While at college, I remember seeing a documentary on stereolithography, which we today know as 3d printing. My first thought? Guns. Of course, I wasn’t writing then, so you only have my word for that prediction. However, I also suggested that 3d printing needed to be regulated, to avoid the problems we’re dealing with in the present. Sadly, that never happened, largely because no-one with the wherewithal or influence to suggest legislation knew what I knew.

Only within the last week or so have the legislators finally realised the problems they’re faced with. It’s too late, because the moment the plans for a 3d printed gun found their way onto the web, the genie was out of the bottle and in the wind.

Do you know what my second thought was? Drugs. Today, 3d printing is quite sophisticated, and there’s no reason to suppose it’s going to become less so. If you’re a pharmaceutical company, you’re looking for more efficient and cost-effective ways of synthesising drugs. If you’re a drug cartel in Mexico, you’re faced with the same challenge. At some point, the accuracy of 3d printing is going to shift to the molecular level, and then the problems really begin.

So there I was, on the cusp of purchasing a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Business. $219.99 in the US, which —  based on exchange rates — should be about £146. But then I swapped from the US to the UK store. £219.99. Uh, eh?

No export costs. No translation costs. No export taxes that I’m aware of. So why the massive mark up in price? I thought we’d done with these highly dubious practices? Obviously not.

Choice is a funny thing. Not funny-ha-ha, but the kind that makes you stop, wonder, and then scratch your head. And if there’s too much choice, you wonder some more before sighing with exasperation just before you leave. Apple understand this, while their competitors really don’t have a clue.

A lack of choice is an argument / complaint / criticism that Apple are continually accused of,  yet they march on down that road to success unhindered. It’s a subject that came up yet again over on Business Insider, covering an interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, to which I just had to comment:

One choice it may be, but it’s the only choice for a lot of people out there.

Bill Gates once said much the same about the iPod, but made the argument that by having only one choice, people had no choice at all. Steve Jobs replied by saying that people have a choice, but it’s just not the choice Bill wants to see people making.

Fundamentally, this perceived lack of choice is precisely why the iPhone is such a success. Anyone who walks into a phone store is bedazzled by the array of options, even if they walk into a store for Samsung, or Sony. Walk into an Apple store, and your options are far fewer, and arguably less of a hassle.

Apple understand the power of this, while the other guys cite it as a negative, simply because they don’t understand the processes involved.

I suppose, in a sense, Apple have slaked themselves drunk from the fountain of KISS; Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Google are experiencing something of a downer this past several days, much of which leaves a huge question mark hanging over their qualitative approach to Android.

While I’m sure many will be quick to champion Android, I’m not one of them. Personally, I don’t see any reason for me to use an Android-powered mobile device, which isn’t to say I’m recommending you don’t, because I’ve never even used one, aside from attempting to navigate my girlfriend’s phone once or twice. But my suspicions of the Android have been born out more completely recently, but have been coming to fruition for several months, if truth be told.

Earlier this month, Google made an astonishing mess of paying their Android developers, providing them with a stock response and no actual details as to when they’re likely to be paid. Then, even more annoyingly, they then provide some limp support resources, which allude to nothing more than a broken link. As is customary with Google, there is almost no way of contacting them, which is bad enough normally, but for developers? This is just a shambles.

Next up, we have sponsored applications leaching battery life on Android and Windows devices, typically a problem associated with free applications. However, I must hasten to point out, this may also be a problem with Apple’s iOS devices, too, though my feeling is that it would be to a lesser extent, given their application development guidelines are seen by many as being much more stringent.

Sponsored? Advertisements. Yes, we all hate adverts, but now you have another reason to hate them, especially on your Android device, as they just became a massive vector for a potential wholesale privacy violation and possibly theft of many other resources you have on your device. This is the kind mess I’d have expected of Microsoft, circa 2001-2005, and not Google.

You have to wonder if Google is trading quality, security and community for market share. Assuming that Google are that stupid, expect more and worse missteps in the coming months and years.

In all, Google have — in my opinion — been in gradual qualitative decline for quite some time, and this simply more evidence of that funk. The fact of the matter is, perceived choice and reduced cost comes at a price — you get what you pay for…

Maybe you didn’t notice, but on October the 4th 2011, Apple entered the search engine market with Siri, and from that moment on, casual search will never be the same…

I called Apple’s smooth search move out later in the month, what with everything else going on, I was late to the Siri party:

“You have to wonder how concerned Google are by Siri’s ability to grab the low hanging casual search fruit.”

So how concerned are Google? At the time, they played Siri down, which would be the right thing to do / say, be they concerned or not. After all, do you really expect Google to admit they’re worried about an idea, when such confirmation is as a good as a green light to anyone else with the same idea? Of course not.

Fast forward to a Forbes article quoting Google chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt’s response to the U.S. Senate antitrust committee, where he (and by extension Google) identify Apple’s voice-activated assistant as a threat to their search products. Why the change? Politics. Google need to appear the wounded party, or how else do they appease the politicians who, on a whim or word, could trim their commercial excess down to size?

But all these things are but a setting of the scene, because the real game changer isn’t Google’s search products, because they’re no longer bathing everyone in the afterglow of innovation. No, everyone expects the all-knowing Google to just keep on being Google.

But the problem is, Google are so tied to their search product, in the same way Microsoft are tethered between the twin pillars of Windows and Office, everything Google do, in so far as search, must be in some way an extension of their paid links franchise, and voice search just isn’t a snug enough fit. Let’s face it, when you’re on the move, who the hell wants to be hearing adverts being barked at them when they’re searching for the nearest Starbucks? That’s the Google dilemma. Apple have no such dilemma.

Trust in Apple technology

Apple like trust. Apple use their vast and ever-expanding walled garden to widen the horizon of their all-enveloping blanket of trust, through vetted applications, which is a fortress to Google’s picket fence approach to application security.

Apple have zero intention of allowing their customers access to untrusted sources via any search they perform via Siri, in so far as finding restaurants, hotels, cinemas, facts, figures et cetera. All of these sources are trusted sources, like WolframAlpha, and Wikipedia for example. Wikipedia, trusted? Do a search for the name of famous person on Google and the chances are you’ll see Wikipedia, or IMDb if they’re an actor, right at the top. That’s the level of trust Google bestow on Wikipedia, so who are Apple to do differently?

So when I say “casual search”, I’m talking about “What’s the weather going to be like later on?”, or “Where is Lake Garda?”, and not “Photos of Lindsay Lohan nude”, or “Cheats for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3″.

Apple are never going to compete with Google’s primary search product. The reason Google succeed is because their product and its agnosticism towards computing platforms; Google search works via the web, not the computer. Apple are for the most part tied to their own hardware, with the exception of Safari, QuitTime and iTunes, for example.

So don’t expect to see Siri appear on Google Android. Why? The deep integration between Siri and the swathe of resources on your iPhone is, most likely, impossible to replicate on Android, or destined to be but a poor imitation.

No, when I look at Siri, I see a proof of concept and a blueprint. I see a product useful for Apple in their desire to keep expanding their walled garden of trust. But I also see a whole population of computer engineers and scientists out there, all bent on replicating Siri and competing head-on with Google.

Apple didn’t change the game, they just helped re-write the rules of engagement. Expect a war of words and a breathless search for the next big thing in finding food, friends, fun and facts on the move…

The BlackBerry line of mobile phones may have become loyal companions to travelling businessmen, but with competitors ever encroaching on its market share, the company has had to refocus its strategies after seeing how much money could be made by orientating some of their devices towards everyday consumers rather than the enterprise.

Unfortunately, the glacial pace that Research in Motion allowed its developers to work at has allowed many of its rivals to gain an upper hand in providing users with alternative and more superior smartphones.

For example, Apple clearly reinvented touch and gesture based interfaces, also bringing it to the masses when it introduced the iPhone in 2007. Google’s Android has found its niche by providing power users and technology enthusiasts with a flexible and open platform. BlackBerry on the other hand has been slow to realise what effect a touch and gestured interface could provide its customers. It has mostly stuck to its tried and tested QWERTY keyboard build, a unique selling point that is becoming less relevant in the smartphone market.

Last year saw the company’s attempt at trying to fight against its ever decreasing market share with the release of its BlackBerry Torch 9800, but critics were left underwhelmed after the phone was revealed to have a specifications list that was still leaving it behind its rivals.

Realising that it needed to get back on the ball and focus on making sure that its user experience and hardware was unique to its brand, the company decided on diversifying and launching a tablet computer that would work in conjunction with one of their devices. The PlayBook also would be the first RIM device to include an operating system developed after its purchase of The Astonishing Tribe and QNX.

The PlayBook has been seen as one of the few competitors trying to provide an alternative experience against the clear market leader, Apple’s iPad. The PlayBook is also one of the few tablet computers on the market that allows users to view content created in Adobe Flash. Apple has stated that it refuses to allow its mobile devices the option of viewing Flash content because it would cause a poorer experience for the end user.

The next year will prove to be a vital one for the survival of RIM. Technology blogs have already leaked images and videos showing that the company will be combining touchscreen technology across all of their devices, but the big question is whether the Canadian manufacturer can be sure that its current customers will be willing to upgrade to devices that may not be as unique as they used to be.

Innovation is expensive and wasteful, and it doesn’t matter if you’re living tissue or leading-edge technology, the same rules apply. What we need is a revolution in patent legislation to help start an evolution of innovation…

Google innovation, Apple iteration?

Apple announced a wide range of new technologies at their World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday the 6th of June. Some of those technologies were, let’s face it, iterative rather than innovative. Back in 2006, Steve Jobs himself once (in)famously mocked Microsoft’s alleged attempts at copying Apple’s principle operating system OS X with the slogan: “Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers”, Redmond in Washington being the home of Microsoft.

Now, all joking aside, the war of words between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, both co-founders of their respective and aforementioned companies has been going on for years. Well now, Google have entered into the fray. And to be fair, the Android camp have a fair argument that several of the key new technologies finding their way into iOS, the operating system used by Apple’s iPhone and iPad range of products are simply an attempt to play catch up with Google.

That said, for all the haters out there, Apple have been thinking about connected devices and services for a long time, as far back as 1997.

Now, I’m no Apple apologist, though I freely admit I am a died-in-the-wool Apple user through and through. I do not in any way doubt Google’s ability to innovate with their Android operating system, as they have, and in doing so, have leapt in front of Apple. But all of this territorial fanboy sniping and snarling is an aside, because there’s a much, much bigger issue at stake, here — innovation is expensive and wasteful.

The convergence of evolution and innovation

As I said to a Andy Bold on Twitter earlier in the week, as an aside to our discussion of the above topic of perceived and actual innovation, there are only a finite number of ways of achieving a specific goal. How do I know this? Because we only need look to nature. Over the course of eons, biological diversity has been as breathtaking in its sheer depth and breadth as it is astonishing in its complexity and variety. But with justified hyperbole aside, underlying this complexity is a layer of fundamental simplicity, which takes the form of shared traits, characteristics and designs.

In nature, this is called convergent evolution, where things like eyes, wings, fur and even blood having formed in completely different organisms whose common ancestors either did not have such attributes, or they were so primitive as to be irrelevant to the eventual adaptations.

Man cannot as yet harness the truly mesmeric ability of nature to design such a bewildering array of variations, not biologically or technologically. And this is where the problems begin, because as soon as some company evolves themselves towards something intrinsically unique, they’re entitled to patent their innovations. On the whole, I don’t think patents are “evil”, that’s an affectation we must leave to people, who choose to pervert and subvert patent law for purely monetary reasons, the so-called “patent trolls”.

For those companies following in the footsteps of innovation first-movers, they must steer their ship well clear of waters where the sharks of patent litigation swim. To avoid such things, they must innovate in such a way as to approach their particular problem from a sufficiently different angle to remain unique enough that patent litigation isn’t an issue. Either that or they pay the requisite licensing fees to access the patent rights.

No one wants a square wheel!

To re-frame this problem in simpler language, companies have to keep re-inventing the wheel. If the same commercially biased logic existed in nature, we would most likely all be blind, as the human eye would have been secured as a biological innovation and barred by some long extinct sea creature from all future usage.

But the problem is even worse because, as nature will attest, there are only a finite number of ways of doing the same thing, as Apple and Google are discovering. So where’s the problem? As I said, innovation is expensive and wasteful. And in this day and age, with dwindling resources, we can ill afford to go pissing time and money away on re-inventing the wheel when the original worked perfectly fine first time of asking, thank you very much!

As an example, consider an automotive manufacturer and the effort invested in re-creating something that obviates possible patent and legal fees. The needless expense and wasted energy and resources would most likely, if calculated appropriately, total several billion pounds. And this is but one company in one industry. We, as a people, can neither afford or justify this kind of thing anymore.

When innovation is patently wrong

So what’s the solution? Well, we can’t scrap patent law, although some might argue otherwise. But what we can do is look to the various patent offices of the world, and ask of them to work more closely together. In this way, they can pool their resources, find those innovations which are of the finite and restrictive variety, which severely limit the scope of further innovations and either not allow a patent to be issued, or impose maximum licensing fees, or reduce the lifespan of the patent. We could, for the sake of developing countries, go as far as making patents open source:

“A re-worked definition of Open Source in our new context would be: a technology, or series of technologies where the source knowledge, materials and know-how are readily available to the general public for use and / or modification from its original design free of charge.”

The benefits to society would be huge, vastly out-weighing any short-term economic hard inflicted on businesses who’s innovations were made open source.

And because the principles of open source apply, the company that invested their time, money, resources and expertise into the original innovation would have access to all adaptions to their technology by anyone choosing to license said technologies.

Okay, I’m an idealist. But I don’t think anything I’ve discussed here is beyond the realms of possibility. In fact, I think we’re going to see something like this happen as the pool of possible technological innovations begins to shrink, with more and more patent trolls chasing after spurious licensing fees, forcing legislators to re-consider how patents are awarded and why.

What we have now is patently wrong, but what we could have in the future would be as much evolutionary as revolutionary…

And at that moment, I realized the limitations of my iPhone; the camera just ain’t what it ought to be. Why? Microsoft Photosynth is asking a question the iPhone can’t answer. But if Apple teamed up with Canon, Nikon et al, and got iOS running on their camera hardware…

You with me? Of course you are. No, I’m not talking about playing Angry Birds on your Nikon D7000 or your Canon 55D. In this scenario, Apple’s iOS would be a leaner animal, allowing applications like Microsoft Photosynth to run on dedicated cameras, doing justice to that ornate cathedral interior, or that arboretum you just visited.

So what’s Photosynth? Much to the dismay of the Windows Phone 7 crowd, launching on the iPhone first, Photosynth let’s you take a series of photographs, which it then stitches together into 360 degree panoramas. Believe me, getting the most from Photosynth takes some practice, but the results can be amazing.

But this is just one application. I’m sure there are plenty more out there, just aching to find their way onto an actual camera, rather than eking out an existence shuffling 5 megapixel resolution graphics around when so much more lay beyond.

I have absolutely no idea of the practicalities of making this happen, but I can imagine a lot of people welcoming the ability to run a limited collection of applications on their camera, enabling a wider range of possibilities and letting them squeeze even more out of their camera hardware.

Apple could work out some novel licensing deal, the camera companies get to work with software developers to make the most of their features, everyone wins!

The sad truth is, Apple just don’t like licensing their core software, even when there’s good business to be had in doing so — it’s a control thing. By contrast, it’s exactly the kind of thing Microsoft like doing — gaining greater exposure for their Windows franchise.

As I said, the technicalities aren’t exactly black and white, but the final composition could be a real Kodak moment…

Easter came and went a bit like Christmas, in that we’re all for the festivities, the food and the fun, but just don’t talk about religion. Meanwhile, a man wearing an odd-looking dress and silly hat bemoans the fact we’re no longer taking him or his beliefs seriously, amidst on-going claims that a supernatural being created the world in seven days, or something…

I utterly and vehemently despise all religion — religion is by far and almost beyond the reach of practical measurement, the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction ever devised by man. Yet people cling to such nonsense out of nothing more than fear and vanity all tangled together. That somehow, their lives are so precious that the universe itself ought to set aside a place somewhere so that they can live out all eternity.

And then there’s the alignment of political persuasion with belief. Suffice it to say, religious conservatism is not a choice for many (too many for the sake of common sense), while liberalism and atheistic ideals also align.

I find it quite amazing how conservative preachers and politicians alike squeal their venomous bile across radio waves, telephone wires and fibre optic cables, flatly denouncing science fact in favour of whatever entirely ephemeral, utterly unprovable and largely laughable lies they choose to believe in.

At what point did they choose to halt their “belief” in science? Just after the invention of what ever technological marvel allows them a forum to talk complete shit.

They hide behind liberalist ideals that protect their right to believe what they like, while proliferating their right-wing filth as if it was fact, making strident and sweating, clamouring efforts to silence the salient books of science in schools all across the southern states of the US of A, creating yet another generation of ignorant, hostile and paranoid people, acting as an anchor to the rest of the human race, stymieing forward motion, away from those dark, bad waters of our ignorant past.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the man wearing the odd-looking dress and silly hat is worried, and so he should be — people like me have you and your kind on the run.

Step into the light, Keith. I’ll show you what enlightenment is all about, mate. And such things do not begin or end with the fantasy section of a properly ordered book store, believe me…

OK, so at 8:11pm on April 19th, the military-designed artificial intelligence system called Skynet didn’t become self-aware and turn against its creators. And the real chances of a Terminator-style robotic armageddon any time soon? None, with a precision of several decimal places. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to stop worrying just yet — just ask Britain’s Ministry of Defence…

British newspaper, the Guardian got a glimpse of the Ministry of Defence report, entitled: “The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems” warning that the increased use of sophisticated drone aircraft, principally by the US, could well be an “incremental and involuntary journey towards a Terminator-like reality.”

Further highlighting the potential dangers of automatous machines, the report recommends, sooner rather than later, that we come to a decision on what is “acceptable machine behaviour”, kind of like a bill of robot rights, if you will.

But just how do we edge towards this kind of future? Through necessity and, to a greater and lesser extent, largely without even knowing.

Right now, we see pressures in far-flung places emerging from the action of insurgent forces all around the world, armed as they are with the will and the wherewithal to strike anywhere, not as an army, but as largely anonymous individuals. This is no longer a war amongst men of arms across battle lines, but a conflict fought through telephones lines, firing information around the globe, targeting indistinct and cryptic enemy “chatter”.

To defeat this ad hoc army of terrorists, we need a global network capable of scanning many terabytes of data, and that kind of data requires a certain type of computer, one capable of choosing for itself where best to spend its time searching for clues.

Out there in the theatre of this new war, cost pressures placed on the military exploits of various nations means the average soldier suddenly just got more expensive, not to mention the cost of aircraft, and an acceptable loss is no longer acceptable at all. A more inexpensive alternative is required, such as an automated drone.

Wherever this machine chooses to cast its gaze, men are killing other men for one reason or another, damaging the very soil beneath their feet that they battle so hard for the right to walk on. And that, my friends, is how we walk freely into a cybernetic insurrection against mankind!

Personally, I don’t rate the chances of a Terminator reality at all — robotics is, in many ways, a technological dead end. And in time, robotics will eventually be overrun by exceptionally versatile and massively more cost effective genetic developments, which if you’re looking to create a super soldier, the genome is where your money needs to go.

So why robotics at all? What better way to learn about how a thing like the human body works than to create one. Or a spider. Or an ant. Or a horse. The list goes on. Robotics offers scientists and engineers insights into the kinematics of nature, which is an essential area of learning. Right now, many robots are to be found rolling around on wheels, but that simply because it’s cheaper that way.

So don’t worry about Judgement Day. Now as for a rise of the planet of the apes, well…