Tonight is the Premiere of the iPhone

Friday, June 29 6pm - the ultimate gadget goes on sale - the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone is the most hyped device of 2007. Announced by Steve Jobs on 9 January it already has a detailed iPhone Wikipedia entry. Contrary to its name the iPhone is not a phone. It is rather a personal companion or a mobile communications and entertainment device. E-mail, instant messaging, full web browsing, iPod, YouTube, camera, google maps and more - one device to rule them all.

The expectations are high but the reviews and the scorecard shows that the iPhone "Matches Most of its Hype". The Apple brand has an iconic status. Can it take over Nokia, SonyEricsson, LG and Samsung? The iPhone is not really about a phone. iPhone is a lifestyle which will not go head-to-head with other handsets.

Apple has made smart decisions based on user requirements. The battery life is more important than broadband everywhere. Therefore the iPhone does not support 3G which would quickly drain its batteries.

It is extremely simple and intuitive to use unlike most cellphones. iPhone is what smart-phones could have been were they designed with the user in mind!

This is my last Innowave blog post before my summer holiday in a far away country where wireless broadband internet is still decades away. See you later!

Do-It-Yourself Home Security with a Wireless Network Camera

For $300 you can build a remote controlled surveillance system to monitor your home via the internet.

Cell phones and PDAs are also supported by the new plug-and-play Panasonic BL-C131A pan/tilt wireless network camera. With the built-in motion detector and microphone, the camera can be set to notify you by email when someone enters your home. The 1 Lux CMOS sensor enables good image quality and 30 frames per sec MPEG-4 video even in low light conditions. Although D-Link, Linksys and others also offer similar devices the features of the Panasonic Network Camera Wireless 802.11 justifies its positive reviews on Amazon.com.


Remote home surveillance is yet another useful home automation application that is possible thanks to the wireless broadband internet!

Can GPS enabled phones deliver?

Google Maps looks stunning in this Apple iPhone Guided Tour Video. However there is no built-in GPS in iPhone. Why?

The Nokia N95 and the Blackberry 8800 Series have embedded GPS support but reviews are saying that they cannot deliver reliable positioning just yet.

Is seems that GPS enabled phones are not up to the challenge of replacing standalone GPS navigation devices. There’s no need to throw away your Garmin or Magellan just yet. If you are looking for a phone with built-in GPS that delivers reliable positioning you might need to wait a bit longer.

iPhone shipping with YouTube

Users will soon enjoy YouTube on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. The Apple-designed YouTube application will wirelessly stream content in the advanced H.264 format to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on its stunning 3.5 inch display.

Apple excels in mobility with long battery life of the iPhone: it will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback and up to 250 hours of standby time. Great news for heavy mobile internet and multimedia consumers!

Web Traffic Overtakes P2P

Peer-to-peer traffic dominated the Internet in the last 4 years. But web traffic has overtaken P2P for a while thanks to YouTube which represents nearly 10% of all traffic on the Net (that is ~1% attention of online users). Ellacoya estimates that presently, as a result of streaming audio and video in Web downloads, HTTP is 46% of all traffic on the network. P2P has a strong second place at 37% of total traffic. The rest:

• Newsgroups (9%)
• Non-HTTP video streaming (3%)
• Gaming (2%)
• VoIP (1%)

P2P could soon get a boost by Joost which can easily represent 2 GB of traffic per user per day.

Top 5 Stunning 3D Displays

3D displays will soon revolutionize how we experience multimedia. These displays are very effective attention grabbers but also have scientific applications. They are becoming more and more affordable each day.

Here is the list of the Top 5 Stunning 3D displays without the need for 3D glasses.

Philips 42" 3D WOWvx Displays

• 42" Autostereoscopic LCD display
• Lenticular lens technology - 9 views
• HD Resolution: 1,920 x 1,080
  
• Price: ~ $15.000

• 2 available display types:
• 42-3D6C01 - Comfort type for applications that require maximum comfort
• 42-3D6W01 - WOW for enhanced depth performance with exciting out-of-screen effects.

Holografika Holovision 128WD

• Real 3D display - as show on this google video: Holovizio 3D-Display
  
• Viewers can walk around the screen in a wide field of view seeing the objects and shadows moving continuously as in the normal perspective. It is even possible to look behind the objects, hidden details appear, while others disappear (motion parallax)
• Unlimited number of viewers can see simultaneously the same 3D scene on the screen, with the possibility of seeing different detail
• Objects appear behind or even in front of the screen like on holograms

Dimension Technologies Virtual Window 19

• 19" Autostereoscopic LCD display
• dual view
• SXGA Resolution: 1280 x 1024
• Price: ~ $4.000

NewSight 3D MultiView Displays

• 23" Autostereoscopic LCD (available in 19" to 57")
  
• Multiview
  
• HD Resolution: 1920 x 1200
• Price: ~ $6.000

Sharp LL151-3D LCD (discontinued)

• 15" Autostereoscopic LCD
• filter array (‘Parralax Barrier’) - dual view
• Sharp was first to market an affordable consumer 3D display
  

Wireless Power via Magnetic Resonances

How often do you need to recharge your mobile phone, iPod, GPS and other gadgets? Science has published a research article about WiTricity - an experimental system to deliver power without the need for wires.

The demo made a 60W light bulb glow over distances in excess of 2 meters. The power is transmitted between two copper coils using the resonance of low frequency electromagnetic waves. Check out the article on BBC News.

Google Developer Day Videos on YouTube

The Google Developer Day Videos are available on YouTube. Google is leading the internet innovation with the new announcements:

• Google Gears: open source browser extension that enables web applications to run offline
• Google Mapplets: mini-applications embeddable within Google Maps
• Google Mashup Editor: AJAX development framework to easily create web applications and mashups with Google services