KillerApp Sightings

The first-ever conference covering the applications that are driving broadband use opened today in Fort Wayne, Indiana. With standing-room-only crowds in the conference sessions and throngs on the exhibit floor, we're off to a strong start. Longer articles (and pictures, and videos) are coming soon, but in the meantime, a few highlights from Day 1:

- In Bandon, Oregon, a small town that installed a new fiber-to-the-home network, high school students are now staying in town when they graduate, instead of leaving for bigger cities. The local art center is being expanded, a new golf course is being built, and the hotel is being refurbished.

- In Winona, Minnesota, the ambulances are outfitted with videocameras and transmit live video from accident scenes to the hospital emergency room, so the ER can be ready to deal with what's coming their way.

- In Lafayette, Louisiana, the community center sheltered evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Because the center was fiber-wired, they quickly set up VoIP service and allowed evacuees to contact their relatives long before anyone else could.

- In West Valley City, Utah, the executive director of the UTOPIA fiber-to-the-home network not only keeps in touch with his grown children by videoconference, he even shares his TV with them through a Slingbox. Seems like fiber communities are getting more channels and better reception than others...

- Global Online Solutions Network is providing a "Safe Site" surveillance application to developers. The company brings in a fiber trunk and a headend and sets up motion sensors that trigger video cameras. The system helps developers monitor the site during building and can provide security services to homeowners once the lots are sold. Because the security team can always see what triggered the alarm, "there are no false alarms," the company's founders say.

- Some property developers are using "virtual flythroughs" on the Web to sell their properties. Others are creating replicas of new developments on Second Life. They can not only give homebuyers an advance look at the development, they can even sell the virtual houses!

Posted by Editor at 11:18 PM | Permalink

A: Vimeo is the most low-key video site we've ever seen. Most of the clips don't appear to have been created for entertainment, for documentation, for instruction, or for any purpose other than reproducing the quirky textures of everyday life -- video on a whim, or found video. There's a guy lying in a mud puddle in the rain, scenes of upstate New York drifting by a car window as the filmer drives home from work, plugs being rearranged in a surge protector, two guys moving a car on the street, as observed from an apartment window....

Some of the content is beautiful, and some of it is silly. Much of it is only meant for friends and family, and isn't visible to visitors who haven't been invited to view it. But the site is generating a culture of serendipity - users celebrated Vimeo's second birthday in February by pushing their record buttons at the same moment (11:00 GMT on February 16) and filming whatever was happening in front of them. Here's one of the results:

Simultaneous Capture 3am Seattle, WA 02/16/07 on Vimeo

Posted by Editor at 3:05 PM | Permalink

There's a wealth of instructional videos on the Web, but finding the one with the information you need can be a challenge. Enter SuTree, a social bookmarking site dedicated to lifelong learning. Whether your goal is to open a wine bottle with the panache of the waiter in the Four Seasons, juggle like a pro or make zillions in the stock market, you can search on SuTree and find a video somewhere on the Web. Some of the content comes from educational institutions, others from self-appointed experts, but everything on the site has been added by someone who liked it and then rated by others who have watched it.

Using SuTree is free, and all of the content it links to is also free. Registration is required in order to add content, but not for searching.

Posted by Editor at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Setting up for the Gathering

Today is the opening of the Gathering, an annual event in Norway that draws thousands of participants from all over Scandinavia -- and the world -- for four days of cyber-competitions. Participants compete for prizes in creative "demos," which the organizers describe as:

...some sort of real-time generated music video or multimedia presentation. Usually a collaborative effort, a demo represents the combined skills of a demo goup, featuring stunning graphics and amazing visual effects synchronized to a kicking soundtrack. Demos usually display state-of-the art 3D graphics, pushing the boundaries of currently available technology to present a spectacular show of light and sound to the viewer. Demos usually feature abstract three-dimensional shapes, and visual representations of advanced mathemathics.

For the less creative, there are also online gaming competitions.

Needless to say, all of this requires a great deal of bandwidth. Swedish-based carrier TeliaSonera supplied the event with a 1 Gbps Internet connection.

Posted by Editor at 11:50 AM | Permalink

What new broadband applications are you waiting for? Tell us what you think the next killer app will be.

Posted by Editor at 8:19 AM | Permalink