Submitted by acohill on Wed, 12/07/2011 - 09:48
Wired has an interesting article on the slow and steady approach Microsoft has taken with the Xbox. Wired describes the huge sales numbers for the Xbox over the Black Friday weekend, noting that it can't just be gamers buying a six year old design.
What has happened is that Microsoft has been able to sign a lot of content agreements so that you can use the Xbox to replace your TV, with lots of on-demand video from a wide variety of content providers.
The rest of the article, though, tries to shed some light on what Apple may or may not be doing without really providing any clarity. Apple is famously successful at keeping secrets, so no one really has any idea what one of Steve Jobs' last comments, about Apple's TV strategy, really means: "I finally cracked it."
Rumors have been flying around for months that Apple intends to roll out a "smart TV," as opposed to the Microsoft "smart box" strategy a la the Xbox. As I have maintained for years, whatever the hardware is, if you don't have content, customers won't buy.
I'm glad Xbox is doing well. Apple, Google, and others trying to break into the "TV" market need good, strong competition. The losers in this epic battle are going to be the cable companies, because analog TV is dead, dead, dead. And the cable firms have no strategy for making the transition to on-demand video. The TV market is cracking up before our eyes. Top notch shows like the CBS "Person of Interest" can be watched on demand on the CBS Web site. So why does CBS need to license its content to the cable companies?
Even IP TV is dying before it even catches on. The original concept of IP TV was (is) to emulate the channel line up packages of analog cable TV with a digital set top box that lets you "tune" (select) from a traditional channel line up. But why bother with that at all if the same content is available on demand, without the bother, complexity, and cost of a set top box? The simplicity and reduced cost of on-demand video versus the more expensive IP TV/set top box solution suggests IP TV is not going to be around long.
Modern broadband networks need fast, cheap bandwidth so that all forms of on-demand video can be supported, including the emerging heavy use of live HD video during the daytime by the business community.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 13:29
A cryptic reference in the wildly popular biography of Steve Jobs suggests that Apple has something up its sleeve with respect to the TV set. MacRumors reports on a NY Times story that suggests Apple's intelligent agent technology, called Siri, may show up in an Apple-branded TV set. Instead of complicated remotes, we will just talk to our TV and tell it what we want to watch. As someone who never has liked all the effort it takes to program a VCR or DVR to record a few shows, the idea is very appealing. And presumably, the Apple TV would also know how to access other programming, like Netflix and Hulu.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/24/2011 - 08:06
The iPod is ten years old today. The iPod was the brainchild of Steve Jobs. There were plenty of other MP3 music players at the time; most of them were much less expensive and smaller than the iPod, but the iPod was easy to use, both from the interface of the iPod itself, but key to the music player's success was the way the iPod synced with iTunes on your computer--a layer of complexity was completely eliminated, and that made all the difference.
The emergence of the iPod was also the death of the music store, but it was neither Jobs nor Apple that was the death of that anachronism, it was the inevitable march of history, or as Schumpeter calls it, "creative destruction." Ancient Greeks decried written language as the ruination of memorization. In the Middle Ages, the printing press was seen by some as a loss of control over knowledge. Time and technology move on. As we speak, tablet-based devices like the iPad are completing the creative destruction of most paper-based materials, especially magazines and newspapers. I think there will always be a place for some paper-based books, but really, paying less than ten bucks for the latest best seller in ebook format is much better than chopping down trees, making energy-intensive paper, and then engaging in the energy-intensive process of printing and hauling millions of tons of those books around. That's also true of music--music used to require enormous amounts of energy to deliver to the buyer, because music was heavy; it had weight. Today, we buy music as a stream of weightless photons.
What else has changed? In the old days, ten years ago, when music was still heavy, you needed a well-designed road system for the trucks and cars that hauled music around. Today, you need a well-designed digital road system to haul music, books, magazines, movies, TV, health care, business services, and hundreds of other emerging services. Is your community building those digital roads?
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 19:36
The pundits wailed and moaned that the iPhone 4S was a big disappointment, that it did not have enough new features to interest users, that Apple had a flop on its hands, and that perhaps the company was losing its ability to execute since it was not able to deliver an iPhone 5.
Uh huh.
Apple announced that it sold 4 million iPhone 4S models in the first three days of sales. That is more than double the 1.7 million iPhone 4 sales in the same time period. In other news, Apple stock hit an all time high.
Submitted by acohill on Sun, 10/16/2011 - 16:48
I had a chance to try out an iPhone 4S over the weekend, and I think Siri, the voice recognition service built into the phone, is potentially another Apple game changer, just as the touch interface on the original iPhone was a game changer.
While playing around with the iPhone, I discovered that the little pop up keyboard used to input text in virtually every application on the iPhone has a Siri button. If you tap it, the phone goes into voice dictation mode. Instead of laboriously tapping away on the virtual keyboard, you can just talk. I was able to try only a few sentences, but some of them were quite long, and the transcription was perfect--no mistakes.
Oddly, even Apple is not highlighting this feature. Instead, the ads for the iPhone 4S show the ability of Siri to answer queries like, "What time is it?" or "What is the weather in New York City?" This feature worked, but I was underwhelmed by it, as there is a slight lag while Siri goes to look for the information, and for things like the time or the weather, you can get it faster with a couple of taps. But the dictation is magical, and I can't wait to see Siri available on Macs.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 09:07
CNet reports that the new iPhone 4S has broken sales records again, with more than a million pre-orders on the first day. The previous best was 600,000 iPhone 4 orders on day one. This is a bit amusing, because when Apple unveiled the new phone last week, a lot of pundits panned the device, complaining that Apple had fumbled, that it should have been an iPhone 5, that the 4S model did not have enough new features, and basically, that Apple had screwed up. Uh huh. No company has ever sold one million phones in one day. Ever. Some screw up.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 13:20
Amazon has just announced the Kindle Fire. You won't be able to get your hands on one until November 15th, but you can order one now. If Apple was planning to release an upgraded iPad before the holidays, Amazon just stole all of Apple's thunder.
The Kindle Fire gets rid of the ridiculous chiclet keyboard, adds a color display, and sells for just $199. Can you spell "Christmas present?" The low price is surely going to steal market share from the iPad, as the Fire offers books, magazines, movies, TV shows, Web browsing, email, and some games. Unlike some of the earlier Kindles, this is a WiFi only device, which is not likely to be an issue for most people. You can download your books, videos, and magazines at home, and then read them while you are away from a wireless network.
Amazon also offers free cloud storage for everything you buy. This is another place where Amazon has gotten the jump on Apple. Apple's cloud service is still in beta, and so it is hard to evaluate what it means for the average Apple user.
This will likely force Apple to lower prices on the iPad. The iPad is a much more capable device, but the Kindle Fire is going to be judged as "good enough" by millions. Amazon has a winner. The only thing that could hurt sales is if the early units have technical or usability problems--remember the roll out of the Apple Newton? The Newton was widely ridiculed for some early software issues, which were quickly corrected, but the bad PR sunk the device and it never really recovered.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 13:26
United Airlines is replacing paper-based pilot flight manuals and charts with iPads. Each iPad will replace 38 pounds of paper distributed to each pilot over the course of year, amounting to some 16 million pieces of paper.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/17/2011 - 07:26
Business Insider reports that the HP TouchPad is a dud. Best Buy has more than 200,000 unsold tablets from Hewlett-Packard, and they want to return them. Meanwhile, Best Buy can't keep Apple iPads in stock. In our local Best Buy, I chatted up one of the sales people, who said they don't even bother to keep a demo unit on the floor. He told me the stores get a weekly allocation of usually an unknown but small quantity, and they sell out within hours. It's too bad, actually, because the software that powers the TouchPad, WebOS, is pretty good. HP bought the software from the old Palm. HP has a long history of designing excellent products that are priced wrong and/or lack the sales and technical support needed to make them successful.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 13:14
Byte has an article with some detail about Amazon's 9" tablet that will supposedly be released this fall (just in time for Christmas shopping season). Amazon has some pieces in place that Apple does not, including free 3G wireless connectivity (from the Kindle platform) and Amazon's well-tested and already popular cloud storage could give Apple's untested cloud storage trouble. Apple has done very well by bundling lots of well-integrated apps and services, and Amazon may be the one company ready to compete. That's good for everyone, as it will make Apple work harder and be more responsive to customers.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 07/21/2011 - 14:23
Apple has passed Nokia to become the world's biggest smartphone vendor. Nokia was very late to the game in releasing smartphones, as was RIM, the maker of the Blackberry. Apple has now passed both companies in total shipments.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 12:39
User satisfaction with most gadgets tends to decrease after about 13 weeks of use, but a new study by a University of Missouri researcher shows that people like their iPads MORE after that period of time--more than when they first bought it.
iPad use patterns are also different from traditional laptop and desktop computers, with use of iPads peaking in the evening, unlike other computers. The iPad and similar tablet devices are going to create additional strains on existing antiquated copper-based broadband infrastructure as users use the devices to watch movies, play interactive games, and browse bandwidth-heavy multimedia news sites.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 07/11/2011 - 08:30
Found on the Internet...I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw this....
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 05/23/2011 - 14:44
That sound you hear is of the cash register business drying up. Square, a company that has developed a "soft" cash register for the iPad, is very likely to capture a big chunk of the traditional cash register market, which has been dominated by mostly small and medium-sized firms that customize mostly Windows-based computers. Part of Square's innovation is a small dongle that attaches to the iPad and reads credit cards. The market that is most likely to embrace this approach is the food industry; waitstaff can carry and iPad directly to the table and enter orders on the fly, reducing wait time and errors. This won't work for all stores, as you can see from the comments (grocery stores are not likely to find this useful, among others).
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 03/31/2011 - 07:57
Via Ed Dreistadt, who always keeps up with car stuff when he's not busy helping companies with their marketing, comes this hilarious story on Ford's "2nd generation" SYNC(tm) software.
The software was developed by Microsoft, which begs the question, "What could go wrong?"
From the article:
"If the pulse of one of these applications goes haywire, in order maintain system stability, we reset that application by resetting the entire software to come back to a 'known good state,' similar to how you reset your phone or computer," said Mounir Hider, a Ford product development engineer.
In other words, "haywire" is code for the Blue Screen of Death....
The display and hardware in this new "Gen 2" system attempts to manage a variety of functions at once. And while Ford builds in redundancy to handle many of the core functions – climate and audio being two – navigation tends to find itself limited to a single point of failure.
In other words, Microsoft does not know how to write real time operating systems.....something that was worked out decades ago by other companies....
"We don't use this reboot strategy loosely," said Hider. "There are certain events that will trigger these reboots. Mainly it's when things get out of sync with each other."
....in other words, the system named SYNC can't stay in sync....
Hider did tell us one little known fact: The SYNC system actually restarts every 24 hours of usage. After a day's worth of use, the system will automatically reset on its own after the ignition is turned off. This is mostly invisible to the driver, assuming they don't go back into the car and turn on the ignition during the restart procedure.
...in other words, the system is so unreliable that it has to be rebooted every single day....
There is much more at the link, including an official Ford response at the end of the article. Disclaimer: I'm a lifelong Ford owner, and am extremely happy with my highly reliable Ford Fusion--which thankfully, is not equipped with SYNC(tm).
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 02/18/2011 - 10:40
Just ten years ago, surveillance cameras that were IP-addressable cost many hundreds or even thousands of dollars and generated massive amounts of data. As just one example of how things have changed, this Linksys (Cisco) surveillance camera has both an RJ45 and wireless (WiFi) connection, one way audio (so you can listen in), 128 bit encryption over the wireless link, 640x480 resolution, motion detection to reduce the size of the data stream, provides email alerts, and can deliver 30 frames per second. We just bought one for one of our clients for $104! It's going in a small colocation facility where we need to be able to see who goes in and out (service providers have access to the building). The price is so low that it's perfect for home use as well. Instead of buying an overpriced and inferior baby monitor set up which broadcasts pictures of your child to the whole world, invest in one of these and use your laptop or smartphone to see if the baby is sleeping. Or use it to keep an eye on rambunctious pets. Or put it in your vacation home or cabin to keep an eye on things. Perhaps the best feature is the email alert--if motion is detected, it starts taking pictures, and send a few of them instantly in an email to you.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 02/17/2011 - 11:20
This jet-powered bicycle might be very handy in areas that still have no broadband, as hauling your data around by jet bike might be faster than dial-up. If we still don't have flying cars, a jet-powered bicycle seems like a pretty good consolation prize.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 02/07/2011 - 10:32
On behalf of all the engineers and scientists that invented and then perfected all the technology on display at the Super Bowl half time, let me apologize. The fact that you CAN suit up several hundred people in radio-controlled LED light suits and send them prancing around a football field does not mean that you SHOULD. And the fact that you can put lampshades on the heads of some of those, uh, "dancers" and have them prance around behind Black Eyed Peas does not mean that you should.
It is hard to decide what was worse: the abuse of technology, or the millions of gallons of ear bleach needed by those of us who perversely refused to turn the sound off during the half time performance. If nothing else, it is now established that all four members of Black Eyed Peas can't do that thing with their throat and lips that some of us call, um, "singing."
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 01/31/2011 - 09:01
I wrote about this little device a while back, but it is now available for order. I'm thinking about getting a couple for the house, to replace existing wall sockets where we tend to drop our iPhones and iPods at the end of the day. This USB wall socket has two standard 120 volt AC outlets and two powered USB outlets. So you don't need chargers cluttering up your sockets. And of course, it can charge any device that has a USB charging option.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 11:57
The Evoke Flow is a new take on what a radio ought to be. While it's nice to have fifteen thousand songs on your home computer, it is not always handy or convenient. Even if you have some of the gadgets that let you stream the music around the house, many of those still require fussing at your computer (some need more fussing, some need less). The Evoke Flow looks like an old sixties AM radio; the form factor includes a handle to encourage you to carry it around the house. It supports three kinds of content: traditional FM radio, Internet radio stations, and streamed content from local computers (e.g. iTunes music libraries). It has a mono speaker, so it's not designed to provide room-filling stereo. Instead, the emphasis is on portability--listen in the kitchen, on the deck outside, in the den, in the bedroom. It's a neat idea, and based on this review, the product still has a few rough edges. For example, it seems odd not to include AM radio, and it would not have been expensive to add a second cheap speaker and provide low fidelity stereo. And it would appear the attempt to provide a simplified "retro" look created some difficulties using the controls effectively. I think we will see more products like this, and the maker of the Evoke is a firm called Pure, which has several other similar products.
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