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 Getting to know Jack!
Jack is a wireless data-hub, designed to deliver information to Palm and Pocket PCs wirelessly via infrared. Slightly smaller than a VHS video tape, Jack can be mounted almost anywhere and when a device is pointed at it, it downloads the prepackaged information to the PDA. Examples of data packages include color catalogs, coupons and pricing comparisons, news, transportation schedules, real estate listings. Jack can also be installed in a private company to deliver reports, presentations, sales tracking, inventory, and trade show exhibit information. Imagine walking into your favorite museum on vacation and downloading the interactive guide to the exhibits to your PDA. The guide would provide information on each display while you're in the museum but can also be shared with your friends and relatives when you return home because it is already saved on your PDA. Or consider your local electronics store offering detailed product information on their big screen TVs that you can capture on your PDA to review later with your family. Airports could provide flight schedules or access to advertiser-sponsored news and information. Local bands could beam you samples of their music on MP3 while you're listening to them in a club. Professors could offer their class notes for download right outside their office. If you haven't already grasped the enormous potential of this product, let me spell it out: Jack could become the most ubiquitous information portal ever created. MORE THAN JUST A LOCAL AREA BROWSER Although it sounds like merely downloading Web pages onto a PDA, the concept is much larger. Jack content is location-based information, so you receive data which is specifically customized to your current location. For example, you can download today's show times and reviews from the movie theater, and then review them at the coffee shop next door with your friends. Because the information is downloaded to the your personal device there is a huge potential for applications that will create an entirely new level of "one-on-one relationships" with the customer. In the Jack stations already deployed, you can insert items into your calendar with one tap of the stylus. Taken one step further, you could download an entire conference schedule, where one tap adds classes to your PDA calendar and puts an E-mail in your outbox to register you for the appropriate course. Instead of standing in line to register at a conference, PDA users could simply walk up to the Jack, download the schedule, speaker bios and advertisements and walk in. Even ignoring the savings in manpower, printing and set up costs, Jacks will provide a better experience for the consumer. The small jacks can be self-powered using a Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery. And, because the Jacks receive information wirelessly, they can be updated in real-time, so schedule changes, updated statistics or current news can easily be passed on to the PDAs as they pass by. WHERE TO GET JACKED Currently, Jacks are almost exclusively available in San Francisco, California where the company which created it, WideRay, is based. The display that caught our eye was behind a window at the Sony Metreon, an entertainment megaplex. Holding up our PDA, we received event calendars and movie times in less than 10 seconds. The first time you point your device at a Jack, the WideRay Viewer software is installed. A few seconds later, the content is added to your device. After that, you'll only have to wait for the new content, as the WideRay Viewer stays on your device and consumes under 100k. The WideRay Jacks have also been installed at Convent of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls high school in San Francisco and at the new stadium for the SF Giants. The school disseminates daily announcements, homework assignments and a school calendar on their Jack, while the SF Giants publish their team roster, schedule and individual player stats. Best of all, the Jacks can receive data from a PDA, the WideRay wireless network as well as via standard networks. So this technology could, someday, be implemented in the smallest offices and even in the high-tech home. This means that small offices could cut paper and distribution costs by putting their documentation on a Jack and Jack-enabled homes could beam family photos, a journal or even recipes to a visitor's PDA. Although I have been able to resist saying it up until now, I am really excited for this technology to become so pervasive that people can get stuff Jacked off wherever they may be. Jack is most certainly a fantasy come true, at least for this media spy. Do you have Arcanum Indicium (secret information)? Send an E-mail to custos@semperaptus.com. He'll keep your identity private and hold the information until the date and time you request.
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