TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Update:  Don’t miss our upcoming CES 2011 live coverage here at Technology Report

Techmeme is a favorite of many in technology for pulling together technology stories and the conversations that often swirl around them.  Unlike a simple “ranking” system, TechMeme surfaces the top stories and then links out to blogs and sites that are discussing those “hot topics”.     Thus a quick review of TechMeme can give you a very fast orientation to the stories that are making their rounds in the blogs.    That does not always correspond to stories that actually *matter* to real folks, but it’s a great start.

TechMeme’s new story editor Megan has a list here of the top 10 for 2008.   Number one was the Microsoft – Yahoo aquisition saga, number two was Apple quitting MacWorld, and number three was Google Chrome.

Disclosure: Long on YHOO

hybrid_scooter_vm300h1

Following is a press release from ELV Motors.  Generally we run our own reviews here at Technology Report but to keep up with the flood of CES information we’ll also be posting press releases for interesting products we may not have the time to review ourselves:

All Electric Motor Bike a2b

Las Vegas, NV - This year CES is highlighting Greener Gadgets in a special Tech Zone section in Central Hall. The Greener Gadgets TechZone features the pioneering technologies that benefit the environment and sustainability of global economy. ELV Motors, the first electric transportation company to exhibit at CES will be featured in this section  .

ELV Motors offers “Fleet Certified” electric bicycles and electric and hybrid scooters for companies, consumers and cities. Electric bikes and scooters are the perfect solution for companies, fleets, security patrol, police, commuters, students, vacationers, baby boomers, and anyone concerned about the enviroment and saving money.

Electric bicycles and scooters are used for:

• Indoor and outdoor security, police and EMT patrol
• Commuting up to 40 miles on a 10 cent charge
• Running errands and traveling on school and business campuses
• Employees and guests at resorts

• Reducing operating costs and adding alternative energy vehicles to fleets 

e1600-electric-scooter

  ”New hi-tech and stylish electric bicycles like the A2B, the fun to ride electric scooters like the E-1600, and the all new Verde Motors hybrid gas/electric scooters are great ways to save money while helping to save our enviroment,” said Douglas Schwartz, President & CEO of ELV Motors, Inc.

At booth 8733 in the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone, ELV Motors will be demonstrating the:

• 2009 A2B electric bicycle from Ultra Motor - (500 watt throttle driven electric bicycle that can travel 20 mph for 20 miles without pedaling)
• New A2B police, patrol and fleet electric bicycle – (500 watt throttle driven electric bicycle with police, security or EMT lights, pack and markings)
• 2009 Verde Motors  VM3000H - (3000 watt, 149cc hybrid scooter that can travel 45mph with 130mpg)
• Dual motor E-1600 all electric scooter - (1600 watt dual motor electric scooter that can travel 30mph for up to 40 miles per charge)
• UM24 electric foldable commuter bicycle - (250 watt pedal assisted electric bicycle that can travel 16 mph for 20 miles)
  

  motor_bike_um44l2

   

   

   

   

   

   

  For more information visit ELV Motors at www.elvmotors.com call 408 850-8191, or email doug@elvmotors.com

  For information on dealerships contact bobby@elvmotors.com

  ____________________________________________________________

  Video of KGO Interview: Click here: Additional video footage available

  Photos: Click here

  Source: Douglas Schwartz, ELV Motors.
  

Wired has their list of the top ten technology breakthroughs of 2008.    Here’s the list.  I’m not sure I can get too excited about anybody that makes breakthrough *number one* the Apple Developer Aps Store, but it’s an interesting list at the least with everything from flexible displays (cool, but not out yet) to the Speedo LZR super slick swimsuits.     Hmmm – swimsuits and Apple application stores?    I’m kind of wondering if somebody put this together last night after a big turkey dinner.

C’mon Wired, surely there’s better stuff out there than this list?

With CES 2009 coming up in about ten days I’m confident that a better list than this, which we’ll be creating here at Technology Report during the Las Vegas conference, will have the top ten innovations *including* some of the superb innovations we are likely to see unveiled at CES.

However I should say it’ll be hard to top my current choice for top technology breakthrough of 2008 which came from the IBM Blue Brain project lab – a computerized simulation of a rat neocortical column.    Doesn’t sound impressive to you?   Keep in mind – that would be in the mind that equals your cerebrum which is largely composed of neocortical columns -  that the Blue Brain project may be on track to deliver a fully functional artificial intelligence.

CES is best known as the world’s most prestigious showcase for consumer technologies and keynotes by tech luminaries, but CES also hosts hundreds of conference sessions where panelists discuss everything from the video game economy to developing world technology. Last year I found the session about technology innovations in the developing world both fascinating and inspiring.

Here’s a list of the session categories and the links will take you to CES summaries of each of sessions:

• CES Knowledge Tracks
• Digital Hollywood
• Cable Conference at CES
• CES Game Power Conference
• CES Mobile Entertainment
• CES Reinventing Advertising Conference
• Billboard’s Digital Music Live!
• CES Government 2009
• CONNECTIONS™ SUMMIT
• Consumer Electronics Supply Chain Academy
• Flash Memory—The Future of Consumer Products
• Fourth Generation Mobile Forum^®
• IEEE: International Conference on Consumer Electronics (may require separate registration?)
  
• Kids@Play
• P2P Media Summit LV
• Silvers Summit
• The Social Media Jungle at the 2009 CES
• Storage Visions™ 2009
• Understanding Moisture/Reflow Sensitivity for IC Packages

Although some might say the Instinct and HTC Dream rival the iPhone in terms of form and function, they clearly do not appear to pose much threat to the iPhone and Blackberry Smartphone dominance.  However in 2009 Nokia will broadly launch the N97, a virtual mini computer that some think could be a serious rival to the iPhone. As seen in this Nokia promotion video, the N97 is a stylish full featured smartphone with a full mini keyboard and some other amenities lacking in Apple’s iPhone. However, at the current street pricing of about $800 for unlocked units the N97 will have to be sold at a significantly lower price to dent the iPhone and Blackberry’s reputation as the best phones in their class.

When Google Chrome launched several months ago I think a lot of folks assumed they’d be switching to that browser, which uses several excellent innovations to enhance online navigation.     Google even issued a nifty comic book to help explain the innovation, and blogs were buzzing for weeks with mostly neutral or favorable reviews.

So what happened?    Why is Google Chrome market share so small compared to Firefox and IE?

The first reason of course is simply  … habit ….   It’s very hard to get people – even innovative online folks – to change from one good application to another.   Contrary to a lot of silly suggestions the Internet Explorer browser was not broken and even though FireFox has slowly been gaining market share it is clear that the rapid demise of IE was greatly exaggerated.     I use FireFox but I’d hardly say it’s dramatically superior or even all that different from IE.

Although it’s hurting Google Chrome, our habituation works very well for Google in the search sphere where people tend to use Google for search without even testing against other engines – that game is over and until we see a major new semantic search innovation Google’s likely to be the search of choice for years to come.

Interestingly Google Chrome really does “feel” different to me and on balance I liked the differences, yet like millions of other onliners who loaded up Chrome I did not switch over and rarely use that browser now.  I know one of my concerns was the uncertainty that still surrounds Google’s treatment of the data I indirectly share with them using Google products.   As a regular user of Google search, Gmail, blogger, and more watching Google both become dominant and also struggle to maintain their legendarily high online revenue I do worry that Google has too great a potential to become “the boss of me”.

Still not sure what’s up with Chrome, but as with many things internet it’s good to head over to Matt Cutts’ blog to get a very well informed opinion.     Matt is one of a handful of Google’s veteran search engineers and writes what for many is the key blog discussing issues relating to search, especially Google search.

Matt’s Five Reasons to Use Google Chrome

Matt’s Ten Reasons Not to Like Google Chrome

Hmmm – I don’t think it’s fair to use the 5 vs 10 math here, but maybe Matt’s on to something.   As creatures of habit we tend to settle in to the familiar and with the new we quickly look for things that bother us.   Google Chrome may in fact be the best browser, and I think I’d want to take the Crhome side in a debate even though I’m not using it, but not sure if I’ll be able to break the old browser habits.    Will you?

CES 2009 in Las Vegas is only a few weeks away and Intel has launched an excellent new website called “ConsumerElectronicsInsider.com“  to aggregate the CES blog posts and content in a single place.     It will be interesting to see how this approach compares to more carefully filtered and ranked content we’ll find at TechMeme.com during CES.     I suspect Technorati will remain the best source for finding all the posts about CES – last year it was hard to sort through the many early reports and  then the tsunami of blogs and reports that stream in just after the conference begins and continue until a few days after the end of CES.

Note: To be included in this Intel CES Website blogs and resources must use the tag “CES09″ on content.

Also note that CEA has an excellent blog with timely information, especially for those attending CES in Las Vegas:   http://blog.ce.org/

Editor’s note: More Equipment for the road Warrior. Let’s see if they can beat Apple’s price point.  –J Ghysels.  

Barcelona, Spain:  Nokia unveils the N97 with a tilting touchscreen display, keyboard, and widescreen video formatting.   Touts the N97 as offering a full mobile computing experience.