. As most of the voice tariffs are going flat Mobile providers are looking for alternatives. Currently almost all Mobile SPs are unanimously thinking that IMS (IP multimedia system) will provide additionally services for future earnings. Billion of dollars are planned for investment in this area. It is petty that this will be useless investment as the future of services will be coming from Internet based platforms and Mobile will face the same problem from OTT as today's fixed network.

Apple iphone was steroid for some of the Mobile SPs. Apple's appstore is the side effect of the steroid. Few more popular app stores like this and no body will care about the services from the Mobile provider. It is quite possible that in short time period Nokia, Samsung, Google and other mobile manufacture will follow the path of Apple. Some of the European Mobile providers are thinking about appstore as well but it will be same as the IPTV services offered from fixed network providers.

If Mobile and fixed network providers want to stay in the value chain they need follow a different path.

Future Telco services

Telefónica, Wikimedia Team Up
Wikimedia Foundation and Telefónica today announced a strategic partnership to improve access to Wikimedia educational and informational content in Latin America and Europe. The agreement will expand the reach of Wikimedia's projects, including Wikipedia, on multiple platforms through the development of customized applications for Telefónica's web portals, wireless handsets and television properties.

DT, Continental Develop Car Apps
The aim is to make the Internet and specific applications (apps) for drivers part of the standard equipment in all categories of vehicles.

Qwest bets on OTT with ZillionTV investment
Telco Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q) has always been an IPTV holdout, exploring hybrid video options instead. Today it added clarity to its video strategy with a $10 million investment in start-up ZillionTV in return for exclusive rights within its footprint to offer its video on-demand service to subscribers.

Patent vs. Open Source

Patent is a European (including USA) development in order to give special right to an inventor or company for a specific invention. First patents was issued in Europe in mid of 1400 but the actual boom started in the beginning of 1800. In the start of 19th century most of the European countries provided protection of an innovation with state laws. The first International treaty was signed in 1883 (Paris Convention) in order to provide protection across the boarders. Patent system is used for monetizing the inventions but at the same time it restrict the distribution of knowledge and technology.

Open Source on the other hand is a system used in the history for distributing knowledge. There was no patents for inventions done in China like paper, Arabs like algebra or by Indians like Cotton Gin.

The future will be more Open Source than current close system approach of IPOs. The main reason is the culture difference of new world powers (China, India) from European way of life. Culturally the people living in China, India, Brazil or other emerging markets are more open to share. For Example in India and China the cost of a Book is a cost of copying it with photo copy machine and cost of Software is the cost of copying a CD. The IPO model of innovation will not work in these communities. The innovation in these countries will be open and the speed of innovation will be accelerated due to the free availability of knowledge.

Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense - Open Source

In his video at the end he mentioned that he would like to put this as open source for every body to use. I am going to write on this topic next. Patent vs. Open Source, how the new words culture will change the way business is done today.

Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense

Patent increase in Emerging Markets

Patent_Office	2000	2006	2007	2008	% Increase from 2000 to 2008
Japan	125,880	141,399	164,954	176,950	41
United States of America	157,496	173,770	157,283	157,772	0
China	13,058	57,786	67,948	93,706	618
Republic of Korea	34,956	120,790	123,705	83,523	139
European Patent Office	27,523	62,780	54,699	59,819	117
Russian Federation	17,592	23,299	23,028	28,808	64
Canada	12,125	14,972	18,550	18,703	54
Germany	14,707	21,034	17,739	17,308	18
Australia	13,548	9,426	11,236	11,863	-12
France	11,274	13,788	12,112	10,811	-4
Mexico	5,527	9,632	9,957	10,440	89
Singapore	5,090	7,393	7,478	6,286	23
United Kingdom	8,253	7,907	5,930	5,360	-35
Hong Kong (SAR), China	2,737	5,146	4,839	4,001	46
India	1,263	7,539			497

Source: WIPO

China leads in Next Generation Technologies?

Internet of Things (IoT)

It is no secert that in the Manufacturing/Export space China had crossed industrial nations. Most of the analyst in Europe/USA thinks that in innovation we are still leading and China is far behind. I respectfully disagree, if you see the IPC (Patents) statistics it is quite visible that China and India are innovating with much faster pace as anticipated. IoT is just an other example, if you go to search on Google for IEEE_802.15.4 (IEEE standard for physical layer WPANs) there will be more sites in Chinese on the first page than in English.

Google Nexus One - a flop

I was expecting that Google will not succeed in the mobile market with their Nexus One. Following news confirm this:

Google Nexus One launch-week sales disappoint

Google is trying in alot of fields me-too kind of approach which is far away from real innovation. Until now the only success google bring was the search, the rest they bought (Youtube, blogger etc). I don't remmeber any service from google get real success otherthan their search engine. There are very few companies on the plant which can grow and still have in house innovation. Most of the big blues buy innovations from the market in the form of small or big accusations. The innovative minds get stuck in the organizational structures and don't get chance to do some thing new. These guys leave and do an other start-up for a second success. I had wrote a post before on innovation.

Inovations - Out of box thinking