Our geeky roadshow is at Zoran, a Haifa/Sunnyvale company that does digital media chips and processing worldwide. They're moving into mobile co-processors, laster printing processors, etc.
This company has been at the forefront, they say, of multimedia processing...with everything. I am pretty hardwade indifferent, but the new chip they just showed us that can be used to download movies o to USB sticks and then play anywhere look pretty impressive....

As Craig says, these devices will allow streaming over the net to the box and the chip and stream right into the TV--The chip/system is a prototype, they say, but going into release by 2009 (watch for CES!

Susan sez: Yeah, this is kind of geeky for my tastes, but it's another step toward streaming video over the next from a home or centralized server..and that is cool (think Slingbox).

Zoran is also showing some other cool tools...Coach 10 DCP Zlight is a new technology that helps correct for light distortion; it's in the market with camera partners...cool stuff...And of course every geek in the room is drooling over the amazing tools this company is building--correctors for blurry photos, new sources for HD within cameras, all sorts of emablers...

Trying to stay awake in Tel Aviv, so I can get up like a normal person in the am and listening to Carnegie Mellon Professor of computer sciences and amazing person Randy Paush's lecture on Really Achieveing Your Childhood Dreams (YouTube here, transcript here, Oprah brief version here.)  This talk has been getting lots of attention since September, but it's new to me--and worth a look/read/listen.

Some nuggets from the transcript that resonated for me:

• "When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up.  (snip) Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care. "
• "The brick walls are not there to keep us out.  The brick walls are there to give us
• a chance to show how badly we want something.  Because the brick walls are there to stop the  people who don't want it badly enough.  They're there to stop the other people.
• "I think that that's one of the best things you can give somebody - the chance to show them what it feels like to  make other people get excited and happy.  I mean that's a tremendous gift."
• " I mean I don't know how to not have fun.  I'm dying and I'm having fun.  And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left.  Because there's no other way to play it."
• "Never lose the childlike wonder.  It's just too important.  It's what drives us."
• "You get people to help you by telling the truth.  Being earnest.  I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term.  Earnest is long term."
•  
• "Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself". 
•  
• "...be prepared.  Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity."

(Via  NYTimes)

..Send email; the phone's turned off till I get the pre paid SIM Card.  I will check messages, but not as frequently as usual.

So, tomorrow afternoon, I'm finally taking that post-leaving Yahoo! take a trip somewhere journey. Only it's a blogging trip and vacation, and there's going to be lots of amazing things happening along the way--Renee Blodgett, myself and a host of bloggers I'm not going to yet name will be meeting up and exploring the country.