RELEASE: FALL
Small Screen, Big Plans
Everyone wants a piece of the little display on cell phones. Several industry leaders have unified their plan of attack and dubbed it the Wireless Application Protocol, which puts phone data standards into the same wrapper. In theory, WAP is like the Web's transfer protocol, but for phones. WAP-compatible handsets will arrive later this year, but manufacturers will likely tweak the protocol so they can each market their own intentionally incompatible portals.
AT&T and Sprint both promise WAP services, guaranteeing buzzword status for the punchy acronym. And while WAP will carry some Web content, it works best with the text menus of wireless markup language. Pizza chains and other mobile-oriented concerns may soon need WAP sites more than Web sites. In the post-PC era, we'll have no time for pretty pictures.
Wireless Application Protocol: www.wapforum.org.
RELEASE: FALL
The Bulls and the Bees
If you're tired of being confined within the gray walls of a cubicle, take heart: You could have a whole new workplace soon. Resolve, Herman Miller's office-furniture system, changes the modular metaphor from bull pens - or veal-fattening pens - to beehives. The setup organizes offices with hexagons and 120-degree angles, like those of bees' sturdy, efficient homes.
Designer Ayse Birsel created Resolve for a world of networks and telecommuting where people come to the workplace to connect - not just with one another, but with Ethernet ports as well. The system defines rounder, more open-feeling workspaces anchored by points, not lines - freestanding poles, not dividers. Where old-style cubicle walls carried wires and cabling as an afterthought to their original mid-1960s design, Resolve locates data lines in the poles - the obvious and most accessible place. Horizontal trusses support hanging fabric screens, which can be sturdy enough to hold a whiteboard or gauzy enough to see through. Light and air circulate freely throughout the environment - as does loud talk - but Birsel compares the feeling it creates to a beach, where you're peripherally aware of others but can mind your own business.
Like stage backdrops, Resolve defines a look with minimal materials, and you can easily redecorate (union rules permitting) by swapping in screens with new patterns or colors. Herman Miller is producing custom graphics for the recyclable fabric and anticipates imprinting it digitally with logos and other identity motifs. One of Resolve's earliest adopters is Monsanto - partitions in the megacorporation's India office will be printed with local tapestry patterns. Herman Miller has shown Resolve to 50 other clients, including several architectural firms, for delivery early next year. After that, everyone will be able to join the hive.
Herman Miller: www.hermanmiller.com.
RELEASE: SEPTEMBER
Express Bus
It's David and Goliath revisited. With the new 600-MHz Athlon chip, AMD enters the high-end PC market ahead of market leader Intel. The Athlon, which recently began shipping in Compaq, Gateway, and IBM machines, is the fastest PC microprocessor yet, with double the system bus speed of the reigning Pentium III.
According to AMD, its seventh-generation Athlon is more than just a quicker version of the same old silicon. While sixth-generation chips like the low-end AMD-K6 modified the usual design to allow for multimedia 3-D audio and video capabilities, the new chip is specifically geared to the Net as a key application. One result, claims AMD, is that its floating-point technology - enabling 3-D multimedia - is 40 percent faster than the Pentium III's on comparable tasks.
AMD: www.amd.com.
STREET CRED
Network in a Cable
Virtual Velvet Underground
Dangerous Beauty
GloboPOP
Buying Time
Holy Roller
The Feel World
ReadMe
Music
Iridium Showers
Brain Bytes
Fishing the Art-House Stream
Think Fast
Just Outta Beta
Image Conscious
Lonelies Get Linked
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