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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Apple May Be Stealing Ideas From Star Trek

Sometimes I wonder where Apple gets all its great ideas.  Perhaps all the tech geeks are using Star Trek as their inspiration to turn science fiction into science fact.  "There's a chance Apple's new version of Mac OS X, called Mountain Lion, will allow voice dictation from Siri, reports 9to5Mac."  And so the next iteration of the Mac will be able to type reports without a keyboard.  


It reminds me of a scene straight out of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when Kirk and the gang are in present day San Francisco, finding a humpback whale to save the future earth.  In one scene, Scotty attempts to dictate to the computer by speaking into the mouse.  When nothing gets typed and he has to resort to the keyboard, he responds, "How quaint".  As Siri becomes more embedded in all our Apple products, we may find ourselves saying the exact same thing.  I mean, why type when we can speak exactly what we need.

MSO Success Will Result From More B2B Engagements

That cable wire strung across communities, and initially aimed for residences and neighborhoods, might just make greater sense on main street, malls, and other business areas.  While consumers may be cutting the cord and relying more on their mobile phones, businesses need landline phones and web access to meet their business needs.  And cable companies are seeing the  benefits of marketing to the  business community.

"Cable operators' share of the business services market could double to as much as 21% in the next five years, according to a panel discussion at The Cable Show Tuesday."  Good news for cable operators coming in with a competitive product and more to compete with the current telco offering.  In some markets, online required a DSL or dial up, especially when connecting with credit card machines; cable brings an always on connection to improve processing speed to the transaction.  Add that broadband connection with a hard line phone connection and cable can bring more value to the business.  And for those companies that would also like a video connection, cable operators provide that, too.