Columbia Gorge Dispatch

Entries categorized as ‘Technology’

Handsets Are the Future?

March 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Eric S. Raymond had a post a bit ago about where he thinks the future of client computing is going in the near term (4 or 5 years). It’s not necessarily that original, but still, I believe it to be mostly spot on. Read the whole thing (How smartphones will disrupt PCs), but the thrust is that handsets — mobiles, cell phones, smart phones, whatever you want to call them — will continue to cannibalize every area they touch, including the mighty PC and laptop market. The only quibble I have with him is the idea that all these coffee shops will have full size monitors and keyboards ready to go for their customers to connect their handsets to. Err, no, excepting the really high end ones in expensive neighborhoods, perhaps.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, actually, just because I’m so excited about the future. I am, after all, a tech geek. I don’t think people will give up their full power laptops and desktops — with the accompanying CPU power, storage, and easy input/output mechanisms — until decent analogues are created in the mobile space.

Sure, you can plug your iPhone v5 into a full size keyboard and monitor setup at home, but will it be powerful enough to work on iMovie and rip Blu-Ray discs by then? Nope. How about where you put those ripped movies or that raw footage off that HD camcorder you’ve been playing with? With the current curves, your iPhone will NOT have the space or the processing power for that.

And input/output? If you’re working on a complicated spreadsheet, watching a high quality movie, or working on that aforementioned home movie, you’re not going to want a small display, and you’re not going to want a tiny keyboard. Touch can only go so far with this. It’s great for manipulating objects, but for long form writing and number manipulation? Not so much. I think in 4-5 years, we’ll just start to see real alternatives hit the market for these dilemmas. Glasses that project an HD display that doesn’t makes you look like a dork and give you a headache to boot, some sort of a gesture based input or projected keyboards, that sort of thing. There are a lot of very smart people working on these problems right now, but it’s just hard stuff to solve.

But yeah, I think it’ll displace the netbook in 4-5 years, definitely. And in 10 years? Maybe — just maybe — the desktop/full sized laptop will become as obsolete as the land line phone.

Categories: Futurism · Technology
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Interview with Burt Rutan at the New Scientist

February 4, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Burt Rutan is a genius, and happens to be one of my Dad’s heroes (he’s built, worked on, and flown planes from his designs for a couple decades). I’ve posted about him before. He’s the guy behind lots of the most inventive aircraft ever built — that actually worked, that is. The Veri-EZ and Long-EZ, one of the most used home-built designs ever, are his. So is the Voyager, the plan that flew around the world on one tank of gas. Finally, he won the X-Prize, and his company, Scaled Composites, is the main designer behind Virgin Galactic. Cool stuff. A legend.

He’s also an outspoken and passionate voice against the “climate change” crowd. I read this recent interview published by the British magazine the New Scientist with him, and had to share it. It’s a quick article, but gives a nice insight into the guy. I thought it was interesting that he flat out won’t do interviews with Scientific American, due to their reporting of global warming / climate change. He’s definitely a man of strong opinions!

Categories: Politics · Technology
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The Next Thing: The iPad

January 29, 2010 · 1 Comment

It’s been a couple days since Steve Jobs at Apple announced and showed off the iPad. I’ve had enough time to mull over all the features — included and not included. Overall, I’m fairly impressed and excited by the device. It’s pretty much what I expected to see come out in the first rev. I probably won’t be buying one, though, unless I win the lottery. The chances of picking up the second revision, however, is high.

So, here are my thoughs, no in any particular order:

  • The big move forward here is in the interface. It’s what Microsoft keeps saying they’re going to do, but never does (not including commercial level toys like Surface). It’s fantastic.
  • The lack of a camera is disappointing, because there’s so many possibilities with one. A quick video call/chat session with your SO? All that’s lacking is the camera and the bandwidth. I expect that a future version will have one, and probably v2. I mean, the Nano has a camera.
  • iBooks is nice, but not really superior to the Kindle for reading books. I don’t care if there’s color or not when I’m reading a novel. For newspapers or magazines, though, this blows away Amazon’s device. This might be the Chosen Device that the periodical industry has been waiting for.
  • No announcement yet on the issue of DRM on their book downloads. I would be (sadly) surprised if it was DRM free. This is a big deal, and just holds the eBook market back from truly being a replacement for dead trees. I can pick up a book I bought 20 years ago and read it — which I actually do once in a while. DRM’d copies of books, though, almost certainly won’t let you do that. At least,  not without breaking the law and stripping the protection off of the files. As it is, because of this, eBooks really aren’t worth more than the price of a throwaway paperback, and perhaps even less so, since you can’t pass it along to a friend. Any more than $5-6 a book is probably overpriced.
  • I suspect that anything less than 64 GB will be limiting for the average user, given the size of movies and TV shows. At that point, you’re talking about some serious money, so it’s another reason to hold off until v2. 16 GB isn’t nearly enough.
  • What I’d like to see is a truly wireless device. I want it to sync automatically with my home PC, as well as anything in the cloud, without having to tell it “sync”, and without having to plug it in. I also want to be able to access all my home PC and file server data from anywhere without headache and without major security issues. The bandwidth is there right now for this, and Apple has some really smart coders working for them. This would be flat-out revolutionary.
  • I think a pound a half, while light compared to netbooks, is still too heavy. The target should be about a pound or a little lighter.
  • I LOVE the iWork apps. I believe it to be truly a window into the future of computing.
  • The big hurdle to all these mobile computers that hasn’t been addressed yet (by anyone, including Apple) is providing an interface for lots of typing. With the iPad, if you want to type a long email or document out, well, either suffer on the virtual keyboard or use a real one. And who wants to carry around a keyboard everywhere they go? Hopefully there’s smart people in Cupertino working on this right now.
  • I think this could be a natural fit for someone with an iMac at home and an iPhone in their pocket. I’m not sure if it’s a great fit for someone that already has a laptop with them all the time, though.
  • I’m impressed by the monthly AT&T fee structure, but cheap or not, it’s still another monthly fee that will have to be considered and absorbed.

That’s long enough, I think. While I’m learning towards waiting for iPad v2, my wife is salivating NOW for one. So, perhaps I’ll be able to play with one sooner rather than later. We’ll see.

Categories: Technology
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To Jammie Thomas: I’m Boycotting All Recording Artists With the RIAA

June 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I’ve had enough. For years I’ve seen the Recording Industry Association of America make a mockery of their customers, common sense, and fair play. I love music, though, and I really respect a lot of the artists that are represented by the RIAA. Yesterday, though, I read this story about a verdict handed down in the trial of the RIAA versus Jammie Thomas-Rasset:

The $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman accused of sharing 24 songs over the Internet could ratchet up the pressure on other defendants to settle with the recording industry — if the big fine can withstand an appeal.

This is the result of a retrial, by the way, so it’s not like this is some one-off crazy jury. She downloaded 24 songs off of Kazaa, a popular file sharing software, and made those songs available to others. Boom: lawsuit. She fought it, mistakenly thinking that you can depend on the courts and the U.S. legal system (I’m not that much of a cynic, mind: usually you can, but not always). Years later, after a retrial was allowed, a jury hands down a judgment against her for $80,000 per song. Because, you know, that’s how much money the recording industry might have lost due to her evil machinations. I don’t use that word carelessly, either: it was decided that her actions were “willful”. Right. Like this woman decided to get those horrible industry executives, managers, and oh, especially the artists.

Listen: the intellectual property system needs to change. The whole mess needs to be rethought, refactored, and redesigned from the ground up. Regular work-a-day artists aren’t going to make this happen themselves, and I understand that. The thing that’s pushed me over the edge is the fact that the RIAA doesn’t have to do this. It’s a choice they make. The law gives them the power to go after people like Thomas-Rasset for “damages”, and they don’t pass those laws. They have a choice to exercise that power or not. And they choose to. The RIAA’s reaction:

“We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this as seriously as we do. We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable. Since day one, we have been willing to settle this case and we remain willing to do so.”

So to heck with them, and to heck with any artist that’s represented by them. This is Arstechnica said about the ruling:

The recording industry lawyers, though clearly pleased, had no desire to showboat this one. The massive damage award, which increased from $9,250 per song in the first trial to $80,000, might sounds like a “win,” but will probably stoke grassroots anger against the industry’s campaign…

From now on, I will only buy music by way of used CD’s, or from artists who are either self-published or on labels not represented by the RIAA. Here’s a list of the RIAA member labels. I’ll be checking this from now on with every purchase. I encourage more people to do the same.

Things need to change. Keep voting at the ballot box, but vote with your dollar, as well.

Categories: Economy · Media · Technology
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Education and the Power of Monopoly

June 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I was just listening to This Week in Tech, and they were talking about how if a person from 100 years ago suddenly was transported to our present, they’d look at all these fields, like medical, transportation, finance, and wouldn’t recognize it. Walk into a school, though, and they’d feel right at home; nothing’s really changed there. The commentator is saying that technology has been the driving force behind the changes.

I had a thought, though: what about competition? When someone has a Great Idea to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their particular area of expertise, they can challenge entrenched powers of their industry. Those entrenched powers either change or die (they usually die). To a great extent, education has been shielded from these forces. If someone tries to challenge the entrenched powers, those powers don’t have to change: they use government to shut down the challenger. So I contend that it’s the stagnating power of monopoly that ensures that someone from 100 years ago to notice very little change in education today, as opposed to other industries.

I’d be curious to know if this has even entered their minds, though: pretty much, the commentators are hard leftists on the show. I’m betting it hasn’t occurred to them that market forces may be behind these issues, or at least a serious contributor to them.

Categories: Politics · Technology
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Wannabe Oregon Terrorist Sentenced

May 13, 2009 · Leave a Comment

From Instapundit, a link to a story on the Knoxville News site about a conviction in a New York court concerning the guy (a Lebanese born Swede) trying to setup a Muslim terrorist site in southern Oregon. How strange. Anyway, this is great news. I remember when the news of this camp being busted original broke, and it really brought it to home now even in the Great Northwest, you have some dangerous religious wackos planning to kill us.

Another lesson for me with this story is how incredibly small the world has become. I mean, a Lebanese born Swede recruiting for al Qaeda in Oregon? This underlines how, again, America does not have the option of burying it’s head in the sand and wishing the world to leave it alone. If we disengage from the kinetic fight — and we probably will, due to both our current administration’s policies and simple and serious financial pressures — the world will get scarier and more dangerous and yes, more Americans will die. Technology, like what has made the world so much smaller, cannot be put back into the bag.

Categories: Technology · War
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One Less Excuse Not to Have Babies in Your 40’s

May 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

If you or your wife are over 40, there’s one more reason to have a baby later in life: to have an idea if you’re going to be longer lived than average. Well, perhaps that isn’t a great reason, but it’s still interesting. Basically, a study was just published showing that women who had babies into their 40’s, on average, lived longer than those who didn’t. The implication here isn’t that having babies later in your life makes you live longer, but those that can have babies later in live also tend to live longer than those who cannot. One more step along the way to locating, and then manipulating, genes that will allow us to start seriously extending healthy life.

I read today from another blogger an offhanded comment: dying at 75 now seems almost too young. Hopefully by the time I’m 75, they’ll be saying the same about 110. Bring on actuarial escape velocity!

Life expectancy increases slightly every year as treatment strategies and technologies improve. At present, more than one year of research is required for each additional year of expected life. Actuarial escape velocity occurs when this ratio reverses, so that expected years of remaining life actually increases each year.

Categories: Futurism · Singularity · Technology
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Half Way with the Social Networking

April 9, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Last week I read an interesting post from one of my favorite authors: Charles Stross. I’m actually reading one of his first published novels right now, the Atrocity Archives. Freaky book. Back on topic now. In last week’s post he talks about he doesn’t do the whole social media thing. Basically, he recognizes his inability to control himself, and such activity would lead to, well, not doing anything else. Given that I look forward to his future work, I’m completely behind this work ethic.

While I certainly have a social media presence online — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. — I do share one ethic with him: all these games and other various side things that some of these services have. Mafia Wars! Poker! Complete your profile! Yeah, whatever. There’s just too much. I have over a 100 friends on Facebook right now — a vast majority of them I’m fortunate to either call friend, or did call friend at some point in my life. That’s great, and I’m blessed. Still, I don’t see myself giving out energy packs to my friends just because someone gave me the same earlier today. I mean, great, thanks, but I don’t play. And Facebook Causes are just weird most of the time. I get invited to join Causes (note the capital) that I have no or almost no connection to. I mean, it’s very sad that little kids get cancer. I understand that desire to help, and I can only imagine the pain that families in that situation go through, but if I were to join every Cause that qualifies as Sad or Enraging with a simple click on Facebook, well. What good am I doing? What good are you doing? Nada. I guess you’re making yourself feel better, right? Unless you also happen to give money/time/energy to that cause, it’s pure platitudes.

Don’t get me started on Green Patch. I mean, what?

This isn’t do bring down the great things that Facebook and all the rest bring to me and mine. I’ve talked to people recently that I hadn’t heard from in well over a decade — maybe two. That’s powerful stuff. Bring able to let your friends and family follow your day-to-day life in all it’s boring detail: that’s fantastic. But seriously, I just don’t see myself playing poker online any time soon.

Categories: Technology
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The True Dark Ages

March 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I read this, and scoffed. Loudly.

NEW YORK, March 27 (UPI) — The Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza are among the landmarks that will go dark Saturday night for Earth Hour.

This sends the message that the solution to possible climate change issues is to use less energy. Mind you, not by efficiency, but by living in the dark. This is a sad step backwards, and sends a depressing message to the younger generation. “Don’t expect to be able to be crazy with your lightbulbs like we were!” I’m all for clean energy, efficiency, being smart about energy use, etc. I’m not excited about going backwards in time a hundred plus years to find the solution to possible problem.

I suggest that, at 8:30 PM on March 28th, everyone turn on every light in their house. Call it the “Technology is Good Hour”. I’m going to.

Categories: Energy · Technology
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Century of Big Ideas or Not?

March 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I don’t follow that many blogs. I mean, probably 40-50, but many of those don’t blog every day, so it really isn’t that many compared to some. So, when one blog says something and another comments on it, it’s kind of cool.

Late last week, Charlie Stross, the science fiction author, posted some fairly depressing speculation about what this century will hold for humanity. Singularity? No. Colonizing Mars? Nu-uh. He’s not all down on the near future, but he’s certainly not hugely optimistic. He’s a pretty smart guy, and I do pay attention to him (and I love his books to boot). The blog Next Big Future came right back the next day to answer him with some fun ideas about how Orion nuclear space ship technology can let us dream big and execute on those dreams this century.

I have no idea if it’ll happen. People that try to predict what’ll happen 100 years in the future with any real degree of detail (read, increasing global temperature) are always wrong. Always. But I do wish people would dream big about what humanity can achieve. If we don’t dream it, we’ll never do it.

Categories: Futurism · Singularity · Technology
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