John Alphonse WebVision

Next Big Thing: Shazam for Facebook

2009-07-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Web-everywhere is spreading like wildfire, and even though the flames are tiny now, we may have never before seen a faster spread than the one we are about to experience.

If you were still wondering what's the craze about the mobile web and why it's the future, and (whether or not you use it) you still don't get Twitter, then the lightbulb is about to be switched on for you.

Do the terms Walking Encyclopedia or Photographic Memory sound at all appealing? And then some?

This video from the TED conference from way back in early 2009... is an interesting take on web-everywhere:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

But I believe we're already 80% there with existing smartphones. Think iPhone around your neck with a pico projector included. Just add some stylish eyewear with video feedback capability with self-adjustable photogray lenses, and you've got a compact, comfy and cool-looking combo.

Signing in and out of Facebook (or a startup that beats them to this Holy Grail) will be a thing of the past because it will always be there (if you choose, of course).

I believe we'll see a "Shazam for Facebook" type of application by this time next year easily: wearing your always-on video phone, facial-recognition software will capture images of faces you encounter, matching them to user-submitted front-facing headshot photos (or multiples!) on Facebook, and projecting in your glasses (preferable to projecting onto the person I'd think) all the information this person has chosen to make public.

Watch the TED video, and leave me a comment on what you think this scenario is going to look like when it plays out!

Apple's Netbook: Take II

2009-04-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

Suffice to say, I have substantially reconsidered my ideas on Apple's inevitable upcoming release of something in the "netbook" category:

Gone is the notion of an iPod TouchMax - an overgrown version of the Touch. More and more, it just doesn't seem to make sense fitting that into the "netbook" category, although the possibility of another device that is indeed a larger version of the touch, is still viable.

But I just can't see this touch screen thing sitting on a cafe table in any usable fashion, and I don't believe the netbook crowd is looking for a giant touch screen to dab around on. Not with the popularity of chat, SMS, Facebooking and blog journaling as well as document typing - on the HP Mini and Acer Aspire and such, that is...

So... Introducing...

The MacBook Air Puff

With Sony selling its version of the netbook for a retarded 900 bucks on average (with an 8" screen no less!) - wow, there's a hole in price points big enough to drive a MacBook truck through!

You're going to see an 11" screen on the Puff, because this featherweight is going to make all current netbooks look like underpowered smartphones in a rainstorm. An eleven-inch fits in very neatly along with 13, 15 and 17... and it's so perfectly "not too small, not too big"-ish. It will also be the baddest and the biggest on the inside, at least for the high-end version.

Based on this black hole in price points it looks to be selling at $499 - 699 with the former model selling like Steve Jobs' hotcakes at a Berkeley bake sale.

Timing? The real world seems to milk things longer than I think they ought to, but it just makes so much sense to release this for summer in June along with distro of iPhone 3.0 - and then hit the fall market with...

...yeah the next BIG thing: the Apple-branded digital television using LG screen technology, a device that will be as ubiquitous in college dorm rooms as white ear buds are on a New York subway.

In the world of netbook computers, maybe clouds do have silver linings... or is that just the aluminum MacBook Air Puff floating by?

Apple and the netbook

2009-03-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit that I have been thinking that Apple should have jumped on the netbook bandwagon months ago, but after actually and finally jumping on one last week for a few minutes, I can see why they didn't - at least in the form which exists - and why they should.

The Apple version will definitely be touch screen in my opinion. The current netbooks which tout their "full" keyboard feature, no matter how you slice it, comes up dinky. But I understand why it's so popular with young females in Asia with such a teensy, crowded keyboard that probably perfectly fits slighter phalanges, but for your average-sized dude, I'm not seein' it.

Apple really should release something in this form factor, though, as the ease of transport makes even an ultralight laptop seem bulky. I'm still a big fan of a larger screen personally, and would probably still go with a true notebook, but there is certainly a niche market for a smaller device.

The biggest question remaining in my mind is whether it will be a clamshell or bar style, to borrow some mobile phone terms. Problem with the "bar book" is, where and how do you prop it up while you type? With a generation used to Game Boys and PSP's, perhaps this is less of an issue, but how many emails or web addresses do you type out on a handheld gaming device? And really how good is it typing a lot on an iPhone and Touch for that matter? Any better than the crowded netbook keys that Apple complains about?

This issue has me scratching my head and thinking more along the lines of a dual touch screen a la the OLPC Project's second-generation device. Apple's prototype better pre-date this blog post or I want royalties, but what I envision is a big-screen touch with a second pop-out touch keypad, perhaps with foldable "wings" to emulate a full-sized keypad, ultra thin of course, with perhaps two recessed "legs" in the side of the main unit to prop the angle of the screen. Okay, maybe a little crazy, but visionaries aren't exactly supposed to be conservative non-risk takers, are they? This device would be both a handheld giant Touch and a desk-settable netbook all in one.

Anyhow, I have the feeling that an iPod TouchBook is not far away... even this summer is not unreasonably soon, seeing they've known about the demand for well over a year by now, and the iPod Touch is about a year and a half old by release date. And why wait for fall when the hot summer months beg for lightweight portability in any item from clothing to camping gear to travel luggage?

Gates admits Microsoft sucks

2008-05-29T00:07:00.000-07:00

In an Associated Press article yesterday, Bill Gates is para-quoted as follows:

"Gates said he has never been 100 percent satisfied with any Microsoft product, and that the company prides itself on fixing shortcomings in later versions."

So, what he's saying is he puts out products he himself isn't happy with and is psyched to patch up the mess later? I'm certainly glad he's not my carpenter! Imagine hiring someone to do work around your home with an attitude like that? And imagine they had an 800 number you had to call (and be put on hold) in order to get these "shortcomings" taken care of? Or if you had to wait not only for the repairman to show up, but for him to hire someone else to figure out what the heck's wrong and find a solution first before he can even start to fix the crappy job he did on your kitchen or bathroom in the first place? And you couldn't even call another company because your carpenter uses tools and supplies that no other does, and so you have no choice but to wait in line with the million other unsatisfied customers with leaky windows? Wow.

How can anyone wonder why MS is not very well-liked? Would you recommend the plumber who took three weeks to fix the pipes so you could use the toilet and take a shower? I seriously don't think so. Are you thrilled that your roof leaks but it's okay because everybody else's does too?

And this guy got into Harvard? There goes the credibility of that school. And with the amount of rhetorical bullshit he throws around it seem he was right-on in the first place with that pre-law idea...

If only people would stop equating financial success with intelligence and integrity, I think the world would become a much better place.

This statement by Gates is a prescient glimpse at MS's future and explains why it upholds a standard of mediocrity.

Man, Ballmer must be on the verge of having an aneurism after that one... Your golf teammate just sliced another one into the woods, Steve, but it's only a game! Ya-hoo!

The Emancipation of Sony

2008-05-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

Sony really did drop the ball. And you can see it on the face of every Japanese person who ogles an iBook. Pride can be a terrible thing, and we all as individuals and groups or companies need to remember this.

Went to the Westchester Mall in White Plains, New York, a few months ago: Apple's store was jammin' with at least 40 people in there, with a constant turnover. Down the hall on the lower level, Sony's little shop of horrors had one middle-aged Oriental couple with the store all to themselves, quietly fingering a Vaio and looking like the Last of the Mohicans. Totally true story.

Sony makes better headphones than Apple, that I can say, and they certainly have some good tech, but what the heck are they gonna' do come this Christmas when Apple releases its own killer video game solution? (You think they ain't workin' on it? Does EA Sports mean anything to you? And I don't mean game console in the traditional sense, but as an extension of the capabilities of the existing Mac line and the under-utilized .Mac server. The Mac does do games now, but not in a big way.)

BASF, Sun Micro, and the likes - Sony should join them as the tech behind the tech, because they are no longer a brand name. Samsung already back-doored them and took away their potential lead in things like TV's and cellphones, so they shouldn't whine too much about Apple, because they got beat long before their resurgence - in their own Asian back yard. Apple can be a convenient scapegoat for them, but they need to face the truth, drop the competitive attitude, and do some good stuff - just plain good stuff, as in both the quality and socially-conscious sense.

Anyone who signs Michael Jackson and slaps on the DRM tighter than Lara Croft's tank top deserves to be sitting on the sidelines watching the second half with Microsoft. You haven't forgotten their DRM horror show already, have you? Focus, now, focus...

And were they high on green tea or something when they brought in former CBS president Howard Stringer? Or are they drinking from the "Bushy Bowl" - to borrow a phrase from Ali G? Bringing in a freaking network television 30-plus year exec from the CBS Eye? Man, it doesn't take a crystal ball to figure out why Sony slid downhill: look at where network TV mentality has digressed. I can't even help wonder if the whole thing was U.S. gov-corp sabotage!

Come on Sony, we loved your Walkman! But you slapped us in the face with your Ivory Towerism and sneaky copy-protection plan, while wasting your time trying to diversify with the acquisition of Warner Records and now BMG. Haven't you woken up yet and smelled the rat in your coffee? Egoistic pride dies hard, buy you are dying with it, dear Sony.

The Solution to Google's Street View and Privacy:

2008-05-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

First of all, I don't believe that Google's imagery should be legally restricted from showing faces. What's next, blurring every face in a crowd at a sporting event in Sports Illustrated? Every face at a parade in the local daily? Every face that appears in all editorial news matter? Google Maps is gathering imagery for information purposes just like the news. And what's called news these days is so crummy that to say someone creating mapping software is infringing privacy is ABSURD!

BUT, if they want to cave in, here's one solution that would save practically all of the work of the post-processing face blurring:

It's called the "time exposure." Any image captured where the lens of the camera exposes the film/digital plane in the range of 30 seconds or so records no moving objects. People passing by on the street would not show up at all in a long time-exposure photograph. Yes, if the person is stationary there will be an image, but I doubt few people on the street, even if standing in one place, would never move their head from side to side within a minute's time, effectively doing in the camera what Google's algorithmic-based face recog software is providing, with no extra time or effort. This would at least eliminate 90-95% of face recording I believe.

Again, I think the whole thing is ridiculous and common sense ought to prevail. Heck I think it would be cool as hell to be shown in a Google street view! I'll volunteer to be in all of their images if they want to pay me to show up! Again, common sense here, and even if I was crazy enough to take a piss in public (which I am), I don't think it would be too cool of them to flash me to the world, and I really believe they would agree. Simple cooperation and people not going privacy-surveillance fear crazy should solve the issue on its own. Google doesn't want to show me taking a squirt, I believe! Would you? =;)

What's Next With The iPhone?

2008-05-14T03:48:00.001-07:00

Sold out? C'mon, Apple must have just shipped the rest of their inventory to Argentina, Mexico, Italy, Turkey and India to whet demand in these and other countries where they have new contracts. Nice move, though, and nothing sells like "sold out" does. Tell someone they can't have something, even if its poison oak, and they'll line up to get some! Don't you just love marketing?

Okay, 3G seems to be imminent. Probably 32GB of on-board RAM like the Touch. Improved Bluetooth compatibility should be on the menu. And I'm speculating a memory card slot and back massage capability - or at least one of those! Guess which.

It may be premature, but I'm also anticipating an iPhone Nano for the active summer-goer. Same great taste, fewer calories. Something that appeals to the simple phone crowd, maybe eschewing WiFi, camera and any other battery-hogging features, with a screen still three or four times larger than the iPod Nano. (Well, okay, it will still be much more than just a phone in the end, but scaled down from the original - until it's fuel-cell driven!

I may have mentioned earlier a mini iPhone coinciding with the next Christmas season - have you started your shopping yet? - but it probably makes more sense to get it out the door now and build some WOM cred over the busy summer vacation travel season, to prime for the late-fall shopping season. Hamburgers and hot tech on the grill!

Why Yahoo Will Be The Next Google, Sort Of:

2008-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

The writing is on the wall. The firewall that is. Look for job openings on both Google and Yahoo and you'll see what I mean.

Google actually has the balls to announce on its site that it prefers, almost requires, that its job applicants are graduates of a "big name" college or university. Yahoo's site says in essence that if you have a brain and experience, we don't care if you never left 3rd grade if what you have to contribute is a smart, good, workable idea.

Like with genetics, Google is setting itself up for birth defects like an inbred family. A blue-blooded family, but inbreds all the same. Yahoo, on the other hand, realizes the strength and resilience of the multi-breed mutt, looked down upon by all the purebreds but in the end the strongest, most disease- and defect-resistant of the species. Who is going to survive in the long run?

Google can't get past it's egoist intellect and relate to the masses and they try to cull what they believe is the "best of the best" and figure they can't miss. Yahoo relates to the intelligent common man and values well-roundedness over SAT scores or what school you went to. This is going to have huge implications a short ways down the internet road...

There's no disputing that Google's search technology is far superior to anything going. But look, for example by analogy, how many vehicles have incorporated the Wankel engine into massively successful automobile designs. The engine is only a part of the machine; it is not the machine itself. You don't drive a Wankel, do you? You drive a Mazda or a John Deere or at times a Norton or Mercedes, and soon many military combat vehicles.

Google is trying to build the rest of the car by itself, but you have a bunch of high-level engine mechanics that know and value little of ergonomic comfort, style, handling, simplicity and ease of use. Then they bring in another crew of high-level people for this, but they're all from the same gene pool.

Case in point: Blogger: spell check: both the words Google and Blogger come up as possible misspellings in the composition window: there you have it, a genius that can't even spell its own name (or probably tie its own shoes). We all know a few people like this don't we? The ones who can solve quadratic equations but can't explain a game of hackeysack to a group of 12 year olds. While one group spends its time intellectualizing inside its group of superior minds, the other actually plays the game and lives in the real world, so it knows instinctively the difference between just a good idea and one that works.

Yahoo hasn't put a restriction on where a good idea can come from, so I can only imagine that it's open to good ideas no matter if they come from a Harvard grad or a local polytech. This may lead them to greater innovation from within whereas Google is constantly seeking to acquire from without and then tweak and retro-fit.

I like Google. I like Yahoo, too. But the sooner they realize that one is a technology company and the other is a service company, the better off we and the internet will both be.

Long run, my money is on Yahoo to be a leader in real-world internet innovation and implementation over the next 10 years. Any company that has the wisdom and confidence to see through Microsoft's bully tactics is certainly on the right path for the future.

But I have huge respect for Google at the same time, and they are really living up to their responsibility of being the "defenders of the people" if you ask me, and they are practically the only thing big enough to stand in the way of government corruption and manipulation of our economy, social atmosphere, and quality of life. I see no reason Yahoo cannot coexist and thrive if it gets its priorities straight and starts making huge investments on and off the web...

The Trouble With Recommendations on iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, etc.

2008-05-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

OK, Netflix, iTunes, etc: remember that you heard it here first... What's missing from your recommendations and content samples?

Here's the key, folks: FREAKING ASK! All you gotta' do is have a form available if people want to choose to use it, where you input a bunch of your favorites, be they groups, movies, brands, gadgets, soft drinks, WHATEVER! Give the engine something to chew on instead of making it pick stuff out of thin air or based on "averages' or what everyone else is doing, or even based on what you did and bought yesterday. Not to throw that info out, but combine it with the "personal input" and give the machine a fighting chance at being much more relevant. I agree that many of these engines can be irrelevant, and to an extent that's cool because you sometimes see the unexpected, and that's a big part of life, growth and learning. But if you want to know what I like, JUST ASK! Isn't this the idea behind customized search in the firsts place? Then when you want to introduce me to things outside my little world, you'll have a better idea of what I may be interested in instead of basing it solely on what someone else did, or what I did on your site in the course of my visit, or what I bought that may be for me, my wife, Uncle Pete or Little Jimmy.

On a different note: biggest problem with iTunes and it keeps me from buying songs all the time and prompts me to sign off from the site in frustration: the song snippets are too damn short, and they give you only the first part of the song like a machine would instead of someone hand-picking the catchy hook of the song, "the real relation, the underlying theme" - to quote the lyrics of Rush's Neil Peart. You get 30 seconds of inane intro that tells you little of what the song really sounds like at least 70 percent of the time. How can I buy a song when I hear an intro that sounds nothing like the mid-song beat? That's like asking a computer to recommend things to you based on what Louie looked at last time he shop-surfed.

Everybody seems to be dancing around "Yapple"

2008-04-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well, okay, they sure wouldn't call it that, let's hope! But with one, quick gulp, Apple goes into the ad business while simultaneously improving their own search engine capabilities, starting with their subpar web site search - and think of the features the iPhone picks up as native in the Widget department and beyond! Web integration of Apple mobile devices made easy, while crowbarring away at Microsoft's death grip on Yahoo's throat. Maybe Spotlight could even surpass Google Desktop Search with their heads together.

Talk about going out with style! How much better position can you get can you get, merging with Apple in the year 2008? Microsoft's monetary offer means nothing a few years down the entertainment road. And Yahoo knows entertainment; Apple knows entertainment; and Microsoft knows 'entertainment expense account'.

Imagine an Apple-faced Yahoo grabbing ad revenue from Google via the iPhone and an Apple web portal. The advertisements with the PC guy will have to be replaced with the Google guy! Maybe iChat renamed does give Yapple an actual use!

Hey, it sounds better than Goople, doesn't it?!!

The Truth About Broadband

2008-03-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

I'm really getting tired of the simple facts being ignored as all these meaningless disagreements persist, like the Comcast-BitTorrent riff, the struggle over vacant "white space" broadcast wavelengths, 3G, HSDPA, and so on...

The Truth: South Koreans have been watching satellite televison on their cellphones for at least 5 years.

The Truth: Speeds of even DSL in Europe surpass by more than quadruple the access speeds we are receiving from so-called "high-speed broadband cable internet."

The Truth: The FCC, the United States Government, is who's responsible for your slow downloads, not an overabundance of traffic that Comcast or some other pipe provider complains of. Even DSL can crank at a huge throughput rate if only the "regulators" would allow it.

The Truth: The United States is a technological backwater in practice, while all of our innovation goes out the door and flourishes in countries where governments cooperate and facilitate the adoption of a new communication infrastructure rather than the U.S., which is controlled politically by a small, obsolete group of old-money special interests who are afraid to open up the pipe thinking they will lose their stronghold on our wallets.

So, it's a bunch of keep-busy, idle, useless talk discussing bandwidth when it's all there but for Daddy Warbucks sticking his finger in the socket. Pressure your legislators and governors if you want fast, everywhere connectivity, as this is where the bottleneck exists; this country is its own worst enemy and any other is overemphasized to obscure this fact for the benefit of the few.

Meanwhile capable Americans sit helplessly as our innovation and its economic benefits float out to sea and drift to other continents, God love them. Americans have sold out Americans and America. We have no one to blame but our own. This isn't a statement about outsourced labor, which I do believe is positive if you look far enough ahead; this is something else.

You want to see the country return to its great potential and position? Or do you want to see it bled dry by greedy self interests who are draining our battery with the travesty in the Middle East while filling their bank accounts and leaving us with disease, outdated infrastructure and a culture of emptiness?

What next? Well, civil unrest would fit the scenario quite nicely, and with present immigration policy, fear-mongering over all the "terrorists" and drug commercials flashed every 10 seconds, they're doing their number on us and few want to wake to this horror so they live in denial of it.

Free the Broadband: Free America. We are not free, we just think so because the wool has been pulled over our eyes and we don't get the true picture of what's happening elsewhere as we are too busy patting ourselves on the back for being so "great" when in reality we aren't. You just don't want to face this fact and deal with it. Fear? Contentment? Arrogance? Ignorance as in "not knowing"? Satisfaction because of comparison to worse conditions in Africa? So, my migraine headache is supposed to all of a sudden not exist just because someone, somewhere else had their whole head taken off?

Sony: Why drive when it's better to fly?

2008-02-20T16:48:00.001-08:00

Congratulations, Sony!

Apple released an ultra-slim laptop with no optical drive last month, and Sony's just now perfecting and standardizing yesterday's technology as we're about to rest it on the shelf next to the 3.5 floppies - or better still leaning against the 5-1/4's!

Nice work with those liquid and wave simulator algorithms, which by the way makes me wonder if the future of Sony is as technology company and not retail consumer electronics manufacturer. Their strength seems there, why not their focus? Nostalgia? Atari 2600? iPod sticking out of Walkman's butt? So many distractions.

Spot on, most everyone won't miss the laptop burner as Steve Jobs announced with the drive-free Air. I've carried around a blank disc for two years now, and it's still blank, and I'll most likely tote around the extra bytes on the hard drive if I want a few movies. Wireless media streamers are about as affordable as high-end DVD players, and a software equation will undoubtedly encode to Super HD one way or another, as it already does in HD straight from the musical core of the Apple iTunes store.

If anything the media companies have pushed the obsolescence of the disk because I can't easily buy it and tote a copy of it around on my laptop and leave the disc at home in my collection. Or even burn a copy in case I roll one down the airplane aisle and Bubba squashes it like a starved pigeon under his Timberland. Where's the value in that?

I like the DVD. I like vinyl. Heck I even like 8-track. But the CD's archival qualities don't seem to rival the throwback to tape... so there's a perfect Sony business opportunity: while there perfecting HD disc resolution can you throw some development into BlueRay tape for me to record those CD's onto? Meanwhile, Apple and others will focus on bringing the same quality in wireless HD.

No matter how you slice it, or how many times you dice it, duplicity is the ultimate solution in data storage and takes full advantage of the raison d'être of the web in the first place, potentially eliminating the catastrophic effects of heat, fire or water damage; human domestic reconfiguration; and dog chews. And wireless is tireless:

"The cloud ate my homework, Mrs. Hansennn!"

Apple eating its own worm with Aperture

2008-02-12T16:58:00.000-08:00

I think Apple's idea looked good on paper, or spreadsheet more precisely, but the numbers just didn't coming falling like snowflakes and piling up in stock value as planned it looks like. Adobe's lightroom is kicking its ass in sales and performance by the sound of it, and it doesn't surprise me that a backfire occurred. Kind of a poetic justice, actually. Read on...

The specs on Aperture 1 and the new 2 specifically place into obsolescence iBook-level computers from just barely 3 years back in 2005. Owners of these models, self here included, are not even invited to enter the Aperture. They even released a fancy checking program to formally tell you "Sorree... we put in a crappy vid card in the first place knowing we hog tied your ass by '08."

I can't run Aperture (translated as BUY it) if I wanted to! Apple somehow hedged a bet on the numbers that selling more upgraded hardware would more than make up for the loss in sales of the Aperture software to the aging '05'ers' iBooks.

Just when they thought they had their little mini-monopoly on a locked-in customer segment - ripppppp! - they got caught with their panties down when Adobe released Lightroom, and we scheduled scrap-heap iBookers got a program written nicely for us - by Adobe, baby! Sheesh!

I would have actually liked to have purchased Aperture, sure. But now, it better pretty much cook me breakfast after entertaining me into the wee hours of morning if it thinks my memory is that short and Adobe that shatty of a program.

You didn't even let me on the bus, Apple. And Adobe pulled over and gave me a ride to the image party anyway. What have you got to say to me now when we meet at the bar?

Microsoft slowly revealing newest launch

2008-02-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has gradually announced over the past weeks that it's launching, itself, into obscurity. The launch is potentially scheduled to kick into full gear by early summer, giving off-brand retailers a jump start on the 2008 back-to-school season.

The first part of the announcement was its desperation to grab onto Yahoo like an expensively-dressed gold digger working a cocktail party, around midnight, hoping she can at least end up with number two. Buy yourself some respect with those billions, girl!

Then, it goes ambulance chasing after Chinese New Year for firecracker injuries from a group of people who work for 40 hours a cent practically, announced in the form of a $900 million lawsuit on pirated Taiwanese software. Who's hurt there in the end? The piraters, who can probably afford the litigation mitigation, or the millions trying to better their resume so that one day they may actually be able to buy overpriced software themselves (and hopefully do a lot more than that)? Who cares, right Bill, 's long as you get back about a third of that billion after legal costs? Which you can then funnel into a humanitarian cause to bring Microsoftware to the underpriveleged Asian population.

Ooh! And now, apparently unaware of the significance of silly little things like names and validating its portrayal in the Apple commercials, it invites Danger into its BillFold! Gobbling up the beta version, so to speak, of Google's Android, is reminiscent of their old tactic to "Mickey and then Mouse." You know: like, jimmy the GUI of another operating system or something; and then cheese out endless copies of the format yourself. Doot! Good thing they aren't in China! (I can change that line to "Jimmy and then Cheese" if that offends you, Disney... Just let me know, okay?)

But seriously, are they trying to tell us something here? Grabbing at the web they can't spin; scraping for returnables and coins in the gutters of Asia; and then purchasing an aging "Zune with wings" that's barely worth its weight in food, even with today's grocery prices?

Is Windows Mobile on that Sidekick so damn good that I'm not going to even notice the difference from the original...? The thing's bulky enough that I guess bringing along a laptop is out of the question, so it better be good!

Super Bowl shuffles itself into obsolescence.

2008-02-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Why will NASDAQ rule in the coming years? Tech knows that time waits for no one, and it waits even less as every year passes.

Meanwhile, Old Man Media still runs a governor on the Super Bowl show and milks it dry come game time. Old money jumped head first onto the web finally - but somehow forgot to take off its lead shoes. How are you going to fly in the web culture by expecting your Edzel to keep up with a Porsche? And how does one adopt a new tack on the web yet allow the mother ship to stay its course? It doesn't make sense, abandoning a steerable ship that is headed toward an iceberg but not there yet.

Nobody likes waiting two weeks to play the Super Bowl. Not the fans, not the players, not the coaches, not the ticket sellers probably. Who does? Are you out spending money all week on chips and six packs and new cars and televisions because you're warming up for some distant game day in FEBRUARY? Are you looking for media updates daily? Are you wondering what players are doing to keep from going out of their minds waiting 14 days to finish the championship?

Who in this day and age really cares about the game half as much two weeks after the conference championships? Does the NFL even believe they have any fans under 30? Or have they already cashed out and conceded that the league disbands in a decade as more and more of its audience loses its sight and hearing?

Two weeks for the Super Bowl? I can't wait for this blog post to upload and you want me to keep my interest for 14 days about the most lopsided, advertising-orchestrated event in all of sports? I started drinking already around two, and by kickoff I'll be starving and busy stuffing my face to pay much attention to the t.v. Then, probably about halftime, I'll be ready to take a nap. Forget Tivo, I'll check out the highlights on YouTube sometime next week...

Clouded Cloudspeak

2008-01-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

I wonder who is at the root of putting fear into the cloud? Who's threatened, and who would benefit from promoting fear? Even if this five-computer future was a reality, it would coexist with and does not nullify P2P or any other network options. "Open cloud" is just as much a possibility and more of a reality right now, and open source will always have an answer to any perceived closed system, as long as there is free will in this universe.

Privacy fears, access fears... look through them, as they are of less substance than a cumulonimbus formation. Would you wear your dirty underwear outside your pants and then complain about your privacy being at stake? While I'd bet the security systems in place at cloud central are light years ahead of anything residing on most PC's, the simple rule of omission beats all. Credit card and account numbers, if you're concerned about those, you might as well cut up your debit card because the corner cashier has better access to your money than any hacker could dream of.

An analogy that comes to mind is cleanliness. Americans in particular will go through great lengths to supposedly avoid germs yet overlook the obvious. When is the last time you've wiped the top off a soda can before opening it? I usually get curious looks when I do it, but having worked in enough warehouses and seen enough mice droppings, carcasses and cockroach tracks in the dust across rows of cans and containers - you can think whatever you want of me while you wash your hands three times an hour and then dip your pop-top into your beverage before drinking it down.

So what I am trying to illustrate here is that the perception of security in the first place is more just that - a perception - than it is a reality.

So wash your underwear, wipe off your beverage lid, and get cloudy. What is it you all are seeing at ground level that's so appealing in the first place? It's kind of a nice feeling floating on a cloud when you see how to reap the benefits of it and minimize the drawbacks. The future is mobile, and it's here...

But I'd be careful to not interpret this as meaning the desktop is dead by any means. It's a shame a lot of perfectly great horses were removed from our daily lives because other means of travel were deemed "more mobile" and less problematic. Apples and oranges need to coexist in a harmonious future. We need to take a stand individually and talk some sense into this endless game of techno-hopscotching and mistaking this for actual real-world progress. The future is scentless if you're going so fast you create a vacuum as you live. Star Wars creators knew this, and hence the first dusty spacecraft I remember having seen brought us into a reality where the future was now.

The iPhone kind of reminds me of this same type of Star Wars moment, and then Google's cellular triangulation upped the warp factor. Do a rain dance and you can find where you're at on the map. Clouds can be good.

Apple Rumor Hype Demystified

2008-01-14T20:42:00.000-08:00

Throw your hands in the air, wave your pen in the air, wave your TABLET in the air!
Axiotron's long-awaited first-ever Mac tablet is even available for purchase right now.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Modbook?CFID=20312128&CFTOKEN=78723781&jsessionid=6e305ec85034317dc3d1TR

What's more, it's apparent Apple's OS licensing is once again up for grabs like a jump ball as the first non-Mac hardware hits the market since the Apple Clones of the '90's: Motorola'sStarMax, Power Computing, Radius, Umax Supermac, DayStar... Gee, can an Intel machine be far ahead of a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit settlement?

What else could Air be? Apple's own tablet version came to my mind first thing, and afterward I found the same idea on tuaw.com from January 1st mentioning the prospect of pen-less touch-screens. Quite likely I believe, as the iPhone screen does rock.

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/01/axiotrons-modbook-now-shipping/

I'm hoping that what's air-bound is all web video to Apple TV and the end of the ridiculous content restrictions in its use which are jamming up sales big time. If I could watch anything I want on Apple TV and not just iTunes coded files and YouTube (without having to hack away), well, then the purchase would be tough to resist. I would buy that device.

Open Source: From Software to "Underware"

2007-12-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

Before you know it we'll all be wearing our 'Underware' in public. I know I will!

A little further down the Tail of Open Source Software, the fruits of its hard labor begin to flourish. By playing its part in successfully shaping an Economics of Affordability (...or Affability perhaps), more and more things are available at less and less of a cost, and at no cost. It seems counterintuitive to your mainstream economist but it works for making money, and it is the future.

The open source model is no longer a term reserved only for software. It extends to services and, to a rapidly growing extent, hard goods. Radiohead and others are proving it with music: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19870/ And if it can work there, where can you really draw the line on where it cannot?

Free Nikes ("chip sneakers") that track all user data: can output a customized fit based on wear and stress data, available for $100. if you decide you like the model. That silver Tailwind model with the dark blue swish from the 80's? Yours: custom-designed Throwback Edition with optimized footbed and GPS/wifi for $200.

...but that first test model, the white ones with the red swoosh: "You're wearing 'underware' dude! Anyone who does that deserves it for free."

Underware: as in software, hardware, underwear, whateverware - underwritten by the label: as in "My underwear is underware!"

Then, even a bit further down the tail, it crosses over: and the techs and dotcoms will start wearing underware themselves as companies release versions of software programs all of their own customized for their user's experience before, during and after the sale...

I'm waiting for my free Barnes & Noble version of Word with book (and e-) publishing and purchasing options (software dictionary, anyone?) built into the interface. Believe me, it won't take much to write a program with a user interface that blows away Word for ease of use, and I'm still amazed Apple hasn't released a competing WP product, and wonder what kind of behind-the-scenes agreement took place there... We don't have to reinvent the wheel here, but I think we could do to reinvent the "Word".

And you thought those stadium names sounded funny...

I Have Seen The Future of Web Advertising, And It's Good Video

2007-12-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Great to see changes taking place every day and more on the way in the world of web advertising and web use! The success of the $200. laptop heralds the cusp of a long-awaited point in internet history called "critical mass". Before you can blink your LCD pixels we'll all be sporting ultra-thin wi-fi displays used either in tandem with a computer unit or with chips built-in for plug-and-play techno-transitional ease for aging boomers who can at least click a remote.

I use a video content source called Voxant, and besides the fact that its search feature blows, I like it better than AdSense-YouTube because I can choose exactly what content to embed - and it's an ad revenue-based model as well. I'm not seeming to have this flexibility within YouTube because Google is not treating the content in the same way. I can embed specific videos direct-to-blog from YouTube but these selections are not earning me any affiliate revenue I believe - which can only be done through the streaming "players" I set up where content control is quite limited to the point of questionable usefulness. Please correct me here if I am mistaken on the revenue options.

Going from Adsense to Youtube and carrying over the affiliate connect into its "Share" feature sounds to me like *at least* another couple hundred a "share" stock increase implementation! Really, it's huge. This solves the whole puzzle practically: "Who's gonna want to watch a bunch of someone else's crappy videos?" Friends, relatives. Simple math: the world is made up of billions of groups of 10. And the means to appeal to each of them individually is now available. The funnel has been flipped.

"Load up the grandkids and watch grandma start clicking on those Xbox ads, Jed!"

If the user agreement is now allowing streamed vids to attach ads, this should be workable, as would be any micropayment compensation system for the vid creators. Google provides the distribution network; advertisers provide the revenue for Google and the affiliates; advertisers get their messages back in front of the eyes of their beloved demographic that is nowadays sprinkling shrimp brine into the top of their old Magnavoxes. End result: the producers meet the consumers - except they're advertising in your home video these days, not on some obsolete formulaic adfotainment network. So what if ten people saw your grandkid sled into a snowman! That's ten people seeing an ad for Kidswear, multiplied by 10 million families communicating through original video streamed over the net. Advertisers are buying millions of views, in millions of non-overlapping circles instead of one big circle with one message beaming from essentially one tower.