Blang!

I’m waiting… Up until now I’ve been patient but I’m starting to get antsy. This should not be that difficult!

Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, the Blackberry whatever-is-out-now, blah! They all show the occasional flash of brilliance but in the end they all have the same fatal flaw. No matter how good they are at doing their thing while “mobile”, they all are horrible at non-mobile computing.

Not just mediocre. They are truly, sincerely, abysmal at anything approaching a desktop replacement and that means no matter what device you own, you are forced to own at least one other system where you do the bulk of your computing.

Therefore I make the following prediction: The first device maker who comes out with a mobile device that also has a docking station that supports an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, will blow the rest of the competition out of the market and control the path of computing for the next 5 years. (As a side-effect, the operating system on this device will become the dominate OS).

Picture it, a device the size of an iPhone that you plug into a docking station and instantly you get a full-size display, mouse, keyboard, audio headset, Ethernet, the works! It’s effectively a laptop the size of a phone.

I no longer need any other device! No desktop, no laptop, not even a desk phone. My one device does it all. And when I pull it out of its base, it still does it all (albeit on a smaller display).

Who could it be?

Apple? No. Ironically, I don’t think this device will come from Apple. They are stuck with the iPhone and unless they have some super-secret plan to merge OSX and the iPhone they are firmly rooted in the two separate worlds; Desktop & Wireless. This is about merging and I see no sign of it from Apple.

Google? Maybe. Android has some great things going for it and it has Linux at its core. This implies that it might be possible to come up with a full Android desktop operating system. It certainly has possibilities but Android is still in its infancy and even though most hardware makers announced they will back it, there hasn’t exactly been a deluge of hardware devices. Still, Google has no legacy baggage to deal with and can easily continue to develop Android until it becomes a fully functional desktop operating system. It also has the advantage of an open architecture which means the platform could improve very rapidly.

Microsoft? Not Likely. From an OS perspective Microsoft actually has a better shot at merging the two worlds than Apple by leveraging their existing desktop and mobile platforms which have always been designed to be similar. But unfortunately Microsoft doesn’t make hardware which means they would have to rely on one of their hardware partners to come up with the device and none of them ever do anything cutting edge. And besides, nothing kills innovative buzz better than a Microsoft Logo.

RIM? No. Blackberries are for mobile computing, period. RIM has never made any noise about desktops and while their devices do what they are designed for very well, they have zero chance of transitioning that into a full-blow open operating system that works on the desktop.

Someone else? No. The key to success is convincing people that they device has the backing to become a new standard. Only the above mentioned companies command enough respect from the buying public to convince people to change their entire daily computing lives.

Can you actually imagine a day when the only device you use does not run any Microsoft software? Surprisingly, most people can’t. Yet many people are very close to it now with thier Blackberries and iPhones without even realizing it.

A group of researchers has posted a guide to turning a bunch of Sony PS3s into a supercomputing cluster. The researchers chose the PS3 it is a relatively inexpensive device with a powerful cell processor that “packs a punch.”

Other than the publicity it’s getting, there isn’t much thats new here. The PS3 has a been able to run “guest” operating systems such as Linux since it was released. Sony has even had some of its own employees working on improving it. And using Linux as an inexpensive clustering environment is certainly not new but it is still really cool to see something like this put together.

I don’t think it’s a band thing that Google has decided to jump into the browser arena. But I wonder if it’s going to make much of a dint in IE?

The people who are still using IE are comprised of three primary categories. People who genuinely like the Microsoft browser, people who just don’t care enough to switch, and people who ask “what’s a browser?”

There isn’t much of an opportunity for Crome in any of those categories. Instead, the users who are technical enough to switch browsers are already using Firefox and will be the ones willing to try Crome.

Microsoft’s IE will continue to decline at roughly the same rate simply because Microsoft is a declining company. Google Crome will grow at the expense of Firefox, and Safari will grow at the same rate as the sale of Macs.

As a total percentage, desktop web browsers will shrink in market share as mobile devices such as the iPhone continue to gain in popularity. If Google releases a version of Crome for their Andriod platform then it will see significant growth in that area.

Sometimes it’s hard to sit back and watch entire industries self destruct. Back in the late 90s it seemed painfully obvious that the next wave of music distribution would be digital over the internet. Music and the internet are a match made in heaven which was obvious to everyone, or so you would have thought…

At the time, CDs were in the final stages of completely replacing cassette tapes as the distribution method of choice. According to the record labels, the reason they paid artists so little was because distribution of music was really expensive and accounts for 50-70% of the total retail cost of a CD.

As a business person, if you were able to eliminate 50-70% of your product cost and as a bonus sell direct to the consumer cutting out the middle man and increasing your profits even further, don’t you think you’d jump at the chance?

“The Next Big Thing” in the late 90s should have been digital music distribution over the internet but we all know what happened. Far from jumping at the chance, the music industry did everything in its power to protect the old business models (like sueing their own customers). But you can’t stop the music and Napster came along and destroyed them. Even now they have no clue how to make money on the Internet and are reliant on Apple iTunes for the little they do make. The point is, they (the labels) could have been iTunes but they were either too clueless or too scared to adapt (actually, they have admitted they were clueless).

Convenience Trumps Everything

“Convenience Trumps Everything” is one of my laws. It applies to any situation and it loosely states that in any given situation, if it is more convenient to do something the wrong way, people will do it the wrong way even if the results are less optimal.

Record executives believed it was quality that had compelled people to switch from tapes to CDs. They were wrong, CDs were better quality but they were also more convenient (rewinding and flipping tapes was a major pain). And so they wrongly believed people wouldn’t be motivated to switch from CDs to mp3s and well, we all know how that ended.

Now lets fast forward to today. As people have been predicting for some time, “The Next Big Thing” will be digital video distribution over the internet and history is about to repeat itself. Like music before it, video is perfect for distribution on the internet but the people who control the content seem unable to adapt.

The TV industry argues that the internet isn’t suitable for video because the quality is too low to deliver real-time video. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a classic example of “inside the box” thinking and It’s scary how that parallels record executives statements that people don’t want to download mp3s because the quality is inferior to CDs.

Almost nothing we watch on TV (besides sports) is live. That means the vast majority of programming can be delivered offline. Downloaded while we’re working or sleeping and then viewed when we feel like it on our own terms.

Secondly, bandwidth and compression is now at the point where it is perfectly reasonable to watch live TV over the internet at reasonable quality (for an excellent example of this, see “watch online” at PBS Frontline). This trend will continue and quality will improve to the point where even high quality sports programming will be reasonable. In fact i’ve blogged about exactly just such a project taking place right now.

Personally I have a PVR connected to regular cable that records the few shows I’m interested in. Occasionally I may miss a recording or start recording shows after the season has started. No problem, I just download the episodes I missed into my PVR. I never watch any of it “live”. Once you’ve made that jump the very next question you ask yourself is, why do I even need cable? Why not just download everything?

For now the answer is convenience. Since there are no official distribution methods for this programming It is still a bit of a hassle to find a download programs and there are so many different compression methods and codecs that reliable playback can be a problem.

So what’s it going to take to make internet video “The Next Big Thing?”

We are close. Very very close but still missing some key components.

1. Set top boxes: There are already some very good candidates in this category. Sony’s PS3, Microsoft’s XBOX 360, and Apple’s Apple TV among others are already perfect for this purpose but they are all missing one key component, “distribution”.
2. Distribution: So far the content providers have not signed on to any meaningful distribution model. Only a fraction of the programming on cable TV is available for download and the small amount that is available is priced so outrageously that it will never have mass apeal.For example, $2.00 per episode of The Daily Show & Colbert Report!?! So let me get this straight, to replace watching on cable with downloading, those two shows would cost $4/day, 20 shows per month, or $80 a month for two shows?!! Give me a break. That will never fly.
3. Network Neutrality: Unfortunately, in most parts of the world the only method of getting broadband is through a provider who also supplies TV signals. These providers have zero motivation to make their networks suitable for digital video distribution because it can only erode their TV and Pay Per View business. So for as long as broadband providers are also in the content business, they will do everything they can to prevent downloads from replacing traditional cable TV.

So my prediction is simply this:

Content distribution companies have peaked and will only decline from now on. That list includes business like Blockbuster, local TV stations, national TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.), cable companies, and so on.

Content makers (movie producers, TV shows, etc.) can, if they play their cards right, make a lot more money because they can distribute their content direct to consumers for a reduced price and still pocket most of what used to go to the middle man.

Will they do it? If the experience with the music industry is any indication, no they won’t.

These days I find that most technology doesn’t impress me that much. Most new technology tends to be an incremental improvement built on ideas that came before. Take the iPhone for example. Ya, it’s a “neat” gadget with a decent interface but guess what? I’ve made phone calls, emailed, clicked on icons and used a touch screen before. *yawn*

About the only thing that is really surprising is just how bad existing cell phone companies are at interface design.

But once in a while something new and truly mind blowing comes along that puts my jaw on the floor. You really have to check out this video:

Spacetime Fusion demo video

The original source for this video is here. Using computers to examine video and photographs, they are able to accomplish the seemingly impossible. The computers are able to interpet a series of 2D images and relate them to a 3D geospacial landscape. The origianal video can then be manipultaed in ways that you woudn’t think possible. Wall textures can be changed, people an objects can be removed or added, seemingly anything can be done. This goes way beyond photoshopping an image.

Honestly it’s a bit scary. The oportunity for malicious use of this technology is enough to give anyone pause.

I’ve written about a simliar techonology in the past. See my posting on a “Truly amazing 3D photo demonstration”.

I’ve finally figure out how to fix the display resolution on the PS3 running Linux. I’ve added it to my PS3 Linux page which is here.

I wrote a “installing OpenSUSE 11.0 on the PS3″ tips page. Check it out here.

Today we have news that Rogers has come up with a new rate plan that includes 6G of data for an extra $30/month. This is in response to a wide spread consumer backlash over the insane data rates Canadian carriers get away with due to lack of competition.

This new rate plan is still horrible. The bottom line is, if you want an iPhone from Rogers with the normal features activated (like visual voicemail), and a 6G plan, be prepared to pay a bundle.

Imagine if you could assemble all the photos taken in the world and relate them all together in one seamless picture which you could then use to zoom and navigate the earth. Well you don’t have to imagine it, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth in this truly jaw dropping demo presented at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

A “mashup” is when several different technologies are combined to form something new and original. The term was originally coined by music DJs who took music and vocals from different songs and combined them to create a completely new, and often surprising experience.

The same is now being done on the web and most of the really cool examples involve technologies from Google. There are dozens and dozens of really good sites out there that use some aspect of Google Maps but I found one today that really wowed me!

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