More OLPC fantasies

And the hits just keep on coming. Check out this post on Engadget via DVICE about the 3rd generation OLPC, newly reincarnated into tablet PC form. What? 3rd generation? What happened to generations 1 and 2? You guessed it...absolutely nothing.

As I talked about in my previous posts, when you run a company or group, you must be capable of balance. You have to be able to balance hype and reality. You need to understand how to use marketing for the betterment of your business long-term, not simply make a splash on the Internet, cause a buzz, and not be able to transform that buzz into tangible business success. That is not going to happen when all you do is create pretty pictures on web pages, or fancy powerpoint decks with vaporware promises.

I'll give the guys at Fusion Garage some credit. At least they have working prototypes. It remains to be seen if they ever sell more than a few thousand [which would be a feat]. But the OLPC folks are simply engaging in fanciful imagineering.

Ever hear the expression "At some point in time you need to shoot the engineers and ship the product"?

Well, in this case is should be stated more like:

"At some point in time you need to shoot the designer and build something."

Shoot the designer.

Build something.

Nexus One - The Google phone changes nothing.

I'm not a big fan of Gizmodo's blog posts in general, but this guy has it right. So check out his post regarding the new, yet to be completely over-hyped, Google Android phone.

Bottom Line for those too lazy or time-starved to click the link above:

Google is going to be creating and marketing their own phone, apparently called the Nexus One, which is basically their version of an HTC Android phone with their own marketing behind it. They will apparently be selling unlocked phones which can be used on more than one carrier, which is relatively novel in the US [very common in Europe]. And, although interesting, this is definitely not new. Further, there are several issues with this approach:

1. It will cost more initially. Most US consumers buy on price. Period. This phone, when unlocked, will have to sell for over $300 without a carrier contract. Perhaps way over. Unless this thing is head and shoulders better than the iPhone, why would any "normal" consumer buy one?

2. It won't cost less per month. Do you think the carriers will charge you less per month just because you gave a bunch of money to Google? Perhaps, but not much. My guess is that monthly charges for the Nexus One will be no more than 25% less than an iPhone under contract. The presence alone of the GPhone will cause price pressure to ensure this happens.

3. It won't be as robust as the iPhone. HTC is a good ODM, but without the maniacal leadership from a company like Apple [who actually knows how to manufacture hardware and systems by the way] they will not approach Apple's build quality and robustness for a while. Sure they will get there, but not yet. I would not buy the first [or second] generation of the GPhone, unless you like headaches.

So, given all that, what's the big deal? I'll tell you. Techno-geeks, like the ones who write most tech blogs [but not this one of course ;) ] are BORED with the iPhone. So they want something else to write about and play with. The GPhone is their best bet; the coolest, brightest, shiny-est object out there. So they have anointed it as way cool and the Next Big Thing. Regardless of the facts.

Sure the Gphone will have great initial sales figures. Sure it will have a ton of marketing coverage. Sure it will be the darling of the consumer electronics industry and be all over CES next month. That is, until reality sets in with real consumers. Remember the Palm Pre? 

Will Android-based devices be a big deal someday? You bet. In fact, I predict in 2011 Android could start making some serious inroads into the mass market and actually catch up with the hype. But until then it will just be a bunch of geeks and marketeers, hoping for the best.

Wait and see.

Kodak AWB best in mixed-mode lighting

There I was. At the camera bar of my favorite Wal-Mart...or was it Best Buy? I had a daunting task before me. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it. Yes, campers, I faced one of the more difficult and challenging endeavors of mankind. I had to buy a digital camera for Christmas. Horrors of horrors!

A little over the top? Perhaps, but I don't think so. I bet most non-techies feel this way when they walk up to the bevy of digital offerings at their local chop-shop store. Which one is the best? Which one takes the best pictures for MY needs?

And, as you already know, the wonderfully helpful staff, always eagerly waiting to service your every whim, is there, smiling warmly...or not.

OK...let's cut the crap. I needed a point and shoot. I wanted to take pictures of my 2-year old daughter, so I needed something with the following characteristics [in no particular order]:

- Fast lens [low f-number to techies]
- Good Auto exposure
- Relatively small
- Able to take decent pictures indoors with rapidly moving and uncooperative subjects [like kids]

Doesn't sound too tough, does it? Well if you feel that way you would be...wrong. Drat. I hate it when that happens.

Now, I could write a long, boring tomb [no, not my initials...guess again] regarding the characteristics of digital cameras, technical terms that you don't care about, yada, yada, yada. But this is a blog, not a book [uh...could have fooled me].

So here is the bottom line: Most point and shoot cameras really, really SUCK. They have some shortfall that will raise it's ugly head approximately 2 seconds after the warranty runs out. Just get over it.

Now, having said that, my favorite digital cameras in the point and shoot category for Xmas 2009 are [drum-roll please...]:

1. Canon SD780is - This camera is a joy to behold. Incredibly small, slick and sexy. Fast startup. Great auto-exposure. Lots of options [you'll never need]. OK lens. But note: this camera SUCKS with pictures taken at night in compact-flourescent lighting. That means the Auto-White-Balance [AWB] of the camera cannot understand the color of this particular light, and when mixed with the camera's own flash, the pictures always come out with a strange yellow color which looks horrible. Too bad...otherwise this camera is a keeper.

2. Canon SD1200is - Also a very nice little camera. Cheaper than the SD780, but identical in most every way except:
 1. A larger camera; not as sexy, but still compact.
 2. 10MP instead of 12MP which, in my opinion, is actually desirable [subject of another blog].
 3. Does not have the "evaluative" white balance manual setting. As you'll see below, I think manual settings are useless for most people, so this is a non-issue for most of us.
 4. --> Note that this camera also exhibits the TOTALLY SUCKY AWB performance under CF lighting with flash I talked about above. Too bad...again.

3. Nikon. IMO, all Nikons have really gone down hill. I still have them listed only because of their general build quality and capabilities, but in general they are not nearly as good as they used to be. They are slow to start. Shot-to-shot is horribly slow. Sure they have all the features, but who cares if you can't get the shot off when you need to. Avoid them. Perhaps next year's crop will be better.

4. Kodak. I know it's hard to believe, but Kodak actually has cameras that outshine the competition this year. Especially, with the dreaded AWB problem I talked about above. I suspected the Kodak might do better because I had an old Kodak V603 which did a fine job before I undertook this mission. And sure enough, the first Kodak I tried, the Kodak M381, performed admirably with CF light, effectively getting all the colors correct, rich, and natural-looking. The camera also works well in all other respects you would care about. It's relatively fast. It's compact, but by no means small. Startup and shot-to-shot times are good. Autofocus is acceptable. My only concern with Kodak is build quality. The Best Buy salesperson told me that, of all the cameras they sell, Kodak gets the most returns. The camera does not seem nearly as solid as the Canons or Nikons. I feel that if I look at it the wrong way, it will break. But it works best in mixed-mode light. Ugh.

So, who should care about this mixed-mode light problem? Well you should. As energy costs rise, more and more people are switching the lights in their homes to the CF type, which will save you over 75% of the cost over conventional incandescent lights. Just go to your local Home Depot or Lowes and saunter by the light bulb section [usually placed conspicuously near the entrance] to see exactly how big a deal this is.

So if you are looking for a camera this year, make sure you perform this simple test:
1. Take it home and wait till dark [oooohhh, scary!].
2. Turn on your inside lights.
3. Take pictures. A lot of them. Lots of flash pictures.
4. Check them out. Do the colors look natural? Are they overly yellow? REALLY yellow?  If so, you may have the mixed-mode lighting problem. And you may want to consider invoking your camera store's return policy.

Disclaimer time: OK...for all the geeks out there who will write in and tell me that using manual settings can overcome this problem...so what? Nobody except geeks even knows that manual settings exist, let alone wants to bother switching between them when you are in the middle of a toddler-fest. Do it once, and then forget to switch back the next day causing your outdoor pictures to all look horribly blue. This will cure you of this practice.

Don't be caught by this problem. Don't ignore this issue. Don't practice What Not to Do. Test your new camera thoroughly in your home before you decide to keep it.

A JooJoo by any other name...

Well here is the next chapter in the CrunchPad saga. And, just as I predicted, as this device approaches shipment, the actual price that is being quoted is approaching something that makes more sense to an engineer. As usual, talk to a marketeer and he tells you what you want to hear, talk to an engineer, and he tells you what can be done. Marketeers sell products, but engineers deliver them. The effective migration between these two endpoints connotes a successful business. Arrington's CrunchPad, and perhaps Fusion Garage's JooJoo, although interesting, does not exemplify best practices in this area. In fact, they are showcasing mostly What Not to Do.

Back to the main event. The JooJoo is now quoted as shipping for $499. Amazing. Seems like I called this very price. Actually, it was quite simple to do once you know the size of the touchscreen, since the display cost is driving the price more than anything else. The only other variables are the presence of a subsidy model [which obviously the JooJoo does not have], and acceptable margin. It is also obvious from the $499 price point that Fusion Garage is willing to sell products for a razor-thin margin in order to buy market share. If Apple were selling the exact same product, it would be priced higher.

According to Fusion Garage, you should be able to order the JooJoo on Dec 11 by going to www.thejoojoo.com.

Fusion Garage's Chandra himself was quoted as commenting on Arrington's price predictions by saying "There are dreams, and then there are hallucinations."

That pretty much says it all.

Why didn't I think of that Dept.

I can't believe I did not think of this. I've got a ton of gear in my audio/video setup. I use a ProntoPro remote that I've custom-programmed to control the whole thing. I've known for a while now that the future of these things is being able to use something like the iPod touch [not your iPhone...you will never surrender your personal phone to the family living room unless you are single] to control the whole thing.
The problem has been that the iPod touch and similar devices are WiFi-based and most AV gear responds to IR [infrared] signals. The answer, I always thought, was building a custom IR-blaster to convert the WiFi signals to IR. Well, somebody did just that.
You can now buy the RedEye. Check it out. Pretty cool, albeit a little expensive. This hardware, if it does what I think how I think, probably has a unit cost of around $25-$35 in high quantities. This means they could sell it profitably for $99. That's probably where the cost will end up, after they recoup some funds from the unaware early adopters willing to pay to be the First on Their Block with this new toy.
For me, I'll wait till next Christmas, and get Version 2.0 for $99 [if they survive that long].

Metadata is more valuable than data

As always, Seth Godin is onto something. Check out his latest blog, entitled "Getting Meta". The basic premise is that information is valuable, but information about information may be more valuable. The prefix "meta" means "about", so the word "metadata" literally translates to "about data". It really refers to "data about data".

So what the heck is metadata? Well just about anything that provides information about something else is metadata. For instance, your address is metadata about you. So is your SSN, your bloodtype, your height, weight, etc. As you can see, there is actually a TON of metadata about you. Now, consider all the other things that have descriptive or otherwise informative information regarding them available. Product specs are metadata about those products. Regarding my own experience, the EXIF 2.1 spec details a whole bunch of metadata regarding images that can be extremely useful to people who deal with such data.

What about marketing data? Sales data? You bet.

Bottom line: whoever has access to and controls the most relevant and accurate metadata can affect serious inroads in the business of their choice. Seth knows this. You should to.

CrunchPad is dead

Today, with little fanfare, and more than a few whimpers, the CrunchPad, the brainchild of Michael Arrington, was officially cancelled.
Too bad, cause it was a cool idea. Create a drop-dead simple tablet PC for surfing, music, reading, video...you know, all the stuff that we do with our electronic gadgets to pass the time between actually doing work!
Mike Arrington had a great vision, but unfortunately a little thing called reality crept in and caused some problems. It's too bad that when that happens, people automatically start looking for scapegoats.
Technically, the only problem with the CrunchPad was it's cost. Even with so-called "free" software [which is never totally free unless you think these folks don't need to eat], the component costs alone drove up the cost of the CrunchPad to over $400 in low quantities. Sure, if you buy a million of them you get a deal. I don't need a million; I only want one.
In time, I'm sure we'll get something close to what Arrington has described. Perhaps the rumored iTablet will be the winner of the tablet race. If so, I guarantee you it won't sell for $199, or even $299. Not this year or next.
Will we ever see a $99 tablet? Sure. But we'll all have to pay the ongoing development costs to drive the component costs down, especially the touchscreen display. For a normal hardware business model, you'll need the cost of ALL the components to be less than $50 to even get close to a model which drives the appropriate gross margin to make it attractive. That assumes, of course, that there are no subsidies like cell phones currently enjoy.
So hang in there, Mike. I'm sure someone will crack this business. Bottom line: it can't simply be a good idea. If that's all it took, tablets would abound. In the real world, companies have to think they have a shot at making money somewhere in the process. Great leaders know this. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everybody out there in tech land can take the time away from their computers to stop and think about how good we all have it. No matter how hard things get, I bet each and every one of us can still think of many, many other folks who have it worse off. So please count your blessings...rest up...and then go get those Black Friday deals!

tom

Don't pay for the full version of Win7

Check out this post from Woody Leonard over at Windows Secrets. In it, Woody talks about using the Windows 7 "upgrade" disc from Microsoft to perform a clean install. Most people think that, they MUST have a fully authenticated, valid copy of Windows running on their target PC in order to use the upgrade disc. If not, they feel they must purchase the more expensive "full version" of the operating system to get Windows 7 on their machine.

As Woody correctly points out, that is not the case. Turns out the Windows installer does not verify if the version of Windows you are starting from is valid or not. Just the version you are going to.

What does this mean? In simple terms, it means anybody can install a pirated copy of Windows on their machine, purchase a legit upgrade version of Win7, and get a fully validated copy of Win7 running on their machine for the price of the upgrade!

Why would MS leave so many "holes" in their process to allow folks to "steal" the upgrade version of Win7? Simple. They don't care. Really.

Think about it. All those pirates out there running stolen versions of Windows. That must irk the guys in Redmond to no end. Then they all chuckle when they "get a deal" by using the upgrade disc instead of the full version.

My guess is MS knows exactly what they are doing and could give a rip if the pirates do this. First, believe it or not, pirated copies of Windows are a small percentage of the total. Secondly, these guys were sliding by, perhaps for years, for FREE. Now they will be PAYING for a legit copy of Windows. This is the best way to bring them into the fold. And MS makes money to boot. It's a great deal for everybody.

There are actually a few different ways to get your version of Win7 authenticated without paying the full version price. See Woody's column for all the gory details. You should also check out Paul Thurott's excellent Windows pages.

Have fun...and get Win7...this time MS is for real. And it's worth it!

TI announces low-power bluetooth - more than a year on a watch battery!

Well, it's about time. That old IR standard has been around forever, and although it has worked pretty well, we are due for something better. I don't know about any of you, but I'm sick of waving my remote around aimlessly, flailing like some helpless camper shoing away a swarm of mosquitos, hoping against all hope that my wimpy little IR remote can command my stereo, TV, DVD player, what have you, to do my bidding just so I don't have to get my lazy butt off the couch.
Never mind that I probably could use the exercise. Never mind that it probably would take less time for me to get up and walk the five feet to my box and hit the power button. It's the principle of the matter. I want to be in control. I'm a man. And that's what we do.
Now, finally....FINALLY, we have hope. We the advent of TI's new low-power bluetooth, we should start to see a raft of new, radio-frequency [RF] based remote control systems which perform great, and don't cost an arm and a leg.
Now don't get too excited. There is still a lot of stuff that has to happen. TI will release the parts early next year. That means the earliest you'll see real, viable products will be Xmas 2010. And even then, they will be 1.0 products, which I never trust. Still further, remote controls need to be linked to a compatible receiver. That means, at least for your existing equipment, you'll need to buy a compatible box that links up to all your existing gear with IR repeaters. That's fine with me, since I do that already in order to hide by equipment in a cabinet. But you may not. In any event, I don't see a lot of folks scrambling to throw out all their old stuff just to get a cool new remote.
So this will take time, just like any new standard. But it will happen.

And when it does...no more arm flapping. Cool!

Dramatic view of Earth and Jupiter

Just had to show this completely unique perspective view taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2003. It shows the Earth at the top with Jupiter waaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom. This is NOT a composite. It is one picture, with both planets in the same frame at the same time. Taken from Mars. Thanks to DVICE for bringing this humbling viewpoint of our little planet to my attention. Here you are:

W. O. W.

One cool thing is that, although much bigger in the shot, Jupiter is actually much farther away from the camera than Earth. Earth was 86 Million miles from the camera, and Jupiter was a whopping 600 Million miles away. Just try to imagine how freakin big Jupiter must be!!

But to me, the most amazing thing is that we are here, amongst all this nothingness, clinging to this ball of dirt and water, all going about our everyday lives. All while this thing we call the universe keeps spinning round and round.

Just kind of makes you think...doesn't it?

If you want the hi-res directly from NASA, click here.

Cool.

10GUI - The next evolution in multi-touch?

The advantages of a multi-touch interface between a computing device and a human is pretty obvious nowadays, at least to anybody who owns an iPhone. But even before that, just watch an episode of Star Trek - The Next Generation and you'll figure out the only way that Data was able to use the bridge computers so quickly was that he was using a multi-touch interface. So the concept has been around for quite some time. It has merely taken some time for the engineering to catch up with science fiction. Now that we have affordable technology to make this happen, it's time to take it to the next level. That's exactly what is behind the concept outlined by Robert Clayton Miller at 10GUI.

Take a stroll over to his website and watch the little video demo he has put together. He has come up with a very compelling concept. Of course, it will take a ton more than some slick graphics and animation to turn this into reality. But this idea, presented in a very compelling way, may be a concept whose time has come. Now all we need is a company to build the thing [details, details!].

What do you think? Are we at the dawn of a renaissance of human-computer interaction based upon touch? Let me know!

tom

Intel's Light Peak - my new dock is ready!

The prospects of a super high-speed optical data standard have been long-touted and desired, but problems have limited its adoption. How expensive are the connectors? How expensive and difficult is the interface? Can you connect multiple taps over long distances? It appears Intel may have solved these problems, but it is still too early to tell.

Light Peak was announced this week at the Intel Developer's Forum [IDF] in San Francisco. The annual tech event showcases new technologies and standards being developed by Intel and its partners. Besides USB 3.0, Light Peak may be one of the most exciting new standards out there.

Some questions still remain. Can you couple multiple runs together, or are you limited to one run [ie point to point or multipoint]? Intel claims that 100-meter runs are possible with Light Peak and this is a fantastic achievement, but if you cannot create multiple drops, with flexible interconnects, the standards' applications may be limited.

Another great application of Light Peak technology would be a dock for your laptop with ONE small connector, the Light Peak connector. You simply drop your laptop onto a small docking pad, the Light Peak connector is energized, and BAM, your HD video display, keyboard, mouse, dolby multi-channel audio, all your external USB 3.0 hard drives, etc. are all connected at blazingly-fast speeds! Now, that would be awesome to behold.

Hopefully, Light Peak will not be simply interesting. Hopefully it will also be useful.

The real question regarding Palm using iTunes

Finally, the Universal Serial Bus Implementer's Forum [USB-IF] has ruled on the efficacy of  Palm's technique for getting the Pre to sync with iTunes, and, guess what? Surprise, surprise, Palm apparently did not play by the rules.

The USB-IF rules, that is. Here is how this aspect of the USB standard works in a nutshell. Every company that makes USB-compliant products registers for and gets ONE "Vendor ID", or VID. Only they can use that VID to identify their products to computers they are connected to. It appears, in order to get iTunes to recognize the Pre as a compatible device, Palm hijacked Apple's VID. Technically, this is a simple and effective way to get things to work. Unfortunately, this is not a technical issue. When Palm joined the USB-IF, they agreed to abide by the rules of membership. This practice violates those rules. It's as simple as that.

The REAL question here, however, is if Apple should be allowed to restrict other companies from making devices that can interact with iTunes the way the iPod does.

Well let's see here. Apple created and owns iTunes. Apple created and owns all the iPods. Shouldn't they be allowed to reap the rewards from their efforts? Why should they, after expending years and millions of dollars, be forced to allow all their competitors to glom onto their success and reap the rewards of their investment without doing the work? Seems unfair, right?

Whoa. Wait a minute. There are other parallels here. Seems to me there is another company in a little town near Seattle, WA, that owns a dominant piece of software. For years they have been under the microscope of legal authorities, being told that they must "open up" their operating system and let others have "equal access" to the technology they created, without ever paying them a cent. How is it OK for Apple to openly dominate one market, but completely wrong for Microsoft?

Truth is...it's not.

Every company should have the right to openly compete to dominate any market they choose, as long as they operate in a legal and ethical manner. But, when they do succeed, when they do achieve market dominance, the rules must change. When you are dominant in your market by a wide margin, you now attain a special status. You are no longer protected, because you no longer need protection.

So, just as Microsoft has had to learn this lesson, it is now time for Apple to learn it. Apple needs to open up interfaces and APIs to any technology which locks competitors out of any market in which they are dominant by a wide margin. That includes portable media players and smartphones.

Sorry Apple. Welcome to Microsoft's world.

Pentax W80 not as good as predecessor

Happens all the time. You have a good product. You need to update it, to keep up with the Jones's constant inrush of new features on the checkoff list. Everybody else has a new model, well Gosh Darn It, we need one too! So the heck with design. Forget analysis. Too bad for engineering. Marketing, what's that? Just start coding, design, etc, and we'll let you know what the heck we are doing later. At least it seems like that.

Sadly, this appears to be the case all too often with digital cameras. We passed the inflection point in the curve regarding image quality years ago. After around 3 mega-pixels, spatial resolution of the finished file no longer was the determining factor in image quality. Unfortunately, many companies have not learned this lesson. Or perhaps they just can't get off the addiction to the megapixel marketing crack.

Case in point: Pentax makes a great little waterproof digital camera, the Optio W60. It has been out for some time now. I have had it for several months. Now, mind you, it is NOT as good as conventional digital cameras, but it is arguably the best waterproof digicam for the money.

Now, enter the "new, improved" Pentax W80, with so much more! More megapixels, that is. Seems all Pentax did was shove in a higher-resolution imager, and increase the retail price. As I have said before, this can actually have the opposite effect. And in this case it does. The new W80 is actually slower, and outputs lower quality images overall, than it's less expensive sibling. All for more money.

If you don't believe me, check out the latest review here.

And remember, newer is not always better. But, most of the time, it's more expensive. And you can take that to the bank.

tom

The most important and least known feature of the upcoming Apple iTablet

Here is the latest iTablet rumor regarding Apple. I have said many times before [although now that it is close, I'm sure half of the population is claiming such precognition] that this product is a no-brainer for Apple. Simply take an iPod Touch, increase the screen size to 10 inches, add some more memory and perhaps some graphics acceleration, a larger battery, and you have a watershed new product.

This product would be great all by itself, but what really will make it sing has not yet been touched upon by any writer yet. Since it will most likely NOT have a cell-phone embedded in it, the iTablet must, must, MUST allow functioning as a secondary screen for your iPhone [not your Macbook, like the above article proposes], preferably over WiFi. There is no technical reason why this cannot be done today. This way all the iphone users out there instantly get a beautiful, large screen to surf at Starbucks with. Also, Apple ensures that the new product will give them exactly what they need...exposure! Imagine, every new owner of one of these bad boys will be able to trot it out publicly, and not simply for narcissistic purposes [which is usually enough for Apple fanboys], but for a functional, practical use that NOBODY can top. Fantastic confluence of engineering and marketing...pure APPLE.

There...you heard it here first.

You lost the war - get over it.

Hard to believe, I know, but companies will not willingly admit when their business models simply will no longer work. Such is the case with ANY type of Digital Rights Management [DRM]. It has been tried over and over again, from Apple's AAC version for audio, to DIVX for video. The problem is very simple. There are existing formats in WIDE adoption that people find perfectly acceptable that are... wait for it...DRM FREE!. Unfortunately for these companies [and fortunately for the rest of us], this means folks get what they want and don't have to contend with invasive, limiting, and cumbersome Orwellian rights management engines that lock you into using the content they way the company wants you to, instead of the way you want to.

And, you guess it, they are at it again. Check out the latest episode in this inane comedy. It talks about how all the major record labels have banded together [yet again] to create a new music format, in order to "enhance" your music listening experience. It is called "CMX" - I think it stands for Charge Me eXtreme amounts of money. The real reason anybody comes up with a new media format anymore is they want to embed DRM into it so that they can control how, when, and where you enjoy the media and ostensibly to control piracy. Remember "Super Audio CD"?. It was NOT about audio quality, it was about DRM! It appears that no one over at the major record labels has figured out [or, more likely, will admit] that people don't like DRM protected music, and will not use it no matter how much lipstick is put on that pig. You can gussy it all up with enticements like album art, special notes, images, features....blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is that folks buy music to listen to it, period. Anything else simply gets in the way and really adds little value.

As amazingly dumb as this appears, there is more. I expect this type of denial to come from the record companies. After all, what else can they do? They are all clinging to DRM like frightened monkeys to a broken limb. They have nothing else left to keep their phoney-baloney jobs, and nobody willingly puts a gun to their own head.

But what is even more astounding is that APPLE is also trying this maneuver. Yep, venerable old Apple, guardian of the weak, defender of the small, is rumored to be prepping a new music format, code-named Cocktail, for the same reason. I am speechless. I am without speech.

Don't believe the advertising. Resist the hype. You should always INSIST that your media come in the following formats [DRM-free of course]:

Music - MP3 [preferably 160-192Kbps]

Photos - JPG [no more than 12x compression, quality level 80% if possible]

Video - This one is tougher; subject of another post. In general, go with H.264 w/PCM audio in a Quicktime or WMA wrapper.

The war is over. Get over it.

More iPhone bashing

Wow..this is really a phenomenon. Check out the following video review. This ZDnet editor says he "would love to have" an iPhone...and then goes ahead and bashes this wonderful product because of the minor issues he thinks are important that it does not fare well on. Must be great to have all that power of the press.

Here are the main points of the ZDNet commentary in a nutshell:

1. There is "much less excitement" with this year's iPhone launch than in year's past. By who's standard? This year Apple sold 1 Million iPhone 3GS models in the first three days of the launch. Last year they sold...you guessed it...1 Million iPhone 3G models in the first three days. Exactly the same number! So it seems, from a monetary standpoint at least, this launch was just as exciting. But then again, some techies might not get excited about making money.

2. "The Palm Pre sold out at launch". Well, what a wonderful marketing statement. The thing you have to realize, however, is that it is easy to sell out when you have no product. Palm only sold 150,000 units in the same timeframe that Apple sold 1 Million. Palm Pre sales amount to nothing more than a rounding error in Apple's books.

3. "AT&T is the problem" because of the following three things: 1) lack of MMS support, 2) lack of tethering support, and 3) locking customers into a 2 year contract. PLEASE. Are you kidding? IMHO, MMS support is a legitamate gripe, albeit a minor one. But tethering support? Only geeks give a rip about this. Most "normal" people couldn't tell you what tethering support is if their life depended upon it. And as for the "2 year contract" lock-in, where have you been living for the past 15 years, on Mars? Every phone carrier in the US utilizes this HW subsidy model, and everybody [including the commenter] knows it! The trite caveat "people expect something different" does not wash with me. What people? Fellow Martians?

Just supports by previous blog that techies don't like the dominant player in any one arena, no matter how good the product. Futher, all the commenters and writers are early adopters who could care less about reliabiility and cost, since they change electronics like they change their socks. To the rest of us...their opinions are becoming less and less useful, and could actually make life a lot worse financially.

Palm Pre's best hope...vanity

"I'm bored of the iPhone" - This is a direct quote from a review of the Palm Pre. And it really sums up what Palm's "best hope" for success is --> VANITY. Just like this post, all those techies, early-adopters, and people with more money than brains who absolutely must have something that they can whip out [legally] and show off to their possy to prove they are the coolest dude in the group, they are all bashing the iPhone as "old" and "boring". But the Pre is "different" and "cool". That is why people buy the Palm Pre today. That is the only reason they buy it today.

Let's review the facts. To date, Palm has sold approx 150,000 Pres. To date, Apple has sold approx 25 million iPhones. The one thing you learn in manufacturing consumer electronics is that, the more you make, the better they get. The first few thousand of anything is junk from a robustness standpoint. You simply have to make a lot of anything to work out the kinks. Now, perhaps Palm crushed all those junky Pres. But perhaps not. Only time will tell.

From a feature standpoint, here is what you need to know regarding the salient differences between the Apple iPhone and the Palm Pre:

Key features Palm Pre has that iPhone does not have include:

1. Multitasking. That means you can run one app, leave it and run another app, and the first app will remain running in the "background". This is cool for some apps that need to monitor things on an ongoing basis, and is a definite advantage over the iPhone for those applications. Apps like SKYPE, Loopt, and Tweetdeck would benefit from this legit advantage.

2. Form factor. The Pre is decidedly smaller than the iPhone, so folks with small hands may like how it feels. The screen, however, is also slightly smaller, so you give something up in that tradeoff. IMHO, not enough reason to buy an unproven device.

3. Physical keyboard. The iPhone uses a "virtual" keyboard that some folks find hard to type on, whereas the Pre has an actual physical keyboard. The concept is cool, and I personally like physical keyboards like the one on my Treo 650. Unfortunately, I've heard that the Pre's keyboard is a little too small to be easily used [at least by the average man]. Again, this is a personal, ascetic reason to get a device.

4. WebOS. This term is used here to describe the entire User Experience [UX] of the Pre, which is definitely slick and cool. Again, if you buy on slick and cool, instead of on how to get things done, this could be a big factor in your decision. My problem with making a decision based upon who has the coolest UX is that, next week or next month, something "cooler" will come along, and you can literally go broke chasing these technology fashion trends. You better bring a lot of money if you like to do this sort of thing.

...There you have it. If you want these things, and these things ONLY, i.e. "to be the coolest kid on the block", go for it and buy a Pre. Let me know how it goes. I'll stick with my iPhone 3GS. Because I'm busy and I need to get something done. If you disagree, or even if you agree, let me know by writing a comment. Cheers.

What not to do - photography

Yep, there are a lot of tech blogs/articles out there... just a quick note to all those folks who need to use photography in their jobs, but don't really know [or care enough] how to do things properly.

Here is a hint...don't do what this guy did:

uh....fixing this one is pretty simple - Just angle the screen such that it is *not* perpendicular to the optical axis of your camera. In english, that means either up or down, but not pointing right at you! The would-be reviewer here probably wanted the screen to be as bright as possible, and since most LCDs apparent brightness drops off exponentially as you tilt the screen away from you, he just slammed it straight on. But really...what [or who] is the real subject of this photo?

Apple knows the whole recipe

You know what's so great about Apple? They have the entire recipe down pat. The come up with a concept, and create a drop-dead simple way to do the top 10% of user-requested features. They create that 10%, however, with 100% reliability. They really do very little from a feature standpoint, but they do it very, very well. They make sure the HW and SW play together flawlessly, and not just in the demo, but for every customer. 

I agree. 

I'll take a product that delivers 10% of the featureset 100% of the time, over a product that delivers 100% only 10% of the time. Companies fail because they cannot focus on the critical few elements of success, and simply nail them.

We know that demos can be compelling. But if you buy on the demo without knowing anything about real-world performance, you are taking a big risk. Don't be a lemming, and unless you have a ton on money to waste or are an early adopter [aka "a ton of money to waste"] or a reviewer [aka "willing to waste a ton of other people's money" - boy I want that job!] you absolutely MUST know something about the robustness of the product you are going to buy.

You either trust others or look at the data yourself. Problem with simply reading reviews, most reviewers don't give a rip about robustness. They are only into what is cool and new and can get copy read and get page views. Robustness is boring. But boy does it cost. Not necessarily today, or tomorrow. But believe me it will cost YOU eventually if you don't do your homework.

Is a product worth buying? Check it out. Simple math is your friend. Divide the total cost [buyin plus maintenance] over the lifetime, minus the buyout[if you sell it] by the total time you used the product. That will give you your cost per unit time. IF most people did this calculation for their cell phones, including contract, they would be appalled to see they are spending over $150-200 a MONTH so they can tweet, surf, and chat. Thats a lot of cash to do little more than waste theirs and other people's time.

Do the math, think, and by all means don't buy into the fanboy excitement. Unless you can really afford it.

What do you think? Is reliability important? Or would you rather just have something cool? Comment and let me know....

Google Wave - a new era for communication

Just watched the Google I/O 2009 Keynote Google Wave demo, and it was pretty impressive. In short, Google Wave is a new platform that allows developers to rapidly create a dynamic communication system, fully integrated between web and desktop. Google provides the open-source platform which seamlessly integrates all the common features of email, IM/chat, and document collaboration/processing into one communication thread that they call a "wave". Each wave is dynamic, that is it's state is constantly monitored by the wave server, which syncs all changes made by any client immediately. It tracks the complete history of the wave, and allows each client to "play back" the history, change by change, to review all activities of each wave.

Waves can contain plain text, rich text, audio, video and pictures. They are all treated similarly. Comments and changes are accommodated in a very intuitive fashion. In this way, collaborative edits/comments/changes can be managed very simply, allowing multiple wave participants to create a document/note/etc. which can then be distributed in "final form" via a new wave to others for final viewing, all the while retaining the rich history of each wave's pedigree.

The Wave platform provides APIs for client and server-side extensions. Server-side extensions, called robots, can participate in waves just like their human counterparts, mining each wave for data which can be used to make the wave even more valuable and productive to both the participants as well as the owner of the service. Several robots were demoed, including Spellee [semantic spell checker], Linkee [automatic weblink generator], and Rosy [way cool 40 language, real-time auto translator]. These things were real and live on stage.

The platform supports federation between servers, so you can set up your own Wave server for your community, and federate with all [or none] of the other Wave servers [including the ones Google owns and runs]. This way you can extend your reach dramatically!

For more info, check out wave.google.com for the demo of the video keynote. You should also look at www.code.google.com/apis/wave to get into the wave api effort. Another key link is www.waveprotocol.org to participate in the open wave protocol.

This is very interesting stuff. Wave-based properties should start becoming real later this year!

Handset extortion

It's maddening. The coolest handsets are on the lamest carriers. Unlike their counterparts in the EU, or even Asia, getting the mobile phone handset you want on the carrier you desire is sometimes difficult, and many times, impossible.

Here's the deal: Each cell phone solution requires a unique combination of three things:

1. Handset. Examples include iPhone, PalmPre, BlackBerry Storm, etc.
2. Carrier. Examples include Verizon, Sprint, and ATTWireless.
3. Radio signalling method. Examples include GSM and CDMA. [I'm going to ignore things like frequency to simplify...]

Here's the problem - Handsets are made with the radio integrated inside, so every handset could have multiple radio options [GSM, CDMA, etc]. Further, Carriers don't support all radio signalling methods in all regions. So in order to get the phone you want on the carrier you desire you need to have all these things line up.

In Europe, they have taken steps [probably because of legislation] to simplify this mess. How have they done this? Nearly all carriers support the same radio signalling method - GSM. Further, they make it easy to move from one phone to another. All GSM phones utilize a "SIM Card" which can easily be removed and put into another phone. The SIM holds all your personal information, so when you move it to another phone that phone instantly has all your info, your contacts, your phone number, everything. The other phone is now empty and ready for a different SIM card. It is as simple as that! The carrier of choice is actually linked to the SIM card and NOT the handset. So changing carriers is simply a matter of getting a new SIM and plugging it into whatever handset you want. What an idea!

Why don't we do this in the US? Of course you know why...MONEY! The carriers have created mini-monopolies. They have custom protocols riding on top of incompatible signalling methods that require different radios. Further, they cut "exclusive" deals with handset manufacturers that prohibit them from putting different radio hardware in their handsets making them locked only one carrier.

What is the result? Well, in the US here is the result:

a. You can only get an iPhone on the ATTWireless network. A great phone on a mediocre network.
b. You will only be able to get a PalmPre on SPRINT. A cool phone on a lame network.
c. You can only get the BlackBerry Storm on VerizonWireless. A mediocre phone on a great network.

This is not good for consumers. It is simply a form of monopolistic control. It is quite maddening. I should be able to get whatever phone I want and freely move between whatever carrier I want. Sure you can subsidize with contracts, etc., but I should be able to pay extra money to get what I want, shouldn't I? I should not have to resort to mission-impossible-esqe "unlocking" schemes that are ultimately unreliable, unsupported, and wicked expensive.

There are clear examples of how companies can cooperate successfully while giving consumers control and options like they do in Europe. Nevertheless, it continues. Our US Congress is too busy giving billions of dollars to failing businesses being run by idiots who will lose it and ask for more later. Instead of doing their jobs and protecting consumers.

Welcome to America. Land of the free.