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Brian
Staff Writer
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 2070
Location: Worcester, MA
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:51 am |
There's and interesting interview with Jeff Hawkins at the Portland Business Journal here.
In the interview, Jeff discusses Palm's future and makes this statement:
| Quote: |
There is a third business that I've been working on but I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's in mobile computing. It's something different and it's in its early stage. We have three businesses at PalmOne. One you don't even know about, which is just a child. Another is the teenager and the other one is the mature 45-year-old.
Q: Can you give me a better idea about what this "child" technology is?
A: Not really. I'll give you a couple clues. I always think of mobile computing as personal computing. This long-term vision has led us through everything -- first the organizers and now through the smart phone space. It's like everything a personal computer is. Continue down that path. What are the implications of a world where everyone has a super high-speed Internet connection in their pocket and many gigabytes of storage, super-fast processors, audio, visual and multimedia? What are the consequences of that? How will that change computing when you have all that stuff available to you all the time? I try to think into the future. That's how we come up with new products. So I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's following the consequences of mobile computing. |
According to the original article, the interview took place some time in June 2005, after the introduction of the LifeDrive.
Could the LifeDrive be a glimpse into the future of Jeff Hawkins's vision for mobile computing?
Super High Speed communication
The LifeDrive has WiFi and Bluetooth, but no wireless voice/data connectivity from a wireless service provider. Maybe the next evolution will add this capability and use a BT headset for voice combined with voice dialing?
Many Megabytes of Storage
The LifeDrive has 4GB but this will likely increase to iPod like capacities in the near future.
super-fast processors, audio, visual and multimedia
The LifeDrive isn't super-fast, but it is multimedia centric and there are some new low power mobile processors with integrated audio/video that look promising.
"What are the consequences of that? How will that change computing when you have all that stuff available to you all the time? I try to think into the future. That's how we come up with new products"
IMO the consequences are:
Ubiquitous connectivity to the web and everything that entails: news, email, streaming media, instant messenging, search, blogging, remote access to corporate data/your desktop/home network/home control, network storage, etc.
Because "you have all that stuff available to you all the time" on a device you have with you all of the time and it's portable, it become your primary computing device.
I could foresee Palm coming out with their own version of Apple's .Mac where you have online storage that you can use to keep all of your data synced over the internet. Unless it's a huge file that should be stored locally on your "LifeDrive" you keep all of your data "synced" online and your portable device has a local index of your synced data for doing searches.
This could explain why PalmSource is ditching Hotsync and switching to SyncML, which is optimized for data synchronization and backups over networks (and the web), for "LifeDisk", "LifeBackup" and "LifeSync" online services for virtually unlimited online storage, backup of your device, and online synchronization.
Brian
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Scott
Benevolent Dictator
Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 8016
Location: West Simsbury, CT
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:18 am |
| While his words might lead one to believe that he's got some truly revolutionary idea planned, perhaps using some of his neurological research, a simpler guess might be an OQO-style device running a full desktop OS. It could be Windows or Linux. The hardware still has a ways to go before the prices will come down and battery life will get better, but in the mean time he might be working on a suite of apps (perhaps their own Linux distro) which is optimized for a physically smaller screen. |
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Brian
Staff Writer
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
Posts: 2070
Location: Worcester, MA
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| Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 10:44 am |
It looks like Engadget has finally picked up this story.
Brian
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wayrad
Staff Writer
Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 3903
Location: Long Island, NY
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| Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 6:13 pm |
Seems like an even more ambiguous piece of prose than Tapwave's famous "transitioning out of retail" statement. I honestly can't tell whether he's talking about developing a new device, a high-speed connection protocol, or possibly a science fiction novel.
JoAnn R. |
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