(keitai-l) Re: Camera phones - USB & WPAN

From: Benjamin <bkml_at_mac.com>
Date: 07/26/02
Message-Id: <30FFC7E4-A083-11D6-A2C8-003065FB21DC@mac.com>
On Friday, July 26, 2002, at 05:19 , Ken Chang wrote:

> (1) how: security

Use SSH and register your peripherals once with your "hub" (notebook, 
desktop etc) before using them. No SSH key registration, no access.

> would be a wonderful world if you take Keihinkyuko-line, and
> take off an hour later, with all the newest songs and movies,
> as well as the documents of J-SH52, N504iS, and even DoJa3.

I would envisage that a camera which is registered by user 'kenchang' 
will only have read/write access to /Users/kenchang/Pictures and/or 
/Users/kenchang/Movies, read only access to /Users/kenchang/public and 
no access to anything else.

Likewise, a notebook not registered with your camera/phone should not 
have access to your camera/phone, at least not without your ***explicit 
OK*** on each transaction (ie. guest access).

> (2) why: ease of use?
> also, the user interface is a problem for wireless.  if you
> want to add a sound effect processor between your harddrive
> and you MP3 earphone, you simply plug them together wired

But only if the connectors and signals have been standardised. Otherwise 
you will need to make an adapter and convert impedance. Thus it is not 
much different from a wireless scenario.

You'd have a wireless audio out port on your stereo or computer and a 
wireless audio in port on your headphones. In order to "plug-in" those 
headphones to the sound source you would have a facility, which could be 
some sort of a control panel.

Now, if you want to plug your sound source into an effects processor and 
go from there to your headphones, you'd simply use the control panel to 
chain them up. What's the big deal ?

Besides, you could always have an old fashioned audio jack and plug-in 
all your gear up to the point where the signal is ready to be delivered 
to the headphones and you go wireless from there. After all, it is about 
freeing up the *headphones* from the wires.

There are already various wireless headphone products on the market. The 
problem with those is that they are typically limited to a particular 
sound source and therefore, you may end up with different headphones for 
different sound sources. This doesn't make sense. There should be one 
universal wireless interface so that you can use just one set of 
headphones with any of the sound sources you have. That makes a lot of 
sense and that is one of the things BT is intended for.

> you cannot say wireless is better than wire.

I never said it would. I merely pointed out that there are various 
applications where wireless makes a lot of sense and opens up new 
opportunities. Take the smart house concept. At present this is very 
expensive and elaborate. The main reason is the effort and cost of 
wiring your house. For most people this is not a good value proposition 
and they won't go for it.

Opening this market to a wide audience is only possible with wireless, 
not with a wired solution. The benefit of a universal wireless interface 
is that you can buy one device at a time. With a wired solution you 
would have to first make a major investment into rewiring (at least a 
part of) your house and you may then not be able to rearrange your 
kitchen without again costly rewiring.

Take a look in your household and see for yourself how many devices have 
either remote control (TV, VCR, air conditioner, air fans, living room 
lights etc) or a programming facility (VCR, rice cooker, microwave oven, 
coffee maker etc). This alone shows that there is a demand for it.

With some other applications, it is more a matter of reducing the 
existing mess of open wiring. A wireless keyboard and mouse falls into 
this category, but also speakers on your desk.

This category is not about the ability to easily move the devices 
around. It is about a clean desk. Therefore, it may seem less important, 
because you could live with those cables, after all you have managed 
with them so far. However, it would be an oversight to dismiss the 
requirement on the grounds that there is no extra functionality gained 
by going wireless. Many people would be willing to pay for getting their 
desks clean and if this can be done with little extra cost due to a 
universal mass produced interface then this has a significant potential 
to encourage sales.

The area where it is less clear if the added value is worth the effort 
are devices like cameras and MP3 players, which typically require a good 
chunk of bandwidth. The ugly wire problem with those devices has largely 
been addressed with cradles and it may well be that the market decides 
that this is good enough. Still a universal wireless camera interface 
would add some value in that you don't have to carry the cable/cradle 
with you and that you could connect your camera easily to various 
"hubs", for example a photo printer in a photo shop or convenience 
store. However, I would consider this category to carry a lower priority.

So, if you were to ask me about a scale of usefulness of wireless versus 
wired I'd say ...

1) smart remote control

wireless: very useful and only feasible solution
wired: not feasible

2) clean desk

wireless: very useful
wired: fails to meet objective

3) synchronising mobile devices

wireless: useful (nice to have not must have)
wired: probably sufficient

generally: the more bandwidth is required the more likely wired is 
favourable over wireless (at least for the time being) thus priority and 
focus should be on lower bandwidth applications.

regards
benjamin
Received on Sat Jul 27 05:46:22 2002