Mobile World Congress 2011 News 18/2/11

Posted on February 17, 2011 by admin

We’re returning the World Mobile Congress for this update as the 2011 conference and exhibition draws to a close.  Some manufacturers leave their announcements till last, perhaps to leave conference delegates with a fresher view once the dust has settled.

RIM demonstrates PlayBook Tablet

One such announcement was Research in Motion’s (RIM) unveiling of the RIM PlayBook, a RIM logoclear and unambiguous iPad competitor.  It’s fair to say RIM and Apple have duelled before in the smartphone arena with the Blackberry and the iPhone so this time, rather than Apple treading on RIM’s toes it’s the other way around.

So what’s the PlayBook like?  Well firstly RIM has the advantage over other Apple competitors in that they have experience and contacts in the cellular networks that will give them a head start.  The full title of the device is the Blackberry 4g Playbook and it’s a 7.6 inch display which is not the biggest, but far bigger than a hand held Blackberry of course.  It’s connectivity is impressive, it includes the usual Wi-Fi and 3G coverage but also 4G and Bluetooth.  4G in particular will become increasingly important in the not too distant future.

It’s really in the technology that differentiates it from the iPad where it will stand or fall and it’s front and rear facing cameras are something the original iPad does not have.  Again, with connectivity, only the upgraded iPad has 3G, the basic model just has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  Both devices run their own proprietary OS’s and RIM has it’s QNX platform to support the PlayBook – both are entirely competent OS’s.

The Playbook will be priced probably at $499.99 which matches it with the cheapest iPad – but with the PlayBook you get more vale for your dollar – if it does what is says on the tin.  It is also priced against Galaxy’s and Motorola’s entry level offerings.  It’s heading your way soon and looks good.  Here’s short demo trailer:

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Mobile World Congress 2011 News 15/2/11

Posted on February 15, 2011 by admin

This years Mobile World Congress is currently underway in Barcelona.  The purpose of the MWC logocongress is to exhibit new technology and as a meeting place for the CEO’s and other head honchos of the mobile phone industry.  The 3 day event tends to be dominated each year by one or other manufacturer with big announcements so what have been the main stories from this years event?

Not surprisingly there’s a lot of tablet activity, both in terms of hardware and software.  There’s new offerings from HTC with the HTC Flyer, a 7 inch Android Honeycomb driven offering, Acer had unveiled it’s 10.1 inch Iconia Tab A500, also featuring Android Honeycomb. Honeycomb seems to be something of an essential part of most of the next generation of tablets – Motorola’s 10.1 inch Xoom uses it as does the latest Samsung 10 inch Galaxy Tab.

In terms of software, Android will also be the driving force behind HTC’s Facebook branded htc facebook logophone.  Probably it won’t actually have much more functionality than you currently have on your smartphone of choice but home screen alerts and news should feature more prominently and your default instant messaging app will be Facebook’s.  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO had also suggested that there could be more Facebook phones this year and indeed INQ’s Cloud Touch and Cloud Q already have some integration.

Intel has demonstrated it’s latest iteration of its Meego, Linux based OS.  It’s designed mainly for tablets, notebooks and smartphones.
Nokia, the world’s largest supplier of mobile phones, has just pulled out of an agreement to use Meego in it’s smartphones and swapped to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7.  While this is a blow to Intel, they say they are committed to the OS and stand by its scalability.  Personally, having used it briefly as the default OS on a new laptop I wasn’t particularly impressed.  Perhaps its limited peronalisation works better on a smaller device though.

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Tech News Weekly Update 11/2/11

Posted on February 10, 2011 by admin

BBC iPlayer for Android Released

The BBC iPlayer has been a significant player in the UK internet market in recent years.  It’s iplayer android logonot a revenue raiser as such but internet providers must offer fast enough speeds to stream programming smoothly and device manufacturers await versions for their platforms with impatience.  The app for the iPad and iPhone was released some time ago and is a very slick piece of software.  If you’re internet connection is good enough, streaming is perfect.

For any devices running Google’s Android software the wait has been a long one but the popularity of this OS meant that the BBC would endeavour to release a version sooner rather than later.  Android’s multi-device capability means that it’s always going to be harder producing a flawless app than for the iPhone/iPad.  This has turned out to be the case for the Android version which is certainly good but not as good as the Apple version.  Perfect streaming seems to be an issue for devices running this platform and the interface is also slightly lacking but future updates will hopefully improve the situation.  However the app is indeed very welcome.

Blizzard’s New Game Attracting Interest

Although it is as yet unnamed, Blizzard’s new game is already the subject of various rumours.  blizzard entertainment logoCEO Mike Morhaime has been talking about the project and says that the principles behind the game have been in the pipeline for several years.  Their current hugely popular role playing game World of Warcraft has helped them learn lessons about the nature of gaming and what players want.

Interestingly Morhaime also waxes lyrical about mobile gaming and we are faced with the intriguing possibility of a version of the new game which could be played on an iPhone/iPad or an Android device.  It doesn’t seem impossible, various games also have versions for other platforms such as Zynga’s poker game which integrates players on full size devices with those on handheld platforms on a clearly scaled down version.

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Windows 8 Anyone?

Posted on February 7, 2011 by admin

It’s probably time to have a quick look at Microsoft’s next iteration of its still dominant operating system Windows.  In recent years it does seem as though one slightly bodged release has followed another.  It’s a subjective thing but for me the releases went like this:

Windows 95 – an OK start to the GUI

Windows 98 – solid but no real improvement on 95

Win 2000/ME – a pointless, unimproved upgrade

Win XP – now we’re getting somewhere, although stability shaky and Microsoft’s neglect of internet security bordering on criminal

MS Vista – appalling, all processor draining mouth and no trousers

Windows 7 – apparently back to basics and not bad – if not much of an improvement on XP

So that’s my admittedly biased view of these products but I’ve had to fix ALOT of crashed

Windows 8 logo

Note: Concept Art

machines over the years.  Those days are probably over now but I still like to know what’s coming next for when I get the inevitable phone call from a friend asking if I can just pop round to get something working again.  So what do we know about Windows 8?

Well we can maybe expect it, according to a complex timeline examined by Techradar, sometime towards the end of 2011, or maybe early 2012, or maybe late 2012.  It’s not an exact science, even more so if you work for Microsoft, one would imagine.  Most of the rumours concerning Microsoft state the obvious things, more cloud based computing, hardware updates to keep pace with 3D technology and gameplay and a genuine focus on a tablet OS.  There’s a focus on entertainment, specifically an integration with networked televisions, or at least a recognition that this will happen.

Sometimes it’s the small things that count and, similar to various Linux flavours, Windows 8 will look to have a lightning fast boot-up and shut-down service.  Cynics may wonder how fast that will actually be when the system is loaded with bloatware and other ‘necessary’ updates.

There’s a lot more rumours flying around but we’ll leave it there until we’ve got something more concrete to go on.

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Tech News Weekly Update 3/2/11

Posted on February 2, 2011 by admin

Online Newspapers – updated

Some time ago we wrote an article about the future of the newspaper so it seems appropriatemurdoch logo that one of the subjects of the post has this week talked about his company’s latest venture into the online market.  Rupert Murdoch of Newscorp International was talking this week about The Daily, the first online only newspaper which has been developed with tablets in mind – specifically the Apple iPad, versions available for other tablets may be several years behind, or not at all depending on the success of this venture.

Murdoch calls it a ‘no legacy’ newspaper, meaning that it has no connection with any paper based newspaper.  He also cites the savings made by not having printing presses, transport costs, dedicated premises and the like as reasons why this will succeed.  Still, it won’t go down well with those who believe this information should be freely available.  For the moment though it of course still is.

The cost? $0.99 a week or $39.99 for the year.

Julian Assange Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Wikileaks founder and recent focus of much of the world’s media attention, Julian Assange

Julian Assange

Julian Assange

has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace by a politician from Norway.  Usually nominations are kept secret but ironically a leak appears to have spurred this news.

The Nobel committee occasionally award the prize to a controversial figure such as imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo but at this stage of course this is just a nomination by a single person, and anyone can nominate anyone.

The parallels between last years choice and Assange are interesting – Xiaobo’s struggle is for democracy in China and Assanges website has published documents that arguably should be available for all to see in democratic societies. Is there a difference?  The U.S.A clearly thinks there is and have been pressing Sweden to extradite him from the U.K, presumably to make it easier for him then to be taken to the U.S for whatever extra-judicial treatment they can offer.

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Honda’s Next Generation Fuel Cell

Posted on February 1, 2011 by admin

Honda’s Next Generation Fuel Cell

Japanese car manufacturer Honda has been at the forefront of next generation vehicle power for some years now, along with their old adversary Toyota, whose hybrid petrol and electric Prius is something of a byword for environmental sustainability and new age energy conservation. It has it’s detractors but that doesn’t take away from it the buzz it has created about the future for eco-friendly cars. Well I’ve squeezed enough buzzwords in that first paragraph so let’s have a look at Honda’s latest offerings.

Their new piece of technology centres around solar powered recharging of the FCX Clarity

Honda FCX Clarity

Honda FCX Clarity

vehicle. Previously the recharging station required to give the car enough juice for the next days commute was a sizable affair – a chunky electrolyzer and a compression unit to create high pressure hydrogen. Honda have developed a new type of compressor that is smaller and more efficient, meaning that the recharging unit is now small enough to be stored in a residential garage.

The unit can also be plugged back into the national grid, exporting excess electricity back into the system and saving the user money. Honda have been the driving force behind the development of renewable hydrogen power for some years now and this latest development may be a significant step forwards. It increase efficiency, Honda says, by some 25% over previous technology and to make a leap like that is impressive. Anti-hydrogen detractors will complain about the safety aspect of this storage and charging method but, as others have said, the Hindenburg was a long time ago and safety procedures and storage technology have moved on somewhat since then.

So, of course the task for any manufacturers of cutting edge technology is to get the masses to take it up enthusiastically, or at all for that matter. Honda may have made a contribution towards this process by developing a system which fits in your garage, charges your hydrogen powered car via solar energy overnight and sells excess electricity back into the national grid. Let’s see what happens.

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iPhone 5 Rumours and Conjecture

Posted on January 25, 2011 by admin

iPhone 5 Rumours and Conjecture

The usual release date for the next iPhone incumbent is around June/July, so there’s no reason to think 2011 will be any different.  The Chinese language Economic Daily News Report seems to back up this date although they seem to think these dates are the earliest possibilities.  It also seems likely that Apple will squeeze in the iPad 2 release in the spring so a gap between the two marketing campaigns would be preferable.

iPhones

So what changes can we look forward to in the latest iteration of the most popular smartphone on the planet? Firstly of course it needs to overcome memories of the antennae problems which afflicted the iPhone 4 and insiders suggest that the receiver will certainly be beefed up.  In all iPhone releases this has really been the only issue which has affected performance and sales were never damaged.

Other operators have moved to a multi-core processor and Apple looks set to follow suit with the ARM Cortex A9 chipset. This will improve performance and increase battery life. All the usual specs should be upgraded as a matter of course – more memory, a bigger screen size. The new processor, combined with improved graphics hardware should also mean the screen delivers proper High Definition output, all the better for playing.

There was an interesting story during the rounds last October regarding the way Apple would like (or possibly not) to avoid the carriers distribution networks by producing it’s own enhanced sim card which would enable a user to connect to any network. The difficulties Apple would face, not least from the carriers, seem to make this an unlikely prospect for the time being though.

There is a possibility that the iPhone 5 will feature what’s known as a Digital Wallet, the type of payment system that’s been available in Japan for some time. This enables connectivity with bank accounts and credit cards and supplies the ability to pay for items and services using your phone. The diagram below shows an iPhone schematic/patent application demonstrating the necessary technology, although you may have to squint.

iphone schematic

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Open Source – A Brief History – Part Two

Posted on January 17, 2011 by admin

Open Source – A Brief History – Part Two

In the last article we discussed the very beginnings of the open source movement up to the point where the name was made official.  In this article we’ll focus on Linus Torvalds, the Finnish developer who remains one of the best known pioneers of open source software.

In 1990, following a period of national service in the Finnish army, Torvalds returned to

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds

his computer studies and was exposed to the Unix operating system for the first time. Unix had been written in machine code in the late 1960′s and translated into the B programming language in the same year and then C in 1973.  It’s a simple multi-user and multi-tasking system Torvalds subsequently based his own operating system – Linux – on it.  Linux started out as a personal project but in the following years it became the basis for countless other operating systems.

In 1996 as it became clear that Linux was a serious development, a mascot was obtained -Linux penguin logo the famous Linux penguin.

There were several suggestions for name changes from interested parties (such as GNU – General Public License and Debian – one of the first operating systems based on Linux to be publicly released) but even today the Linux is the most used moniker.

Moving forward and the following chart from www.w3counter.com, dated at the end of 2010, demonstrates how far Linux and it’s various flavours have come in the last twenty years.

Operating System Market Share

Operating System Market Share

A 1.43% share may not seem much but it’s a totally new operating system competing against the giants of Microsoft and Apple.  There are version for all types of computers, important in these days of devices of different power and capacity.  Netbooks, laptops, smartphones and anything else you can think of have a Linux version available to them. For everyday desktop and laptop use Ubuntu is probably the most widely recognised but others such as Red Hat and OpenBSD are also highly thought of.

Into this fray has stepped Google and this is where the first article kicked off.  There may be a challenger to Windows and Mac OS yet.

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Open Source – A Brief History – Part One

Posted on January 10, 2011 by admin

Open Source – A Brief History – Part One

This article is prompted in part by the emergence and success (so far) of Google’sAndroid logo Android Operating System.  Any number of blogs and online articles quote the term open source in relation to Android with only the merest of explanations as to what the term represents.  So lets have a brief look at the history of the open source movement.  The parallel development of Unix will be the focus of Part Two.

Most definitions of open source will describe how the source code is made freely available but there are a number of other integral requirements including the requirement for free distribution and the requirement not to block third party software. A full list of requirements can be found here.

Depending on your perspective, open source computing dates back to as far as the 1950′s when IBM mainframe and early operating systems development was taking place and the information was being shared.  During the 1960′s and the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), information on telecommuncations networks was exchanged in a process called Request for Comments.

What recognisably became open source did not happen until 1998 when Netscape (remember them?), under immense pressure from Microsoft’s rival Internet Explorer browser, released the source code to Netscape Navigator.  During a strategy session in Palo Alto, California, the name open source was suggested by Christine Peterson. History will show it didn’t really help Netscape but elements of that software live on in the open source Firefox browser and other smaller derivations.

What became known as the Open Source Initiative (after a vote which discarded the nameopen source initiative logo openware) had the backing of many influential contemporaries including Linus Torvalds, the writer of the Unix based Linux OS.  Also on board were lumineries such as Larry Wall and Tim O’Reilly.

In the early 2000s, some software developers began to release part of their software as open source while retaining more valuable, patentable parts.  This is known as commercial open source software.

Part two follows…..

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The Future of Newspapers

Posted on January 3, 2011 by admin

The Future of Newspapers

It’s no secret that the global market for newspapers is on the decrease.  In the last few years sales have slumped dramatically and that of course also means a reduction in advertising revenues.  In the U.S. 2009 advertising revenues were 27% less than in 2008 – a drop in money terms of $10 billion.  According to the New York Times not since 1986 has advertising revenue been lower.  Of course the major economies are also now in something of a recession and this also affects the amounts businesses are able to spend on advertising.

Some media organisation hold out hope for paper ads being replaced by online ads butGoogle news logo even this revenue stream has seen a fall in value recently, although it may be recovering. Of course the major problem facing print newspapers is the free availability of endless sources of news on the internet.  All newspapers have an online version which costs money to produce.  Different version are now required, formatted for iPhones, iPads, Android Smartphones and others.  All cost more money to produce.  Online advertising has no chance of covering those costs.

Some newspapers have taken novel approaches to innovation.  Particularly notable is theThe Independent logo U.K’s Independent newspaper, a broadsheet which managed to convert the same content into a tabloid format – making it easier to read on the train for example, or in other confined spaces, or just being more comfortable to hold.  While other papers were losing readers, the Independent gained some.  Even more recently the same paper introduced the iPaper, a genuine novelty.  It’s cheap at 20p, only available on weekdays but is more like a brief flick through the news than an in-depth read.

However surely it’s inevitable that the future of the newspaper lies online and perhaps the Murdoch Empire experiment with the ‘paywall’ may be the way forward.  Or maybePay wall not.  Costing around £2.00 per week, subscribers get access to all Newscorp’s offerings. But why would a Times reader want to read the Sun?  Online readers fell between 60% and 95% depending on your source but some clearly are paying.  Does the additional revenue make up for the loss of advertising revenue?  Does it really seem likely that free news will disappear?

Time will tell but these are interesting if fraught times for the newspaper industry.

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