By Michal Lev-Ram

While most phonemakers are trying to cram more and more features into one must-have device, newcomer Modu is taking a different approach. The Israeli company is launching a tiny, lightweight cell phone (also called Modu, see left) which will fit inside multiple gadgets — including GPS devices, cameras, and even digital picture frames.

Here’s how it works: Modu, a domino-like GSM cell phone 7.8 millimeters thick, has basic calling functionality, but pop it into one of its “jackets” — a range of consumer electronics devices with a built-in slot for the phone — and it can take on multiple forms. For example, users will be able to put their Modu into a smartphone during the day to send and receive e-mail while on the go, but will then be able slide the small gadget into a more stylish, slim phone for after-work use, keeping the same phone number and single calling plan. Eventually, they’ll even be able to put Modu into navigation devices to access text messages and have calling capabilities straight from their handheld GPS unit. Or you might plug your Modu into a digital photo frame to download pictures from their device and use the frame as a speakerphone.

“We’re not into making one device that works for everyone,” says Dov Moran, the company’s founder. Most other companies have been trying to do just that — fit diverse features on one device. Nokia (NOK) makes a 5-megapixel cameraphone, while Garmin (GRMN) just announced it would launch a GPS device that also functions as a phone. But Moran argues that most of these devices don’t do all things well. And if they do, users usually have to pay a hefty price for them. Nokia’s N95, for example, costs upwards of $800.

Modu says its phone “jackets” will sell in the $40-$50 range. Right now the company has a few of its own prototypes out, but its success will at least partially rely on which consumer electronics makers it gets to sign up to make additional Modu-encasing devices. So far it’s managed to get Magellan and Blaupunkt as launch partners. It’s also signed on a few mobile operators, including Telecom Italia and Israel’s Cellcom, to distribute the phones. Modu phone itself is made by iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, and Moran says its recommended retail price is $300. Of course, if mobile operators decide to sell the phone on contract (which they most likely will), it will be cheaper or possibly even free. The company says Modu will be available in the U.S. in 2009.

Moran, who started Msystems — an Israeli company which was sold to memory card maker SanDisk (SNDK) for $1.6 billion in 2006 — has high hopes for Modu. The company has raised $20 million and Moran says he plans to raise another $100 million this year.

By Josh Quittner 

Want to learn how to make your own sushi? Or how to make an origami bird? Or how to dance without embarrassing yourself? Starting today, Howcast, a New York City-based startup founded by three ex-Googlers, will show you.

The site aims to be a kind of Wikipedia of user-generated videos for people who want to learn how to do just about anything. “We’ll show you how to chop an onion, how to swaddle a baby, how to flirt with a girl,” CEO Jason Liebman told me yesterday. “It’s kind of endless.”

That’s the goal anyway. The trick of this venture will be getting users to step up and make the kind of high-quality videos that will attract an audience. That’s a high bar. YouTube (GOOG) succeeded in large part because its founders made the act of uploading videos about as simple as possible.

But garbage in, garbage out. YouTube is having a hard time monetizing its vast library, partly because the content is so bottom-of-the-barrel. If Howcast succeeds, we’re talking about a $1 billion-plus venture here. Why? Because instructional videos, especially those made with decent production values, will fetch much higher rates from advertisers than the junk that predominate on YouTube.

To that end, Howcast offers a video director’s kit, complete with the elements — opening and closing credits, overlays, and so on — that any aspiring Quentin Tarantino will need to create a top-notch how-to video. Daniel Blackman, another co-founder (and an old pal I first met back in the late 1990s, when he was managing Barnes & Nobles’s online store) told me that the startup is working with film students — and will pay them to produce content. “You apply to our program and if you’re accepted, we’ll pay $50 a pop for videos,” he said. Plus, students in the program stand to get a revenue 50% share on pageviews above 40,000 views.

For now, Howcast has been seeded with a few thousand videos, mainly produced by Howcast and its partners, Blackman said.

Howcast’s video player is worth noting: Very cool. When you watch a video in full screen, a series of written steps appears in the right margin as hypertext. Click on, say, Step Five of How To Fake Being Sick, and you can go right to the disquisition on How to Make Fake Vomit. Pretty sweet. Likewise, you can easily zoom in on anything to study it closer.

Aside from videos, the site intends to amass user-generated, how-to wikis. Indeed, the path to creating a specific video starts with a how-to wiki, which becomes a step by step guide that a director can later use as a script.

The company has a list of partners who will be distributing its videos, including Verizon Wireless (VZ) and a Howcast channel on YouTube. Revenue now comes from sponsorships from the likes of JetBlue (JBLU), and Starcom USA. Liebman also told me that Tudor Investment Corp. kicked in $8 million in first-round funding to build out the staff and content library.

By Michael V. Copeland

PALM DESERT, Calif. — Video conferencing, along with 3D monitors and flying cars, is one of those things we’ve been promised for years, but have yet to get our mass-market hands on. At the high-end, Polycom (PLCM), Cisco (CSCO) and other specialty manufacturers offer dedicated video conferencing gear that looks great, but is monstrously expensive, often costing tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands, once the dedicated networking and data equipment is bought and installed. At the low-end are free or mostly free services, like Apple’s (AAPL) iChat, Skype (EBAY) Video, and various flavors of video chat riding on top of instant messaging. The problem with these is not the price, it’s the quality. The video is jerky, the audio doesn’t synch, and sessions either don’t connect at all (this happens to me with iChat all the time) or drop out just when you are about to display a new tattoo or a new grandchild.

At the DEMO startup conference on Tuesday, Hackensack, N.J-based Vidyo offered something in the middle. A high quality video-conferencing system that you can install and get running for $7,000. At the core is a $6,000 Vidyo router that you put in your server rack and connect to a broadband Internet connection. The system adapts to the highest quality the gear at each end point can handle, ranging from high-definition cameras to cheap web cams. So you might have HD in a conference room, and VGA from a home office, for example.Each site, or port as the company refers to it, that you connect to the router costs an additional $1,000 a year. So if you have two offices you need one extra port, but since it’s just a software connection you can add as many ports as you need. All that is required is a broadband connection. The $1,000 subscription is really a pricey seat fee. And it will add up if you decide to connect your dozen regional sales offices. The ports are fluid; they can range from one site to another, one home office to another, say, as needed all via a web-based system.

At a minimum of $7,000, this is clearly aimed at taking on higher-end video systems for corporate users. And Vidyo is a great alternative for small and medium-sized businesses that have been hankering for good quality video conferencing but couldn’t afford it. My guess, however, is that the pricing comes down fast. How long will it take for that Vidyo router (or something reverse engineered in Asia) to get to $1,500 bucks? And with no additional service fees for additional ports? Fast.The reason is Vidyo is also competing with free offerings, which while offering poor quality now, are rapidly approaching “good enough.” Once free, or almost-free services hit that point where they are “good enough” for most things, $7,000 looks like a whole lot of money to pay, never mind hundreds of thousands of dollars. Video-conferencing has long been held out as a $1 billion market poised to explode to a multi-billion-dollar market. It won’t happen until high quality video gets cheap. Vidyo is a big step toward busting the market wide-open, it’s still not cheap enough, but it’s getting close.