From my perch I see Blackberry’s

First Generation Smartphone Grows OOOOLLLLDD

interest waning; its major strengths are pushed email and a wide variety of phones with keyboards.  If you’d rather type than touch it’s the way to go.

Apple’s iPhone has matured as a fabulous media/entertainment device.  Apple’s own website touts iTunes, HD video capabilities, and millions of apps on its own list of accomplishments.  Yes, it also searches the Internet and well, but…

Google Android’s got search, navigation, and mail at the soul of its machine. Androids ships with strong connections to Google’s apps and services, including App Pack Gmail, Google Talk, Messaging, Voice Mail, Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.  Apple’s iPhone can certainly handle the same tasks, but the emphasis is on media–my photos, music, video.

With this logic, my clear choice was the Google Nexus One, but yours might be very different.  (And after Apple’s news that it would go after the Nexus One and other Android phones for violation of patents, I’m getting that cold feeling back in my feet.)

Other reasons I find Google phones appealing:

Less Is More: Apple passed the 150,000 mark for apps developed for iTunes. It could take the better part of a day to sort through crossword puzzle choices.  Android has only 20,000, Blackberry less still. Me, I’d rather have an edited list of best of breed apps than a free for all. I find iTunes offers hundreds of apps for each of my interests, but a large number of them turn out to be underwhelming.

Google Docs: As someone who knows how to get things done in Microsoft Office that even Microsoft can’t do, change does not come easy to me. I find many aspects of Google Docs inscrutable, but as sharing docs amongst devices and collaborators is becoming increasingly important, Google’s got the lead.

Though I expect Google will push its way into the content market (e-books from the Google store, for example, will be able to be read on most computers, phones, or e-book readers), I’m not going the single device route quite yet. My iPod Touch is still the best way to enjoy music, podcasts, photos, and videos.  And my Amazon Kindle is still the best screen format for e-books. But, when it comes to business, my soul is going to Google (at least this year).

My bets on some of the hottest trends at the show:

eBook Wars: You’ll have seen most of them before the opening day of CES, but you’re going to begin to see a features war over book readers. Color readers, readers with two screens, readers with backlit screens, pocket readers, multimedia readers, and so on. The good news? All this talk about reading may resuscitate the printed word. If you’re at CES, visit the eReader exhibit on the CES floor and the HigherEd Tech Summit.* Both will be discussing how ebooks will replace those high-priced printed versions.

3D: James Cameron may be getting all the 3D glory on the big screen this season, but there are plenty of folks at CES leaving their 3D mark. Look for notebooks and netbooks from the likes of Acer (3D glasses required). SONY, Mitsubishi, and Panasonic will be showing the next variant of 3D TV (glasses required on most, not all). Even the gamemakers (keep an eye on PlayStation) will be supporting 3D output. ASUS has just announced a 3D gaming notebook, the G51 J 3D. My favorite? Fujifilm has a new camera that shoots photos and videos in 3D and requires no glasses. The trick? Two sensors built into the camera.

Mobile Phones and Their Apps: There are now over 100,000 iPhone apps; that’s a pretty big business. But the iPhone is being challenged by Android, RIM Blackberry, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, and Nokia’s Symbian environments. As consumers, we want to know what apps are worth paying for; as a developer, you’ll want to know what apps to create for. These topics will be visited in multiple places on the show floor, but the Mobile Apps Showdown should be a nice culmination of an app-ified world.

Mind and Body: Take a motion sensor, add some software and a cloud computing app, and you’ve got the recipe for a healthier body. Look for everything from digital pedometers with online recordkeeping to elaborate systems that measure your energy output and give you enough readout to put the Challenger’s dashboard to shame. Watch for biofeedback, relaxation, remote medical data collection, and more.

Telepresence: Yes, it’s a Trekian buzzword, but get used to it. Simply (probably too simply) put, telepresence creates the illusion that something is near you, even though it is not. Video conferencing, distance learning, remote medical diagnoses–all of these rely on telepresence. Look for Cisco to take the lead, but IBM, Microsoft, and others will express their violent interest in this topic.

Augmented Reality: A close cousin of telepresence, augmented reality was beginning to seep into our collective consciousness at the last CES. It’s back, and in general it describes a technology that adds a level of information on top of your physical reality. Point your phone at a person and it might automatically recognize them and offer the person’s vital stats for you. Point a digital camera at an object (say, a museum) and have entries about that object appear on your screen. Making augmented reality more real are manufacturers like NVIDIA. Its new Tegra chip packs the power of a PC onto a single, small chip.

* Disclosure: My company, Living in Digital Times, produces the Mobile Apps Showdown and the HigherEd Tech Summit at CES.

In my last post, we looked at Intel’s study on mobile etiquette. Now we can see what one company with a wicked sense of  humor is doing about it.

At last, perfect gift for obnoxious cellphone abusers. It’s called Cell-R-Derm.  Modelled on the transdermal patches you’d use to stop smoking, these patches (once you get the joke) will make you rethink your cellphone habits. Designed to cure the viral C-Cellutosis, the gift recipient gets a box of translucent patches to be applied somewhere around the neck area. Promising to “patch up your life” and get rid of your “cellular hangups,” the kit will either bring a laugh or a sharp object into the hands of  the loved one in question.

Cell-R-Derm folks went undercover to assess the disease.  You can view their research in THE BATHROOM and in THE BEDROOM. The gift box includes 13 semi-transparent patches and a lot of comic explanations. It’s the joke gift that packs a message.

The study polled over 2,000 people to find out what most of us know. Most online U.S. adults (80%) feel there are unspoken rules about mobile technology usage, and approximately 7 in 10 (69%) agreed that violations of these unspoken guidelines, such as checking emails, sending text messages, and making phone calls while in the company of others, are unacceptable.

More than half (52%) would be offended if they were at a holiday party and someone attempted to secretly use an Internet-enabled device such as a laptop, netbook, or cellphone at the table. Funny thing is that 75% feel it is perfectly appropriate to use Internet-enabled devices, including laptops, netbooks, and cellphones, in the bathroom (yuck!).

At the Tea Room, Intel’s own ethnographer, Dr. Genevieve Bell, and Anna Post, descendant of Emily Post and etiquette expert for the Emily Post Institute, were on hand with advice. “The social rules for new technologies are continuing to be established across cultures and geographies around the world, and etiquette will continue to change and adapt over time along with it,” said Dr. Bell. “Etiquette surrounding mobile technology is becoming increasingly relevant, particularly in social situations such as holiday gatherings and events,” said Ms. Post.

One area where anti-tech bias seems to have softened is the holiday greeting card. More than half of online adults (62%) would send an electronic greeting card or email in lieu of a traditional card and, despite what parents have always taught their children about the value of a handwritten “thank you” note, almost 9 out of 10 (88%) online adults would not be offended if they received an email or electronic thank you.

Intel’s holiday lesson: No matter how great the temptation or how much the thing is vibrating in your pocket, do not answer your email or phone calls at the holiday table. Not unless you want your mouth washed out with soap or, at minimum, your phone confiscated.

Read on and I’ll tell you about Cell-R-Derm, the perfect gift for the cell phone abuser in your family.

Don’t they know that texting is just the tip of the iceberg? Your phone is about to distract you in so many new and exciting ways that you may never look at the road again. Take a look at the three apps I just saw at the DEMO conference this month. I think they’re out to get me.

Waze is a free app that allows you to build maps, update other drivers about traffic, police traps, and other potential gotchas. It’s available on Android, iPhone, RIM, and Windows. In all fairness to Waze, they get their dynamic traffic information in two ways. If you’re just driving around, your GPS is updating other drivers about where you are and whether you’re stuck in traffic. You can take a more active role as a traffic reporter by sending people messages about your commute. At that point Waze becomes a social-networking mobile driving application. Yikes. It’s a free app, but should be labeled “handle with care.”

TravelTrac, maker of MotoTrac, lets you build a website and update it constantly, keeping an in-depth, multimedia log of your vacation, your car pool, or any other road trip. Used wisely, MotoTrac provides the tools to build a travel site, open it to others to share, chart your route so friends and family can see you, add photos and real-time voice reports. The company’s demo reminds me of a multimedia twitterer on road trip. Great app, but take it from me, you’ve got to balance documenting your life with getting out of your car, right? There’re also versions of the product for sailors and for hikers.

Traffictalk is a voice-based traffic information sharing system. Your phone gets updates from other drivers in real time It’s meant to keep you talking, not texting. But the company demo showed that there are still plenty of buttons to press when transmitting and receiving. The new word for apps like this one and Waze are “crowdsourcing” — using the wisdom of the crowd to get your information. It may be new to us, but truckers have been doing it on CB radios forever.

Goo is back, reincarnated as an iPhone/iTouch app called Making Faces. It’s a hoot. Load in any image and, using your fingers, you can pinch, bulge, spike, twirl, wave, ripple, nudge, smear, and otherwise whack-out your images. Then turn them into a time-lapse movie. The true power of this $2.99 app won’t be fully realized until you can email your creation to friends, but in the meantime you can definitely have a load of fun making faces.

The Winner: Schlage Wireless

A complete home security/management solution. You purchase the wireless base station unit along with various peripherals (motion sensors, webcams, temperature sensors, etc.) at stores like Lowes. Your phone then becomes your command central, controlling your home’s security, heating, etc. If anything seems out of the norm you get a phone or text message.

Other contestants included:

In second place, Princeton Review SAT Vocab Challenge. “Mom, Dad…I need an iPhone.” That will be the battle cry of high schoolers everywhere with Princeton Review’s new iPhone application. It helps improve vocabulary using iPhone games and drills that mimic the thought process (elimination, for example) that they’ll need to use in order get a good score on the SAT.

Centrl

Your cellphone knows where you are and this location-based social network helps you connect with your friends. Share your favorite locations, discover new places, meet new people, and find special money-saving offers.

Boxee

Think of it as Apple TV you can control from your cellphone. Boxee turns your PC into a media center that you can control from your iPhone.

RmberMe/BeamMe

Does passing business cards around seem a bit anachronistic? This app lets you send and receive business cards (.vcf) from phone to phone.

YouMail

Typed one email too many? YouMail lets you speak your emails (speech-to-text technology) and converts them to mail messages that can be viewed on any phone, email system, or browser.

SpinVox

Phones were meant for talking to. That sentiment is the underpinning of a robust platform for developers as well as a stand-alone application. It converts speech into text on your phone.

Snac Mobile

A complete iPhone solution for creating widgets and single click entities for you phone.

Click here to view these pictures larger

The program, It’s Your Call, was developed by a not-for-profit organization, Web Wise Kids. Targeted at cell-totin’ middle schoolers and based on true stories, the characters confront issues including sexting, bullying, cheating on exams, and more. As a player, you become a live-action character in the interactive movie. You’re presented with a series of difficult decisions revolving around cellphone usage. The consequences of your actions are then played out on the screen. There are no right or wrong answers—just different outcomes based on your decisions.

WILL Interactive, the company that created It’s Your Call, is no stranger to tween and teen controversy. The company has similar games that explore suicide and prescription drugs usage amongst teens.

For the moment, schools and educators can purchase a license for the game through Web Wise Kids. Hopefully it will be available to consumers shortly.

We’ll be looking at some of the announcements made during the Kids@Play Summit at CES. (Disclosure: Robin Raskin, the author, also produces Kids@Play at CES.)

Elmo on Your Cellphone?

Sesame Street Workshop CEO Gary Knell kicked off the morning session with a new study from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a think tank for advancing kids’ learning in the digital age, called “Pockets of Potential.” The study looks at how cellphones and handheld devices can be successfully used in education.

More than half of the world’s population now owns a cellphone and children under 12 constitute one of the fastest growing segments of mobile device users. The study looks at research, expert opinion, and industry trends to show how mobile devices can help re-energize learning. To see the full study.

Intel Debuts One Very Special Laptop

While the first low cost laptops like the OLPC and Intel Classmate were created with the kid-population of developing countries in mind, the Intel Classmate PC’s second generation design is different. It’s meant to be a powerful tool for kids everywhere. At Kids@Play, Jeffery R. Galinovsky, the regional head for the Classmate PC ecosystem in mature markets, and his preteen daughter, MacKenzie, gave a compelling demonstration of the newest Intel Classmate.

The biggest difference is that the new Classmate can be transformed from a clamshell design to a tablet PC so that kids can use them as writing and drawing tablets. Intel implemented a technology called “palm rejection” that allows the PC to be used as a writing tablet, while ignoring those hands and palms that rest on the screen and mess up the child’s work. The Classmate also has an accelerometer built in. It knows when you’ve switched screen orientations and adjusts accordingly. Watch Jeff preview the new unit on YouTube. The most dramatic moment of the demo was when MacKenzie and Jeff gave the laptop a rough toss that landed on a nearby table in order to prove the tablet’s ruggedness.

Mattel’s Mind Flex

One of the hottest announcements at the show was Mattel’s Mind Flex, a real world miniature obstacle course you control with your mind. The idea is to get a small ball kept afloat by a fan to literally jump through hoops. To play, you put on a special getup with sensors placed on your head and your earlobes. The sensors register theta waves. The more you concentrate, the stronger the theta waves. The stronger the theta waves, the more the fan spins. Get your fan spinning just right and your ball is pushed through its paces. Here’s a YouTube video from TechCrunch.