Information Overdose

  • Eyes-free

    Posted Tue 11 Aug 2009

    I’ve never been much of a fan of hands-free devices for mobile phones. Bluetooth ones just look stupid, and wired ones are an annoying tangle. While I do like the iPhone headphones for music (to pause or skip tracks), I’d usually rather unplug them if I’m going to take a phone call.

    Maybe my behaviour is just an artefact or a relic of a different age of telephones, but I think the truth behind it is a little more complex.

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  • Why the future is boring and pointless

    Posted Thu 6 Aug 2009

    As a rule, the world of computer nerds, science fiction nerds and Internet nerds look at the future with a kind of excited optimism, as a utopian vision of a time when todays problems will have fallen away, solved by the emerging technologies that are just starting to appear from the R&D departments of technology giants and bright young startups.

    Yet this bright future never really makes it past the horizon. The future isn't bright, as Orange used to claim. The future is boring and pointless.

    Why?

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  • SomeRandomBaby

    Posted Mon 27 Jul 2009

    I know updates have been quite quiet here for the past few weeks. Well, although I generally keep my personal life seperate from what I'm writing here, I thought I'd share the reason why I've been so busy.

    Four weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our first son— an 8lb 12oz bundle of gorgeousness.

    Sweet Dreams

    I won't bother telling you about everything he's been up to for the first month of his life right here, but if you're interested you can follow his own updates on Twitter.

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  • Free tips for the "Free" audiobook on iPhone

    Posted Tue 21 Jul 2009

    This is a free tip on how to listen to the free MP3 audiobook version of "Free", by Chris Anderson. (As it involves getting rid of the MP3s, you could say it's an MP3-free, free free "Free" audiobook tip) with a bonus free tip on how to make your own free custom iPhone ringtones.

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  • >>Introducing the Google Chrome OS

    Posted Wed 8 Jul 2009

    A very interesting announcement from Google this morning— they are extending the Chrome web browser to turn it into a fully-fledged operating system.

    The focus remains the same: speed and security. So you will be able to quickly boot up your machine and check your email (or maybe, by the time it's released, your Waves.)

    The most interesting part of the announcement is this;

    The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies



    What this seems to be saying is that there simply won't be applications for the Chrome OS— presumably the closest we will see will be web applications that work offline (ie. using something like Google's Gears.)

    This might sound like a familiar line- it's actully the same thing that Apple were saying to iPhone developers before the iPhone 2.0 OS was announced and the iPhone became an application platform; "develop web apps, and the iPhone will run them fine."

    Obviously, this has the potential to be massively disruptive for Microsoft; not just as an alternative to Windows for devices like Netbooks, but a model that makes their Office products look increasingly unattractive. I mean- paying a premium for the hardware that is powerful enough to run for an operating system you have to pay for, so that you can run the applications you have to pay for, just so you can create a spreadsheet or use a word processor? Or buy a bare-bones PC that runs a free, lightweight operating system that lets you run your free office software as fast as possible?

    It seems to be an attempt to make the Netbook idea work better- my own experience has been that they are good, but tend to be too focussed on being a small version of a "proper" computer, rather than just a web browsing/emailling device. I had thought that I would wait for the hardware to improve before buying one myself; now I'm thinking that a more stripped down OS might be a quicker route to the same ends…

    Of course, it raises a lot of questions. Will it be able to save my digital photos, music and video? Sync with my mobile phone? If I can't install iTunes, can I connect my iPhone?

    It will be very interesting to see how Microsoft will respond to this.

    Link to original article

  • Next generation of iPhone apps & accessories

    Posted Sat 20 Jun 2009

    I came across this Techcrunch article via Twitter this morning, which got me thinking about where iPhone applications and accessories could (or maybe should) be heading.

    The article is about the Flip video cameras- compact pocket-sized camcorders.

    And the iPhone has something that the Flip will never realistically have, cellular and wifi connectivity that lets you upload your videos immediately. No need to sync back with your base computer to edit the video and upload it. You can do basic editing right on the iPhone, and publish it to YouTube immediately. As an added bonus, that video can be geo-stamped via the phones GPS capability.

    One of the features of the iPhone 3.0 operating system is the ability for applications to tie in with accessories. Now, the camera built into a phone is always going to be compared to a dedicated camera- whether a compact still or video camera, or a bigger camcorder or SLR. The tiny blob of glass that a phone has for a lens that is right next to the tiny sensor is always going to be inferior to the bigger lens and sensor in a dedicated device.

    But why should it be a competition? Why couldn’t they work together? Why couldn’t a dedicated camera connect via a USB to Dock cable, Bluetooth or WiFi to the iPhone, allowing the iPhone to act as a controller? The same touch-screen autofocus that the iPhone 3Gs has could be used as a remote control for a dedicated camera. The iPhones internet connection and GPS could be used to stamp locational data and upload to Flickr or YouTube. Perhaps with existing cameras ability to send pictures via USB, the ability to upload via an iPhone application could be as straightforward to achieve as selling a USB to iPhone dock cable…

    If Apple chose not to allow it through the iPhone or Apps store (say, because they saw it as a reason not to buy the more expensive iPhone models) then it could be a killer feature for another less restrictive mobile platform- Android, for example.

    We’ve still seen remarkably few applications that make the most of the new operating system- I’m waiting for a blogging application that will let me select a chunk of text and then add HTML tags to it, let me know through push alerts when I have comments or trackbacks (through the Push alert system) or a Twitter app that will let me copy the URL of a web page I’m looking at. Accessories are obviously another step away.

    It’s an opportunity either for an iPhone developer to get first-mover advantage, or another platform to steal a march on the iPhone.

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  • >>Rosie Hardy (photography)

    Posted Fri 19 Jun 2009

    Terrorists don't really scare me. I don't spend time worrying about them because I don't believe that there is really anything I can do about them.

    But the "security" that aims to make us feel safer from terrorism scares me. And I feel (whether rightly or wrongly) that as they try to hand over freedom in the name of security or safety, that there is something I can do about them.

    Even if I don't really know what...

    Anyway, this is a nice pic with a story behind it.

    Link to original article

  • iPhone 3.0 is here

    Posted Wed 17 Jun 2009

    I just want to say how happy I am to be able to easily post this link— which also explains why…

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  • Why the iPhone 3Gs isn't a big deal- yet.

    Posted Sun 14 Jun 2009

    By now you've probably heard about the new iPhone Apple announced last week- the "iPhone 3Gs". You might also have heard about the mixed reactions it received.

    While it isn't a marketing triumph in the way the first two iPhone launches were, I think that in another 12 months it will be looked back on as the moment Apple locked down their mobile phone product and changed it from being a high-end, premium smartphone to the de-facto device for anyone looking for a mobile device that does something more than calls and text messages. By changing the hardware line up from one iPhone with different storage sizes to two iPhones with different storage, speeds and camera qualities, this marks a split in the iPhone product line from being a "premium" smartphone to a "regular" smartphone with a "premium" alternative.

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  • When is a product launch not a product launch?

    Posted Wed 3 Jun 2009

    Twenty five years ago, when Microsoft were advocating the Personal Computer over the mainframe/terminal combination, they were promising that their software would allow users to work collaboratively over a network within a few years.

    Meanwhile, those working at Xerox were actually using the time-sharing mainframe systems that they were selling. This is the company that invented the concepts of WIMP- Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer, the paper paradigm (using paper terminology to describe the workings of computer software- files, folders, trashcan, desktop and so on.) They were using email. They were working collaboratively on documents. They were doing the stuff that is considered an information revolution today, back in the days when Solitaire was seen as a pretty cool computer game.

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