Smart Meters Go Wireless

Summary:  T-Mobile USA has hooked up with Echelon, a provider of smart meters, to make those meters wireless.  Smart meters are a key to upgrading the power grid and the wireless feature will simplify connection to the utility companies.

Echelon and T-Mobile recently announced that Echelon will embed a wireless SIM into its smart meters.  T-Mobile’s value-add is also that the chips will be more durable than current deployments.

The wireless connection will improve the link into the utilities, providing them with real-time information on power usage, as well as problems with their networks.

So What?

This is a “shovel-ready” project to upgrade the grid that also seems to have a knock-on, or multiplier effect, not to mention improving efficiency of the power network.  Apparently, the embedding has already begun.  Echelon has already delivered some 100,000 of its smart meters in the US (to Duke Energy) and more than 1.6m around the world—though without the wireless connection.

The Knock-on Effect

The knock-on effect suggests that companies can provide data management applications for the utilities.  The obvious starting point is the incoming data on power usage and network reliability.  However, data miners could work with the utilities to monetize those data—with obvious and very careful attention to privacy matters.

Finally, imagine an app on your smartphone and/or your laptop, telling you your immediate usage.  One the data are available on a wireless basis, then they can be delivered to any number of platforms (taking into account that the data are initially broadcast in cellular radio format).

Shame on You, Twitterfeed, & All Those with Bad GUIs and Help Pages.

Summary:  Stop this nonsense about completely cryptic methods of sharing and interconnecting, especially through (and to) Twitter. 917 people posing the same question should raise some eyebrows.

I am truly annoyed.  Furniture-throwing kind of annoyed.  I just spent an hour trying to get Twitterfeed to work, which required me to create a NEW OpenID ID (no, they would not accept my usual one) and still it would not permit me to post my blogs to Twitter and the help pages took me to another place (Get Satisfaction) where I had to get ANOTHER ID to post my question-and I was one of 917 people with the same question.

My comments here should indict four groups of people and their management teams and their VC backers:  Twitter, Twitterfeed, OpenID and Get Satisfaction.  Stop it.  Now. I won’t even get started on Tweetdeck.  Or Twitterberry.  Oh yes, and FeedValidator.  It is simply evil.  Unless you have a degree in computer science.

What is it with the technology world and GUIs and help pages??????????????????? Is it some supercilious sense of superiority????????????  Is it supposed to be some kind of computer science exam when you go to the page on why your feed won’t parse on Twitterfeed?  When will they figure out that 99.999999 % of us DO NOT WANT TO SPEND OUR LIVES TRYING TO FIGURE THIS STUFF OUT???!!!! And I do not want to pay for our IT department to spend one minute on it.  Stop it.  Now.

Note to Get Satisfaction and OpenID:  Translate your sites into Romanian or Urdu.  It would be just as useful to me in those languages as it is in English.

Note to Venture Capitalists:  If you can figure out Twitterfeed, it does not mean it will be successful.  Try out its GUI on someone on, say, Main Street (or its equivalent) in Merced, not on Sandhill Road.  For brownie points, try the GUI of Get Satisfaction or OpenID. Come on.

Facebook as an Object Lesson. The reason that Facebook is so successful (not to mention LinkedIn) is that its GUI is really, really, really simple.  What’s the number of users:  220 million?  Twitter is fast catching on but it is sort of like a Microsoft product:  Very nearly 100% of the users only know how to post tweets and NOTHING ELSE.  No one knows how to use most of the features of it.  Very nearly 100% of the Facebook users know how to use everything on their profiles.

Now, true, Facebook’s GUI is kind of dumbed down.  So it is not a model for Twitter but it ought to be an object lesson.

I have been in the business (technology) since 1989.  I am not stupid.  For most of that time I have considered myself a beta testing group of one person.  It is simple:  If I don’t get it then something like 90% of the desired market will not get it.  And you know what?  My track record has been pretty impressive.

OK, so my blogs are not read by gejillions.  But they are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.  And they do not have to go to OpenID and create an ID through myvidloop.com.  and Twitterfeed cannot parse them and someone in Nairobi can read what I write.  WHAT IS GOING ON??

Note to Twitter, Twitterfeed, OpenID and Get Satisfaction.  Pack a bag and go to Cincinnati.  Knock on the door of Proctor & Gamble and ask for help on determining consumer preferences for GUI design and, just as important, your help pages.  Help pages should solve the problem and if they do not, have a backup plan-for example, a screen capture button.

Anyone tried some of the Google apps?  What about Google Voice?  It isn’t a great GUI but, you know what????  It works.

Better yet, call up Apple.  They’ll help.

GUI design has been a science for over a decade.  Now make it an art for the masses.  Quickly.  Your competitors will overtake you.

Or I might start throwing furniture.  Along with the limited partners of the venture funds.

And remember this and only this if your brain has gotten addled from trying to sort out these sorts of glitches:  I am one of 917 people with the same question on Twitterfeed.  Shame on you.

Infrastructure Bill Will Be Good for Digital Companies

You can look elsewhere to find out details of the infrastructure bill just passed by the US House of Representatives (we really do not want to bore you), but we do want to emphasize that much of the bill will funnel money to digital companies across a broad range of projects. This could be a good thing.

1. Many billions will go to develop broadband access.

2. Many billions will go to digitize medical and related health care records.

3. Many billions will go to upgrading the national power grid–specifically, to make it a “smart” grid.

4. Many billions will go to upgrading “classic” infrastructure like bridges and roads–which will undoubtedly include digital initiatives.

Oh yes, the bill will change in the Senate and in committee, but these focal points are not likely to change.