Lining Up for the iPhone

Just saw a few PR types from Apple passing out water to grateful iPhone fans, some of whom have now been waiting for more than 24 hours. Many are also taking advantage of Apple's wireless connection to power their laptop wifi .. It's no exaggeration to say that Apple's Palo Alto store is a hot spot in many ways.

As I mentioned earlier, lots of local tech companies have basically turned today into a holiday .. call it iPhone day. They're out waiting, blogging, and taping the whole thing for posterity.

All this for a phone, you say? Yes, many in line today would probably agree with you .. but so far, they've turned it into a fun event. We'll see how fun and calm everything says when Apple actually opens the doors.

Still In Line

Just in case you're still interested, it's a party here in Palo Alto .. the line is steady, even growing a little .. lots of food as people break for lunch, and still lots of blogging and webcasting going on to keep everyone -and their employers, apparently- up to speed on how people are spending their days (we met some nice people streaming on www.ustream.tv, and they were giving out pizza to people waiting in line, so I'll give them a plug).

From what I hear, it's 2 iPhones per customer. I've held it, and it's great, but will it be easy for the people here in line to part with 5-6 hundred dollars? They tell me they're eager to do so. Many of those in line for just one have even offered to take my money in and buy one .. nice, but I think I'll be a late adopter on this one.

Anyway, we'll see you at five o'clock to show off all these people .. feel free to stop on by if you're local.

Notes from the i-Line

This, I must admit, is fun. And I'm not even buying anything today.

This is the line outside the Palo Alto Apple store: the line is wrapped around the block .. at this point, I'd say easily 100-150 people. Up in front, there is anticipation .. these guys have been here awhile, and can se ethe light at the end of the tunnel.

There's a sign taped up above someone's head: "change wanted for iPhone."

Lots of blogging and vlogging going on, of course .. what would you expect from this crowd. Web journalists have joined us in sending the message back: These guys ave been willing to wait for a couple of days already .. imagine how they'll feel when they actually get the opportunity to cough up $600, and fire up their new iPhones.

More to come ...

iDay

This promises to be an unusual day. Bottom line, though, is that it's finally the day that you (and millions of others) can buy Apple's new iPhone. It's almost anticlimactic that people will at last be able to use them .. what I'm waiting for are the early consumer reviews.

At long last, we'll be able to hear people wax poetic about how the phone is so cool .. and hear the early complaints. Is the battery too weak? .. is the internet connection too slow? Is it worth the money?

Can't wait.

The Future of The Phone

With everyone going ga-ga over the new iPhone, it's easy to get caught up just in the hype of it all. But take a step back, and the iPhone could very well mean more than just a cool new gadget, or a nice bump in Apple's stock price.

This could also give us device-watchers a peek into the future. Not just of the phone, but a peek into the future of mobile lifestyles. If the iPhone, and eventually its competitors, let me walk around with my music, phone, photos, and the real honest-to-goodness internet in my pocket .. the world will become a smaller place.

Not long ago, we were doing stories about how thanks to laptops and wifi technology, desktops were becoming passe. Just hook me up at a coffeeshop, and I'm getting my work done. Now, will the iPhone & its ilk allow me to leave the laptop at home?

Of all the cool features promised by Apple's newest device, it's the internet that has me the most interested. If it really works, maybe that's all we need. A phone, a little space to work, and a cup of coffee.

Let the New Mobility begin.

Day of the Rat

Tonight's the night we take you to Skywalker Ranch, to listen closely to the upcoming Pixar movie, "Ratatouille." We do so, thanks to the extraordinary sound man, Randy Thom. His resume is a mile long, running from "Apocalypse Now" (and how's that for a first film?) to the newest Pixar offering.

Inside his Skywalker Sound studio, Thom hangs out with a gazillion dollars worth of technology, but is philosophical about it. He calls his a "love-hate" relationship with technology, insisting that realism is what makes a movie sound great.

Realism is what brought him to a Parisian restaurant, and into a Parisian sewer system. There, he heard the sounds that eventually found their way into "Ratatouille."

Sitting inside his studio, I couldn't help thinking that however he does it, it's working. The sound is incredible in there. I asked him if he gets depressed when he has to see one of his movies on a sub-par sound system. He says yes .. he wishes movie theatres could get it right.

Tonight at 6, join us as we introduce you to a man famous (and Oscar-winning) for getting it right.

Computers To The Rescue

A new computer system has investors salivating, and, although they may not know it yet, promises even more rewards for people with diseases. It comes from a Silicon Valley company called Nvidia, and it's about the fastest thing you can get on a chip today.

Named "Tesla" (like the sports car? the coil?), Nvidia's new system promises to turn a desktop workstation into a supercomputer. This could have huge results. The company is already talking about taking minutes to do computational work that would have previously taken months.

For disease .. this could mean the rapid study of molecules much faster than in any lab. For oil and gas drilling, exploring possible sites virtually could save tons of time and money. It could all happen in a fraction of the time it would even take a standard supercomputer .. and those are already super fast.

Now, that fact that Nvidia's stock price ripped to a new all-time high on the news today doesn't take into account that Tesla hasn't yet shown us actual results. As with most upward stock price moves, it shows optimism about the future.

And for a chip industry that has been stagnant for some time, optimism is just what the doctor ordered.

Keeping It "Real"

I've never been a really big fan of the Real Player. I admit, I tend to look elsewhere to play video on the web .. InterVideo, QuickTime, whatever. Something about how RealNetworks was always so quick to try to upsell me whenever I just wanted to watch something online.

So I was a little surprised when, upon demo-ing the newest real Player (due out next week..), one of the first things the Real executive who was showing it off said was how the company had changed .. because people complained about the upselling. That's refreshing.

On top of that .. the new player is pretty cool.

It takes what I see as a real need -organizing all your favorite web videos- and puts it in one easy to use package. I can't say if the new Player is perfect -it did briefly freeze up on my computer the first time I downloaded it- but it's an improvement, and, again, it fills a need.

Think a combination of iTunes and TiVo, and that's what Real seems to be going for. Click on a web video, and it uploads it, even while you're on to something else. Live video? One click, and it saves it .. you can watch it whenever you want. It will even search, TiVo-like, for web video themes. Very cool.

There will (and probably already are) no doubt be other ways to do this...but Real has come up with a smart, easy way to do it. Check it out. The basic version is free. The extra loaded version goes for $29.99.

Girls & Tech

Today may be the first day you take your kid to summer camp. As you will soon find out among a sea of SUVs and sun tan lotion, you're far from alone. We're in the same boat at my house, but when I got to work, one camp caught my eye....

Targeted at young girls, Hewlett-Packard is putting on a summer camp aimed at getting girls to get into technology. They may not know that activities called "Electronic Guts" or "Gorilla Snot" will actually give them a boost in their future careers, but they will.

I've covered a lot of these camps before. The amazing thing for me is always the look on the faces of the kids participating: Awe, and inspiration at the same time. You can almost tell that what they do at this camp will be carried with them for the rest of their lives.

And for CEOs who need to build a future workforce, that's money in the bank.

Drivers (not) Wanted


We're a car crazy society, and while driving, we do all sorts of things we're not supposed to. Eating, drinking, talking on the phone .. even text messaging - this is a story I'm working on for later today - a Silicon Valley company says it has a solution that will keep young people happily communicating, but in a safe way .. stay tuned.

But what if we eliminated the driver altogether?

That's what they're doing at Stanford, and other places, this week. Testing a car that drives without anyone inside. Stanford has already been successful at this, winning a contest put on by the Defense Department (DARPA) to prove that, with proper technology, a car can navigate itself .. no driver needed.

This year, the contest goes urban. DARPA wants the cars to drive themselves through traffic. Thursday, the parking lot of Shoreline Ampitheatre was turned into a big driving test. Come to think of it, I learned to drive in a parking lot, too. Only, the car without the driver is expected to make even fewer mistakes.

A safer car, perhaps. A more autonomous car, definitely.
Does this all free us up to text more?

Who knows.

Tech & The Environment

Today's press conference at Google was a bit sloppy, there was a giant pole blocking the cameras, and things were just unorganized.

But .. the message was crystal clear: We're screwing up the environment, and we have to change that. A somewhat surprising admission by about a dozen of the world's biggest technology companies that they want to change things, to help keep our air as clean as possible.

New computers, servers, and other hardware that burn less energy, and burn what they do use more efficiently. All to lower what's being called our "carbon footprint" (can someone explain to me exactly what that is?), and smooth things out karmically between the tech industry and the environment.

A good idea. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Stay Tuned for The Rat...

Sort of a quick preview here .. I spent the day up at Skywalker Ranch, the out-of-the-way empire owned and operated by George Lucas.

It's always amazing to spend time up there .. super quiet and peaceful on the outside (lakes, willows, grape vines everywhere...), but crazy creative on the inside.

Today, we saw the sound being added to the upcoming Pixar movie, "Ratatouille." Being a huge movie fan, this is some of the coolest technology I've ever seen. We'll be getting the story ready for a close to the premiere run .. I'll keep you posted.

Just know this .. as good as it looks, the movie sounds even better.

All A-Twitter

I admit, the first time I saw the website twitter.com (we used it as a website of the week on TechNow a while back), I was a little underwhelmed. The idea of short online updates, telling people what you're doing with a quick line ("I'm bored." "I'm making a sandwich.") struck me as less than earth-shattering.

But, as with so many young companies, it's the people who are the real story. Up at Twitter HQ today -in the great South Park area of San Francisco that fortunately looks vibrant again- I got to meet the small staff, and talk to co-founder Biz Stone.

The staff is focused, and the site is changing constantly. Talking to Biz (which, really, is that a great name or what ..) , I got the feeling that things are just getting started for the company. Who knows what they'll turn into...they're already helping people. The story for today is a diabetic who uses Twitter to reach others curious about what he's going through.

Many investors will tell you it's the people, as much as the company, you invest in. From the perspective of a non-investor, I can still say that I'll be watching this company .. and optimistically watching the people making it happen.

The iTunes Killer?

As far as products that are both cool and profitable go here in the Silicon Valley, it's hard to top iTunes. 2.5 billion songs sold, 50 million TV shows, two million movies .. you get the picture.

Now, a much smaller company with similar goals wants you to skip iTunes, take your music from the web, and put it straight onto your iPod.

Heresy? .. Or a better way for us to get our music? You can try it out and decide at lala.com.

Lala is a company I've written about, and covered, before. As of today, Lala is doing a lot more than just letting you and me trade CDs online. It's letting you sample full songs on its website, letting you bring your entire music collection with you wherever you go (including your iTunes), by storing tons of music on its servers.

And, it's letting you buy music from its site, and download it directly to your iPod. Completely skipping the iTunes part.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Apple so far is not commenting. To be fair, Lala is a lot smaller than Apple. Maybe they won't make a dent in Apple's business, but who knows.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Your Best Buys....


If you know Fry's (and they're huge here in the Silicon Valley), it's probably because of all the tech products they sell, or their advertisements that probably pay a lot of TV salaries .. mine included.

But you may have also heard of the Fry's golf course. This, most of us have never seen. It's famous for being almost totally private, and extremely exclusive. Very few people have ever been on it.

We got a chance yesterday.

The Fry family held a groundbreaking right on its golf course, for the new headquarters of the American Institute of Mathematics. AIM (as it's known) hosts mathematicians and scientists from all over the world to tackle huge problems - you may remember the recent E8 problem .. they solved it.

Lots of good feeling, lots of smart people .. and that golf course! Amazing. It's huge, the bunker sand is pure white, and it's got a billion dollar view. I'm pretty sure I'll never golf there, but if you get the chance, I highly recommend it.

And stay tuned for the AIM .. it's being built as an homage to a Spanish Medievel castle. This, too, should look spectacular.