Shifting consumer electronics
Comments(0) There is now Skype for the iPhone. I was not a big fan of Skype previously. I’ve worked on a few Skype products at my previous place of employment. For some reason, things never stuck. It’s amazing that the iPhone is making itself to be so many things to so many people. It shares applications with seemingly competing technologies like the Kindle, gaming and now Skype. The latter being something one would have though a while ago AT&T would go to their grave kicking and screaming to prevent on any phone they subsidize.
Another really cool story was on Wired about netbooks. Usually, I run pretty hot and cold about what I like to read on Wired, but this one brought up some interesting points.
Netbooks have ended the performance wars. It used to be that when you went to an electronics store to buy a computer, you picked the most powerful one you could afford. Because, who knew? Maybe someday you’d need to play a cutting-edge videogame or edit your masterpiece indie flick…
But here’s the catch: Most of the time, we do almost nothing. Our most common tasks—email, Web surfing, watching streamed videos—require very little processing power. Only a few people, like graphic designers and hardcore gamers, actually need heavy-duty hardware. For years now, without anyone really noticing, the PC industry has functioned like a car company selling SUVs…
Appropo to say the least at the moment, but definitely true. The one thing that kills me about netbooks is Intel and Microsoft putting limits on screen size other other things to preserve the existing laptop market, but there are signs that this is slowly changing.
But to continue the train of thought regarding the PC industry being like SUVs, the article goes on to talk about how the Taiwan laptop manufacturers have apparently shifted the power of the PC industry:
“When I talk to (Dell, HP and Apple) now,” Shih laughs, “they say, ‘We outsource our branding and sales tothem.‘”
I don’t think this is far from the truth. The US auto industry lost to Japan because of low-cost gas sipping cars when economic recession hit. There are a lot of parallels with the netbook industry, especially as we start to move to more and more cloud computing options. All you need is connectivity, and the carriers apparently are slowly learning how to deal with data communications (see statement above).
A big question becomes what does the US make next? Even now, we can see New York rising as a new technology and media center (ie. Hulu, Joost, etc). I will say that times are indeed interesting and likely historic. And while I have endless confidence that Silicon Valley will survive in some way shape or form, I wonder what technology will lead us into the next decade?
