“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all…” JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien may be onto something … – and the cell phone industry certainly seems ready to embrace the concept of “One Device to do it all.” Smart phones have become the multi-tool of the 21st century, although I’m personally still eagerly awaiting the first models to feature a folding knife and a pair of pliers in the accessories list. Preferably, this phone would be rubberized, water and dirt proof too.

Meanwhile, I am excited to see that it’s getting easier to use smart phones to find these dirty, wet places. Read more…

A fall 2008 survey of 5,500 U.S. Internet users suggests that almost two-thirds (62%) watch “online video” each week, making online video more popular than time-shifted television (38%). However, almost half (47%) who watch online video choose “short-form” video, so it’s not fair for my brain to compare that consumption pattern with DVRs. Only 15 percent watch “long-form” video online; 14 percent watch both.

But it sounds like Starz (the data source) is using a more encompassing definition of “online” than mine. Theirs appears to be everything that is not TV, which includes iPods, xBox, PS2 and Netflix streaming — as well as Current.tv and Hulu. So this universe is much larger than YouTube or GoogleVideo. Read more…