Shiny Objects

It is fun to try to predict the future. You take the latest shiny object that is out there and claim that it is the only way forward.  You get enough people to smile and nod and suddenly the common wisdom is that it is the only way forward, to the expense of any other idea out there. Any other thought is then thoroughly derided, because it is against the common wisdom.  That is, until enough people smile and nod about the next shiny object out there.

The problem with this approach is that life does not happen that way.  If it did then there would only be one type of bird, or fish, or mammal.  We know that is not the case.  So why is there only one way past the PC?  Is the PC doomed, or merely placed into a smaller role? 

Well, if you’re Microsoft’s global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie, you say that maybe tablets as they currently exist are not the only way forward, or maybe tablets are not the way at all.  And then you listen to the conventional wisdom like Tech Eye’s Nick Farrell who proclaims;

“Microsoft is starting to sound like one of those old men who sit outside the bar with a drink and mutter about things being better under Mussolini”

Dell comes out and says that the tablet will fail at the Enterprise level, citing closed view, high price and complexity.  The conventional wisdom claims that “Dell is showing its desperation”.

Because the conventional wisdom now is about the tablet.  The tablet is the future.  All bow to your tablet masters.  God forbid if someone should think differently.  Oh, by the way, forget what everyone said about the netbook.  You remember the netbook, right?  According to the conventional wisdom a few years ago, everyone was going to be carrying a netbook by now.  That is, until the tablet came along.  

Now I will say that to claim the tablet market will simply disappear over time or that it will totally fail at the enterprise level is just as wrong as to say that it is the only way forward.  There is a market for the tablet.  It is growing.  The tablet form has a use.  The only problem right now is defining what those uses are. PC’s, tablets, laptops, netbooks and smartphones are all tools, and like all tools, each have their own pluses and minuses.  As more people are using tablets, they are finding out what those limitations are. As Ben Metcalfe points out

“We’ve already learned that content creation and productivity, like with NetBooks, is hard and unsatisfying on a tablet. Lack of a real keyboard, weird viewing angles, whatever. Point is, tablets seem destined to be content consumption and reference devices – which immediately makes them an uber-luxury item for many folks. It also becomes questionable just how valuable tablets are to business if productivity apps are inefficient on the form-factor.”

There are places for tablets.  Some places they will work.  Some places, they won’t.  But, don’t let that stop the conventional wisdom that the PC is dead and there is the tablet to rule us all.  That is, until a new shiny object comes along. 

Not So Fast, Folks

I have found with a mixture of amusement and annoyance this thought that has permeated the blogosphere over the last year or so concerning the iPad.  Simply put, the meme that the game is over before it has even begun.  Apple won.  Everyone else is doomed.  Doomed, I tell you. 

To those people, may I present a little reality into the Jobsian distortion-field.  You see, while tablets are now white hot, while the iPad is the fastest growing electronic gadget evah, when you combine the number of users of tablet with smartphones, (you know, your iPhone, Android and the like) it comes out to only 0.3% of the Earth’s inhabitants as of the end of 2010.  That represents about 394 million users total.  That number, while quite large falls behind the following:

• Newspaper subscriptions (530 Million)
• TV subscriptions (600 million) 
• Landline telephones (1 billion)
• Total PCs (1.3 billion)
• Mobile subscribers (5.1 billion)

Now I’m not saying the market is not growing; in fact it will continue to grow at a pretty heady pace.  If it wasn’t growing, there wouldn’t be any interest and the iPad would be another “hobby” like Apple TV.  But it is rather ridiculous to call the game before the teams are even introduced.  There are plenty of players and plenty of time and room to disrupt the market.  Because, to quote Exene Czervenka, “this is the game that moves as you play it”.  And there are a lot of groups out there that can play.

10 Things I Learned From CES This Year

There are ten things that I have learned from CES 2011:

1. The economy really is coming back.  The reason?  a little over 140,000 attendees this year, up about ten percent from last year’s 126,000.  It still is below the peak attendance of 152,000 in 2006, but things are looking better apparently.
2. The “biggest news came” from outside CES, sort of.  Actually, we all have known that sooner or later Verizon would be pimping iPhones.  The news came during CES that it would be sometime in February.  Well, really, no one has really said that, but all the signs point to it.  The real reason why Steve Jobs hasn’t said anything is because it is this year’s phone, so moving to Verizon doesn’t make it magical or revolutionay or anything like that.  Read that as he can’t be bothered since this isn’t really “new” news.
3. The news is really pissing AT&T off
4. Tablets are now like bedbugs in Manhattan.  Enough said.
5. Apparently, Automobiles now considered consumer electronics.  Ford, GM and Tesla were represented this year.
6. Beck may have two turntables, but T-Pain has a microphone. 
7. Glass-less 3D still has a long way to go.
8. Hiring Lady Gaga as a designer/spokesperson may actually pay off for Polaroid after all. 
9. Samsung wins the “Bringing Sexy back” award for it’s 9 Series laptop.  At $1599 it better be.
10. 4G networks are the thing now.  When T-mobile, ATT, Sprint, and Verizon finally meet the real 4G standard, that will really be something to talk about.  All I can say at this point is “THERE! ARE! 3! G’s!”

The Ghosts of CES Past

CNET.com has a nice little story that revisits the Consumer Electronics Show of 2010 and looks at all those wonderful things they gushed about-and where those things are one year later.  What it basically shows is that some of the items were right on the money, others passed by for other technologies and some were vaporware. 

The examples of items on the money included the diminutive but awesomely powered Dell Alienware M11X, a gaming laptop, and Tenrehte Technologies’ Picowatt Wi-Fi Smart plugs, an item that cannot be found by regular folks because businesses are picking them up before they can hit the market.  The My Ford Touch interface which is in just about every Ford made now is also one of the winners, not because Ford is putting in vehicles, but because it actually works and works well.

In the grey area, sits the Motorola backflip, AT&T’s android phone. As most phones, this was quickly eclipsed by all the other phones released.  Not being all that great didn’t help.  Intel’s Wireless Display also sits here, simply because of poor execution. 

Then finally, onto the land of misfit toys.  Cell TV was vaporware from the start, as was Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1 Hybrid.

There were a couple that CNET were positive about that did not take off as thought.  Smartbooks, which were netbooks with non-Windows operating systems, cellular data contracts and cloud-based applications were overshadowed by Apple’s iPad and Android/Chrome.  The idea is still valid, but it needs to be executed better.  Ditto with Intel’s Wireless Display. 

As CES opens, it will be interseting what will grab people’s imaginations out there and which, over time, will prove to be ideas best forgotten.

…Try the Veal, And Remember to Tip Your Waitress…

Happy New Year to all.  And since it is the new year, it’s time to climb into the Rambler and head to Las Vegas for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. 

Of course, it would be really fun this year if there was something to see.  But there won’t be.  It looks to be a basic re-run of 2010 with some minor updates.  Do not expect anything massive or unexpected.  People are saying evolutionary, not revolutionary.  Which basically means boring.

You will see tablets.  All kinds of tablets.  So many tablets.  You will hear people gushing about tablets like new parents go on about their child.  That child’s name, by the way, is Honeycomb, the latest version of Android.  Because that is what most of the new tablets will be ready to run.  Do yourself a favor-understand that  if you have an iPad, you’ve still got the best thing out there for the moment.  But if you’re really interested, pass by all the others though, and stop by Research In Motion’s  booth to see their Playbook tablet.  Right now, if there is anything that could take on the iPad and carve out some space, it will be that.  But trust me, Apple is still king for the moment. 

Also, everyone is holding their collective breath over what Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg will say, given he will have the all important keynote address.  Breathe.  He’ll talk about his “4G” network, that isn’t 4G at all.  If you think that he’ll mention iPhone and Verizon in the same sentence, forget it.  If he does, Steve Jobs will kill him and bury him out in the desert before nightfall.

Expect Intel to be talking up its Sandy Bridge chip and PC manufacturers to present Kate Moss thin laptops.  You will also see the next generation of smartphone handsets equipped with dual core chips. Smarter, faster, but yeah, expected.  Nothing surprising or really newsworthy. 

What you probably won’t see is much emphasis on Google TV.  That was going to be the big thing this year and then…nothing.  Google is keeping mum as to what is going on (or going wrong), but the fact is, consumers just didn’t pick it up at Christmas like Google thought they would.  Again, not having the major networks on the same page also makes things difficult. 

So realize that if you’re going to the show this year, you’ll probably have a lot of free time on your hands.  Garth Brooks is playing at the Wynn Encore.  Given the show he puts on, it will probably be more exciting. Just remember, tip your waitress.  They work hard for the money.

What I Won’t Get For Christmas

It is Black Friday and time for the things I won’t be getting for Christmas. M.I.C. Gadget’s Chris Chang just reported that they just received a cease and desist order from Apple that prevents them from creating the must have action figure of the year. That action figure? Steve Jobs, of course.

It’s a shanda, really it is. The figure actually looks good. But, you know, Steve is Steve and he’s in control. Of eveything.

Another thing I won’t be getting is a Kung Zhu hamster, which happens to be the toy of the year. That’s OK, the last thing I want is a hairy hot wheels.

Google TV is also something I won’t be getting this Christmas. Not because Apple TV is great, as I won’t be getting that either. It’s because right now the TV market is in a huge state of flux. I’m holding off until they finally combine 3D with the web with smell-o-vision with an app store with whatever they can come up with in the next five years. I figure by that time they should have it all together.

And finally when they get that together, I might finally get a gaming system. inect is the best step so far. Until that time though, I’ll continue to play real bowling, volleyball and as for dancing, well, I’ll continue to do that in the privacy of my own bedroom.

There are some things that some people need never see.

Technical Difficulties

In this day and age, I realize that a computer is very much an extension of myself. It has settings, quirks, ways that allow me to do my job, have fun, surf, and communicate. In some ways, it is like a virtual house; I know where everything is, and what everything does.

And like every home owner out there, when the furniture gets moved or rennovations are being done or even if you have to move to another place things can become annoying. And for the last week I have been annoyed.

Simple enough story: My main computer gave up the ghost. At least I can access the data on the drive, but the fact is, while my computer is undergoing rennovations, I am using an older, slower, less familiar machine. In in the last week I have come to realize how much we as humans customize things to how we use it. Even if the computer is a standard issue office machine where everyone in the office has the same thing set up in the same way. We set things up the way we want them to be. Which is why you may have two houses with the same floorplan and exterior on the same block, but they are two different houses entirely once you get inside.

How easy things would be if we were to simply be able to go from one machine to another with no problems. Everything in the same place in the same way everywhere. No getting used to how things work, as you work in the same way everywhere. No down time getting to know the quirks of your computer. Of course, when someone finds a more efficient way to make something work, the newest release would be changed, but you would just have to adjust to a release version, not everything else. How easy. How dull. The fact is, having to adjust to a different way of working has made me think more, realize that there are other ways of working and stretch my mind a little. It may not be efficient, it may be frustrating, but it has been creative.

Now all of this brings me to the “Walled Garden” approach that companies have taken as of late. From what I have seen so far, the chances for real customization do not seem to be there. The latest round of devices have more to do with toasters than that of actual computers. The creativity is in the content, not the presentation. Now hardware wise, it makes sense for the manufacturer, after all, you have control over the parts. You know the pieces all talk to each other in the same way each and every time, so your machine code flows beautifully. And, it’s cheaper. The downside is that you really can’t hack a pad the same way you can turbocharge a tower.

So, I think I’ll sit the pad frenzy for now. They are beautiful and sleek but I’d rather face the frustration of upgrading hardware. Yeah it’s frustrating and messy, but like any do-it yourselfer, it’s my work.

The Revolution Will Be Recorded to Be Watched After “Pimp My DVR”

It was bound to happen, what with the popularity of DVRs.  Someone just had to take matters forward.  Way forward.  Behold, via Gizmodo, the worlds Largest DVR.  Made by Snapstream, from one coax plug, this will pull and record 50 channels, simultaneously, from your cable feed.  The storage is 136 TB, or about 115,200 hours of recorded TV.  Nearly thirteen years worth of TV, or every episode of Law and Order that has ever been made, with some room for the CSI franchise. 

There are some points here-the tuners are analog, not digital, so no HDTV.  But while this is a tech demo, it does point out what will become more commonplace in the next five years or so as prices continue to fall.

So, what is the cost?  Lots.  According to the Snapstream site, a 4 to 10 tuner system with 3-15TB of storage goes for $12,000. So something like this will set you back.  But the point is this is not some exotic creation.  These are all parts that can be found today.  Think of it as a hot rod, rather than a Ferrari.  All that is missing is a little LCD screen on the side so you watch your TV while you watch your TV. 

WordPress Tags: Gear, DVR, TV

Now Playing: The Tubes – Remote Control – Prime Time

The Most Awesome Tent, Evar

Via Design Milk.  I has been a while since I went camping, however, with this tent, I might go more often.  This concept by Orange would allow campers to keep in touch using their gadgets and such in their solar-powered tent.  Orange has been showing off such pieces at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK.  And I certainly add, if you ever have a chance to go to “Glasto”, get your passport in order, buy a ticket and Go.  You will have the time of your life, guaranteed.

Anyway, back to the tent.  From the Orange site:

“The Concept Tent has been designed in association with American product design consultancy Kaleidoscope and builds on learnings from the original Orange Solar Tent that was trialled at Glastonbury in 2003, as well as 2004’s Orange Text Me Home Dome. Having worked closely with Glastonbury for the last eleven years, Orange know the importance of keeping in contact with friends while onsite and undertook this concept project to look at how the festival goers communication and power supply needs might be met in the future.”

The tent features specially woven coated solar threads into conventional fabric to capture solar energy.  By doing so, this allows a “Glo-cation technology” that allows you to spot your tent, in case you lose it in the sea of campers by having it “Glow” a specific color, a central wireless control hub which displays energy generated and consumed as well as providing a wireless internet signal, and finally, an internal heating element embedded within the tent’s groundsheet that is triggered when the temperature falls to a certain temperature.

 Now Playing: Brian Eno – Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) – Back in Judy’s Jungle

WordPress Tags: Gear, camping, Orange, Glastonbury