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].