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!