This is just one of the questions that can be answered with the application idea that Rhonda from California submitted to the Connected Life contest (and which won her a runner-up award). Remote Frequency Identification (RFID) tags would be put on your most frequently lost items, whether it be your keys, eyeglasses, or wallet, so that when you lose them, you’d be able to find their location by using an application on their home computer (or any networking device for that matter). The application would show a map of the home and identify the hidden item. More details of Rhonda’s idea, a video describing it, how she’s going to spend the money and why it’s a good idea for pet tortoises can be found here.Speaking from experience of living with a two-year old who as a tendency to put the remote in the laundry bin- or the freezer-. Or in her doll’s stroller- which all-too-often creates a frantic game of hide-and-seek throughout the house just to see The Office, I’d be willing to pay a pretty penny for this capability. And fortunately, with RFID prices falling and home networks becoming commonplace, this idea has a very legitimate chance of coming to our Connected Life in the future.

I participated in the Rutberg Wireless Influencers conference last week. Various interesting sessions, but the biggest buzz was about Google’s announcement of the Android mobile device platform and the Open Handset Alliance. Some industry watchers expected a new device, like the Apple iPhone. Instead Google proposed a software environment that would allow any company to create new applications, including Google of course. Android joins multiple existing mobile device platforms, including Symbian supported by Nokia and others, Qualcomm’s BREW, the fading Garnet OS (formerly Palm OS), and Microsoft Mobile Windows for Pocket PCs and Smartphones (and some cars). The Google proposal seems most aligned with the open source mindset, and certainly illustrates the colliding worlds of the mobile industry and Internet industry. The concept is promising, but will it attract a critical mass of application software and device developers? And will mobile operators allow such devices to connect to their networks? Read More »

Jeff Spagnola, vice president of marketing for the service provider segment at Cisco, met with a wide range of trade press, business press and industry analysts during trips to New York and Boston on the week of November 5. In the brief video here, he recaps some of those conversations and their various areas of focus, which included service provider transformation, business managed services, Cisco in WiMAX, globalization efforts and emerging markets.
Recap Of Cisco Service Provider Press Tour -- The funniest home videos are here

The MPLS 2007 Conference, took place in Washington D.C. from October 28-31, and was advertised as:

“œThe year 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of MPLS International Conference and over the past 10 years, the conference has helped industry grow and have been the venue of the launch of new technologies that are driving the Internet towards next generation”

Approximately 500 participants internationally attended the conference mainly comprising the service provider and vendor community. Bruce Davie, Cisco, and Yakov Rekhter, Juniper highlighted the service modularity and extensibility that MPLS possesses in spite of approximately 10+ years of existence. Davie went on to discuss challenges to MPLS such as”different packet header” and forwarding paradigm; network management; asserted to, that challenging MPLS with no control plane and great network management seems like it begs the question of standards-based networking. Davie concluded that MPLS and IP remain entrenched because they enable valuable services such as L3VPN for MPLS; and that the rise of Ethernet is unlikely to change the fact that that the world depends on IP. Read More »

Verizon recently announced a plan option for its fiber-based broadband service where the focus is not just on the downstream speed (what you receive in your home) but rather the upstream speed (what you send to others). Here are the details from AP/Yahoo. This example, as is the case with broadband offer from SureWest and increasingly other providers, is indicative of providers fundamentally changing their model to match the needs of the rising, ever-changing, dynamic, at times confusing, and yet so appealing”empowered consumer” and their inherent desire for interactive, personalized experiences. No longer are users content with a”passive” experience, such as broadcast television in which both the content and the timing of delivery was determined by others. If users were interested in a particular show, they had to organize their lifestyle to accommodate the show’s schedule. With technology advancements, consumers were able to soon”Pick” content from their providers, where they were able to view the movie they wanted to watch using video-on-demand, or pick the type of content they wanted to surf with the introduction of the Internet. Soon thereafter, the desire of the consumer was one where they were interested to”participate”-where they could share their interests and interact with others through virtual communities. Even more quickly, this desire for expression evolved to where the consumers themselves”Produce” the content. They are no longer dependent on content created by others, but are able to create, remix, or develop content themselves and then share it with a global audience. This is where we are now, and is exemplified by the YouTube phenomenon, which started from nothing and within two years is one of the premier content distribution sites across all forms of media. It’s not just the amount that people watch, which is mind boggling and estimated to comprise of 10% of the internet traffic worldwide, but it is also the amount of new content added from empowered consumers -on average, six new hours of content are uploaded every minute of every day. Read More »