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