June 13, 2009 11:42 PM

This was a jam packed week for all of you portable gadget enthusiasts. Following E3, Apple had their World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), where they introduced an updated set of Macbook Pros, Snow Leopard, iPhone 3.0 software, and the new iPhone 3GS. Also, the Palm Pre was also available for purchase. Finally, Archos introduced their additional entries into the laptop/netboook space.

First, let’s recap Apple. The new Macbook Pros look awesome. They brought back the Firewire ports on the 15“ and added a SD Card Slot to the 15” and 17“. They also rebranded the 13” Unibody Macbook into a Macbook Pro. This unit also has a SD Card Slot. The new units can also take up to 8GB of RAM!!! It’s a great line, and I have my eye out on the 13“ MBPro. Snow Leopard was released, and it mostly is about the apps being rewritten to 64 bit. Also, they removed all of the PowerPC back-porting so the OS is about 6GB smaller. The iPhone 3GS looks really cool. They didn’t surprise us with anything not speculated in the rumors. The new phone is faster, has a 3.2 MP camera, and will be able to take advantage of all the 3.0 upgrades. It also has video and voice control. There are a couple of other small features. You can go to http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0906paowdnv/event/index.html?internal=ijalrmacu for more info.

The Palm Pre was also introduced this week. Palm has done very well for themselves. The stock was under $1.50 in January, and 6 months later, Palm closed at over $14. I was able to get a small piece of the action, but I wish I bought some back in January…

Archos released a 9 inch tablet running Windows 7 on Thursday!!! This is a great device. I’ve been running Windows 7 in a VM and it is pretty fast. I’m sure the experience on this tablet is awesome. I’ve been wanting either an Archos 5 or a Nokia 810, but have been holding off. We just got a Dell Mini 9 and it runs great, but it would be nice to have an Archos 5 to carry in my pocket.

Anyway, I finally did order my Pre. I hope to have it this week to play with. I will also be installing Mac OS X on the Dell Mini 9. I’ll share how that goes later in the week.

~rb

June 7, 2009 8:52 PM

So E3 finished up last week, and the biggest news were motion controllers where you use your body as the controller. Both Microsoft and Sony demoed their models. Microsoft’s Natal looks pretty awesome and the people who were able to demo them have said it works as advertised. Both look to be released sometime in 2010.

The Lakers won game 2 of the NBA Finals. They dominated in game 1, and game 2 went into overtime. I haven’t had this much watching basketball since the Lakers/Kings series back in 2002. Well, we’ll see how they do in Orlando on Tuesday.

I won’t mention the Pre in this blog (because I don’t have one yet).

An end to a nice weekend. Back to work tomorrow.

~rb

June 3, 2009 9:54 PM

In the latest news, Cisco Systems will be replacing General Motors on the DOW 30! Wow, times have changed. 30 years ago, International Business Machines (IBM) became the first tech company to join the ranks of the DOW 30. Today, almost 1/3 of the DOW 30 is composed of tech companies.

To me, this is a positive that our industrial index is composed of our markets most innovative and leading companies, and that the DOW isn’t completely influenced by old business and maintaining the status quo. General Motors is a sore point for me. I’m not completely up to speed on the bailouts, but I thought the whole purpose of the bailouts was to keep GM out of bankruptcy in the first place. If I remember correctly, GM (as well as Ford and Chrysler) said that “consumers won’t buy cars from a bankrupt company”, so we should bail them out in order to maintain consumer confidence in their products… Umm, 10’s of billion later (There is another proposal to give GM $50 Billion at the time of this post), GM is declaring Chapter 11… So what we were trying to avoid 8 months ago happened anyway!!!

It feels to me that bailing out GM was more about not letting an American Icon like GM fail. GM failing may be perceived as America also beginning to lose its edge. This is an example of trying to hold onto the past instead of looking forward. It’s no secret that the automobile industry has used legislation, intimidation, and other tactics to maintain the status quo in order to maintain their profits. Instead of innovating new technologies into their make/models, they have done things the same way, and relied on legislation (import taxes, safety standards, and other tactics) to keep competition away. An example is Preston Tucker’s 1948 Sedan, where Tucker’s vehicle, that had innovations a decade more advanced than GM and Ford, ran into “problems” (Google “Preston Tucker” there are several movies and books about him). I visited India in 2001, where their vehicles could run both gasoline AND natural gas! There are several other examples of how Detroit avoided innovation, as well as conspiracy theories around Detroit and the Oil Industry, that I won’t get into. The idea of the American Icon failing should be looked at as a new industry replacing the old. We should be looking to new icons, not trying to preserve old ones that failed to keep up.

Anyway, there is a positive note here. And this is the DOW recognizing that America’s shining innovating jewel is now technology. With GM dropping and Cisco joining the DOW 30, I feel that we are no longer holding onto the past and the “this is how it was always done” mentality is being replaced by a look forward approach
Now to Tech!!!

The Palm Pre will be going on sale on Saturday, June 6!!! I can’t wait to get mine. That will be an exciting day for me, as it will be my newest toy in a while. Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference will also be occurring next week. Finally, Archos will supposedly be announcing their Android based media device.

In other Android/Netbook news, Nvidia has announced that they will be entering the business of providing CPUs with their Tegra line (http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/fhYDxty1j8o/nvidias-tegra-takes-on-intel-in-the-midpmp-market.ars). Competition will be good for Intel on this front, but Intel isn’t holding back either. The will be releasing their ultra-slim chip, which was exclusively used in the Macbook Air to other companies as well. They are also fighting back on the Netbook front by using their headstart with Atom to add better features (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133904). Having a battery run all-day would be a big win for Intel. This type of feature would be a big differentiator, especially when these lower end chips have the same performance.

Well, this was a long post, and it’s time to go to bed.

~rb

May 22, 2009 10:10 AM

Since the evolution of the Internet in the late 90’s, several visionaries have touted the concept of “Cloud Computing”. Today, “Cloud Computing” is a buzz word, yet it has been the ultimate goal of the technology industry, whether consciously or subconsciously, over the past decade.

In the January 18,1999 article “Corporate Evel Knievel” in US News & World Report, Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle) was quoted in saying

”Today’s computer networks “distribute complexity”; tomorrow’s will be more like power, water, and television networks. “A TV network is enormously complicated,” he explains. “It’s got satellites and microwave relays, cable head ends, recording studios, delayed broadcast, ad insertion. But a TV itself is a simple thing.”

How far are we from having our computers being as simple as a TV?

1999 was too early to achieve this vision, but 10 years later, we’re very close to getting there. In a Slashdot article “The Future Might Be BIOS and Browsers”, the author mentions that we aren’t so far away from a BIOS based operating system with only the browser needed to access Google Docs and other cloud applications. Today, netbooks are extremely popular, due to their size and cheap cost, but without the cloud, nobody would want an underpowered netbook if they had to install every application locally, as it would make the netbook slow and unusable.

The last decade has brought many innovations to enable the OS-less world:

• Software – Software development has evolved significantly since the late 90’s. (Java, Flash, HTML, and CSS). The intent has always been to have an abstraction layer between the hardware and the software. The browser is the ultimate client. Java and Flash allow for more features within the browser experience. Soon, Adobe Air will continue to make impact to this space.
• Hardware -Processors/Storage – Moore’s law continues to impact this area. Today’s computers,  with the creation of multi-core processors, as well as the movement to 64-bit processing has increased the power of commodity hardware, making the entry into hosting applications much lower than back in the 90’s. Servers are cheaper and faster. Desktops/Laptops can now power Java! Did any of you try to run Java in 1999? It was too slow, but today, Java has the hardware it needs.Virtualization – Many would say that Virtualization should be it’s own category, but I think that without the powerful hardware, there would be nothing to slice up. But with virtualization, it lowers the entry barrier for many businesses into entering the hosting business. You no longer need to buy multiple pieces of hardware to develop, which saves people money.
• Storage – Disk is cheap!!! Could you say that a decade ago? Storage clouds are now financially possible for many hosting companies today, where mail providers can give unlimited mailbox storage. Even photo storage can be found for free on today’s Internet.
• Network/Bandwidth – Last, but not least, is the network. I am biased since I come from this field, but without the        network, you wouldn’t have an Internet. There are 2 major areas with the network that enables an OS-less, cloud-centric world.
• Ubiquity – Today, you can get the Internet from everywhere. On your cell phones, 3G cards, at home, work, cafes, McDonalds!!! This ubiquity is key, and was not present a decade ago.
• Bandwidth – Bandwidth is cheap. I remember paying $1,500 a month for a T1 (1.544Mbits/sec) back in 1996. 13 years later, I get 12Mbits/sec download 4Mbits/sec upload for $60/month. Within the next 2 years we will begin to see 4G data services (WiMax/LTE) begin to become available. This will truly allow us to get the performance for any application, from email to video, anyplace and anytime.

Of course, the Internet would be nothing without the content. The above technology innovations are enabling great content on the Internet. TV, movies, music, social networking, and the traditional websites are all available on the web. Hulu, Netflix streaming, Napster, Pandora, Google Docs, web conferencing, and VOIP are all enabled now.

We aren’t that far off from an OS-less world. Most companies have targeted the browser as their client of choice. Adobe Air and Java will continue to support or supplement the browser experience. The Palm Pre is an example of a web centric platform.

Well, this was my long winded blog of the day. I haven’t said anything new, just stating what many people already know. Have a good memorial day weekend!

~rb

May 14, 2009 9:50 PM

I installed Sun’s Virtual Box on my Mac yesterday. I am using Windows 7 RC1 as the guest OS. I currently am using Parallels with Windows XP as my guest OS. Parallels wouldn’t let me install Windows 7, so that is already one up for Virtual Box. Also, Virtual Box is free and owned by Sun (soon to be Oracle).

I haven’t done any intensive testing yet, but so far Windows 7 is working well. I just installed the guest tools and everything that worked in Parallels works in Virtual Box. Doing the Virtual Folder though wasn’t as intuitive as Parallels as I had to use the manual a couple of times. Aside from that, so far so good.

In other news, Google had an outage today due to maintenance (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10241126-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20). It looks like Google was doing some work on how they routed traffic to the Internet using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). In a network as complex and as bandwidth intensive as Google’s, any issue with BGP routing will cause problems. I feel for their operations team.

This weekend is garage sale time. I’ll be cleaning out a bunch of gadgets I no longer use. This will make room for future toys ;-).

~rb