[Fri Jan 29 15:15:37 CET 2010]

Computer World published a piece about augmented reality on mobile devices a few days ago that I found sort of interesting:

Augmented reality technology is getting a lot of attention these days —particularly the use of AR with smartphones. The idea is that by using certain software, you can turn your iPhone, Droid or other smartphone into a virtual heads-up display. Aim your phone's camera at a shop, restaurant or landmark, and information about the place, such as hours of operation, reviews or directions, appears on the device's screen as graphics floating over the image of the place.

Dozens of developers of mobile augmented reality apps are banking on AR becoming the Next Big Thing in the mobile market. Indeed, a recent Juniper Research report predicted that annual revenues from mobile AR apps will reach $732 million by 2014, up from less than $1 million in 2009.

As in the case of e-books and virtual worlds such as Second Life, there is still a long way to go, the technology may change quite a bit before it becomes mainstream and there will be, of course, a few corpses along the way, but there is little doubt in my mind that it is here to stay. Yesterday's science-fiction continues becoming a reality at a very fast pace. {link to this story}

[Fri Jan 29 15:10:30 CET 2010]

While browsing around, I came across a reference to EyeOS, a project started by a few developers in Barcelona to put together a web-based operating system. It does look sort of interesting although, to tell you the truth, why run all these apps within your web browser when mobile access is to easy these days, netbooks and 3G-enabled cell phones are all over the place and one can use Google Docs to save files anyways. Or, to put it another way, I'm not sure this makes sense as a business plan, although the technology certainly looks cool. {link to this story}

[Thu Jan 28 12:24:38 CET 2010]

There is no doubt that yesterday's presentation of the iPad by Steve Jobs is the hottest technology news. Even those who couldn't care any less about Apple and their products have to admit that they know how to generate buzz around their new products. Not only are they more than capable of coming up with excellent designs, but they also know how to sell them. Simply put, Apple's marketing department must be one of the best in the world. Period.

So, how about the iPad? Is it worth all the hoopla? I suppose it all depends on whom you ask. Sure, it is just a tablet computer, but I'd say it is actually more than that. You just have to compare it to all the other tablet PCs that have been released until now. As the CNet folks put it yesterday, people in Redmond must be pulling their hair right now. After all, Bill Gates already talked about the idea of a Tablet PC at Comdex back in 2000. It wouldn't be fair to state that Steve Jobs have invented the device and Microsoft is just following on his footsteps. That's not what happened. What happened is exactly the same thing that happened over and over again during the last decade or so. Nobody quite knows where these great ideas came from (opinion articles, science-fiction pieces...) but, when it finally draws the industry's attention the outcome is invariably the same: Microsoft, HP and others come up with some uninspiring hardware that cannot get anyone excited, while Apple manages to build up the excitement, spread the buzz all over the world and, finally, release a product that astonishes people. You can almost hear the "ooohs" and "aaahs".

So, no, it wouldn't be fair to say that Apple has invented the tablet PC. No way. But it is fair to say that they managed to make it affordable, cool, interesting and exciting. How exactly? For starters, the iPad is way cheaper than other similar products and only slightly more expensive than many netbooks. And price matters, especially when the main criticism aimed at Apple has always been that their prices are too high. But then, they also offer something new when it comes to the interface: it's not only that the Mac OS X is much easier to use and more stable than any Windows version (which it is), but you can use the thing with your fingers. Who can come up with a simpler, more natural interface? Compared to this, the stencils that other tablets use look embarrasingly primitive (yes, the stencil may be useful for certain things, but not as the main input tool). And don't even get me started with the whole notion of a regular keyboard attached to a screen that folds and unfolds. That's clunky as hell. Some people have criticized the iPad saying that it's nothing more than an oversized iPhone. I don't think that's a fair criticism. Yes, the overall behavior is similar. Yes, the interface is also similar. But since when did we agree that interfaces had lack standardization in order to provide a good user experience? I always thought it was the opposite. Quite the opposite, the device looks sleek, cool and easy to use.

Finally, there is one more thing to consider: how will the iPad affect the e-readers, which were starting to take off just now? That's an interesting question. Apple has already announced that it reached agreements with several major publishers (Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin...) to allow the iPad users easy access to thousands of books in digital format. I don't know about you, but if my choice is between an e-reader with a black and white screen that can only display books and a color tablet that can also browse the web and run office applications... well, I think my choice is pretty clear, isn't it? Especially since the slight different in price is well worth the additional functionality. So, while I don't think the iPad will kill the fledgling world of digital publishing, I do think it will stir the waters for the manufacturers of e-reader devices. {link to this story}

[Mon Jan 25 11:25:12 CET 2010]

Somebody sent me a link to a news article from a few months ago explaining that Apple pulled out an application called "I Am Rich" for the iPhone from their online store. I have mixed feelings towards this whole thing, to be honest. On the one hand, Apple definitely has a right to decide what it is sold on its own Apple Store, that's for sure. If they think the I Am Rich app for the iPhone is not up to par with the rest of the apps and it doesn't pass the muster, then they are in their right to pull it from the shelves, so to speak. Sure, this app is quite useless and some might even consider it a very clever scam. However, who am I (or Apple) to decide whether people have a right to waste US $1,000 in a fashion statement to show that they are wealthy? More to the point, as some critics have pointed out, there are plenty of other apps that can be considered quite useless and are still available for download. One cannot avoid the feeling that Apple made the decision simply based on marketing. {link to this story}

[Thu Jan 21 13:17:40 CET 2010]

Interesting piece published by eWeek on greening the data center. The second part of the article is particularly intriguing:

Believe it or not, 2010 will toll the death knell for the raised floor. As hot air rises, cool aire ends up below the raised floor, where it isn't doing much good. In addition, raised floors simply can't suppoer the weight demands placed on them by high-density racks. A 42u rack populated with 14 3u servers can weigh up to 1,000 pounds.

Raised floors are simply not efficient operationally. I had the experience many years ago of building a 10,000-foot data center in a large city. Several months after it was built, we began to have intermittent network outages. It took many man-hours to locate the problem: Rats were chewing through the insulation on cables run below the raised floor. Rats aside, additions, reconfigurations and troubleshooting of the cable plant are much easier on your staff when cables are in plain sight.

{link to this story}

[Thu Jan 21 12:11:43 CET 2010]

There are two types of crazy people: the ones who are truly nuts and don't make any sense, and the ones who are nuts just in the sense that they are wildly different, obsessed with something and bet the whole ranch into whichever project they happen to be working on. This German guy who decided to build an exact replica of an SU-27 plane during his spare time clearly belongs to the second group. Here are a few pictures:

{link to this story}

[Wed Jan 20 11:58:54 CET 2010]

Hack A Day has published an entry with pictures of the most complicated and simplest binary clocks that I just couldn't let pass. The thing is that lots of people have been sending them messages about this or that project to put together a binary clock. I totally love the simplest one, although I must admit it hardly amounts to a hack at all:

Yep, that's right. He just printed a new face for the clock. Hehe. {link to this story}

[Wed Jan 13 14:42:33 CET 2010]

The future is here. Actually, it arrived quite sometime ago, although we may have missed it, used as we are to the daily routine. What was a monopoly of science fiction books not so long ago (massive cyber attacks against competing countries and their interests) is already here. Google has accused China of organizing a widespread spying effort aimed not only at them, but also at many other American corporations. It's gotten to be so bad, as a matter of fact, that Google's management is seriously considering to pull out of the Chinese market altogether. The following statements by Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, would have sounded far-fetched not so long ago:

The U.S. government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain iself, saying that Google's allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions."

"The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy," she said.

It certainly is. But, as I said, just ten or fifteen years ago, it was the stuff of science fiction and plenty of people would have laughed out loud if anyone explained that we would be seeing these cyber-conflicts today. The world is changing, and it's changing fast. {link to this story}

[Tue Jan 12 19:28:34 CET 2010]

It looks as if Blio, the e-reader software created by Ray Kurzweil is all the buzz lately. The software is totally free, and it will be available soon on the Blio website, which also has a few screenshots. So, what is so big about Blio? For starters, it is a software product, and not a device. In theory, it should run fine on any PC, iPod Touch or iPhone, therefore automatically converting those into a fully fledged e-reader. And, in this case, the term "fully fledged" is simply not good enough to describe it, since it goes well beyond any existing product to preserve typography, illustrations and color and, to top it all off, it is backed by Baker & Taylor, the world's largest distributor of books and entertainment, which means that it will launch with one million books available in its library. So, altogether, it does sound like a very exciting announcement. Hence the hoopla, of course. And yet, I'm not sure this is a winner. Discovery News published a good piece by Jonathan Strickland where he wonders to what extent Blio will truly make a difference, and his arguments do carry some weight:

...I don't see Blio as a true game changer. For one thing, it's incompatible with e-ink screens. That means Blio will run on devices that require power to display images, which means a limited reading time due to battery life. The Kindle and Nook can run for days (assuming you have Wi-Fi turned off). A laptop, smart phone or table may only have a few hours of life before needing a recharge.

The text-to-seech feature, which some people are saying really sets Blio apart, isn't new either. The Kindle has the same feature. What holds back a more widespread use of text-to-speech isn't technology. Instead, it's legal battles with publishers and authors, some of whom argue that the feature hurts sales of audio books. I don't think any text-to-speech feature competes with a true audio book. I do think it's a useful feature for people who have a visual impairment. But I'll save that full argument for another blog post.

For another, customers have already shown that they are willing to buy a device dedicated to a single task. This surprised me more than anyone —convergence is something I've said was a key feature in technology over the last decade. I think many people are willing to purchase a unique device if it means a superior experience. I'm not sure Blio provides that yet. And if we wanted to read books on our computers, wouldn't we be doing that already? It's not like the technology itself is particularly new.

I do read some e-books on my netbook, and I can see the tablet PCs being used for this too, sure. However, as Strickland says, the battery life of these devices is still quite limited. Let's put it this way. In the long run, I do think something like Blio will succeed. However, I'm not that convinced it will win in the short term. The devices that could run the application are still either too bulky or run out of battery too soon. Yet, as technology improves and these multi-purpose devices become slimmer and more energy-efficient, I can see how they may be very popular. Spending several hundred dollars on a single-purpose device is still a very bold proposition. {link to this story}