Wouldn’t it be nice if all the devices, and technology, in your home worked better together?Here are some of my thoughts for your shopping list …Music -I like having music distributed throughout my home and having a single music library from which I can play my personal library or Internet radio content. Without requiring major home renovation, here’s a cool product that uses wireless mesh technology in your home to do just that. The SONOS system connects to your home network and provides access to all of your music content. It integrates with existing stereo equipment, digital music libraries and Internet Radio, and for a modest amount of money you can add music to multiple rooms in your house. The remote control unit itself allows your digital music collection to be accessed from anywhere in the home; you don’t have to be parked in front of your PC or Mac. Read More »

“œKnowledge is Power -Experience it! was the key theme of the GK3 Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last week. The conference tracks were on”Emerging People; Emerging Markets and Emerging Technologies.There was also a parallel session with the International Task Force on Women and ICTs and the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development.Cisco was one of the many companies participating in both the Emerging Technologies track of GK3 and in the International Task Force on Women and ICTs. Michela Cipeletti , Cisco Director Engineering, participated in the ITF/UNGAID roundtable and panel discussions. Both Michela and myself with support from the Cisco Network Academy team, presented the”Becoming an Engineer” tape at the ITF tent in the exhibition hall. There were very enthusiastic discussions with a plethora of people from Mongolia, Africa, Indonesia, Guatemala, Ecuador, India etc. Read More »

One of the cool things about working for Cisco is being able to use all the technology. Aside from the IP phone on my desk that I use everyday, I often use TelePresence to conduct “œin person” meetings with people from my team who are located around the globe. TelePresence was a hit from day one with customers, partners, and suppliers eager to get on board. According to a recent study we did, TelePresence will represent a $4B new service revenue opportunity for service providers by the year 2011. Do you have your order in yet? Listen to a recent conversation about TelePresence (held over a TelePresence session) between myself and Al Safarikas of Cisco on the service provider opportunity with TelePresence -- I’m the one on the other side of the screen.

Speeding up wait times before, during, and after a visit to the doctor was the motivation behind Greg’s award winning suggestion on in our Connected Life contest. The Texas native (Hook’em!) is a radiation oncology resident physician about to take his board exams (which his winnings will help fund) who has had first hand experience in dealing with the delays caused waiting for information needed to effectively and efficiently treat patients. His idea was the e-medical card, which he described this way:

“œE-Medical card. Eliminate waiting time at the doctors office by adding chip in medical cards that could be scanned when the doctor comes into the examining room. You could secure it using existing technology (i.e.,fingerprint technology). Once scanned, it would immediately pull up your medical history. It would be scanned at the end of the visit for billing. These devices could securely to send diagnostic info, x-rays, test results, etc. to specialists. Imagine what this could do in the medical field!”

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Omari from Virginia was one of the runner up winners in our Connected Life contest. His idea was to take all of the mash-up sites available on the web (such as those that blend applications such as realtor listings and a satellite map), mash them up further and making it mobile. You can read more about it here. Think of it as a presence-based facebook-google-linkedin-tomtom application for your handset so that as you move, the network can alert you to the things you care about and help give you a better experience. I can imagine something like this telling me:

“œGreat sushi place ahead”"œTurn right to make it to your meeting on-time”"œDave’s in town, too, and is only a block away”(If it could also tell me when I am wearing mismatched socks or have a piece of apple stuck in my teeth, that would be a bonus-)

All of these applications are available on their own on the web and represent the first wave of mash-ups; Omari is taking it two steps further by blending the already blended applications even further, effectively making an infinite number of possibilities to customize it to your interests and needs. And by making it mobile, it personalizes the experience even further, allowing the network to move with you instead of you moving to the network.A couple of years ago, one of my closest friends was college was staying at a hotel a block away from me as we both were in London on business for the week. Since we live thousands of miles apart, it would have been a great opportunity to meet, catch up, and admittedly have a couple of pints (John Smith’s Extra Smooth Bitter for me, please). Unfortunately, we didn’t realize the coincidence until a month or two later on a phone conversation. It was a great opportunity lost. Omari’s idea would help to minimize the chance of that happening again and showcases the increasing relevance that network can have on lives, wherever we may be.