Old Data

From Slashdot:

A team of researchers at the University of Southampton have demonstrated a way to record and retrieve as much as 360 terabytes of digital data onto a single disk of quartz glass in a way that can withstand temperatures of up to 1000 C and should keep the data stable and readable for up to a million years.

Sounds awesome! Now word on the read/write speeds, though.

And why, exactly, would we want to save data longer than the human race? So our alien overlords could find out what our Facebook status was on July 14, 2112?

The Continuing Case for Optical Drives

This morning I ran across this post from a year ago regarding the need for optical drives and making the case that the time to kill optical hasn't come yet.

Since that time, Apple has shipped new models of the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini without an optical drive.  Lion shipped without optical (they opted, instead, to make the OS available on a flash drive after user outcry).  And Netflix attempted to shift its business away from DVDs by breaking its streaming and DVD businesses into two separate companies (only to cancel that move shortly afterward).  The Mac App store launched, offering software for download instead of on DVD for install.  But some titles, such as OS X Lion weigh in at 3.5 GB, which would take hours to download.

Several times in the past year I've attempted to deliver some portraits I took digitally, instead of on DVD (but in every case, the client called back and requested a disc so they didn't have to download all their photos).

Also this year, I was able to burn and produce DVDs as freelance projects.  I was able to install some games that I hadn't played in several years from the discs, which I still have.  I was able to deliver press files to print quickly (and cheaply) by burning them to DVD.  I never got these discs back, nor did I expect to because DVDs are so cheap.

So the optical drive landscape has changed somewhat in the last year, but I still agree with every word of what I wrote last year.  We still need optical drives.  Period.

I Got My Hands All Over Siri

From TechCrunch:

But wait. Voice technology has been around for a long time. Or, as one TechCrunch commentersuccinctly put it on Erick’s video demo post of Siri: “4 year old software, 8 year old technology.” ...
So if the stuff Siri is doing is old, and if others did do it FIRST, then why is everyone so damn excited about the feature?
There are a few reasons. But the simplest answer is one that has played out time and time again over the past several years: Apple did it right.

I got a chance to play with a Siri-enabled iPhone 4S over the weekend and, quite frankly, I was amazed. The speech recognition is simply amazing and the answers it gave were exactly what you wanted to know.  It's not perfect, of course.  There were times when Siri was stumped or had to invoke a Google search, but those were times when I was trying to stump Siri.  Siri didn't know when Jesus Christ is returning, for instance.

I was skeptical when I watched the keynote and saw Scott Forstall talking to Siri.  I wondered why, especially given the flop that was the voice-enabled iPod Shuffle, Apple keeps insisting on wanting us to talk to our devices.  But I was impressed with what I saw (I was NOT impressed by the shuffle, BTW...)

And in a touch of brilliance, Apple made the default action for bringing your iPhone to your ear (when you're not on a call, that is) a gesture that automatically engages Siri.  That's brilliant because you don't want to be the guy walking around with his phone out in front of him talking to it.  It simply looks like you're on the phone talking.

Siri is simply a killer app and completely amazing.

Goodbye Blurry Images

From Adobe MAX:

A sneak peek of a new Photoshop plugin that can dramatically unblur a blurry image.  And this after I've spent so much time weeding those blurry shots out of my photo library, too.



Wow.  Just...wow.

click here if you're seeing this on Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxjiQoTp864&feature=player_embedded#!

50 Songs in Your Pocket

From AppleInsider:

New details on Research in Motion's rumored BlackBerry Messenger music service have emerged, with the mini-subscription plan expected to cost $5 a month for 50 songs when it arrives this fall.

Reports first emerged on Thursday that RIM was in "late-stage negotiations" with the major music labels to launch a music streaming service for its BlackBerry devices. Peter Kafka of All Things D offered further details on the service early Saturday, claiming that it will cost $5 a month for 50 songs.

Wow. 50 songs. Sounds amazing... in 1994.


Tip of the day: start selling your RIM stock and start looking into a new phone service.

Delusional Analysts and Pipe Dreams

From TGDaily:

Will WP7 trounce the iPhone in 2015?

Sales of Windows Phone 7 devices have thus far been rather underwhelming. But analysts at IDC believe Microsoft's WP7 platform, combined with Nokia's hardware expertise, will help the rapidly evolving OS outpace Apple's iPhone.

However, Llamas acknowledged WP7 will initially only capture a "small share of the market," as Mango-enabled devices are slated to hit store shelves in late 2011.

"Nevertheless, assuming Nokia's transition to Windows Phone goes smoothly, the OS is expected to defend a number 2 rank and more than 20% share in 2015," he predicted.

And Apple's iOS?

Well, IDC exepcts the iPhone to remain a primary force in the mobile market until at least 2015. After an initial "explosive growth period," iOS is projected to grow at a more modest pace as the smartphone market matures and diversifies.







Nice piece of delusional fiction here. What they fail to mention (and that their chart doesn't show with much clarity) is that before WindowsPhone7 can "trounce" the iPhone, it's got to go through Blackberry and everyone who has a Symbian handset will have to get rid of it in the next three years. And in addition - and this is the delusional part - the iPhone would have to remain static, not innovate, and fail to capture any more sizable market share and Android would have to only gain 5% more share. In other words, for this twisted reality to come true, the majority of phones sold over the next four years would have to be Windows phones in order to not only out-pace Blackberry, iPhone and Android, but also to counter all the existing hardware from those manufacturers out there. Granted, the average lifespan of a smart phone is only two years, but with news of more and more enterprise clients actively turning away from Windows Mobile in favor iOS and Android, I just don't see it happening.

There's a huge probability that Blackberry will fail to innovate and implode, potentially opening up market share for WP7, but it's just as likely that Blackberry customers would migrate to iPhone or Android first. This analyst is assuming that Nokia's market share, combined with a Windows phone would be such a juggernaut that they would be damn near unstoppable. And honestly, who wouldn't want a phone from two powerhouses of yesteryear tech? Both companies are floundering wildly and clinging to every ounce of credibility they have left. Just because the maker of crappy, buggy software and the maker of crappy, buggy hardware make a phone together doesn't mean it will be like two ugly people having a baby together - it doesn't guarantee a beautiful baby. Two negatives don't make a positive here.

So, the short answer is: "no." The long answer is "Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

No iPhone 5 in June?

From AppleInsider:

Apple is not expected to introduce a new iPhone at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, as it has done in years past, and will instead focus on software for the 2011 show, according to a new report.

Bull.

Thoughts on NFC and the iPhone

Appleinsider reported a few days ago that Apple has decided not to include NFC - Near Field Communication - in the iPhone 5. I've always been dubious of NFC because of security reasons. I've never understood why people feel that it's acceptable to put some of their most sensitive information - their financial information linked to their bank account - on a credit card or key fab that can be read simply by being in proximity to it. And I wondered why the heck Apple would choose to do such a thing in the iPhone.

Lots of companies are using NFC for payments. But what if that's not what Apple was intending it for?

But while I was listening to an older episode of my new favorite podcast, Hypercritical with John Siracusa I realized what Apple might be trying to do with NFS. The conversation in the episode I was listening to revolved around input and out put and the size of the dock connector. Siracusa mentioned that the iPod dock connector is larger than the size of the shuffle, forcing Apple to use the headphone jack as a sync, and that the thinness of the iPod Touch was approaching the width of the dock connector itself.

But what if what Apple was trying to do was to remove the dock connector altogether?

One thing people - myself included - have been wanting ever since the original iPhone debuted in 2007 was a way to wirelessly sync the content. What if Apple is looking into ways to do just that? What is there is some sort of a NFC chip on steroids that Apple has been playing with that has a fast enough data throughput that it can sync wirelessly via Bluetooth. Now, granted, it won't be as fast as USB. But Apple is known for its tradeoffs, isn't it? And how would you like to never have to plug in your phone or iPod ever again? I'd like it a lot. And I'd especially like that I wouldn't have to remind my wife to sync her phone from time to time. She would just put it down on the desk near her computer to sync it.

An interesting note to this effect can be found on the NFC News blog:

Electronic News: Let's go back to the range. How will a short range be a benefit to the consumer electronics world?
Duverne: NFC can be seen as a connectivity technology that is very short range. If you compare it to Bluetooth, for example, NFC is just a few centimeters, less than 10. The thing about it in terms of consumer electronics applications is, because it is very short range, you can make applications very intuitive. With Bluetooth, when you carry out a Bluetooth transaction, you need to go through many steps and identify which device talks to which device. Because NFC is very short range, it is enabled by a very intuitive pairing of devices. In the consumer electronics world, that is very interesting and we see a number of applications in that space. For using NFC, actually, in combination with other wireless technologies.

Electronic News: In combination with Bluetooth?
Duverne: NFC in combination with Bluetooth for initiating a connection via NFC, then doing the transition of data with Bluetooth, which has a longer range. The way it would work, for example, is you have a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone and you want to download pictures from your PC or TV set, you bring the two devices next to each other for initiation of the [NFC] link, then you can take the two devices away and the download of the pictures will be carried out by Bluetooth.

But if the iPhone doesn't plug in, how will you charge it?

Great question, but the tech already exists. It's called inductive charging. I used to have a shaver that could be charged just by placing it into a little cradle. It allowed the shaver to be waterproof and I didn't have to plug it in every day, avoiding wear and tear on connectors. You see inductive charging technology on display in the "charge mats" that are appearing in stores. And in the example mentioned above, my wife could charge her iPhone by placing it directly on her MacBook.

But, sadly, most people who have iPhones use a PC and not a Mac. And even those of us with Macs don't have the newest Mac. So how do people with PCs and older Macs use the technology? I suspect that Apple would need to make available its own flavor of charge pad, which connects via USB to their computer. But such a charge pad would need to come with a new iPhone, not come as a separate purchase, which would drive up the cost of the phone. And if the iPhone comes with its own charge pad, what's the use of building the technology into a MacBook, which would also add expense? I suspect that such dilemmas are why Apple reportedly has opted to wait on NFS.

So it may not be ready yet, but I'd bet that Apple is working on imbedding wireless technologies to sync and inductive charging technology to charge a device with the intent of making the iPhone, iPod and iPad ridiculously thin and light. Wireless is the future, and that means wireless everything.

If anyone can do it, it's Apple.

Next Step- Cyborgs...

From Wired:

For years, the NFL Combine has been vilified as a host for a series of workouts that don’t accurately measure a football player’s impact on the field. Now, one company has potentially changed that with an electronic shirt that tracks everything from heart rate to g force of acceleration.

Damn that's cool.

Huge thanks to Matt for sending this link.

The Ice Book

The Ice Book (HD) from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.

Absolutely breathtaking.

Huge thanks to Matt for sending me this.

Internet Runs Out Of IP Addresses

From Information Week:

The pool of Internet addresses has officially been drained. Four non-profit Internet administrative groups -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Number Resources Organization (NRO), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Society -- said at a press conference in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday that the supply of IPv4 addresses has been depleted.

The situation however isn't imminently dire: It's not as if companies or individuals who want to launch a Web site will be unable to do so. There are likely to be addresses to be had for months if not years, and the dwindling supply may be extended through network addressing tricks. But the limits of IPv4 are no longer theoretical.

Craaaaaaaaaap. Time to start buying bottled and freeze-dried IP addresses for the coming worldwide shortage...

I Expect Better From Apple

Yesterday, the alarm on my iPhone didn't go off to wake me (and my friend Aaron) up so that we could get up to get on the road after a wedding this weekend. My departure time wasn't so critical, but Aaron had a plane to catch. Luckily, I have an internal alarm that works pretty well. I just thought it was the strangest thing that my alarm didn't sound. I double (and triple) checked it and couldn't find anything wrong with the alarm settings.

Then this morning, Kristi had to get up early to get some work done. She wanted to get up between 3:30 and 4:00, but then her alarm didn't go off. Thanks again to my internal alarm, which woke me up at 4:05 so I could wake her up.

So for those that are counting, that's two alarms missed in two days on two different iPhones, both occurring after the new year rolled over. To me, that points to one thing: software glitch.

Then I found this this morning on AppleInsider:

Apple has confirmed an iOS bug where non-repeating alarms fail to ring on the first few days of the new year, recommending that users set recurring alarms until Jan. 3, when the alarms will resume working properly.

As various time zones entered the new year, reports began cropping up from iOS users whose one-time alarms had stopped functioning after the device's clock had ticked over to January 1, 2011. According to reports, the issue affects devices running the iOS 4.2.1, the latest version of iOS.

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison responded to the reports by confirming to Macworld that Apple is aware of the problem. "We're aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2," Harrison said. "Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."

Guess what, Natalie? My wife's alarm didn't work on January 3.

Thanks, btw, Apple for letting everyone know about this before this occurred so that we could, you know, not set our iPhone alarms pointlessly and end up being late over the New Years weekend. If you knew about it ahead of time, you should have let us know that there might be glitch.

I expect this kind of shoddy crap from other companies, Apple, but not from you. I didn't buy a Zune, after all.

The Cloud With the Gray Area Lining

From the Guardian:

"I think that marketers like "cloud computing" because it is devoid of substantive meaning. The term's meaning is not substance, it's an attitude: 'Let any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it).' Perhaps the term 'careless computing' would suit it better."

He sees a creeping problem: "I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear."

Count me in the "I like to have control over my data" crowd.

We Still Need Optical

This morning, I was reading through one of my favorite sites, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and came across the following sentence in a story by Michael Grothaus about the possibility of new Mac hardware next year:

"Personally, I'm hoping Apple drops the optical drive from at least one of the 15-inch MacBook Pros and throws in 512 GB solid-state drives across the line."

I've noticed the clamor for dropping optical (CD & DVD) drives is starting to ramp up, and I want to weigh in on the debate. We need optical. DVDs aren't dead, and neither are CDs. In a MacBook, which is intended for travel it's especially important because the whole reason for having a laptop is to be able to do any (or most) of the kind of work that you would be able to do on a desktop, but away from your desk. Sometimes that includes mastering a DVD or burning a CD. Many times that simply means watching a DVD on a plane or in a hotel. "But broadband..." is the cry. "Streaming!" I hear. You can't stream a movie on a plane, affordably. And many, many hotels I've been to - including some really, really nice $300-a-night hotels - technically have broadband, but it's either so spotty or so slow that it's impossible to stream movies or much data. And it's important to note upfront that people still watch DVDs. Redbox is booming because of it. Then there are freelancers like me who video events and other functions and sell the DVDs. How would that entertainment be delivered if not for DVDs?

Look at this also - how is information delivered most easily and cheaply? Optical. Optical media has gotten so inexpensive that it's easy and painless to throw it away. The same can't be said for flash media.

For example, earlier in the year I shot portraits of each of the fourteen members of our Board of Directors at work. While they were in meetings I edited and retouched their photos and gave each of them their photos on disc before they left at the end of the day. I burned the images to a CD-R, and most of the discs contained only about 50MB of data. The discs cost about $.25 apiece. Easy and cheap. If I had had no optical drive, I would have been forced to to do one of three things:
1. put the images on separate flash drives and give them the drives to take with them
2. put the images somewhere on an FTP server for them to download
3. connect their laptop to mine and copy the files over

But each of these options is horribly flawed. First, flash media is still expensive, and you can't buy tons of flash drives at a time like you can buy CDs or DVDs on a spindle pack. A quick check at Amazon.com shows that the cheapest flash drive is about $5.00, which makes the cost of giving each of the Directors their images $70.00, instead of $3.50 on CD.

FTP is a great digital option, assuming that you have a fast internet connection. Many of our Directors (and still much of the country in general) live in areas where internet services are still painfully slow. That, and downloading from an FTP server requires technical knowledge that many people just don't have (especially some of our 70-year-old Board members.) You don't want to ask your Board of Directors to have to go out and download their photo - it causes friction. And causing friction is a great way to be forced to find a new job.

Then there's the file sharing option. That first assumes that the Director has their laptop with them at all times. Many times, they leave it in their car or in their hotel room. Then there's the issue of time. It takes seconds to hand each Director a CD with their photos on it. To hook up each Director's laptop to mine would take quite awhile. Let's assume that the connection process goes flawlessly for each of the fourteen Directors (which is a huge and peril-filled assumption to begin with). It would take about a minute or so to copy the files to their hard drive and disconnect. So what only took seconds with optical media has now turned into something that requires 15 minutes of time of some of the busiest people in the company. And how many top executives do you know that want to sit around and wait for 15 minutes for something? See my friction comment above and then see the unemployment line.

Then there's data archiving. Optical media is still the best way to simply and quickly archive something. I have a drawer full of DVDs with old production files that I don't want to have to keep on my hard drive. But I know I have them just in case I ever need them. And I want an optical drive to be able to read them if I need to.

I find the people who say that it's time to sell computers without optical drives very short-sighted and somewhat selfish. It comes mostly from tech writers and people for whom it wouldn't cause much inconvenience. It's not the same argument as removing floppy drives in favor of optical a decade ago. That was replacing an antiquated technology with a newer, better one. The problem is that optical media is still relevant today, and if they could find a new optical technology that would hold more data, it would be even more so. Removing optical drives from computers gives the user no good alternatives except digital delivery, and I've shown that in the real-world work environment - especially in laptops - sometimes that's just not a viable choice.

The time for killing optical is coming, but it's not now, and it's not in 2011.

Dear Santa...

From the NY Daily News:

Navy scientists set a world record Friday during a test of an electromagnetic railgun, a tractor-trailer sized weapon that sends a 20-pound projectile rocketing through the air at seven times the speed of sound.

The futuristic gun was tested twice at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., and the first shot generated 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel, a world record for muzzle energy, the scientists said.

One megajoule is a unit of energy roughly equal to the energy generated by a 1-ton vehicle moving at 100 MPH. The same rail gun generated about 10 megajoules during a test two years ago.

Instead of relying on explosive propellants like gunpowder to fire, the gun uses a giant surge of electricity to propel the slug out of the barrel at speeds that can approach Mach 8 and can strike targets more than 100 miles away.

Charles Garnett, a project manager on the railgun experiment, told the Post that the gun gets its power the same way a pocket camera builds up energy to operate its flash, but on a much larger scale.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!

Your Laziness is Putting You at Risk

 

I can't believe that "security experts" are surprised by this. When Exxon started using this technology in their Speedpass, followed by credit card companies, I saw the flaw instantly. It's the reason why I never got anything with RFID technology built in. Purchasing things shouldn't be that easy. It's the same reason I don't do "one-click purchasing" online, either.

Any time information is available - whether it be credit card numbers or personal info - through the air just by being in proximity to someone with a scanner, you're a wide-open target. I hate that the government is using this in any way, even though it's only imbedded in passports - for now. It's only a matter of time before someone gets the bright idea to imbed this in drivers licenses, simply for "informational purposes," of course. They'll start by using it to count numbers of people going through a public place, such as a subway system or airport.

But it's only a small step from there before scanners are powerful enough to scan people at a distance and get a readout - purely for "safety reasons," don'tchaknow. The next time there's an amber alert, police can check the identity of drivers without stopping them or even alerting them to their presence, simply by routing all traffic through a scanner checkpoint. On routine traffic stops, police will be able to scan a car and all the occupants from their own vehicle without even having to place themselves in danger by walking up to the vehicle. Police will be able to simply drive by a criminal's house to make sure they aren't violating their curfew. But what if the criminal simply leaves their license at home? Tracking bracelets with embedded chips would do, but why not just go ahead an implant a chip beneath a criminal's skin just to make sure they don't somehow find a way to get them off?

And once the government starts embedding chips in people, it gets all 1984-ish pretty quickly from there.

It might seem like I'm going off a tinfoil-hat cliff here, but think about how much government encroachment has occurred just in the last twenty years. Remember how far-fetched body-image scanners were when the movie "Total Recall" was released in the 1980s? Did you ever think you'd see the day when we would have to take off our shoes and submit to a third-base grope session just to board a plane? Is it really that far-fetched to think that the government might try to exert additional control over its citizens or try to keep track of their movements in the name of safety and security? And is it too far-fetched to think that they would use technology like this to do it?

The Secret Space Shuttle

From Discovery News:

Shrouded by darkness, the military’s miniature space shuttle -- a unmanned robotic craft -- returned early Friday from a trial run in orbit that spanned 224 days.

The Orbital Test Vehicle, also known as the X-37B, touched down at 1:16 a.m. PST at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, becoming the first U.S. vehicle to make an autonomous runway landing from space.

Rather than hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells like the space shuttle orbiters, the X-37B is powered by gallium arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries. It is designed to stay in orbit for up to 270 days, deorbit itself and land autonomously on a runway. NASA’s space shuttles can stay in space for up to about three weeks.

Fascinating.

So now there's a secret space program with a space orbiter? Well, there's this one that they're telling us about. What if there were actually two - or more?

Government exploring technology that would disable cell phones in cars

From The Hill:

The Transportation Department is looking into technology to disable cell phones in vehicles, according to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"There's a lot of technology out there that can disable phones and we're looking at that," LaHood said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"A number of those people came to our distracted driving meeting here in Washington and that's one way," he said.

So they want to make it so that your car actually blocks your cell signal? Each car (tuck or van) would basically turn into a tiny little cell phone jamming device rolling down the road. Ridiculous.

What about passengers who want to make phone calls?

What about emergencies?

And wouldn't any nearby pedestrians by constantly dropping calls as cars roll by, especially where there a lot of cars, such as the parking lot at the grocery store?

More "government think" bullcrap as a solution to a problem.

And for the record, I don't think cell phones are the most important issue. People texting while driving is is larger issue here. Now that, I believe, needs to be made illegal.

iPhone vs. Android vs. BlackBerry

From C-Section Comics:

Tuesday Pipe Dream: Sony Might Be Bought By Apple

From Appleinsider:

"A new rumor has pegged Apple and its $51 billion in cash and investments as a potential buyer of Sony..."

Quote me on this: bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Not a chance.

Microsoft would be a much better fit. They've always been a software company whose hardware is lacking. Buying Sony would automatically upgrade their hardware capabilities. And there's some good synergy in such an acquisition. Both companies are behemoth bureaucracies that were once seemingly unstoppable about 15 years ago but which have shot themselves in the foot so many times that they're having trouble finding a leg to stand on.

Might be a good way to put both companies out of their misery at the same time, come to think of it.