Verizon and Apple iPhone could make some LTE magic | ZDNet.
Too late. I already discovered Android and have found it superior.
Oct 062010
Sep 292010
Meet BlackBerry Playbook, a tablet PC from RIM | ZDNet.
First thoughts:
- Too little: I don’t neeed something that is merely 7″. If it isn’t the same size screen as an iPad, I’m really not interested in using it for… well anything. I have a powerful phone with a large enough screen to do interesting things with, but if I want to watch video or read a book or browse the web, the screen needs to have enough real estate to be readable and show a lot of content without a lot of zooming. I actually wish the iPad was another 0.5″ – 1.0″ bigger diagonally, but definitely no smaller.
- Too bloated: I was tempted to say too powerful, but that really ties into my next point so lets go with bloated. Yes, this will be a secure enterprise ready device. It will also be a complete bear to deal with as a mere consumer. I strongly suspect this will only be adopted by those whose enterprise IT shops won’t allow them to use an iPad or Android device for enterprise work. The only people I know with BlackBerry’s admit they only have them because their company won’t support anything else… yet.
- Battery life?: i.e. too powerful. One of the articles I read on the press event noted that not once was battery life mentioned. I strongly suspect that is with good reason. All those connectors, drivers, underlying crypto and high res screen come at a huge power cost. Add in the smaller form-factor reducing the battery size available and I see a huge market for add-on mobile power-packs or replacement batteries if they are removable. That is of course if there’s any adoption of these.
My verdict: No honkin’ way do I want one of these things. Not interested at all for any reason.
Sep 132010
Googles Android leapfrogging over iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows – SiliconValley.com.
I’ve had a Palm, BlackBerry, Treo, BlackBerry, iPhone, Android phone over the past decade and the BlackBerry, iPhone and Android in the past year and definitely understand why Android is so popular so fast. While I really enjoy my new iPad, I really, really wish it was running Android. I can’t wait for a similar sized Android tablet with more than the stupid, “one button”, single app at a time, nonsense from Apple.
People like Apple devices, but do they really like Apple software? Will Apple lose their leadership position again by committing to keeping the software and the hardware unified while Android pulls the Microsoft coup by building software that runs everywhere else? Early indications say, “Yes”.
If I was a stock player, I’d short Apple and Nokia and buy HTC and Google and maybe Samsung.
Sep 072010
Android isnt surging just because Apple is letting it | ZDNet.
I agree with this article and definitely take issue (as does this author) with the fact that iPhone’s user experience is superior to Android’s. I completely, 100% disagree. I had an iPhone given me to use for work and really didn’t take to it very well. It was an early version, but I found the lack of simple things like multi-tasking, no cut-n-paste, no Flash support really disconcerting. Consequently, when left to my own devices (pun intended), I went and got an Android Incredible. Awesome! This behaves exactly as I expect my mobile device to work.
Last week, I took delivery on a new iPad and again ran into many of the same frustrations I had with the iPhone only now magnified as I was spoiled after several months with my Android. I was also surprised to find that while there are a great many apps on the Apple Store, it appears from my searching that a higher % of them cost money while there is a huge amount of free content on Android’s store. Now I do love my iPad because of the form factor, but woe unto Apple when a similar form-factor Android device comes available.
Long story short, Android is earning its way, but Apple has given it a hand up by it’s AT&T exclusivity contract.
P.S. Oh, and AT&T morons… ya want high margin sales, then perhaps stocking iPad accessories would be a good place to start. I had to drive by probably a dozen AT&T stores to get to the Apple store to find accessories for my new iPad after stopping at the first 2 AT&T stores and being told “go to the Apple store”.
Sep 032010
Creation came ‘from nothing,’ not God: Stephen Hawking – USATODAY.com.
Anyone paying any attention to current theoretical physicists should, like me, be in a continual state of giggles. This one from Mr. Hawking is the latest giggle. Mr. Genius believes:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing,” the excerpt says. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to … set the Universe going.”
So Mr. Genius places his faith in “nothing” as he can no more “prove” his assertion that the universe spontaneously created itself any more than I can “prove” God did it (none of us were there). At least this purported “man of science” has named the object of his faith… nothing. All faith to be faith must have an object. I had faith when I sat in the chair I’m typing this from, that it would hold me up. Hawking has faith that nothingness was able to spontaneously burst for everythingness that became the universe that has congealed over time through natural processes such as gravity.
Is this what Hawking really meant to say? He says that because it has “a law such as gravity” the Universe creates itself. How can that be when in a state of nothingness there is no law of gravity, there is no concept of matter or even of space or time… nothing. I know it is unfathomable for us to grasp or picture the “reality” of nothingness or non-time, non-space, but without a “causer”, that is what everything came from. Of course, this is ridiculous as all effects must have causes, so what caused there to be matter, space, time, gravity… the universe? Sounds to me like Hawking has placed his faith in some magical, but certainly not God-initiated accidental, self-causing (impossible of course, because in nothingness there are no selves) event.
Hawking loses this round to Augustine, Aquinas and all other men of true reason that realized that there has to be a “first cause” and that it is impossible for something to come from nothing. Effects have to have causes, but causes do not have to have causes. It is much easier and more rational (scientific) and more fear inducing (ah, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter) to argue that the something, indeed everything, of the universe came from something instead of nothing and that the something is God. That’s where I’ll choose to put my faith, because faith should be rational and placed in only those objects which are worthy and nothingness does not fit the bill in any rational way.
Sep 012010
VMware to buy Los Gatos software maker TriCipher, Irvine-based Integrien – SiliconValley.com.
Scratching my head a bit on this one. On the surface and as usual the ‘synergy-speak’ sounds good, but not sure if the TriCipher bit is about their tech or their service. Perhaps I’m just jaded with all the virtual-this, cloud-that and SaaS-everywhere else, just guess we’ll have to see if they cobble anything meaningful together or not
Aug 162010
Aug 132010
Remember all this whenever the moronic left decries any candidate as “unqualified”. Sarah Palin’s career dwarfs Obama’s union-sympathizing, May-day, community organizing resume, yet she was the one targeted as unqualified and gaffe prone. Laughable if it weren’t so tragic.
Barack Hussein Obama is definitely the least qualified person to hold the office of President of the U.S.A and very likely the least qualified to even get his party’s nomination. Heck, even the one thing one might have argued he stood a chance to accomplish, a reduction in race tensions, he’s actually multiplied. So much for the great unifier. Here’s hoping that the real unification will be the American people in November 2010 and 2012 making their voices heard loud and clear… screw socialism and better dead than red!
Jul 202010
As usual, not much to quibble with as far as I’m concerned. If only we’d not let the union-backing, liberals polute our education system over the last 50 years, we’d have more citizens of reason than emotion and America wouldn’t be in the increasingly sad shape it is.
Feb 262010
CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens rights
via CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights.
Maybe there is hope given that this apparently “astonishing poll” reflects the firmly held belief of the crafters of the U.S. Constitution. Government is an evil. A necessary evil, but evil all the same and is to be kept small and easy to stomp on when it starts to do what it must by its nature… restrict freedom of the individual.
Want to fix the economy? Want to fix healthcare?
- Reduce the number of regulations everywhere.
- Reduce taxes across the board.
- Reduce all levels of government employment.
- Break the unions in all government hiring so the weak and the lazy can actually be fired. (Throw in the completely evil NEA while you’re at it).
- Introduce “loser pays” tort reform.
That would do for a start as there would be such a boom as hasn’t been seen since at least the post-WW2 or 1980s boom and would likely be even bigger than that. Then the problem just becomes keeping those that feel guilty for living in the greatest country ever on earth to keep from gaining power and undoing what makes it great. Once we leave this obamanation behind, let’s vow to never return. Let our rally cry be, “Remember Carter and the obamanation!”.