Archive for December, 2009

2009 A Year in Tech

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2 years ago
by george in

Just when you thought that Fox News was content in mucking around in political opinions, I saw this article published:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/29/year-tech-review/

by Harry McCraken. Needless to say I had to read this and after doing so, there are a few inconsistencies that I’d like to point out.

Most Promising Upcoming

First of all, under the category of Most Promising Upcoming, I have to disagree with Harry’s assertion that the Palm Pre is the best fit for this category. Surely this is innovative and the device is beautiful, but I would argue that the Android platform and the wide-scale adoption of Android in smartphones across manufacturers, such as indications that there will be more than 50, that’s a 5 and a 0 Android devices by the end of 2010 (see this article for details). Whereas the Palm Pre is limited to 1 device and hasn’t had the same adoption in the marketplace as the Android devices have had.

Additionally to spur this excitement, we recently were introduced to the Droid, which on two fronts counts to me as a plus. To start with, the Droid is on the Verizon network, which Verizon has announced a partnership with Google and thus strengthening the platform as well as putting that platform with the leader in the mobile marketplace. We can see how this relationship has spurred sales of Android devices, as in the first week of releasing the Droid, over 250,000 units were sold. Next we look at Motorola’s roll in this, as the Droid is a Motorola device. Let’s look back in time, for a few years now we’ve basically written Motorola off the books in terms of creating a device that drives people towards it. The last device to do this was the Razor, but as soon as the iPhone was released, the uniqueness of the Motorola brand dropped like a brick. Enter the Droid. Since the Android platform was released, Motorola has come back with devices like the Cliq, Eris, and Droid and are looking to come back in force to the mobile marketplace. In fact I would not be surprised if we saw a Palm acquisition by Motorola. The real benefit here is the pressure that is being put on both AT&T as well as Apple for their iPhone device. While the iPhone still has it’s bells and whistles and polish that make it one of the most elegant devices in recent years, with the release of Android 2.0 and 2.1, Android is getting much closer to having the same level of spit shine that the iPhone has been fortunate to relish in, but I believe that this will soon change in 2010 as Android will become the dominate mobile platform. Needless to say the crown for Most Promising Upcomer should have gone to Android instead of Palm.

The Year of the Browser

In the category of Web Browser of the Year, certainly Chrome has dropped a monster of a rock into the proverbial pond, I would argue that this should be instead called The Year of the Browser, as we have seen more done in the Web 2.0 front this past year that we have seen in the last several years. Clearly the internet is being adopted now more than ever as a platform–whether mobile or desktop or SaaS, we are seeing the world migrate from the desktop to the web in astonishing volume and spectacle. Not only has Chrome been a good addition to the browser arena, it has spurred the other titans to get off their comfortable chairs and to engage like they have never engaged before. We have seen enhancements, improvements and continued drive from competitors like FireFox, especially with the introduction of FireFox 3.5 and the performance improvements that it draws, or Opera 10.5 and the improvements in speed that they are promising to deliver (be it in the current form the browser is quite a bit unstable!). But even giants like Microsoft reinvesting in Internet Explorer with the promises in IE9. Truly this has been the year of the browser, both on the desktop and mobile browsing, as we all feel drawn to put more of ourselves online.

Coolest Entertainment Trend

I would like to expand upon Harry’s category around Coolest Entertainment Trend, as I don’t believe that sufficient credit has been given to how important the trend to iTV is. Let me give you some realistic numbers. We use to spend about $200/monthly for Comast Triple Play with HD and HD-DVR. We enjoyed shows like the Dog Whisperer and SciFi series and certainly the benefits of the DVR to save and watch shows for later viewing. The problems I have with this solution are:

  1. Costly! Enough said.
  2. Small Hard Disk, there were so many shows being recorded, we were running out of space faster than we thought.

Enter the world of Hulu. But not just Hulu and Boxee, but services like PlayOn that allow you to stream Hulu and various other provider content through to devices like the PS3. What this has allowed us to do is manage our shows via Hulu.com, and stream them directly through to our PS3, so we can watch them on the Plasma. The importance of this is significant to the end user, as in our case, we downgraded from the Triple Play to just the internet, now costing us around $55/monthly.

Most Under Hyped Device

In this past year, we saw the rise and collapse of financial institutions, and a nation and world in economic recession. This means that all of us are looking for ways to tighten the belt and make savings. Since most of us have internet access, one of the most under hyped devices this past year has got to be Ooma. This device connects to your home network and allows you to use a standard telephone and have a home phone that sounds like it’s through your traditional telephone services. What’s even better is that you get all of this at NO MONTHLY FEE! Let me repeat that, there is no monthly fee for Ooma. The only fee’s are the upfront fee’s for the device or to port over an existing phone number, but after that, you get your basic phone services and unlimited calling for $0/monthly. Ooma should be in every broadband enabled home period. Yes you can have cellphones, but the need for a crisp clear home phone service will never go away.

Most Endangered Device

It is true that stand-alone GPS devices are looking like a thing of the past–take the news of Google Maps Navigation resulting in a drop in the stocks of most major GPS device manufacturers. But to clarify what Harry has written, Google Maps Navigation is NOT exclusively to the Verizon Droid device, it is a function of Android and as such is available on any Android device. Heck my G1 even has it! I just used this feature for the first time over the holiday travel that we did, and I have to say while I am impressed by this free feature, it isn’t a GPS killer just yet. The main factors that seem to be holding the trigger back on stand-alone GPS devices are:

  1. Text to Speech, like nails on a chalkboard, certainly needs some spit and polish before prime time use.
  2. Interface, the interface on most stand-alone GPS devices is far better than Google Maps Navigation. Features like memory points and points of interest or waypoints, these all need to be features that are easy to use before Google Maps Navigation takes the main stage.
  3. Choices of travel, the stand-alone GPS that is onboard our Mazda CX-7 offers a feature to pick which type of route to take: Shortest, Quickest, Alternative. Having these options on Google Maps Navigation would certainly put it classes ahead of the competition.

Most Under-Understood Technology

I add one additional category for consideration, that is the most under-understood technology of the year. This has to go to Cloud Computing. With lingo thrown around such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud computing, grid computing, this has taken the hosting and internet communities by force, but has to be one of the most under-understood technologies of the year. These terms can mean different things to different people, so it’s no wonder why consumers are at a loss of what this all means!

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Merry Christmas! From Momo the Elf!

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2 years ago
by george in

Excellent! The milk and cookies were ok. Next year I expect a sausage log and a tenderloin instead–medium rare. E-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t! My plan is falling into place. They will never expect the Christmas Elf to steal all the presents, he he he he =)!

When Government Policy, Gaming, and Parenting Collide

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2 years ago
by george in

Recently an article was published on GamePolitics.com, with a view on a new report put out by the FTC on how Virtual Worlds offer real explicit content to minors. You can view the article at this URL.

It seems to me that we are touching very closely on the thin line that separates how far government policy should go when it comes to activities that our children will be (and I use the term WILL instead of maybe) involving themselves on, and what a parent should be doing in terms of their own due diligence to monitor and police the activities that their children are involved in online.

Let’s first start with the issue, the issue is that games are being policed by government policy. This is no different than to tell an artist that they cannot paint a nude picture because a minor may see this explicit content, or a singer from not using certain tones because they are too harsh and may invoke depression or suicidal thoughts. Art is art, and as such it should have some freedoms that are part of the creative process (within limits). For instance, I am a strong proponent for the music industry having clean versions of songs and explicit versions so the purchaser of the music can determine which version they want to have based on the content. Games are no different, they should be allowed to make games as gore-filled and explicit as they want to, with the understanding that the PURCHASER will make the decision on whether the content is acceptable. Let’s look at that one more time–the PURCHASER will make the decision.

This of course would then require the game studio or distributor to adhere to some general guidelines in terms of how to rate the game and provide a high level and consistent guide for purchasers (and lets face it, most purchasers who who I’m referring to here are parents as if you are over 18, well you’re old enough to make your own decisions) to understand how gore-filled or explicit a game is and if that is acceptable to them.

But to create guidelines for parents that in my view provide common sense approaches seems to be overstepping the bounds. This is no different than the government imposing themselves by providing guidelines on how you should be eating–in my view, that is up to independent civilian organizations to provide those to consumers as then it provides choices and isn’t perceived as something that should be applied across the entire population. The same goes with games. Yes games have a tendoncy to just be all involved. People fall in love, get in love affairs, engage in less than PG behavior, and yes there are plenty of risks and exposures, but you know what, that’s life. And as a parent I make it your own responsibility to own that risk from end to end.

If your child subscribes to a game through facebook, falls in love, and something bad happens, my first questions are:

  1. Why does your kid have a Facebook account?
  2. If you knew about the Facebook account, what measures have YOU imposed to regularly monitor that account activity? (again, it’s NOT Facebook’s responsibility to protect YOUR child, it’s YOUR responsibility to do that!)
  3. How do you maintain an open dialog with your child to be aware of the types of games that they are engaging in, and how do you prepare yourself to be educated and informed on the content of that game, it’s inherent risks, and if need-be to block the access to that game (all while having open dialogs, as I’m certainly not advocating that you just go up and pull the Cat5–your child will hate you and figure ways around your dictatorship behavior).
  4. How do you monitor dialog your child has with others via social mediums, email, twitter, facebook, myspace, MMORPG, etc.

This seems like an aweful lot of responsibility, but the truth of the matter is that if something bad happens, it’s not anyone else’s fault than the parents, as you should have made time to have open dialogs with your child and be an aware and involved parent. It is NOT up to the vendor or the provider to police your child’s activities, and it certainly is not up to the US Federal Government to be setting guidelines telling you what as a parent you should be doing. Go figure it out. Ask questions, talk to people, go online and do a bit of research. If there is one benefit from college that everyone should have as a take away is that knowledge requires research and leg-work. You can’t rely on the credibility of research that others have done and you have to go through your own process of validation.

Parenting in the 21st century is tough, there is no question about it. And I will be the first to say that I have no idea what that is entirely like not being a parent myself! But just from the periphery, you cannot as a parent throw up your hands and say that it’s up to someone else. That just is not an option. Just like a parent should be involved with your child’s activities in school, and at home or with the friends and places they go to, online activity is just another facet to that relationship and is ultimately the responsibility of the parent to get that under control.

And again I’m not advocating control in the totalitarian view, as your children are smart–probably smarter than all of us who are reading this, and will figure out ways to get around you (if for no other reason than to do it out of spite). You need to have a good enough relationship where your children feel comfortable in telling you about what they are doing, heck you should be participating with them–if they love World of Warcraft get an account and play along side with them. This is what I would call Bonding Time! You can have fun, and at the same time see how your child interacts with the virtual world, the people that they meet and to help shape and guide their behaviors so they know how to react or engage to situations appropriately. Ultimately this is what a parent does is to shape and guide their child through life’s challenges taking from your own experiences and intuition and passing that onto the next generation to build upon.

I do believe that there is a gap emerging in all of this as technology is moving at such a fast pace that as a parent it can be very difficult to keep pace with things. You cannot let that deter you and you need to be ontop of the emerging technologies. Let your children teach you and together you can work through acceptable use policies and guidelines. This should be a family effort, instead of parents looking at a technology and saying “Well I don’t understand it therefore until I do stay away”. This way of thinking will get you nowhere and ultimately encourage the child to defy you based on your own ignorance.

It does mean that tools need to be made available in clear language that provides parents with high level important tidbits of a game or technology that they can evaluate and say yes this is something that I would accept or no thanks we’ll wait a few more years. And when in doubt, try it out yourself! For goodness sake! It’s like a movie, am I going to allow my child to see something based on the rating, or am I first going to go see it myself, or at last watch trailers, read reviews, read synopses of the movie–you’d do all of the above and more. This is just part of the due diligence that I am referring to above, and the responsibility that parents ultimately have as gatekeepers to the brave new world that we are facing in this generation and generations to come. You can stand back and try to hold back the raging waters, but in the end it will be a futile effort and it’s best just to take the bull by the horns and trundle through this as best we can.

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