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Woz's New Startup
Several readers noted that Woz has a startup called Wheels of Zeus. He's come out of "Semi Retirement"
to work on a new wireless handheld sort of thing. Not a lot of details,
but it certainly could shape up to be interesting. Specifically
mentions GPS. Supposedly Woz.com
will have data eventually, but currently is just really slow
and redirecting to Woz's personal page.
(The article can be found here. Excerpts follow.)
.... By driving down the cost of G.P.S. technology, the company says, it expects to help "everyday people track everyday things." ... It is the first start-up venture for Mr. Wozniak since he closed his previous company, Cloud 9, a maker of high-end consumer remote control devices, in 1988.
...
... It plans to have its first products finished sometime next year.
While Mr. Jobs went on to found Next Inc., bought Pixar (news/quote), and then returned to Apple as its chief executive in 1997, Mr. Wozniak, now 51, has largely remained on the sidelines. That has made him unusual in a hothouse business and technology culture that is characterized by serial entrepreneurs, few of them walking away after either success or failure. Instead, he has occupied himself with private investments and has taught computer education for elementary through high school students in the Los Gatos, Calif., school district, where he lives.
The new company will not initially announce what products it is planning and Mr. Wozniak said this week it was likely that it would not at first market its own products. It will instead seek licensing and marketing arrangements with other consumer electronics and related companies.
He said one goal was to take technologies that are now costly and reduce them in price so they could be sold in consumer markets.
Mr. Wozniak said he had enjoyed simply being a consumer of new technologies for more than a decade. But last year, a friend visited and began talking about an idea that used G.P.S. in a strange way and he found himself excited by the prospects of doing something with this.
"Sometimes I say that and I'm not really serious," he remarked, "but this time I was really serious."
...
Mr. Galanos said his firm had been excited about both the company's technology idea and the possibility of backing Mr. Wozniak.
"After all how many times will Steve jump on something new again?" he said.