| To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (60837) | 2/21/2002 6:51:52 PM | | From: Jacob Snyder | | | | re: I have yet to see an application that convinces me that wireless web is better.
What year will this be available (at a price that people who drive Subarus will pay); That's the year, IMO, that wireless data/internet get mass-adopted:
I'm driving through Montana on a family vacation. A Country radio station is on, volume turned up to drown out the sound of the 6 and 8-old fighting over Legos in the back seat. I ask "where is the nearest pizza place?" The car answers, "12 miles up the road, in Livingston". The 10-year-old says, "I want pineapple and bacon pizza". The car says, "You'll have to go to Billings for that, and it'll cost you 7$ more. Want directions?" |
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| To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (60837) | 2/21/2002 7:14:08 PM | | From: Sam Citron | | | | for heavy duty web use, even a 56K landline is barely fast enough, and that's much faster than most of the wireless choices...I have yet to see an application that convinces me that wireless web is better [than Palm OS].
802.11b has a maximum data rate of 11 Mbps and soon 802.11g promises 54 Mbps. Very useful for extending a broadband connection throughout the house or office. Some are even demanding 802.11 data clouds for their campuses or communities.
Same thing with video. 5 years ago streaming video quality was simply awful. Today it's OK as long as you have broadband and are willing to put up with a small display and occasional glitches. Faster connections and better MPEG compression standards will gradually make it a richer experience, but it will not be the same as TV. Some will say it is better.
For investors, one question is whether such advances will gain enough traction to justify substantial new infrastructure investments, as the automobile brought societal changes that demanded greater mobility and upgrades of the highway system. That is the essence of the Moore's Law investor argument that you need not predict what the next killer app is going to be, but you just know that the cost curves are going to gradually enable a plethora of new apps, some of which will probably gain enough traction to sell a lot of new chips.
Sam |
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| To: mitch-c who wrote (60827) | 2/21/2002 7:23:24 PM | | From: John Trader | | | | Mitch, I did not mean to imply that defense spending is an overall waste of money. I agree with all the points you made. In theory at least, it is a sort of drain on the economy, but many spinoffs from defense spending have been incredible, plus there are other benefits as you have pointed out. In addition, as Sept. 11 proved, we really need a very capable and technologically advanced military.
John |
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| To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (60828) | 2/21/2002 7:31:36 PM | | From: John Trader | | | | Katherine, You are right, there is a tendency for one to take for granted the technology that was created in an earlier era. Your point is well taken. And this would tend to make one feel that recent improvements in technology are more significant then they actually are. And, this applies to me as well. I think you have proved that it is very hard to be objective in evaluating the significance of a new technology, and that the bias will be towards too much enthusiasm. Add further to this effect for engineer types like myself.
But there are some differences I think with this technology. Previously the microprocessor was used mostly for local activities, such as word processing, engineering tasks, accounting tasks, graphic design, and games. The internet capitalized on the existing infrastructure of PC's and related equipment and provided a networking application that was more useful and popular than anyone imagined. The uses for the internet are being driven by Moore's law and available bandwidth, and both chip speed and bandwidth are predicted to continue to increase at incredible rates. The degree of networking allowed by the internet is significant. Telephone allowed mostly conversations between just two people. Radio allows much more, but it is and was too complicated and expensive for the masses to be interested in adoption, and is voice only, which makes it less efficient for interacting. My point is that this invention is different in ways that appear to make it more significant. Metcalf's Law states that the value of a network is related to the number of users on the network. The networking potential here is quite impressive, but I will leave it for others to try to decide whether this plus the growth potential in chip speed and bandwidth make it different than previous inventions with respect to the characteristics of the boom/bust cycle.
At some point I think there will be another "killer application" for the internet. As Gordon Moore stated once in an interview, it will probably surprise everyone when that happens, even the really smart folks. Between now and then, however, we may complete all of Jacob's 7 boom/bust stages.
John |
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| To: Sam Citron who wrote (60843) | 2/21/2002 7:36:11 PM | | From: Jacob Snyder | | | | re: you can practically do that right now.
Requirement: audio-only user interface. While driving the car, I can't look at a screen, or use a keyboard or stylus. I don't want to hit a deer, like I did the last time I was in Montana. And, a device small enough that I'd habitually carry it around (outside the car), won't be big enough to have a usable screen or keyboard. So, IMO, wireless data won't take off, till the interface is audio-only.
And it will only be useful if the data it can access is complete (knows all pizza places), up-to-date, and in depth (knows the menu, prices, etc.)
And it must extract my question, and understand it, in a noisy environment. |
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| To: michael97123 who wrote (60834) | 2/21/2002 7:39:01 PM | | From: John Trader | | | | Mike, I am going to probably going to go with any predictions made by Jacob and other thread members more than my own feelings on where the bottom is in this decline. I feel sort of clueless in this respect, except for the recognition that my generally bullish point of view has not served me well in the last two years.
John |
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| To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (60840) | 2/21/2002 8:02:03 PM | | From: John Trader | | | | Jacob, Ok, I'm depressed. Regarding patterns, if we recognize a pattern of not being able to recognize certain kinds of patterns, then that would useful. I am not saying this applies to you, maybe it applies mostly to me with regards to being able to predict this market.
The argument that the internet is greater than those previous inventions is hard to defend I guess, especially on this thread with such bright minds as we have here. My argument may not be valid, but I tried at least to make this argument. The main point is the networking effect the internet brings that is still taking off. But I agree that you may be entirely correct, and I may be totally wrong. With my overly enthusiastic engineer approach to this question I envision many things that may not materialize, such as the preservation of a large part of the world's oil reserves due to increased networking, a great synergy of minds coming together as a result of this great network, to create new companies, new products, new technologies, which accelerates the capability of the internet, which increases its usefulness, and so on. It is all to complicated to really understand, but it seems at least to be more significant than these other inventions. The error in judgement could be explained by Katherine's post - it might just be my frame of reference.
As usual, your arguments are very good, and they make good sense. Thanks for the inputs. You are helping to make this bull into more of a bear, which, according to your model for internet/telecom, will probably save me a lot of money and aggravation going forward.
I am depressed not because I am more accepting now of your model for this tech debacle, but because I was not depressed much much earlier. There has been a financial cost to my enthusiasm.
Regards,
John |
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| To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (60847) | 2/21/2002 8:24:41 PM | | From: Rick Storm | | | | | Jacob, doesn't this market action worry you in that lots of the contrary indicators are kind of bland like p/c, hi-lo, and vix; wouldnt you like to see more fear to convince you that a bottom is near? PS, today I also bought Amat; but I am worried about the bottom---pps why have you chosen 40 for the next buy? thanks |
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