Connect The Dots.

Electronic data can be stored in a remarkable number of ways, including some that aren't even electronic!

If you were working with computers in the mid-1980s you'll remember that computer publications printed BASIC programs for readers to copy out and key in by hand. But some magazines, notably Byte, published programs in a machine-readable format that looked like bar-codes stretched out into long strips. With a "wand" you read the code and transferred it directly into your computer. That cut the error rate to near zero, and sped up the programming process enormously.

Now fast-forward twenty years, and here comes the Power Dot, which uses a somewhat similar technique--i.e., generating computer data from printed matter--to automate the process whereby magazine readers ask advertisers to "please send me more information."

The Power Dot, from a company called findtheDOT, is a gadget the size and shape of a matchbox: about an inch by an inch by a half-inch. Behind the one transparent corner of its otherwise opaque plastic shell is a CMOS imaging chip that can store a few KB of data. There's also a very low-wattage UHF transceiver inside. Another small transceiver, similarly packaged, plugs into your computer's USB port. But those two components together are only half the system.

What findtheDOT has done is to boil down the bytes representing a URL--even one with lots of punctuation marks--into a printable circle about 1/4-inch in diameter. It's a patented design, with a three-bladed "propeller" insignia in the center. When you find the dot (get it?) in an advertisement, you place the Power Dot unit over it and press the button.

The Power Dot grabs the image of the dot and stores the URL data that it represents. Then, when that unit is brought within about 20 feet of its counterpart--the transceiver on your PC--it causes the computer to send email to that advertiser, who then emails the requested information back to your computer.

Here's how it differs from simply typing in the URL for a real-estate advertisement. Suppose a real estate ad offers 30 different homes, each with a paragraph or a photo. Printing a unique dot alongside each listing allows the reader to click the Power Dot on specific properties and receive information from the realtor only on those which he expresses interest. This system has the potential to bring tremendous efficiency to Q & As, online shopping, and other transactions that are essentially exchanges of information. The provider won't be bogged down by having to parse ambiguous requests; and the reader won't be overwhelmed by receiving superfluous or unwanted content.

But you are probably asking yourself the same questions that I put to findtheDOT founder and CEO Kim Rubin: Why would someone print dots in their ads until there are Power Dots in people's hands? And likewise, why would anyone carry a Power Dot unit around if there aren't any ads with dots to click on?

"We solve the chicken-and-egg problem," Rubin told me, "through strategic partnerships with vendors, publishers, advertisers, and educational institutions. We give away Power Dots to jump-start the market; we license the technology for creating and interpreting the dot patterns, and we make our revenue from print media advertisers who use it to improve the effectiveness of their ads. We supply the dot images to them in much the same way that they obtain bar-codes for their product labels from third-party bar-code specialists: as printable image files, like 'click-art', that are rich in data."

Ruben went on to say that his first marketing goal is to have publishers sell Power Dot units to their advertisers, who would then give them away to prospective customers. Thus, for example, a tape-drive manufacturer advertising in Computer Technology Review would mail Power Dots to CTR's subscribers, or give them away to qualified trade show attendees. These pre-screened, prospective customers wouldn't have to write down any URLs, or even log into a Web site and page through it. They'd receive exactly what they wanted in their email inbox, almost literally by pointing and clicking on the magazine page. The possibilities are legion.

"Eventually," declared cofounder and president Keith Blei, "a Power Dot sensor could be incorporated into palmtop computers, PDAs, internet appliances, and Web-enabled cell-phones, eliminating the need for a separate tranceiver and lowering the cost of the Power Dot itself." And, referring to the hot new wireless-LAN scheme, he added: "This is the killer-app for 'Bluetooth'."

Dot ... Dot ... Dot

The late Herb Caen was the last master of the "three-dot" style: that journalistic anachronism in which short items are separated by three dots (technically they're "ellipses."). I'm no Herb Caen but here are two short items--one hardware, one software--that didn't fit in last month's column of shorts:

Branding hardware is evidently Iomega Corp.'s strategy for keeping up market share; it hasn't launched an original product since the 40MB Clik! drive three years ago, and Clik! hasn't exactly set the world on fire. At year's end, Iomega announced a branded CD-RW drive--dubbed Predator--with USB and (later) FireWire connections. The former yields a weak 4X4X6X performance specs; the latter a somewhat better 8X4X32X.

In February, Iomega will start selling IBM's 340MB Microdrive, bundling it with Iomega's Quik Sync 2 backup software and an adapter for laptop computers and digital cameras in the CF (Compact Flash) Type II Plus form factor. As a digital photographer for the past eight years, I assure you that 340MB is highly desireable. The Microdrive is standard equipment only on a few high-end professional digital cameras and on one mid-priced "prosumer" camera (Casio's model QV-2300UX Plus).

Iomega hadn't set prices by mid-November, but IBM's 340MB Microdrives cost less than 128MB solid-state devices, and Iomega may undercut the price to pick up maiket share. Shutterbugs should realize, however, that they may need a PC Card Type II adapter to mount the Microdrive in a laptop. CF Type II Plus is something different.

Having exited the Fibre Channel arena to focus on its core SCSI hardware business, Adaptec has now spun off its software business unit and has dubbed it "Roxio." The CEO of Roxio is Tom Shea, who's been running the unit for the past four years, overseeing (among other things) the Easy-CD Creator line that Adaptec shrinkwraps for consumers and bundles for drivemakers. The new company did get a new president, though. He's Christopher Gorog, erstwhile president of new business development at Universal Studios. So will there be a move toward entertainment software from Roxi now?

And where do they get these new company names, anyway? I would love to earn my living thinking up nouns (like Predator) and nonsense syllables (like Roxio? and selling them to corporations, wouldn't you?

Congratulations Mark!

Mark Ferelli, Editor-in-Chief of Computer Technology Review, Storage Inc. and Storage Management Solutions was announced in December as the 2000 "CEO's CHOICE TECHNOLOGY" Award Winner by Press Access.

The Press Access PRESS-tige Awards is the only competition in which members of the public relations community elect journalists for their skill and influence in various categories. Ferelli--the only Technology category winner--joins winners in other categories from Red Herring, Yahoo!, Internet Life, Business 2.0, ZDNet, eWeek, CNET News, The New York Times, TheStreet.com, and BioInform.

The Award reads: "CEO's CHOICE: Your CEO knows that this journalist has influence in the market and is highly respected in the media. To be mentioned by this person would tickle your CEO pink."

Contacted at is office, Ferelli had this reaction: "The Award is a special honor, coming as it does from 'People in the know'. I'm grateful for the Award and hope to continue providing a level of editorial content at justifies this distinction."