With $906,233 pledged and still four hours to go as of this writing, the TikTok and LunaTik are officially the record-holders for most funding received through Kickstarter. The next closest project managed to get less than half that amount, with $345,992. Scott Wilson, the designer of the two iPod nano wristband cases, originally sought only $15,000 as his funding target. He’s now exceeded it by $873,550.

When contacted, Wilson noted that in an unusual reversal of the standard relationship, an accessory is actually driving purchases of an Apple product, rather than the other way around:

One thing that we are finding and is that a majority of our backers actually didn’t own a nano prior to purchasing our watches. It is pretty cool for us to know that our product is inspiring people to purchase [nanos].

It’s not actually that surprising, since the TikTok and LunaTik are remarkably easy on the eyes. Definitely a lot more appealing than the competition.

This is a stunning example of how a good idea combined with great design can catch fire and succeed even in the absence of traditional backing. It’s also great proof that not only does the Kickstarter model work, but it can actually far exceed traditional funding models if the product is good; it strikes a chord with consumers; and the timing is right.

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The Mini-Review

First, the hardware:

• The boot-up is extremely fast, and the log-on process is smooth and speedy, as long as one has a Google Mail account. (Google Apps ID doesn’t quite work.)
• The screen is great, but the graphic capabilities are pretty limited.
• There is a single USB port and a flash memory card slot. Frankly, having lived with the old MacBook Air with a single USB port, I don’t see much of a problem.
• The trackpad is awful.
• I love the dedicated Search button and would love to see it on all computers.
• The laptop picked up most of the commonly used USB peripherals. Both a Logitech mouse and a Microsoft optical mouse worked just fine, without need for special discovery or driver installs.

Second, the User Interface/Experience:

• The Interface is rough around the edges, and what you see is essentially the Chrome web browser.
• It takes too many cues from Microsoft Windows, which is understandable, considering they are going after the mainstream and enterprise market.
• The OS needs better font support, and reminds me of some early Linux distributions.
• The user experience expects us to come to the idea of using browser tabs instead of apps, a weird notion, but not that strange if you’ve used the Chrome browser as your primary browser and are used to cloud-based services.
• If you use Google Chat and Google Tasks, then you easily understand the idea of “Panels,” a new feature inside Chrome OS that runs in small, easy-to-access panes at the bottom right of the browser.
• Even the best web apps currently available at the Chrome Web Store are a work in progress.
• The biggest challenge for Google’s Chrome OS is going to be fighting against many life-long habits of using a desktop OS.

Now for the Cloud-based Services:

• Despite being severely underpowered, there’s one thing the device does very well: let you use Google apps, especially Google Docs, Gmail and other cloud services (from Google) without a problem.
• The YouTube experience is marginal at best, and Netflix doesn’t work.
• Most of your browser-based apps will work, but Adobe Flash on Chrome OS is like a toddler learning to crawl. It will be a long time before it gets to the maturity of Adobe on Windows platform. Adobe has already stated that it plans to improve its integrated Flash performance in Chrome OS, essentially calling it a “work-in-progress.”

Bottom line: Will I use Cr-48 or something like it as my primary computer? It would be tough for me –I admit I have a life-long habit of using a full desktop operating system — to make Chrome OS my primary computing experience. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep an open mind, but for now, it’s a no-go for me. My more portable, 2.13 GHz MacBook Air is the machine I like, and even as I spend a lot of time inside the browser, I prefer a desktop with the Chrome browser and raw power. Plus my Mac has Silverlight, which lets me play Netflix and use third-party, native apps such as Reeder.

As Google stated very clearly, this particular device isn’t going to be sold in the market; its partners are going to make devices that consumers can buy. I hope they do a better job and come up with more attractive hardware.

The real story to focus on is the ChromeOS, what it really means and whom it targets.

So let’s do that instead.

The Rise of the Web OS

The growth of Google has coincided with the shift to the web. Google is a company that has been a believer in networked computing from its very inception. Since 2004, an increasing amount of our focus and attention has been devoted to the browser and what we can do inside the browser. The so-called Web 2.0 concept only helped enhance the inside-the-browser experience, thus slowly replacing desktop as our primary focus of attention.

Thanks to new technologies, ample bandwidth and Moore’s Law, the concept of a web operating system has become a reality. The web isn’t really an OS in the classical sense of the word, but instead is a platform to do things: for making phone calls, playing games, writing documents, sending emails, instant messaging and even photo editing. These are some of the tasks some of us old fogeys still do on our desktop operating systems using desktop software, but slowly and surely that desktop era is coming to an end.

Google last week announced its much-awaited cloud OS, the Chrome OS, which is nothing more than just a browser running on a stripped down version of Linux to capitalize on the hardware features such as audio and video. In the end, Chrome is about doing things on the web, inside a browser. Apple, of course, has taken a different tack for its cloud OS. The iOS which powers iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad fosters the idea of using small chunks of code for doing specialized tasks and embedding the browser inside these apps.

In a blog post this past week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt wrote:

So we’ve gone from a world where we had reliable disks and unreliable networks, to a world where we have reliable networks and basically no disks. Architecturally that’s a huge change—and with HTML5 it is now finally possible to build the kind of powerful apps that you take for granted on a PC or a Macintosh on top of a browser platform. You can build everything that you used to mix and match with client software—taking full advantage of the capacity of the web.

The Enterprise

As a consumer, one is going to find Chrome OS very limiting, especially since have some pre-conceived notions about what a personal computer is supposed to do. In addition, the availability of smartphones and tablets makes Chrome OS less necessary form a consumer standpoint because they are more consumer-friendly and quite capable devices.

Google’s own Android OS is already in front of the consumers (in form of phones and tablets). It will be sometime next year when the first Chrome OS devices will come to the market, and it won’t be until end of 2011 when (or if) Chrome OS become a viable option in the market place. By then, as I wrote earlier, “who knows where Android will be?” If the early popularity of tablets is any indication, consumer computing is moving towards the tablet form-factor and for Android – that is indeed a good thing.

In comparison, Chrome OS is ideally suited for business environments that need lots of low-cost computers designed to do certain specific tasks cheaply and without much maintenance. Rolling out centrally managed apps minus security problems and maintenance hassles has been the Holy Grail for corporate computing. Chrome OS and HTML5-based web apps that run inside the browser are a perfect solution, as I argued in my earlier post.

Our GigaOM Pro analyst David Card agreed in his research note (subscription required):

Chrome OS also suffers from awkward positioning, both externally to developers and potential customers, and internally within Google’s own product line-up. While it’s true that PCs serve both companies and consumers, the value of the Network Computer premise appeals only to enterprise IT managers. Its manageability and simplified functionality play best in applications like airline reservations, point-of-sale terminals and ATMs, or in limited-application mobile devices used in shipping and store inventory management. Yet at least for now, app stores are purely consumer offerings. The apps Google showed last week all came from media companies (New York Times, NPR, Sports Illustrated), Electronic Arts and Amazon.

Google will be best suited to focus Chrome OS and all its energies on business buyers — call centers, retail outlets and airlines to start with — and forget about the consumers.

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It’s almost counter-intuitive to the concept of mobility, but I find that I’m carrying more devices than ever, even as both hardware and software continue to improve. When I’m not toting numerous devices, I’m actually spending more time deciding which devices to bring and which are staying home. Granted, I could be an outlier; since I cover the mobile device scene for a living, there’s a plethora of laptops and phones to choose from, not to mention a MiFi, two cameras, a pair of wireless keyboards, an iPad and more.

Some of my gadgets have been replaced over time thanks to converged functionality. For example, I sold an Amazon Kindle 2 after buying my iPad; a few days of enjoying my Kindle books on the Apple tablet convinced me that I no longer needed my Kindle. That tradeoff made sense, and while not everyone would have made the same decision, it did reduce my mobile device load by one piece of hardware. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I found myself last night considering the purchase of a Galaxy Tab. Samsung has quickly sold one million of these popular 7-inch Android tablets.

Why would I buy one when I already have an Apple iPad? The reason actually applies to all of my devices: no one device fully takes the place of another because of compromises in functionality. Smartphones haven’t replaced laptops, and tablets don’t take the place of either, for example. Instead, as features are improving across all devices, form factors are evolving, which means we have more device choices for use in different contexts and locations.

My consideration of the Galaxy Tab is a perfect example: It appeals to me because it’s lighter and smaller than my iPad, but still offers much of the same functionality. That means I’m more likely to travel with the Tab, while my iPad is better suited — for me, anyway — around the house in places I don’t want to use a traditional computer: the couch, in bed, etc…. Of course, I’m heavily invested in iOS apps, so due to the “app lock in” costs, I’m not likely to trade in my iPad for the Tab!

I face a similar challenge when it comes to leaving the house with a camera. You wouldn’t think so, because the camera is the perfect poster child for device convergence: point and shoots are quickly fading in popularity due to improved smartphone cameras. In fact, the New York Times recently reported an 18 percent decline in the sales of point and shoots since 2008, largely due to phones with solid cameras. But when I cover the Consumer Electronics Show next month, readers won’t want to see marginal, camera phone pictures; they’ll want high-quality images and videos. I have to balance mobility with functionality.

I have an excellent DSLR in my Canon T1i, but there’s a problem: That camera is too bulky and heavy to effectively navigate the sea of attendees at CES. If that’s the case (and it is, given my past experience) and a smartphone camera just won’t do, what do I do? You guessed it: I just added a superb point and shoot to my device collection, the Canon S95, which fits in a pocket. So now I have yet another device to either carry or choose from, not just because of functionality, but because of form, weight and other factors.

Amid continuing advances in technology, one theorem still holds true for mobile devices: Every single one of them is a product of compromise. Want your laptop to run longer? That can be done, but you’ll either have to give up processing power or be stuck carrying an extended battery. Gotta have your latest videos filmed in 1080p? You’re not doing that on a smartphone yet, so you’ll need to tote a separate camera.

Devices are getting better, and everything is moving away from the desktop as consumers want to enjoy apps and services on the go. But for some reason, I feel like all of the improvements in mobiles are just weighing me down. Put another way: My mobile needs used to be met with a laptop and a phone. Now my hardware stack is getting so big I can’t carry it all. Am I alone in the quest for the perfect set of just a few gadgets that can really everything I need?

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Network computer, at the time, was defined as a stripped-down machine, with little or no moving parts, cheap processors and ample bandwidth to compute over the network. It was a computing equivalent of Silicon Valley’s Moby Dick. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle was the proverbial Captain Ahab.

Larry “Captain Ahab” Ellison

In 1995, Larry Ellison talked about a network computer that would cost $500 a pop and would free the world from Microsoft. “A PC is a ridiculous device. What the world really wants is to plug into a wall to get electronic power, and plug in to get data,” said Ellison at the time.

His idea was a sound one, though at the time, a tad impractical. Oracle’s Network Computer subsidiary lost $175 million and was eventually spun out as Liberate Technologies, a company that transitioned to building software for set-top boxes.

Nevertheless, the idea had strong appeal for Silicon Valley’s power brokers, and they kept plowing dollars into the network computer. Marc Andreessen was an early champion. What was good for Ellison was good for IBM too. But the guy who was completely besotted by the idea of network computer was Eric Schmidt. It was Schmidt and his cohorts at Sun who came up with Java Station, a disaster if there was any. The Java-based network computer was underpowered when compared to the PCs of the day.

Have a Corona

The network computer hype had died down by 1998, but the Sun team hadn’t given up. They once again went back to the drawing board and started working on a network-business appliance, code-named Corona.

I first broke the story about Sun’s ultra-secret PC killer back in August 1999. Unlike an all-purpose consumer device, it was targeted at the enterprises and was pitched as “zero admin cost” machine. No need for expensive storage — just lean processors with ample bandwidth. It plug into the network and essentially brought up a “state” for folks to start working. You needed a special Java-enabled card that created the “state” on any device, regardless from where you were accessing the data. It was targeted at airlines, retailers and package transportation companies.

Sun eventually called it the Sun Ray, thus bringing a short-term revival of thin clients. Even a new version of Java Station was launched, to no avail. The network computer in early attempts failed because the devices were too expensive when compared to low-cost personal computers and bandwidth was still extremely expensive and the connections, even on corporate networks weren’t fast enough. The software and the experience just weren’t compelling enough, and there were limited use cases for the device.

The Past Is the Future

As Chrome OS was being launched, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between the two products. The early customers for this new Chrome OS based computer (with no admin-costs) are American Airlines, Intercontinental Hotels and some retailers. Onstage, Schmidt said that he and his peers were talking about these very same problems — total cost of ownership, security and ease of use — when they were first discussing the network computers.

“We were right that the underlying problems really were a problem, but were wrong in understanding how complex the problems were,” he said. Of course, as time passed the networks got faster, the components got cheaper, but more importantly, the rise of AJAX and the evolution of the open source LAMP stack allowed the idea of web-based applications to blossom. And from there, evolved the idea of a web-based operation environment/system. “Chrome finally broke through architectural frameworks with respect to speed and security,” a beaming Schmidt said. “It is now finally possible to build powerful apps on top of a browser platform.”

Schmidt believes Chrome OS is the third viable real operating system, one that breaks from the past, and looks into a cloud-services centric future that would re-define the idea of what an OS should be.

With Chrome, Google has done a good job of executing on the idea of “network computer,” offering a suite of cloud services. In 2008, I wrote up a list of ten features that a good cloud client must have — Google has done one better with their prototype device, the CR-48.

“The long term vision of browser as an OS for web applications” said, Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of Product Management for Chrome said. Making browsers speedy and responsive to today’s web tasks, they have made it possible to do more inside the browser.

I was particularly impressed by the improvements they have made to JavaScript, a boon for web applications. Other extensions that tap into the hardware for graphical improvements will only going to make the browser more desktop-like. Pichai has to feel good — he is helping realize his boss’s vision for the network computer. Too bad, Schmidt and Ellison are not talking to each other anymore.

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So which equipment maker is the big winner in the LTE sweepstakes? The 2G wireless hardware market was dominated by Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia, collectively called M.E.N. of the telecom world. The rise of 3G opened up opportunities for companies like Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent and Siemens. The next big wireless shift is going to be dominated by a handful of players as well.

This time there is a new sheriff in town; Chinese vendor Huawei is one of the early leaders in the LTE sweepstakes. The company currently accounts for 36 percent of the contracts for LTE equipment, according to Telegeography, a market research firm. In terms of sheer size (and dollars), however, Ericsson is the big player as it has been supplying gear to some of the largest LTE-rollouts in the world.

Most of Ericsson’s deals are in the more mature markets, while Huawei is going for high growth markets such as China. Ericsson has managed to snag 18 contracts, including deals with TeliaSonera, Vodafone Germany and China Mobile. However, Chinese operators aren’t likely to roll out their networks before 2012. Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent, with 16 percent and 14 percent of the total market (by number of contracts signed.)

Here are some facts about LTE you might be interested in:

• The total LTE infrastructure market will top $5 billion in 2013. (Infonetics Research)
• The LTE infrastructure market is forecast to reach $11.4 billion by 2014. (Infonetics Research)
• LTE subscribers could exceed 72 million by 2013. (Infonetics Research)
• LTE subscribers could exceed 153 million by 2014. (Infonetics Research)
• TeliaSonera says the average LTE user so far is consuming 15 GB of data every month.
• The number of users of next-generation LTE technology in the Asia-Pacific region is forecast to surpass 120 million by 2015. (Wireless Intelligence)
• A total of 132 operators in 56 countries are currently investing in LTE for next-generation networks.

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Huawei, the Chinese telecom equipment maker, wants to be the biggest networking equipment maker in the world. Furthermore, the company doesn’t want to be known as a supplier of cut rate products (though it makes a bulk of its revenues from those products).

So it has started hiring a bunch of smart people, including many of them in its North American offices. Today, it announced that  John Roese, formerly CTO of Nortel is now going to work for it as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Huawei North America R&D. In 2009, the company made a splash when it hired British Telecom aka BT CTO Matt Bross as its chief technology officer.

Huawei, in 2009 had $408 million in U.S. sales, but since then has been ramping up its sales and R&D efforts.

Roese, who in the past worked for Broadcom, Enterasys and Cabletron Systems is going to be based in Huawei’s North America R&D headquarters in Santa Clara, California. In my past interactions with Roese, I have found him to be a clear and long-term thinker. Roese’s hiring shows that Huawei has grand ambitions, and is willing to spend liberally on R&D, in sharp contrast with some of the larger equipment makers in the U.S. and Western Europe.

There has been a perceptible decline in venture capital investments in the networking sectors. It was startups who hired the best and brightest. But as the carriers consolidated, so did the number of equipment makers and thus decreasing opportunities for startups, who found it hard to make a breakthrough at large carriers. Venture Capitalists shifted their attentions elsewhere.

Huawei and its smaller counterpart, ZTE Corp., spotted an opportunity to take a lead in developing new networking and infrastructure technologies. Huawei, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ranked second in terms of patents applications under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2009. It had filed for over 42,000 patents at the end of 2009.

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But excited as I am, I can’t ignore that the Canadian company is essentially hyping a product that isn’t likely to hit the market anytime soon. When it does, it’s likely to be entering a market overrun by competitors. What really got my goat this morning: RIM shared a video comparing its device with the iPad. Sure, it’s a nice comparison in a video but where’s the beef? I can see the iPad. I can use it. I can buy it. Compare that to PlayBook: For now, you can’t touch it; you can’t use it; and forget about buying it.

That hasn’t prevented RIM from putting out the video, which compares PlayBook to the iPad, or from sending out a news alert. According to RIM’s PR folks:

The video runs through a series of comparison tests with a PlayBook and iPad which demonstrate three things: the speed of the BlackBerry PlayBook Browser, its support for rich Flash content, and the performance of open web standards like HTML 5 on the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Yeah, all that is great, except at its developer day in San Francisco, the company wouldn’t even let anyone touch the device. It has been nearly six weeks since RIM publicly announced the tablet. There are still no hands-on impressions from anyone who isn’t working for RIM. If other news reports are to be believed, it will early 2011 before the device shows up in the market.

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The device arrived in my hands yesterday evening, and while I didn’t have much time to review the hardware, we put together an un-boxing video. My very brief impression of the device so far: It’s fast, easy to use and actually feels a lot more responsive than your typical Android smartphone, thanks to the Samsung 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird application processor and 2GB of onboard memory. It’s quite handsome and definitely easier to hold than an iPad. At 13.5 ounces, it’s almost half the weight of the iPad. More importantly, it’s a good device to tap into Google’s services.

Hope you enjoy the video and come back for the review later this week.

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Last week, analyst Brian Blair predicted that Apple would ship 45 to 48 million iPads next year, based in his check of the supply chain and the demand an iPad 2 would create. But as I discuss in my column at GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d), given what that number would require both from Apple and consumers, is such a number simply too high?

Below, I examine three ways in which the world would have to be different to reach a 48 million iPad market in 2011.

Near Complete Obliteration of the Netbook Category

Most people realize at this point that tablets are cannibalizing netbooks, but for their part, netbooks have held up OK in 2010. Today, estimates for netbook shipments in 2010 range from 30 to 36 million in 2010.

However, with some predicting netbooks to reach 35 to 45 million unit market next year, it’s hard to fathom a 48 million iPad market at that level. Instead of flat sales for netbooks, a 48 million iPad market would probably look something like this:

That’s what near obliteration of the netbook market would look like. Can it happen? Sure, but it probably won’t, at least not that quickly.

A Sub-$500 iPad.

While there has been lots of speculation lately about a 7-inch iPad, Steve Jobs’ recent comments on the topic should put those rumors to rest. This means a lower-priced iPad (starting at $500) probably won’t come anytime soon.

Why would the iPad need to have a sub-$500 model? Simply, because while people love Apple products, there is still such a thing as price sensitivity, and to reach the wider audience that 48 million iPads would require would, at least in 2011, require a lower price.

Android Tablets Bomb

The invasion of the Android tablets is set to begin, and while most of us predict the iPad will continue to hold the market leader position, there’s no doubt that some potential tablet customers would opt for an Android based device.

So can Apple do it?  For a company that continually exceeds expectations, 48 million iPads can’t be ruled out entirely, but such lofty numbers require too many things outside of Apple’s control (such as a disappointing crop of Android tablets) as well as those within (such as dropping the price of the iPad) to be likely.

Read the full post here.

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Wi-Fi Direct, the standard for device-to-device Wi-Fi connections without a traditional network, is finally getting out of the gates officially with the Wi-Fi Alliance certifying the first generation of products today.

The initial devices, mostly laptop mini-cards, are now available and testing is open to new gadgets. With certification reviews taking just a couple of days, we could see a number of new Wi-Fi Direct gadgets available for the holidays, provided manufacturers are prepared to include the standard.

Wi-Fi Direct builds off the old adhoc wireless mode many devices were capable of, but includes more security (WPA2) and makes it easier for users to connect two Wi-Fi enabled devices without having a local network. Existing Wi-Fi devices can be upgraded to Wi-Fi Direct with a firmware upgrade, while many new devices will likely have the standard built right in.

You only need one Wi-Fi Direct device to make a connection, which can act like an access point for one or more Wi-Fi enabled machines. This is going to make it easy for two people to share files between laptops, send print jobs from a camera to a printer or push a video from a handset to another Wi-Fi enabled device. It could also be used for home entertainment networking or multi-player gaming. As Stacey pointed out last year, she could back up her computer on her Wi-Fi Direct-enabled hard drive without ever having to jump on a network. And we could also see more peripherals that connect over Wi-Fi instead of traditional Bluetooth.

This again shows the resilience and flexibility of Wi-Fi, which is being deployed for everything from wider area coverage and cellular network offloading to building personal area networks. As we wrote about earlier, 70 percent of Millennials say they spend four hours a day on Wi-Fi, and believe that this is vital for maintaining relationships.

We’re already seeing companies try to tackle some of the things Wi-Fi Direct addresses. Apple and HP have announced a method for printing on networked printers from iOS and other devices. Apple has also unveiled AirPlay, which allows iOS users to move music from an iOS device to speakers and stereo systems and soon beam video to an Apple TV. Intel also released Wireless Display, a way to push your PC content to a TV. But in many cases, the connections are still through an existing wireless network or require an extra piece of hardware such as Intel’s Wireless Display adapter.

With Wi-Fi Direct, we should see more direct solutions that take advantage of the increasing number of embedded Wi-Fi chips. The Wi-Fi Alliance said 82 million Wi-Fi-enabled portable consumer electronics devices and 216 million Wi-Fi handsets will ship this year with 26 percent annual growth projected through 2014.

It remains to be seen how manufacturers implement Wi-Fi Direct. The standard could be limited by manufacturers and wireless carriers, who may be wary of allowing the feature to flourish unfettered. Carriers, for example, could prevent a phone from acting like a Wi-Fi hotspot, something they already do with some Android devices. Let’s hope the major players let Wi-Fi Direct reach its full potential.

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