I hate to admit it, but it's true. I'm seriously jealous of the Apple iPod group. For years now, they have successfully launched great, innovative, breakthrough products. And they seem to do this all while making it look incredibly easy. As a consumer product designer myself, I can appreciate just how difficult it actually is to create a good product, let alone a product that ends up being called "breakthrough" or "innovative". I'm jealous, envious, and a little pissed.
What I can't figure out is, why it seems no other company can duplicate this success. What is it? They don't have major market share (at least they did not until they launched the iPod), they don't have tons of money (there are plenty of large companies with money), and they don't appear to pay their employees in excess of what other companies pay.
Yet they are able to continually, repeatedly, turn out great products. Further, there are people beating down their doors just begging to work for them for what appears to me to be merely standard wages in a town (Cupertino, CA) that is anything but cheap to live in.
So why am I jealous? Because EVERYBODY wants to be a pivotal part of a winning team. Don't they? They must, right?? At least I know I do. And right now, these guys are the poster-boys for winning in consumer electronics. We should all do everything we can to copy their success. I mean it. Simply duplicate what they do. I can't figure out why more iPod "clones" are not out there already...seems if you can't beat-em, copy-em would work here, no?
For whatever reason, seems this type of chemistry is not something that can be simply copied...too bad. For the rest of us.
20070630
20070412
Megapixels, Installment #2
For those of you interested in my previous Kodak blog on megapixels, I've just added another blog that delves more deeply into the subject. It explains a rather confusing aspect with digital cameras: the reason a "typical" 6MP camera does NOT contain a sensor that has six-million pixels! Want to learn more? Surf over to the Kodak blog site and check it out.
If the link is stale, you can always get to this blog via the permalink here.
enjoy.
If the link is stale, you can always get to this blog via the permalink here.
enjoy.
20070227
Check out my Kodak blog
Kodak has entered into the new millenium with it's "1000 Nerds" tech blog site. Check it out here. I have been fortunate enough to get a couple blogs posted there. Here is the permalink to my intro blog and my blog on megapixels. Hopefully I'll get to post more and will link to them here. The Kodak blogs will necessarily be focussed on Kodak-related topics and technologies, but nevertheless I will endeavor to make them as relevant, topical, and interesting as possible. Enjoy.
20070221
Digital Picture Frames for Kodak
I had the pleasure of being interviewed for a new blog site dedicated to promoting the awareness, knowledge, and use of wireless digital picture frames. This site is being run by Frame Media, a group that is promoting widespread adoption of infrastructure and content that is targeted at eventual support of wireless picture frames and whatever they morph into.
I was interviewed as a Kodak employee, so my answers were in line with the Kodak perspective. Nevertheless, I think there was a lot of good stuff to say about both the industry and Kodak in this new area of endeavor.
You can read the interview yourself here.
You can check out Kodak's new frames here.
I was interviewed as a Kodak employee, so my answers were in line with the Kodak perspective. Nevertheless, I think there was a lot of good stuff to say about both the industry and Kodak in this new area of endeavor.
You can read the interview yourself here.
You can check out Kodak's new frames here.
Ink Jet Printing will never be the same
Many of you saw Kodak's announcement on Feb 6 that they are entering (or re-entering, actually) the inkjet printer industry. This is actually at minimum the third time Kodak has entered the inkjet arena. The first time I can recall is when they bought Diconix, and the second time was when they partnered with Lexmark. This time they are in all the way. By that I mean they have devoted a lot of time and money to try to do it right, and they seem to be in it for the long haul.
You can check out the announcement here if you have not read about it yet. Very cool for Kodak to intro a new product this way, with a spoof of Saturday Night Live in New York City on a Tuesday morning. Antonio Perez can always get a job doing standup if he gets tired being Kodak's CEO.
So what is so new and cool about the Kodak inkjet printers? I'll skip the marketing hype and give you the lowdown. Basically here it is:
- Separate "Text black" and "Photo Color" cartridges. That means a couple of things. First, text is treated differently than photos, which is the way it should be. Also, if you print mostly plain text, you won't be using up your precious photo inks. Text droplets are smaller, approx 2.7 picoliters in size, giving great sharpness to the edges of the text. Should produce excellent quality text documents.
- Photo Color cartridge contains "photo black". As most color scientists know, printing black in photos is completely different than printing black in text documents. It has to do with how "black" is achieved in the presence of all the other colors. It's a combination of human perception and color mixing that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say that using a unique "photo black" colorant is the best way to achieve rich, dark blacks along with great colors. Should yield great dynamic range in color pictures.
- Clear Protective Coat. There are a total of 5 colors: Text black, Photo black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. But there is one more ink: Clear. This is a fantastic addition. When used, this will coat the other inks with a protective clear sealant that will allow the final print to be nearly waterproof under normal usage. This will guard it against damage by humidity, water, and handling. It will also allow the final print to be stable and last much longer than conventional prints. What I am not sure about is when this ink is employed. All the time, or only some of the time? Not sure.
- Pigmented inks. Pigmented inks are much more permanent than the more traditionally used types of inks. I don't pretend to be an expert in this area, but I know that much. Using pigmented inks allows the final print to last under normal viewing conditions much, much longer than other inkjet prints. Possibly as long as 100 years. Certainly long enough for most people to enjoy them for a lifetime. This has been attempted before with little success. Epson had a printer a few years ago that used pigmented inks, but the color rendition was never all that good. Apparently Kodak has solved that problem.
- Low ink cost. Last but certainly not least, since Kodak has built all the ink jet head technology into the printer and NOT the ink cartridge (like some other folks), replacing the ink cartridge is a much cheaper affair. It also appears some other innovative things have been done to further reduce the price of the cartridges, since one of the main selling points of these printers is a 50% cheaper replacement ink cost. This will no doubt be a fantastic selling point.
Some very neat details of why Kodak's printing technology is better and different than a lot of what else is out there can be found in a recent TechBlog posting.
If you just want to forget all that stuff and go buy a printer, you'll have to wait until March, then go either to the Kodak web site to buy direct, or run to your local Best Buy, which for now at least has an exclusive deal with Kodak to carry these printers.
Full Disclosure: In case you did not already know or guess, I am a Kodak employee :)
20070115
Best of CES 2007
You've read the rest, now read the best.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the largest show of its kind in the world, took place last week in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was lucky enough to attend. I will not bore you with repetitions of what has already been said, except to add my perspective and opinions. Here goes:
Themes of CES 2007
Vista
There were a few major themes that came out of this year's show. Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, was everywhere. Perhaps unfortunately for Microsoft, it seemed as though Vista was "old news"; everybody already knew about it. Therefore they were all off looking for new things. Too bad for Microsoft, who is reportedly spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Vista launch activities.
1080p "Full HD"
HD televisions have been around for a while. But this year it seemed not only were they now a reality for consumers, but also the very highest resolution capability, 1080p, is or will be very soon, available at reasonable prices for everyone.
There were so many sets on display it was difficult to take them all in. The largest unit this year went to Sharp, with its 108" LCD set (girl not included).
Phones and wireless
Perennial themes at CES, there were many phones and wireless devices to look at this year as always. LG gets kudos for a great, open booth area showing it's world-wide selection of phones, including the uber-cool Chocolate line. My personal favorite for both style and marketing flair; the picture below does not do it justice.
Honorable mention goes to Samsung, who continues to bang out impressively cool phones, their latest is actually one of the skinniest phones I've ever seen, kicking the RAZR's butt in the thin category by at least a couple of milimeters. Impressive.
Personal servers
Microsoft leads this charge at the home with its Home Server product announcement, showcased at Bill Gate's keynote on Sunday night. Partnering with HP, this product will sit in your home, and be a central place for all your photos, music, movies, and other files that all your computers, media centers, set-top boxes, etc. will need to access. This is just the beginning of a big market.
Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD
Another fruitless battle rages between companies that simply don't understand that something that is bad for consumers will be bad for them. Sure there are techical differences between these two formats. Who cares? Still the battle rages on; a major theme at CES and probably for years to come.
Coolest Tech at the Show
Best of Show - LG Super Multi Blue Player
Kudos to LG for fielding the world's first dual-mode reader, the "Super Multi Blue" player. This baby decodes both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats! Problem solved! We need much more thinking like this! As far as I'm concerned this wins Best of Show!
Creative Zen V
Creative had a huge booth. Great displays, well staffed with knowledgable, friendly people. The coolest addition to their lineup was the Creative Zen V, a diminutive music player. This little thing is cute and cool. Smaller than a business card, it plays all popular formats, and sounds absolutely great. Amazingly, it also includes a very cool color display that can show videos as well. The videos I saw were not full-motion (several dropped frames), but impressive none-the-less. The most amazing part was the price. All of this for only $99 (for the 1-Gig version)!! More memory will of course cost you more. Note in the picture below, they are also offiering a "boom-box" add-on that allows you to dock your Zen and blast huge tunes for all to enjoy. Nice.
Personal Picture Phone from Oji
A relative newcomer and unknown to me, the Oji personal video phone was shown at CES and demoed live. The demo allowed an attendee to call someone at a remote Oji site and have a conversation with them. The video was fluid, relatively smooth, and synched well with the audio during the demo I witnessed. With a price point of $299, this is an interesting product. Of course you can only engage in a video call with someone else who has the same phone. So you need to buy two (one for you, one for Grandma). As a guilt-reducer for families with kids living far away from the grandparents, this product may have some appeal. It remains to be seen, however, if people really want telephone conversations to be that "intimate". The Oji booth is shown below, with telephone mockup (real phone is a little smaller :) ):
Sony OLED TV
Sony had a very cool demo area showing a bevvy of ultra-thin OLED (Organic LED display) TVs. It's hard to see in the picture below, but believe me when I say these babys were ultra cool! Hardly 1/8" thick, the displays showed some of the brightest, most saturated colors I've seen on any display anywhere. Contrast ratio was huge (Sony claims "millions to one" but that's all specsmanship), and the units did not give off any appreciable heat. Sony was displaying many small (approx 15" diag.) and one large (27" diag) unit. Most of the time they were showing stills, but they did show some limited motion video, making me think they might not have all the persistence bugs worked out yet. OLED has always had great promise as a display technology, and now it appears Sony is in the game big-time.
Skype Phones
Skype, one of the most popular forms of Internet telephony available today, has been hampered from ultimate ubiquity recently by the dearth of cool phones that work easily with the service. Well, no more. There were so many Skype-compatible phones shown at CES, that if only half of them actually are available in 2007 (typical reality-check ratio for a trade-show), there will still be plenty to choose from. Extremely cool and an indication that using the telephone is about to change yet again, and will never be the same. Fine with me. Below is a shot of but one of the coolest Skype phones I saw:
The Personal Tazer
I had to include this one for the "shock factor" :)
Tazer has been struggling for years now, trying to create a market for stun guns for protection. Previously these guns have been both expensive and difficult to operate, creating barriers to adoption. Tazer announced at CES the availability of the "Personal Tazer" which is a simpler to operate, less-expensive version of their original model. It also uses less power, and therefore only stuns the perpetrator for approximately 30 seconds, instead of nearly 20min. Still plenty of time to run like Hell I guess. Available in 3 "designer colors", Tazer hopes to "stimulate" the market with this version of their product. Shocking.
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