Fedora 10 - Cambridge

Coming Soon:

Fedora 10 - Cambridge

Coming Soon:

Robin, wonder boy

"Strong-Wind" of Change

So with the Iphone disappointing all the people like me waiting for freedom of use, I was looking around for a new exciting product who could satisfy my geeky needs.

There is a lot of attention to portable devices now that technology finally allows us to create great products capable of delivering a decent user experience, but with such a great range of products this market is becoming more and more confusing.

With Pcs trying to be phones and vice versa, what was meant to be a nice breeze of change is becoming a storm messing up all you thought you knew about electronics...



The Asus Eeeee (wait, how many eeeees was it?) or the thousands eee-like portables that followed it, the Iphonewannabes trying to give you stuff on the go that you just don't need.

So in all of this what is it that users really want from their portable devices, whatever the size and shape? Take the survey on the right and vote your favorite feats. (multiple choice available this time around.)

Lost along the way

I consider the new Iphone a huge disappointment.

Well, kind of.
Ok, let me explain this one.

In all these years of innovation Apple has always presented the customers a line of products that had 3 main purposes in mind:
1. Ease of use
2. Innovative Design
3. New functionalities

The Iphone has without any doubt all three. So why consider it a disappointment?
How would you consider a product, no matter how great, that forces you to buy and use it according to seller's best interest?

You buy it with your money (a lot of them given the price of the contracts and the length of it) but you use it as Apple wishes.
1. You cannot pick an operator, they do.
2. you cannot buy one for a friend or anyone else but yourself (immediate in-store registration is required!), to prevent you doing what you want.
3. you can only buy programs through Apple's site, you think they'll charge for that?
4. You cannot use your MP3s as ringtones, you have to buy Apple's ringtones.
5. etc... etc... etc...

Would you really buy a product like that? I doubt it.
When I spend money on something I want that thing to be mine. Free to do anything I want with it. Make sense eh? I'm sure you might agree.
So the 3 major points for an Apple product are there, they just forgot that their interest cannot be put above the consumer's.
If Apple doesn't wake up and realize this, they may loose some of their fans along the way and TurtleNeck (pictured above), that now could even sell people their own mothers, could loose some of his charm and we all know that would not be a good thing for Apple.

I hope they'll wake up soon. Could you guys just go back to make great products and forget world dominance ideas for a moment? That's why you became so famous after all.

V

Polls Results

The polls are finally closed and I am actually very happy to say that the number of people voting was surprisingly high (more or less... hehehe).

What laptop are you?

Most people voted for a multipurpose laptop (multimedia powerhouse had 10 votes) with fewer going for an ultraportable and my brother only going for a Desktop replacement (sorry little brother, this is not exactly a blog for gamers... maybe in the future eh?)

Would you buy a Macbook Air?

this poll reflected the results above showing that most voters (me included) would not spend their money on a crippled machine (maybe one day when we will be rich, famous and good looking, right?)


Now tell us, would you buy the new Iphone?

Confirmed - Iphone 3G launch

Caution: this post contains High levels of sarcasm!


Surprised?

well unless you have been living under the sea for the last year (wait could you get internet under water?) you are probably not surprised that the guys at gizmodo US-side are confirming that the new "TurtleNeck-phone" will be presented during the next WWDC in S.Francisco next 9th of june.

A lot of rumors about how it will look and what it will feature have been out for months, but some of them actually make sense to me:

1. 3G (really??? WOW!)
2. Over the Air downloads through Itunes store...
3. GPS (not sure about this one)
4. Larger screen and same battery life (as present version)

But above them all it seems that Apple may finally abandon the idea of locking it to an operator (although you still will be restricted software wise).

We will see, but what I am interested is: would you buy it now if these feat. were confirmed?

Samsung's OLED road map + laptop concept

I am really excited about this and I'm sure that many geeks alike will find this laptop just amazing.

This is a 12.1 inch AMOLED display laptop concept with a touch sensitive keyboard (not my favorite, but who cares!). Not really clear is the idea of the back panel that seems to be holding the monitor (if you have any idea please comment).

This baby is not here just to make us wish that "one day"... according to Samsung OLED panels sized up to 17" will be available next year. You excited yet?



Just wait a little longer, meanwhile screens up to 7 inch are coming out this year to let you enjoy maybe a new MID powered by Intel's Atom processor? Anyone? Please?

Oh God no, another MP3 player...

It might only play Gospels... Oh Jesus!
Also, when the battery dies you may have to wait 3 days before it comes back to life.

But apart from that it's great, the Pope's favorite.

Amen

Skills

New Fedora release in:

The "coolest" memories

IBM keeps impressing with this video on their new project to change memories.

Faster, cooler, less power hungry but no words on costs. This promises are becoming standard. Let's hope they'll deliver soon and cheap just like we like it!


IBM "racetrack" memories:

Supercomputers + home heating systems = IBM

So IBM has an idea and decided to share it in a pretty cocky way.
In this video they make sure you know that they have the fastest processor in the world, they have created the most efficient cooling solution and blah blah blah...

Well you know what, brag as much as you want this stuff is HOT!

Want details? Check them for yourself in the following video.
It's more fun:




We could use one of these to warm up my house actually, it's snowing in April!!!

Transparent OLEDS from Purdue Uni

Ok, yes, OLEDS are cool, we get it.
But trasnparent OLEDS? That's really great stuff man c'mon!

The university of Purdue has realised transparent screens thanks to nanowires (just like Nokia suggested in the MORPH video), but the best thing is that the production seems to be easy and efficient (room temperature). At this point I start to believe Nokia, when they said they'd be out with those technologies in 7 years... man!!! Take that Iphone' Steve!
Now how about a GPS that displays directions straight on your windscreen? I'm waiting !!!

Click here 4 More...

That annoying: "Beep Beep"

It is still only a prototype. That said though, wouldn't you buy one too?
I can't wait to finally roast that road-runner! Nice gadgetry.

Toshiba and Panasonic to Join OLED market soon?

Samsung 40 inch OLED tv as presented at the CES 2008, early this year.


Around the 25th of January "Engadget" brought us the last great news we were waiting for: the last limit of OLEDs TVs had just been made history by "Toshasonic" (yes them two above), the lifespan of an OLED tv, previously stuck at 30.000 hours (Sony's Xel1) has been increased to reach and pass that of an LCD (50.000 hours)!
Now the only thing that separates us from a mass production of this technology by all the major players in this market (Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, etc...) is, well yes, money.

The production cost of a large OLED display is still too high. This is bound to change though now that there are no more excuses to wait, after all Sony has already taken the first step, the others I don't think will want to compete for a "second place" in that market.

Stay tuned.

ATOM - "The next Big thing" is Tiny, by Intel

At the beginning of this month Intel introduced ATOM (and ATOM Centrino), a new line of processors aimed at portable devices.

Intel is usual to introduce "One new processor a day" that usually represents a small step forward in terms of performance if compared to the predecessors, thus loosing the interest of the end-users.

Of course though, the reason why I'm writing this post is clear, what Intel has done this time deserves some of our attention.

To understand better what we are talking about, here are some specs:

Dimension: less than 25mm²
Transistors: more than 47 millions.
Idle power: 30mW
TDP: 0.6 - 2.5 W
Speed: up to 1.8Ghz

This sounds extremely interesting if considered that today's lowest consumption processors run at 1.2 Ghz max, with a TDP of 10W (4 times more power!). A comparison of the two products done this way of course doesn't tell us all about the real differences, but it helps getting a clear idea of what a big step this was.

if you want to know more: Intel's ATOM

WhyMax?

"WiMax and LTE: Unwelcome Guests" ?

This is the title of a very interesting article appeared on this months' newsletter of "The Basestation" presenting operators' point of view on these two technologies.

Much has been said so far, many technical aspects discussed, possibilities of use and much hype around them has been raised, but not much has been said about the main problem: Investments.
Operators are struggling to keep up with the speed rate at which new technologies are becoming available "The Basestation" reports:

"In a period when operators are paring back capacity investments (after reaching sufficient coverage or negotiating network sharing deals), it seems odd that vendors are pursuing two new systems: WiMax and LTE."

Vendors of course will not go a long way without Operators making technologies available and while this was already evident with 3G, not everyone has learned the lesson. This means that WiMax especially (it has already been discussed for years) will very unlikely meet the expectations of the bandwidth-hungry consumers.

Skepticism is another factor to take into consideration. Among operators only Ericsson is investing in LTE at the moment and many others (NEC, Motorola, NSN etc...) struggle to see profit margins in a very expensive move like the migration to 4G.

There would be a lot to say on this. For further interesting details here is the full article

In my opinion, Operators will in the end drive the decision of a market, that risks otherwise to be flooded with gadgets with enormous possibilities but no service to allow the users to take advantage of them.

Digital divide might only get worse. Maybe investing on cheaper technologies making them available to everyone would be a better way to go, but I wouldn't dare suggesting this to either Vendors not consumers... Good luck then.

Future or SciFi? Meet MORPH, by Nokia

Nokia decided to show us what they are working on, a little to make apple envious (it was about time some device stole the scene from apple's Iphone), a little to show us that there is a reason why they are the first company in the world for number of mobile phones sold, but more than anything probably to say that they still will be up there for a long time, no matter how many other products will come out.

If you don't believe it, see it for yourself. Enjoy MORPH:

P.S. : Let me know what you think after you've seen this video...

Bluetooth goodbye? Welcome GiFi

The australian magazine "The Age" talks about a new chip created by an Australian company that would allow short-range connections (10 meters max) with speeds up to 5Gb/s !!!

The presentation was given a few days ago in Melbourne in the national information and communications technology research centre (NICTA), the chip was reported to be extremely small and cheap costing less than $10.00 (it uses CMOS) and measuring 5x5 mm.
It transfers data in the 60Ghz "millimeter wave"spectrum, which is mainly unused limiting the eventuality of interferences to a minimum.

So, recap is: faster, cheaper and reliable... If you add to this that Bluetooth 3 (which is at the moment just a theoretical project) is 20 times slower, I think we should say goodbye to bluetooth and welcome this new technology: GiFi

Considerations on how to use this technology are left to the reader...

Sony and OLED... yet again. I feel almost like saying: "I told you so!"

Yahoo news reports that Sony is about to invest 200 million dollars (that is: circa £100.000.000 !!!) to "develop technology to make medium to large organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels".

No word on how big will medium and large be exactly... but they would be too expensive now anyway to be real consumer products.

One thing is sure. We seem to be getting there.

I'm hoping to get rid of this annoying LCDs asap! Guys hurry up!!!

HD-DVD almost dead. Next victim: Blu-ray?

The useless, stupid (if you allow me) format war as seen a winner in the end.
Can we really call Sony a winner though?

Consider:
1. increasing downloads opportunity, easy and cheap film rental from your couch
2. Data storage cheap and fast thanks to Flash memory
3. DVDs will not go down until the prices of High def TVs will allow it (If you don't have an HDTV why would you buy a player?)

I guess the only reasons why I would consider buying a Blu-ray disc is to burn a PS3 game when the mod chips will allow me to do so... until then I don't really know if Blu-ray will survive.

Meanwhile despite all this, many people have wasted their money buying a product that will be good for nothing... Engadget reports the number of casualties here


Toshiba and Sony both are not coming out of this story looking good...

Nokia N96 and SE's Xperia X1 - Geeky gadgets CAN look good !!!

Nokia N96 loads of features as always, better looking than he's predecessor... if battery life has increased this will be a great handset, but no more...

If you're looking for more, Sony Ericsson's new Experia X1 seems to be the new gadget on every geek's wish list.
Features pretty much everything you may want from a qwerty Wmobile 6.1 smartphone and it looks just great.

personally I would go for a N82 (5mpix camera and GPS with longer battery life and sleek!)

Nokia N96

Experia X1

Universal Power Supply. For real this time.

Aren't we all annoyed with the quantity of power supplies we have to carry around when moving or even more with the ones sitting under our desks at home?

Well, that is what Green Plug we'll hopefully help us with. A solution to an everyday problem with an eye on energy saving, in other words high efficiency finally brought to the weakest link of the electronics chain.

Weird name I find but great idea behind it. I don't know why this is the only company out there trying to change the way power is delivered to our electronic gadgets. Check out the video of the presentation of this product... (link available on their site).

I have to say, I'm not sure there way is the best way to do it, but it is going in the right direction. Software based recognition sounds like a good idea for existing products, but if they are thinking of being more appealing to the bigs that sell gadgetry I think hardware should be the way to go.
No troubles for the user automatic recognition of the necessary quantity of power and off you go!

What? I make it sound to easy? No way man! I'll start my own company and show you all!!!

Is it finally OLED time?

Sony took a giant step towards new screen technologies: Sony's first Oled TV
It is already possible to pre-order these jewels of technology, through the sonystyle store.

OLED could really be the next thing, with Samsung showing off a 47 inches model at the CES 2007 and Sony showing its amazingly beautiful 27' model hidden behind a small army of 11' with stunning image quality.

With a contrast of 1.000.000:1 (yep, its not a typo!), NTSC color gamma and above it (105%), power consumption much lower than any LCD (even led) because it does not need any backlight, superior response times, 3mm depth, etc... don't know what you guys are thinking but I would give away any LCD screen I own immediately for that 11' model already.

I would not be surprised if they decided to put this beautiful screen on their ultraportable laptop the TZ which has an 11.1' screen...

Almost forgot to mention, retails for:
$ 2499.00

It looks like a big step towards the adoption of this technology and Sony has the habit to bid on the right technologies... ok, ok, not always, but most times!!!