Gizmodo: businessweek

Backstory and Teardown of the Lenovo X300 (Components By Weight!)

Brian Lam — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:10:53 EST

Here's an interesting bit: The Lenovo x300 almost had the old IBM butterfly keyboard of old. This detail and others were revealed in a Businessweek cover story on the ultrathin, quickly being recognized as the antithesis to the Apple Air. The piece has a lot of other interesting background, like the above info graphic of a teardown with weight for each component. Also, it nearly had a 10-inch screen.

Businessweek's headline confuses me, a bit: Building the Perfect Laptop. David Hill, father of the x300 and chief Lenovo designer says, "I'm a bit tired of looking at silver computers. I'd never wear a silver business suit." The comparison is lost on me. Many of the people the Air was designed for simply wouldn't wear a business suit; why is wearing a suit a given for computer user? Sounds like the same kind of thinking that kept IBM trailing in the personal computer race before Windows. The piece is worth reading, especially for the opening section where the Lenovo people, tuned into Macworld Keynote coverage, scrambled to see if the x300 also fit into a manila envelope. It did. [BusinessWeek via BBG, more X300 on Giz]

Butterfly Keyboard:

BusinessWeek Says Blu-ray Ahead; Analysts Predict HD DVD FTW

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:59:10 EST

Too long since your last shot of format-war speculation? BusinessWeek uses three indicators to call Blu-ray (and Sony) the current leading contender:
1. Blu-ray has sold more than twice as many discs as HD DVD this year.
2. While HD DVD has a larger number of dedicated players in the market, 2.3 million PS3s offer an overwhelming advantage.
3. Rumors suggest that Warner Bros. will go Blu-ray only, giving that side 70% of the home-video market.
At the very same time, though, analysts from the Diffusion Group released a report calling HD DVD the eventual victor:

The study says that, among those planning to hop to high-def discs in the next six months, "43% prefer HD DVD, 27% prefer Blu-ray, and 30% are undecided." Here's the funny part:

The most immediate wave, which is expected to be exhausted by early 2008, is comprised of the remaining early adopters who...show a preference for Blu-ray. The second (and more sizable) wave will consist of early mass-market consumers who, while less enthusiastic about technology per se and very price sensitive, are more likely to favor HD DVD.

This corroborates what I said last week: when the masses start buying a high-def movie player for their high-def TVs, they are going to buy the cheap Chinese player, not the fancy $300 player from the recognizable brand. Also, Diffusion's research echoes an old argument: consumers who see HD DVD think "logical high-def extension of DVD format"; they see Blu-ray and think "WTF?" (Frankly, we're currently more partial to dual-disc players from Samsung and LG.)

That isn't to say that the BusinessWeek analysis wasn't good. I was taken aback by the Warner rumor, since Warner's HD DVDs are so much better than its identical Blu-ray releases, but if Warner does side with Sony, there will be some big trouble in the little HD DVD camp. [BusinessWeek and Diffusion Group]

Verizon Hugs Google, Says Android Is Key to Open Networks

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:32:35 EST

In a breaking BusinessWeek story, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam says that it will support Android, Google's new platform for phones and mobile devices, making Verizon a member of sorts in the Open Handset Alliance. While this seems to be the logical conclusion to Verizon's weeklong openness bender, McAdam claims that it was the Android platform that "facilitated" Verizon's move out of the walled garden. Welcome to the same phone swapping policy you can do on GSM networks like AT&T and TMO. Oh but you can swap on those phones without calling your operator and just switching a SIM.

McAdam dismisses the idea that being a "founding" member of the OHA would have been anything more than a press-release opportunity for the carrier. Once the dev kit went out, though, he says his engineers were impressed.

"Clearly the Android system gives a lot of developers the opportunity to develop applications for a wide range of handsets."

All of this is still shocking to observers who think of Verizon as profiteer of the closed system. Clearly, Google's pressure on the FCC to permit only open-minded carriers into the 700MHz spectrum auction has a lot to do with the business decisions being made here. We originally thought Verizon was pushing hard to keep its network locked up, but McAdam claims that for a year now, he and other executives had been devising an open model that would work. Whether we believe that or not (especially given the fact that the carrier was fighting the FCC to keep things closed), we are happy with the current situation.

The result has been what we have reported over the past week: Verizon declared its network open to all phones and devices that share its network technology, following an easy security and functionality verification process. Furthermore, Verizon will migrate to the 4G standard co-developed in Europe by its parent company Vodafone, Nokia and the 3GPP, a standard that would be in line with much of the world's wireless data network.

Though this could be showboating for the FCC in the period leading up to the 700MHz spectrum auction, BusinessWeek points out the same impression that we've had, that the openness model is inevitable, and that "market demand for open networks would be impossible to hold back indefinitely." You hear that, AT&T? [BusinessWeek]

BusinessWeek/IDSA IDEA 2007 Awards Gallery

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:45:00 EDT

This year's award winners tend to fall into two categories: old, at least to up-to-date gadget hounds like y'all, or not there yet, with no good way to figure out when they will arrive. That doesn't mean they're not the epitome of great design, though, and it doesn't mean they're not worth having a gander at. I put eight of the more self-explanatory items in the gallery below—including urinals!—but if you want to see the long string of crazy shit, you'll have to visit BusinessWeek.com.

General Electric Vapor Tracer: An Electronic Bloodhound for Busting Druglords

Brian Lam — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:41:44 EDT

This, my friend, is the Vapor Tracer, a device being used in the drug wars to sniff out narcotics. Its nose is a mass spectrometry sensor, which finds little bags of cocaine in your ass by detecting the "mass-to-charge ratio of ions". Yeah, neither do we. Anyhow, it's the coolest of all the hardware in this BusinessWeek article about tech in the drug war.

The other cool picks include a portable substance identification lab; a giant Gamma Ray mounted on a truck for seeing into cargo bays of trucks (and turning drug mules green, strong and angry. ARGGG!!!); a 6.5 million dollar Predator drone with infrared cams; a crystal meth lab, and a sweet, sweet, indoor marijuana greenhouse. Picture of the greenhouse after the jump.– Brian Lam

In This War, Technology Is Key [Business Week]