timelessdesignscorp.com

Timeless Designs Corporation has a vision of the community of tomorrow, with dreams that cover the gamut.  We believe that high-density, mixed-use structures are the key to modern urban development.  We believe that fossil fuel-burning vehicles should return to their roots: that is, that they should return to being luxuries rather than necessities, used for entertainment rather than commuting.  We believe in building, nurturing, and supporting the ephemeral spirit of a tight-knit community, yielding that elusive “small town” feel even in the midst of a highly populated city.  We believe the time has come for wide-scale use of alternative energy, innovations in public transportation, education, and public safety.

But all these aspects of our vision for the future has a common undercurrent; a driving philosophy.  Timeless Designs Corporation’s driving desire is to take the dreams of past visionaries and bring them to fruition; to take every scenario in which intelligent and thoughtful people have said, “This is what should be done,” and actually do it.

One such vision of the future has been around for more than half a century: the vision of computers and digital telecommunications integrated into the very fabric of everyday life.  Twenty years ago, the Internet was in its infancy.  It wasn’t even called the “Internet,” but rather “ARPAnet” after the federal agency that invented it: the Advanced Research Projects Agency.  The opening of the network to commercial interests actually began in 1988, but it wasn’t until the mid-1990’s that the term “Internet” reached the common vernacular.  As the world raced toward the end of the second millennium AD, the Internet was growing (by some estimates) at the amazing rate of 100% per year – that is, the number of nodes connected to the Internet and consequently the number of computers with access to it was doubling every year.  To put that in a little perspective, if you had invested $100 in 1996 (around the time the Internet became popular) and it earned 100% interest every year, your investment would be worth over $1.6 million by the end of 2009!

Visionaries long before the Internet (or even ARPAnet) was conceived had dreams of every citizen of every developed nation having computers integrated into their daily lives.  The Internet truly made this vision possible.  My question to the world is, why hasn’t it happened yet?

After almost two decades of the Internet, with existing technology capable of providing a gigabit of bandwidth (that’s more than 1 billion bits per second – common DSL service only provides about one half of one percent of that capability) – why doesn’t everyone have Internet-based services?  With the digital capability provided by a robust and widespread Internet, and technology capable of gigabit speeds, all of the following should be possible:

• Digital high definition television, including a vast array of video-on-demand.  Movies, of course, should be available.  But regular television programs should also be recorded and available on-demand as viewers desire, from sitcoms to news programs, from sporting events to reality shows.
• Digital high definition audio
• Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone service, including video and all the features currently available from standard phone and cellular service providers

Let’s pause right there a moment.  All the above services should be Internet-based, and should be available anywhere in the home.  If you’re watching the Big Game and a phone call comes in, there’s no technical reason why you shouldn’t be able to hit a button on your television remote to mute the TV sound and take the call without having to get off the sofa.  If it’s a video call, there’s no technical reason why the caller couldn’t appear in a picture-in-picture window on the big screen.

With services like Pandora and even iTunes, there’s no reason every radio couldn’t be connected to the Internet as well.  If you want to hear a particular song or playlist, you should be able to browse an extensive list of online songs and play them on any audio-capable device in your house – even a wireless personal device like an iPod.

Once your entire home has Internet-based voice and video, there’s no technical reason why Mom in the kitchen couldn’t place a call to daughter Jane, in her room studying, to tell her that dinner is ready.  If the family’s wireless devices (cell phones) were also connected to the same network, Mom should be able to reach Jane regardless of where she is with the same message.

The possibilities are truly endless.  If wireless devices were integrated into the home network and the devices were sufficiently intelligent, Mom could simply tell the kitchen video phone to “call Jane” and the call would be routed to Jane wherever she is.

Other Internet services should also be accessible from any connected device.  Again, the technology that exists today could easily support it.  Check e-mail while watching television.  Check stock quotes while talking on the phone.

These capabilities are in existence right now, today.  Some of them you may have read and thought, well yeah, I can do that now.  We recognize that.  Timeless Designs simply wants to take all these services to the next logical step: integrating them all into one convenient package, for one price.  In other words, instead of paying for satellite TV, paying for cell service, paying for music downloads, paying for Internet access, and so on and so forth, residents of our communities will get a complete, integrated digital communication solution for one flat rate.  We want everyone to have this service, because the wider its use the more convenient it will be for everyone.

But really, it’s not about what can be done now or for how much.  You techno-geeks out there: think for a moment what you could do in terms of community portals, services, telecommunications, and so on for a community where everyone had gigabit Ethernet in their homes.  This is the next digital playground, and we want to attract players who can see into the future.  What could Google do for a community with that level of bandwidth?  What could an Intel or Oracle do for businesses whose customers and colleagues and partner businesses had access to that kind of speed?  Who has the next-generation online content management website, like YouTube, that could benefit from gigabit speeds?

It’s fine to run along the ragged edge of the envelope, for a publically traded company.  When your stockholders are demanding results, and now, you need to push forward to the next wave of technology, but do it in a way that inspires confidence in your stockholders so they don’t sell their shares – and your corporate value goes up.  Timeless Designs is not publically traded, and we don’t have to answer to five million stockholders.  We want to step over the ragged edge and build a newer, bigger envelope for people to push.

This project, for me, is about looking at every nook and cranny of our vision and saying, “Wow, how cool would it be if we could do that,” and then actually do it.