Welcome
Hi, welcome to my blog my name is Shaun Wallin and here I will drop all things cool I find on the Internet, ideas, concerns and sometimes a few rants. Most posts will have a technological bent, some will be future predications (many of my predications have come to pass) and other posts will question Microsoft's dominance in the IT industry as I am firmly rooted in the open source camp. I am also concerned about the growing importance of the entertainment industries and the oppression and suppression of culture that results from that. Be sure to look out for the surprises as anything that takes my fancy or fills me with horror may end up here.
This site is optimised for reading on the iPhone - just double tap this text until the column aligns with the screen.
Hi, welcome to my blog my name is Shaun Wallin and here I will drop all things cool I find on the Internet, ideas, concerns and sometimes a few rants. Most posts will have a technological bent, some will be future predications (many of my predications have come to pass) and other posts will question Microsoft's dominance in the IT industry as I am firmly rooted in the open source camp. I am also concerned about the growing importance of the entertainment industries and the oppression and suppression of culture that results from that. Be sure to look out for the surprises as anything that takes my fancy or fills me with horror may end up here.
This site is optimised for reading on the iPhone - just double tap this text until the column aligns with the screen.
Is it time to dump Apple?
When companies start litigation to fight competitors in their market I see alarm bells ringing. Apple have launched a huge patent lawsuit against HTC who are the makers of some of the coolest phones around. This has seriously damaged their reputation in my opinion. By suing HTC Apple are directly attacking Google because HTC make Google's Nexus one Android phone. This has seriously put me off Apple's products because Steve Jobs is really stepping out of line here. There is hardly any difference between Apple and Microsoft these days and I would not be surprised if Apple join the corporation as they both follow old-school models. My answer to is it time to dump Apple is - my next phone will be Android! [link]
No Flash on the iPad - is Steve Jobs correct to prevent it.
Apple have made their name due to their excellent user experience on their devices so I am beginning to think that Steve Jobs is correct in preventing Flash on the iPhone and iPad. Adobe's track record in supporting Flash has been abysmal for example there are certain non Intel versions of Linux that will not run Flash at all because Adobe refuses to compile a version for them. The Flash player is NOT open source so the community can not see or fix problems themselves which really means that Flash is what is called a Parasitic technology. It also turns out that current Flash is only 32 bits and needs special measures to run on modern operating systems that are 64 bit and most astonishing - according to the link below Flash's architecture will not work well on touch screen devices! Perhaps it is time to snub people like Adobe and Microsoft (Silverlight) with their parasitic technologies and support open standards like HTML5. [link]
Can the thumb interface beat the flat interface.
A phone that uses your thumb to navigate seems very natural to me. It also makes all those "flat" tile style interfaces seem so yesterday. [link]
Microsoft tries the "Drug Dealer" approach
It's been said that the one way drug dealers sell their stuff is to build a dependency by giving their drugs away very cheap or free until their victims become dependent. Software companies have learnt that this approach really works well too. Take this example, the link below is a site where students can get Microsoft software at reduced rates thus entrapping them into a Microsoft development future despite the fact that there are excellent open source tools just for the taking. [link]
Windows Mobile 7 - Microsoft's iPhony unveiled before show!
So here it is Microsoft's iPhony revealed before the announcement - just goes to show that Microsoft just can't do anything right - not even keep a secret. I also think they perhaps they should have hidden the logo away instead of putting it on the home button. [link]
What is the most valuable thing on the Internet?
Many creative people will think that their content is the most valuable thing on the Internet. That is not the case anymore since there is now so much "stuff" online that finding content is easier then ever these days. Creative people will soon have to fight for exposure and will resort to giving away content for free just to get their name heard. That leaves the real value on the internet the aggregators and filterers of information. Many blogs perform this function very well, its easy to find examples take tech blogs, they now have cutting edge news far sooner than any legacy news sources. Also sites like Fail Blog, Photoshop Disasters and CanIhasCheesburger are a one stop place for a daily chuckle. Blogs like Boing Boing, Netorama and Dark Roasted blend cater for ones craving for a slanted view on life and Lifehacker can give you practical tips to make your life a bit easier. It is the blogmasters of these portals who are now the kings of the web and the content creators just make the fodder to feed the insatiable need because as soon as one creative gets shirty about their content another will happily take their place. Welcome to the new web where the aggregators are king and creatives are the slaves! So in conclusion the most valuable thing on the net today is not content but intelligent content filtering!
Requiem for the West
Living in the UK it seems I have a front seat view on the death of the "Western" civilization. Every day another great icon of the previously powerful English speaking civilization falls. Great businesses are sold off, her great ships now parked outside amusement parks and her political system is weak and unstable. Her major cities once polite bastions of civilization now look more like sets from GTA. Her streets are lined with the spittles of a population that values self importance over anything else. Powerful global corporations are feeding on her remains as she struggles like a great beast in pain. Today Obama will announce the cancellation of NASA projects ending the life blood of the agency that put us on the moon while the bankers work on more ways to exploit the decay. The West is indeed dying - but no need to be sad because it just shows that the world always moves on. Shift happens and now perhaps it is the time for the East and Far East to obtain glory. I look forward to the great Chinese moon colonies, the fabulous rotating space stations sporting the flag of India and the fully automated robotic world of the Japanese and the vast libraries and halls of philosophy in Africa. What I won't look forward to are the vast ghettos of New York, LA, London where the tin shanties glisten in the sun as the poor citizens of these places work all day for tiny wages to satisfy the huge apatite of the consumers in the new civilization. English becomes a language of poverty and humiliation and all the block buster movies are in Chinese. The future indeed looks interesting and I think I will learn to speak Mandarin!
Apple iPad - nice try but no banana
Make no mistake the Apple iPad is great, as I spend most of my time on a Dell mini 10 netbook a tablet format device would be a real boon. Watching Youtube, iPlayer using Facebook and even updating this blog would be natural uses for an iPad especially since I run a personal cloud server so all my data is off device anyway. However sadly I think in what Apple gets right in making this form factor work they lose in the usual irritating things they do. Firstly there is the good old lock-in again - an unusual processor, restricted application interfaces, special adapters all say to me that if you buy this you are almost accepting a religion. Another glaring problem is the lack of Flash support , that will have a negative effect on many sites that would benefit from the device. Will it play ogg video formats or audio and can you install VLC I think the answer will be no! What if I don't want to be tied to the Apple ecosystem which means app store and iTunes. These are all questions that I ask myself and at the end of the day I think I will still use my little Dell with ubuntu as my main PC! I did also find the design a little lacking, it looked too much like a fat iPhone and many of the interfaces seemed a bit clunky like icon spacing, the horrible wood "bookcase" and dreadful Lotus Organizer (remember that) type calendar. Perhaps Jonathan Ive should take a holiday to re-stir his imagination a bit. Anyway one thing is for sure - the pad/slate/tablet form factor has finally come of age and no doubt a nice open source (how about and ubuntu tablet mix) or Android variant will be around shortly, because combined with your own cloud server a tablet device is an excellent addition to anyone's computing fabric!
Light Blue Optics virtual keyboard has Microsoft sting in it's tail
A small startup called Light Blue Optics have created an enhanced laser keyboard device which can project video as well as virtual keys. It looks very impressive but however the company appears to be seriously in bed with Microsoft thus limiting its appeal for open system development. According to Engadget - the system runs Windows CE instead of Linux variants so I suspect it's practicality will be initially limited to lock-in applications which is sad because this could really have potential. Hopefully an open source friendly company will come up with something similar in the future.
[link]
Microsoft Silverlight - the Betamax to Adobe's Flash?
What is the purpose of Microsoft's Silverlight? It has been out there for over a year but still seems to be a bit of an obscurity and only used mainly on Microsoft's own web sites. At first a Flash killer may have seemed a good idea but then one has to ask why was it necessary. Flash has for the last 10 years being doing a decent job of animating and proving video on the web so why replace it. Why fix something that is already out there and does a good job already. It is not as if Silverlight is an official web standard - it isn't it is a typical Microsoft lock in product that is just as propriety as the Flash it is trying to replace. It is as if Microsoft are creating the Betamax to Adobe's VHS simply to divide the market for it's own interests. The user is the one who loses out in this battle. Just think now you need to download an additional Silverlight plug in to see certain sites on the web, sites that could just as easily be done in Flash. Microsoft is the only winner in this situation because the more people they have using Silverlight the more power over the web they get because Silverlight is a parasitic technology that is about as appealing a cockroaches on a dirty kitchen floor and most people wouldn't deliberately encourage that would they?
Time to accept the facts - democracy is dead and has been for years!
I love the way the Americans and the UK refuse to accept that they are in a post democratic era. Come on guys we are living in a Corpocracy now it really doesn't matter who the head of state is anymore. Obama can't help ordinary Americans any more then the Queen can bring back Cadburys!
Beware of amateur photo content on the internet!
Professional photographers have signed contacts with publishers and the rights on image use is very well understood between the two parties. However the amateur arena is much more complex - sites like Flickr are often used as sources of additional images for online news sources but you have to understand the licensing issues. For example I have almost all my Flickr images with a Creative Commons basic license allowing anyone to use them for anything however you can't always assume this is case in general. Most Flickr users regard their work in the same light as Van Gogh masterpieces and will defend their copyright to the end. This can be seen at the link below where the Independent used an image of snow causing a massive storm in a teacup among Flickr users. Much ado about nothing I suspect but it just shows how obsessed amateur photographers out there are. Anyway finally the storm passed and with help from the BPJ (British Photography Journal) the photographer received an apology from the newspaper and £100 - wow! The moral of the story is - if you are a news site then NEVER use any copyright amateur content out there full stop! People like me who put Creative Commons photos out there are easy to find and would love our images used and will not go into a hissy fit about copyright unlike I suspect most readers of the British Photography Journal. Which leads me to a new thought, is the BPJ and their loyal copyright enthused followers perhaps a bit of an anachronism in the modern world. Perhaps we need a journal that bangs the drum for people that don't want to milk the art of photography for the very last penny and are happy to share our experiences with others. People like me who think that culture is a thing to share and NOT to profit from. True art is art that does not involve lawyers. [link]
Tablets Galore but does Apple have something more up it's sleeve
Apple have been talking to Harper Collins that means content, printed content and printed content suggests a device to read it on - enter Apple's tablet. Now the main difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple really think about things before they announce them, they do their homework. Steve Ballmer may put Windows 7 on a keyboardless laptop and call it a slate but for Apple the new device must have an essence of its own. It must be a joy to use and bring new life into a tired old idea, after all tablet PCs have been around for years but remained in relative obscurity. The Apple device will not just be a flat computer, like the iPod it will be an entire ecosystem with powerful publishing partners not just be a lump of hardware and software. It will be a way to sell books and content as easily as music and apps currently are from the iTunes store. When Apple release their tablet I will be looking forward to seeing the solution not just the hardware because you bet Apple has thought this out from every angle!
The real evil behind GM foods
Monsanto is the reason why I am totally anti GM foods. It's not the science I am worried about it is the intellectual property lock-in that turns Monsanto into the Microsoft of food that scares me. It's one thing to have a monopoly on software like Microsoft has but quite another to have a monopoly on life - particularity if that life is the very food we need! Perhaps we need open source food to combat this new evil face of capitalism. The link below is an expose on the monopoly practices of the worlds largest GM seed producer Monsanto. [link]
Kodak goes sour!
Dear old Kodak once that great old leader of commercial photography are now left to wallow in the shadow of their past glory. They never could keep up with the digital world and their cameras are now a beacon of average (my opinion). So what do you do when your greatness has passed and you have nothing left but a few patents from your better days. You sue of course, so it comes as no surprise that Kodak are suing Apple and RIM as it just confirms my suspician that they are on their way out!
Why don't companies like Kodak just roll over and die instead of making lawyers richer. [link]
A right Royal sacking - well deserved!
I used to love the Christmas lectures from the Royal Institution, that is until some bright spark thought it would be great to hire Susan Greenfield.
With Susan in control suddenly the lectures were taken off the BBC and given to Channel 5 and the content of the lectures were nothing more then attention grabbing bull droppings (my opinion) as the entire organisation became a whimpering collection of folly. Many of the lectures were also sponsored by Microsoft just showing how connected the organisation is with the Monopolist despite Susan's apparent aversion to computers which she claimed harmed children (see linked article). Millions were spent on event spaces galore but like the millennium dome nothing was thought about content.
Now that Susan has been thankfully sacked she is suing the organisation because being a woman this was all a sexist issue and nothing to do with the wholesale blowing of millions of pounds I suspect!
Anyway I am really glad to see the back of her and hope the Ri will return to its previous status again and hopefully next years lectures will be worth watching! [link]
What is wealth independant punishment?
Lets assume you have a speeding fine of say £500. To an average person this would be a lot of money and an effective punishment but to someone who earns millions like a banker, celebrity or football player this is a mere inconvenience. The solution is to create fines that are a percentage of ones earnings. So for example a speeding fine should be set at 10% your monthly income for example. In this case if you earn £2000 a month your fine would be £200. However if you earn £200 000 a month then your fine would be £20000! This means that fines can hit the rich as hard as they do the poor! A good example of this form of wealth independent punishment (WIP) is the story below where a Swiss man is fined £180 000 for speeding! [link]
OMNI Magazine
This used to be my favorite Magazine in it's time! Read this cool retrospective on the magazine here. [link]
Looks like a Psion but let down by Windows XP
Now a tiny notebook that looks like a Psion Pda may on first impressions seem like a cool idea but I suspect there are some fundamental, problems here -
1) It runs Windows XP now I firmly believe that on small devices the operating system should be optimized for the smallness of the device. You can get away with Windows XP on a 10 inch net book but on a tiny machine I just know it is going to be awkward. The ideal operating system for a reborn Psion would obviously be Symbian or even Google's Android.
2) It appears to run the Intel Atom processor instead of the Arm processor. This was probably a consideration to ensure it runs XP. The result is a PDA that has a laptop like processor. The ideal solution should have been to use an Arm processor and use a proper mobile operating system that would not have to boot up like a clunky old laptop.
3) Battery life - the fact that the battery life of this device is not mentioned anywhere on the site or stated on the spec sheet suggests that this is not one of the devices strong points. Again this is due to the decision to make a Psion sized laptop instead of a truly mobile device.
In conclusion I wish that when people design these things that they give due attention to the software, just putting XP on does not make a desirable device.
There's an app for your news but it costs
Would I pay £2.40 for a Guardian app for my iphone? - well thanks but no thanks - but it does remind me to cut down my reliance on commercial news sources before they all go behind the paywall. Even though the Guardian site is currently free to view I have made a mental note to spend less time there because they will inevitably go pay for view at some stage.
The issue is not that I would have to pay for news, I don't mind that but things always go further and I can see that the pay for view sites will start suing bloggers and other free news sources who carry similar stories. That is where I see the main problems with pay per view - as soon as you give power to the publishers and content providers they will always abuse their position. We need to keep the internet free and open and the power away from those who want to capitalize by locking down and monopolizing content and if that means that a few newspapers go out of business then sadly that must be the case. As soon as you pay someone you create a market - you give them power and in return we all lose something.
I never read the Guardian in paper form and only really discovered it on the web, I would be very sad when it does go behind a pay-wall but if it did I would just need to find another free substitute. However at the moment they and their advertisers have my attention and judging by the current desperation on the part of advertisers getting an audience there would be someone out there with alternatives and of course there is good old Auntie (BBC) my first choice for news anyway.
The app itself is a very good idea and adds value to an otherwise free online resource but I just feel there is a nervous desperation behind it's development so it is something I will not support or get used to. The whole exercise seems to be the Guardian trying to measure the propensity for people to pay for things they currently provide for free.
The strange thing of course is that there are so many free newspapers in London now I have to dodge to get past the people who hand them out.
[link]
When companies start litigation to fight competitors in their market I see alarm bells ringing. Apple have launched a huge patent lawsuit against HTC who are the makers of some of the coolest phones around. This has seriously damaged their reputation in my opinion. By suing HTC Apple are directly attacking Google because HTC make Google's Nexus one Android phone. This has seriously put me off Apple's products because Steve Jobs is really stepping out of line here. There is hardly any difference between Apple and Microsoft these days and I would not be surprised if Apple join the corporation as they both follow old-school models. My answer to is it time to dump Apple is - my next phone will be Android! [link]
No Flash on the iPad - is Steve Jobs correct to prevent it.
Apple have made their name due to their excellent user experience on their devices so I am beginning to think that Steve Jobs is correct in preventing Flash on the iPhone and iPad. Adobe's track record in supporting Flash has been abysmal for example there are certain non Intel versions of Linux that will not run Flash at all because Adobe refuses to compile a version for them. The Flash player is NOT open source so the community can not see or fix problems themselves which really means that Flash is what is called a Parasitic technology. It also turns out that current Flash is only 32 bits and needs special measures to run on modern operating systems that are 64 bit and most astonishing - according to the link below Flash's architecture will not work well on touch screen devices! Perhaps it is time to snub people like Adobe and Microsoft (Silverlight) with their parasitic technologies and support open standards like HTML5. [link]
Can the thumb interface beat the flat interface.
A phone that uses your thumb to navigate seems very natural to me. It also makes all those "flat" tile style interfaces seem so yesterday. [link]
Microsoft tries the "Drug Dealer" approach
It's been said that the one way drug dealers sell their stuff is to build a dependency by giving their drugs away very cheap or free until their victims become dependent. Software companies have learnt that this approach really works well too. Take this example, the link below is a site where students can get Microsoft software at reduced rates thus entrapping them into a Microsoft development future despite the fact that there are excellent open source tools just for the taking. [link]
Windows Mobile 7 - Microsoft's iPhony unveiled before show!
So here it is Microsoft's iPhony revealed before the announcement - just goes to show that Microsoft just can't do anything right - not even keep a secret. I also think they perhaps they should have hidden the logo away instead of putting it on the home button. [link]
What is the most valuable thing on the Internet?
Many creative people will think that their content is the most valuable thing on the Internet. That is not the case anymore since there is now so much "stuff" online that finding content is easier then ever these days. Creative people will soon have to fight for exposure and will resort to giving away content for free just to get their name heard. That leaves the real value on the internet the aggregators and filterers of information. Many blogs perform this function very well, its easy to find examples take tech blogs, they now have cutting edge news far sooner than any legacy news sources. Also sites like Fail Blog, Photoshop Disasters and CanIhasCheesburger are a one stop place for a daily chuckle. Blogs like Boing Boing, Netorama and Dark Roasted blend cater for ones craving for a slanted view on life and Lifehacker can give you practical tips to make your life a bit easier. It is the blogmasters of these portals who are now the kings of the web and the content creators just make the fodder to feed the insatiable need because as soon as one creative gets shirty about their content another will happily take their place. Welcome to the new web where the aggregators are king and creatives are the slaves! So in conclusion the most valuable thing on the net today is not content but intelligent content filtering!
Requiem for the West
Living in the UK it seems I have a front seat view on the death of the "Western" civilization. Every day another great icon of the previously powerful English speaking civilization falls. Great businesses are sold off, her great ships now parked outside amusement parks and her political system is weak and unstable. Her major cities once polite bastions of civilization now look more like sets from GTA. Her streets are lined with the spittles of a population that values self importance over anything else. Powerful global corporations are feeding on her remains as she struggles like a great beast in pain. Today Obama will announce the cancellation of NASA projects ending the life blood of the agency that put us on the moon while the bankers work on more ways to exploit the decay. The West is indeed dying - but no need to be sad because it just shows that the world always moves on. Shift happens and now perhaps it is the time for the East and Far East to obtain glory. I look forward to the great Chinese moon colonies, the fabulous rotating space stations sporting the flag of India and the fully automated robotic world of the Japanese and the vast libraries and halls of philosophy in Africa. What I won't look forward to are the vast ghettos of New York, LA, London where the tin shanties glisten in the sun as the poor citizens of these places work all day for tiny wages to satisfy the huge apatite of the consumers in the new civilization. English becomes a language of poverty and humiliation and all the block buster movies are in Chinese. The future indeed looks interesting and I think I will learn to speak Mandarin!
Apple iPad - nice try but no banana
Make no mistake the Apple iPad is great, as I spend most of my time on a Dell mini 10 netbook a tablet format device would be a real boon. Watching Youtube, iPlayer using Facebook and even updating this blog would be natural uses for an iPad especially since I run a personal cloud server so all my data is off device anyway. However sadly I think in what Apple gets right in making this form factor work they lose in the usual irritating things they do. Firstly there is the good old lock-in again - an unusual processor, restricted application interfaces, special adapters all say to me that if you buy this you are almost accepting a religion. Another glaring problem is the lack of Flash support , that will have a negative effect on many sites that would benefit from the device. Will it play ogg video formats or audio and can you install VLC I think the answer will be no! What if I don't want to be tied to the Apple ecosystem which means app store and iTunes. These are all questions that I ask myself and at the end of the day I think I will still use my little Dell with ubuntu as my main PC! I did also find the design a little lacking, it looked too much like a fat iPhone and many of the interfaces seemed a bit clunky like icon spacing, the horrible wood "bookcase" and dreadful Lotus Organizer (remember that) type calendar. Perhaps Jonathan Ive should take a holiday to re-stir his imagination a bit. Anyway one thing is for sure - the pad/slate/tablet form factor has finally come of age and no doubt a nice open source (how about and ubuntu tablet mix) or Android variant will be around shortly, because combined with your own cloud server a tablet device is an excellent addition to anyone's computing fabric!
Light Blue Optics virtual keyboard has Microsoft sting in it's tail
A small startup called Light Blue Optics have created an enhanced laser keyboard device which can project video as well as virtual keys. It looks very impressive but however the company appears to be seriously in bed with Microsoft thus limiting its appeal for open system development. According to Engadget - the system runs Windows CE instead of Linux variants so I suspect it's practicality will be initially limited to lock-in applications which is sad because this could really have potential. Hopefully an open source friendly company will come up with something similar in the future.
[link]
Microsoft Silverlight - the Betamax to Adobe's Flash?
What is the purpose of Microsoft's Silverlight? It has been out there for over a year but still seems to be a bit of an obscurity and only used mainly on Microsoft's own web sites. At first a Flash killer may have seemed a good idea but then one has to ask why was it necessary. Flash has for the last 10 years being doing a decent job of animating and proving video on the web so why replace it. Why fix something that is already out there and does a good job already. It is not as if Silverlight is an official web standard - it isn't it is a typical Microsoft lock in product that is just as propriety as the Flash it is trying to replace. It is as if Microsoft are creating the Betamax to Adobe's VHS simply to divide the market for it's own interests. The user is the one who loses out in this battle. Just think now you need to download an additional Silverlight plug in to see certain sites on the web, sites that could just as easily be done in Flash. Microsoft is the only winner in this situation because the more people they have using Silverlight the more power over the web they get because Silverlight is a parasitic technology that is about as appealing a cockroaches on a dirty kitchen floor and most people wouldn't deliberately encourage that would they?
Time to accept the facts - democracy is dead and has been for years!
I love the way the Americans and the UK refuse to accept that they are in a post democratic era. Come on guys we are living in a Corpocracy now it really doesn't matter who the head of state is anymore. Obama can't help ordinary Americans any more then the Queen can bring back Cadburys!
Beware of amateur photo content on the internet!
Professional photographers have signed contacts with publishers and the rights on image use is very well understood between the two parties. However the amateur arena is much more complex - sites like Flickr are often used as sources of additional images for online news sources but you have to understand the licensing issues. For example I have almost all my Flickr images with a Creative Commons basic license allowing anyone to use them for anything however you can't always assume this is case in general. Most Flickr users regard their work in the same light as Van Gogh masterpieces and will defend their copyright to the end. This can be seen at the link below where the Independent used an image of snow causing a massive storm in a teacup among Flickr users. Much ado about nothing I suspect but it just shows how obsessed amateur photographers out there are. Anyway finally the storm passed and with help from the BPJ (British Photography Journal) the photographer received an apology from the newspaper and £100 - wow! The moral of the story is - if you are a news site then NEVER use any copyright amateur content out there full stop! People like me who put Creative Commons photos out there are easy to find and would love our images used and will not go into a hissy fit about copyright unlike I suspect most readers of the British Photography Journal. Which leads me to a new thought, is the BPJ and their loyal copyright enthused followers perhaps a bit of an anachronism in the modern world. Perhaps we need a journal that bangs the drum for people that don't want to milk the art of photography for the very last penny and are happy to share our experiences with others. People like me who think that culture is a thing to share and NOT to profit from. True art is art that does not involve lawyers. [link]
Tablets Galore but does Apple have something more up it's sleeve
Apple have been talking to Harper Collins that means content, printed content and printed content suggests a device to read it on - enter Apple's tablet. Now the main difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple really think about things before they announce them, they do their homework. Steve Ballmer may put Windows 7 on a keyboardless laptop and call it a slate but for Apple the new device must have an essence of its own. It must be a joy to use and bring new life into a tired old idea, after all tablet PCs have been around for years but remained in relative obscurity. The Apple device will not just be a flat computer, like the iPod it will be an entire ecosystem with powerful publishing partners not just be a lump of hardware and software. It will be a way to sell books and content as easily as music and apps currently are from the iTunes store. When Apple release their tablet I will be looking forward to seeing the solution not just the hardware because you bet Apple has thought this out from every angle!
The real evil behind GM foods
Monsanto is the reason why I am totally anti GM foods. It's not the science I am worried about it is the intellectual property lock-in that turns Monsanto into the Microsoft of food that scares me. It's one thing to have a monopoly on software like Microsoft has but quite another to have a monopoly on life - particularity if that life is the very food we need! Perhaps we need open source food to combat this new evil face of capitalism. The link below is an expose on the monopoly practices of the worlds largest GM seed producer Monsanto. [link]
Kodak goes sour!
Dear old Kodak once that great old leader of commercial photography are now left to wallow in the shadow of their past glory. They never could keep up with the digital world and their cameras are now a beacon of average (my opinion). So what do you do when your greatness has passed and you have nothing left but a few patents from your better days. You sue of course, so it comes as no surprise that Kodak are suing Apple and RIM as it just confirms my suspician that they are on their way out!
Why don't companies like Kodak just roll over and die instead of making lawyers richer. [link]
A right Royal sacking - well deserved!
I used to love the Christmas lectures from the Royal Institution, that is until some bright spark thought it would be great to hire Susan Greenfield.
With Susan in control suddenly the lectures were taken off the BBC and given to Channel 5 and the content of the lectures were nothing more then attention grabbing bull droppings (my opinion) as the entire organisation became a whimpering collection of folly. Many of the lectures were also sponsored by Microsoft just showing how connected the organisation is with the Monopolist despite Susan's apparent aversion to computers which she claimed harmed children (see linked article). Millions were spent on event spaces galore but like the millennium dome nothing was thought about content.
Now that Susan has been thankfully sacked she is suing the organisation because being a woman this was all a sexist issue and nothing to do with the wholesale blowing of millions of pounds I suspect!
Anyway I am really glad to see the back of her and hope the Ri will return to its previous status again and hopefully next years lectures will be worth watching! [link]
What is wealth independant punishment?
Lets assume you have a speeding fine of say £500. To an average person this would be a lot of money and an effective punishment but to someone who earns millions like a banker, celebrity or football player this is a mere inconvenience. The solution is to create fines that are a percentage of ones earnings. So for example a speeding fine should be set at 10% your monthly income for example. In this case if you earn £2000 a month your fine would be £200. However if you earn £200 000 a month then your fine would be £20000! This means that fines can hit the rich as hard as they do the poor! A good example of this form of wealth independent punishment (WIP) is the story below where a Swiss man is fined £180 000 for speeding! [link]
OMNI Magazine
This used to be my favorite Magazine in it's time! Read this cool retrospective on the magazine here. [link]
Looks like a Psion but let down by Windows XP
Now a tiny notebook that looks like a Psion Pda may on first impressions seem like a cool idea but I suspect there are some fundamental, problems here -
1) It runs Windows XP now I firmly believe that on small devices the operating system should be optimized for the smallness of the device. You can get away with Windows XP on a 10 inch net book but on a tiny machine I just know it is going to be awkward. The ideal operating system for a reborn Psion would obviously be Symbian or even Google's Android.
2) It appears to run the Intel Atom processor instead of the Arm processor. This was probably a consideration to ensure it runs XP. The result is a PDA that has a laptop like processor. The ideal solution should have been to use an Arm processor and use a proper mobile operating system that would not have to boot up like a clunky old laptop.
3) Battery life - the fact that the battery life of this device is not mentioned anywhere on the site or stated on the spec sheet suggests that this is not one of the devices strong points. Again this is due to the decision to make a Psion sized laptop instead of a truly mobile device.
In conclusion I wish that when people design these things that they give due attention to the software, just putting XP on does not make a desirable device.
There's an app for your news but it costs
Would I pay £2.40 for a Guardian app for my iphone? - well thanks but no thanks - but it does remind me to cut down my reliance on commercial news sources before they all go behind the paywall. Even though the Guardian site is currently free to view I have made a mental note to spend less time there because they will inevitably go pay for view at some stage.
The issue is not that I would have to pay for news, I don't mind that but things always go further and I can see that the pay for view sites will start suing bloggers and other free news sources who carry similar stories. That is where I see the main problems with pay per view - as soon as you give power to the publishers and content providers they will always abuse their position. We need to keep the internet free and open and the power away from those who want to capitalize by locking down and monopolizing content and if that means that a few newspapers go out of business then sadly that must be the case. As soon as you pay someone you create a market - you give them power and in return we all lose something.
I never read the Guardian in paper form and only really discovered it on the web, I would be very sad when it does go behind a pay-wall but if it did I would just need to find another free substitute. However at the moment they and their advertisers have my attention and judging by the current desperation on the part of advertisers getting an audience there would be someone out there with alternatives and of course there is good old Auntie (BBC) my first choice for news anyway.
The app itself is a very good idea and adds value to an otherwise free online resource but I just feel there is a nervous desperation behind it's development so it is something I will not support or get used to. The whole exercise seems to be the Guardian trying to measure the propensity for people to pay for things they currently provide for free.
The strange thing of course is that there are so many free newspapers in London now I have to dodge to get past the people who hand them out.
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This site is just my opinion and I cannot guarantee the validity of anything published here.
This site is just my opinion and I cannot guarantee the validity of anything published here.
