Joseph Palenchar

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Will 3D Be The Next-Gen Mobile Interface?

Keypads, navigation keys, touchpads and perhaps even touchscreens could be the mobile-device interfaces of the past if Nokia and Intel have their way. The two companies opened their first joint research center at a Finnish university, where they will focus on creating new ways to interface with your mobile phone or other mobile device. What ways? Company and university representatives... More

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Retailers As The Next Wireless MVNOs

During the 1990s, when retail sales of pagers were booming, multiple retailers — mainly car stereo retailers — resold paging service under their own brand name. Departing from more traditional private-label arrangements, these retailers billed customers for monthly airtime service and fielded customer-service calls. The retailer, in effect, was the carrier. Today, history has... More

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Component Audio’s Distribution Challenges

Can the component-audio industry survive without nationwide retail chains and online stores? By their actions in recent weeks, many component-audio suppliers think not. Thiel opened up Amazon.com, its third online retailer to date. Bowers & Wilkins struck a deal with Best Buy to sell select products through freestanding Magnolia Audio Video stores well as through the Magnolia... More

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iPads As Smartphone Complements (II)

A Wi-Fi-equipped iPad would be a natural complement to a smartphone equipped with an embedded mobile Wi-Fi hot spot, but consumers won’t have as many good options to pair the two as I had hoped. To great fanfare earlier this year, Palm unveiled the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus, both with embedded hot spot. AT&T, however, has disabled the hot spot feature in its versions of the... More

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Navigation: How We Got Where We Are

Anyone selling car navigation systems or portable navigation devices (PNDs) must thank at least two people — Bill Clinton and Stanley Honey — for their roles in fostering the industry. Stanley Honey was one of the founders of Etak (now Tele Atlas, which is part of TomTom) and he was the visionary behind the world’s first consumer-oriented car-navigation system, the... More