Thursday, January 31, 2013

Is your Fitbit and Fuelband gossiping with your Aria Smartscale?

It the world of the Internet of Everything, the likelihood of your Fitbit gossiping with your Fuelband is very much a possibility. More embarrassingly so, they'll be able to figure out, together with your Aria Smartscale whether you've been cheating on them.. sorry.. your exercise.
When word gets out to your LG smart refrigerator, it'll start ordering more celery and broccoli, cancelling that bag of Snickers fun size bars. Your treadmill will add on an extra 3 minutes once you start running to compensate for all that lost exercise. The smart thermostat will raise the temperature just a tad so that you sweat that much more. Once the toilet confirms that your sugar and salt level is back on track, you expect peace once more.  

Friday, January 25, 2013

Windows RT hits puberty?

If you have older siblings, you'd know that parents track your progress by how soon you do the things your older brothers or sisters did. Say you learned to walk at 11 months, your parents would say, "His brother started walking at 10 months." Or "Your brother learned to ride the bicycle when was 4," when you had just announced your success at the age of 5. Or "It's ok that he's just learning to read. His brother was doing fine at this age". It's never "Thank god you want learn to drive at 16 and not steal the car and crashing-it-into-the-fence like your brother."
The Windows Surface Pimple
Well, by all signs Windows RT had finally grown up. It has achieved that important milestone of all Windows Operating systems: the first major bug. First it was thought to be a Windows update bug but later it was narrowed down to just Windows RT. The bug causes Windows update to fail. Some blame it for their applications crashing. But we all know in windows that could be anything.
So congratulations Windows RT for your first major bug. And for the prolonged response that comes with it. The fix to the bug comes out in a grand two weeks. But those 6 people who own a Surface tablet, you guys can just turn to their Windows Phone in the meantime. 

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Steve Jobs: Tech bully

In the most ironic turn for geeks, it turns out that the person who most people associate with high tech, Steve Jobs, turns out to be a mortal enemy of geeks, a bully. Wait a minute. How is this so?
Well it turns out that at some point Steve Jobs wasn't happy with a company trying to hire Apple staff. He then wrote to the company and threatened to use Apple's patents as a club against said company if they didn't stop. Not only did he say that but he also pointed out how big his club was. Now image yourself as the geek who suffered through high school, studied hard, went to university to come out and work for the most dynamic tech companies around... only to find out that your boss was that same tormentor from high school. Yes, that 'revenge of the geeks' fantasy didn't turn out as you had expected. Even when you thought you made it on Brain power, the Brawn still manages to come out on top. Riding on your Brain, apparently.
You see, there was this gentleman's agreement between companies to not poach each other's employees. And HR people who did, lost their jobs because of it. While in some cases, HR wasn't allowed to go out and recruit, in others, the company hiring went to that person's then employer and asked for permission to hire them.
Some people dismiss this as nothing new but won't condemn Jobs for it. They claim it is old news and nothing surprising. Well, so is indentured servitude... When you see people who work for you as objects you have control of, your attitude may not be too far from you and that southern plantation owner. Sure makes that 'employees are the companies greatest asset' slogan sound different, doesn't it. Some companies love their asset so much, they will bully others from taking them.
Apple strangely, is throwing Jobs under the bus. Current CEO Tim Cook, claims to have no part in this. Since he deals with the Chinese manufacturers, there are probably a lot of things he doesn't see.
Typically, Apple fanboys claim that this is not characteristic of Jobs. To them, I say, stop dreaming and start reading Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made. Find out how sausage is made.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Samsung copies Apple again?

Have you heard of this? It's another blatant attempt by Samsung to copy something from Apple. You'd think Samsung would be tired of it by now. After all the lawsuits, why would Samsung try copying Apple again? But it's  clear that when Samsung announced the Galaxy S II Plus, they were just copying Apple again. They were copying Apple's naming convention. But this time they are copying from an earlier Apple product line, the Apple II. It wouldn't be long before we will see the Galaxy S II models with the same naming conventions. Look out for the Samsung Galaxy S IIe, the most popular model incorporating the best features of the Galaxy S II line. 
And the Galaxy S IIc, the more compact version that everyone wonders why it was made in the first place. However, I wouldn't be holding my breath for the Galaxy IIGS and the IIc Plus.
You can almost hear the Apple lawyer's keyboards drafting motions.