Qualcomm's Vision of the Wireless Future "When he finished, there were 20 brand-new, CDMA-based mobile handsets and devices arrayed on the table, the high-tech souvenirs of Belk's most recent trip to Hong Kong and Japan.... 'These are not PowerPoint slides,' Belk said. 'These are real devices that are already shipping in volume in Asia.' " at Business 2.0]

And there's the rub. When I do my presentations, that's all I have - pictures of prototypes or of devices not available in the U.S. Europe and Asia really are 18 months ahead of us in this area.

"Beale also discussed Qualcomm's gpsOne location technology.... It also opens the door for many new location-based services, such as traffic information and local weather forecasts. On Japan KDDI's network, there are already more than 20 location-based services available -- all of which are relatively inexpensive, costing less than $5 per month."

I'm looking forward to being able to travel and have information come to me automatically based on my location. For example, if I'm at a conference and I'm looking for a restaurant, I'd like my phone/PDA/whatever to know where I am and offer a list of nearby choices. Maybe it should tell me what movies or plays are on tonight and if there are still tickets available. You get the idea....

"Predictably, both Belk and Beale anticipate strong growth for the wireless industry as ever-more-compelling products and services become available and the industry settles on a single communication standard. How long will that take? Belk, whose career began in the personal computing business in 1983, likened the wireless industry today to the PC business of the 1980s. 'I wouldn't worry about the wireless industry yet, it's still relatively young,' he said. 'Just look how long it took the PC industry just to get to the point of standardized parallel cables.' "

Not to beat a dead horse, but the ebook industry is even younger than PCs, and PDAs have really only come into their own during the last few years. So don't count any of these technologies out just yet.

Lots of interesting articles from today's PC World. First up, Microsoft Takes on MapQuest: "MSN launches MapPoint online mapping service, offering maps, directions, and more."

Apparently this is going to be yet another component of MS' push for .Net services with hooks into other MSN services. MapPoint is XML-based, which makes it interesting in other ways, and there it launches with a phone-based direction service. The articles notes that this is another step towards location-based services. "For example, you might someday be able to click on a Windows Messenger buddy's name and retrieve a map showing the location of his or her home."

Good or bad? You make the call. I like parts of this, but I'm incredibly wary of .Net.

Labels: tomtom gps | handheld gps | motorcycle gps

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