Headworx

iWatch 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

I stopped wearing my watch years ago. Exactly when I realized I had been carrying my cellphone with me all the time. And the cellphone was showing time. And it had a calendar. And an alarm clock. I check the time quite rarely. I mean, I do not pull the phone from my pocket just to check the time. Clocks are everywhere. On car's dashboard, in public buses and trams, at airports.

But I do pull the phone from my pocket more often to check other things. Messages and notifications. I can predict the time quite accurately, but I find it hard to predict who has sent me the message that just vibrated in my pocket.

So here comes the Watch 2.0 idea. I will describe it using the Apple building blocks.

You have the iPhone in your pocket. It runs a number of apps. Email client. Twitter. Facebook. Calendar. Navigation. You are walking down the street. The phone vibrates. You stop, pull it out and see a new tweet. Or a calendar reminder. Or Navigation app telling you to turn left. You put the phone back in the pocket and continue walking.

Now picture this. There is an iPod Nano on your wrist. People already are doing this. But in the Watch 2.0 concept the Nano is connected to the iPhone via a Bluetooth Link. So you continue walking and the Phone vibrates, so you look at your watch and see this is the new tweet from someone you follow. Then it vibrates again, you look at the watch and this time there is an arrow from your navigation app pointing to the left, you turn left and continue the stroll.

Yes I know we have had similar things before. But they failed. And now they will not. There are several reasons to that.

First, the power consumption has been optimized. The latest iPhone has the latest Bluetooth 4.0 low power radio, known before as BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and renamed now to Bluetooth Smart. So the Nano (aka iWatch) will last a week, not a day. Second, our lives are now fully online - augmented and the stream of notifications we receive flows really quickly. Look around and you will see people walking staring at the phones they hold in hands. Not very convenient.

And the third, probably the most important reason, is the unified development platform. Using the Xcode integrated development environment you can create iOS apps that use the paired Nano as a second display. Well, actually, you cannot. Yet.

But the integration of an iPhone with an iPad Nano is the most obvious move for Apple. And an easy one too. They have all the building blocks. The Nano. The Bluetooth. The iPhone. The Xcode. And yes, people will be rushing to buy the new connected Nanos. And rushing to upgrade to the 4s (as the older iPhones do not have the low power Bluetooth). And rushing to upgrade the apps. One small step and a big market will be created.

The alternative scenario is the same, only there will be Google / Motorola instead of Apple. Android has long had the concept of application widgets, a natural way to adapt to a second display. Moto has already been experimenting with phone - connected gadgets, namely the MotoActv line. There may be other salvos fired by Sony (all Xperias have been equipped with the ANT+ low power radio for a long time) or Samsung (who is on fire on all fronts), but for successful proliferation there has to be support for the second wireless display natively built into the operating system. Hence my Apple / Googarola bet. And the prediction (80% probability) is we will see the concept announced this year. Afterall they both read my blog ;P.

Great Android, Bad Xperia and Fantastic Galaxy Note

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

I have a third smartphone and fourth tablet in a year. You call it experimenting.

A quick summary.

Phones: I started the 2011 with BlackBerry Torch than after miserable BlackBerry failures decided to switch to Android, and being a qwerty addict I opted for the Sony Xperia Pro.

Tablets: a year ago I had the iPad1, then in June I fell in love (here, here and here) with the Honeycomb - based Samsung Galaxy 10.1, swapped in October to the Galaxy 8.9 (almost identical, but I liked the 8.9 more, because of the OLED display and even smaller weight).

And eight days ago, on Saturday, I was packing for CES.

I decided to take my Windows 7 laptop (the Thinkpad X220 I absolutely love and spent so much time selecting). I simply cannot live on a tablet alone. Neither iPad nor Android tablets I have had in various configurations (including mechanical keyboards) give me the speed and flexibility of working on a real computer with keyboard, mouse, Windows, various hardware ports and applications. Yeah yeah, try to take a photo with a DSLR, crop, retouch and resize it, then write a blog column, paste this photo in it, all on a tablet. Good luck. On Windows 7 I am 3-5 times faster doing just this task. So generally on business trips lasting more than two days, the laptop goes with me.

Then I put in my Kindle (I will be reading books on a transatlantic flight). Then I put in the tablet with some movies preloaded (I will be watching movies too and a tablet probably is better to do that, if anything, saving the laptop batteries). Then the phone obviously goes into my pocket. And iPod nano, to save phone's and tablet's batteries when playing music for those long hours. A handful of cables, two pairs of earphones (Xperia requires Sony earphones, as even having the same 3.5mm jack, they wired it differently than the Apple / Blackberry / Samsung / whatever standard), cases for each device.

Hey, that is exaggeration. I just does not make sense. I mean I love all those devices and they are very useful in many scenarios (like a WiFi tablet in a toilet, you know what I mean...). But it does not make sense lugging all this gear everywhere I go. So just the laptop and the phone? Probably, but the tiny screen is often not enough to read a message or an RSS stream.

In the afternoon I went to meet somebody in the city, having some time to spare I decided to do some window shopping at the local mall. When I saw the Samsung Galaxy Note. I saw the phone a number of times on the Web and on TV. But having it in front of my eyes, I was stunned by the unbelievable clarity of the 5" 1280x800 AMOLED display. I tried a few web pages I visit frequently and was surprised they are as readable on the Note as on the 8.9 Tab, Yeah, but it does not fit in a jeans pocket. Actually it does (see the photo). Yeah, but it does not have a physical keyboard. True. But for some reason the size of the device makes the virtual keyboard a very good fit for my fingers. I tried typing a few sentences and was surprised I did it quickly and with no errors. Hmmm. That is something. And it has a pen. Yeah but I do not take hand-written notes. True, but just after a few hours I found it really handy to be able to make a screenshot just by waving hand over the screen. BTW Samsung has done an excellent job on gesture support in the Note (think of just flipping the phone over when it rings to reject the call, genius!). And then using the pen and a "lasso" tool cut a piece from the screenshot, draw few arrows on it and email with a single click. Or jot a handwritten note while having a phone conversation. But hey, you look stupid talking to such a big paddle. True, but Blackberries are not that much smaller paddles and for most of the calls I make, I use this Bluetooth earpiece.

I am in. Selling my tablet. Selling my phone. Keeping the Note. Using it for a week I have to say this is a game changing device. Even if you do not want to buy it, have a look at this device. Because this is how the next generation Apple iPhad will look like. They say size does not matter. May be. But 5 inches seems to be the winning form factor. At least until Internet glasses arrive.

Digital Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

The economy is digital. The biggest companies on Earth are either making computers (in a broad sense, iPhone is included) or services those computers offer (or consume). Nothing today can exist without computers.

But hey, wait a minute, we landed on the Moon 40 years ago without computers (what they had can hardly be regarded a computer by today's standard). The first plane crossed the Atlantic 85 years ago and commercial transatlantic plane service was operational soon after. In the offline world we do not have much more we had 10, 20, 30 or 50 years ago. Cars, jets, dishwashers, we even had mobile phones 20 years ago.

So the world can run without those computers, and whatever valuations the IT industry is getting now must be an inflated bubble, right?

Wrong! Nothing today exists without computers. Nothing.

It is not only the Space Shuttles we use computers to design. Try to imagine any single product that did not involve computers when it was being designed or manufactured or shipped or being sold and paid for. Or a service. We did this transition to the online world almost unnoticed. But this is not the Matrix. We are still physical. We walk offline and we eat offline and we sleep offline and we travel offline. And even though the online world sucks us in for many hours a day, we are still brick-and-mortars and we will stay that way.

But there is one very strong trend involved in the decision making process. Whatever we end up doing offline, we initiate online. Read a paper (online). Prepare a shopping list (online). Shop (online). Decide where to go for vacations (online). Buy flight tickets (online). Book a table at a restaurant (online). And then cook a dinner (online assisted offline). Eat (offline). Fly to Santo Domingo (offline). Get a drink (offline).

This trend is called online to offline transition. It has been big, but now, fueled by mobile Internet it is huge. Affecting almost everything we do. Ron Conway has a great piece on it in The Economist. Definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Keep Alive

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Chasing each other in the race for domination, online services make it dead easy to set up new accounts. The problem is when, for whatever reason, we want to close the account. OK, it is again dead easy for paid services. You simply stop paying and after one or two reminders they close. But the story is different when the service is free by design. Like Facebook or Blogger. Or whatever community forum you contribute to.

My lawyers always tell me. The most important clause in any agreement is the termination clause. I have learned this and try to apply whenever possible. But it not always is. Successful examples of me being a smart consumer: contract extensions for mobile phones or cable tv. The same day I sign the extension, I also write a termination letter, dated today + 12 months, or whatever the contract specifies. Why bother dealing with them twice? The ball is on their side and it is them who will have to worry to come back and say "hey, we want you back".

This technique also makes things clean up automatically in the ultimate case when you die. Something not many people think of, but myself, having a software engineer background, whenever I create any object, I always think of when and how it should be destroyed.

The most common technique in use today to clean up unused objects is garbage collection. The system checks if there are any references to the objects living in computer's memory. When there are none, the object is garbage-collected, or putting it simply, destroyed.

Unfortunately the most popular services like Google or Facebook do not offer such garbage collection service. A year ago a very good friend of mine died very prematurely. And I felt very sad, when a couple of months later Facebook sent me a reminder of his next birthday. I would love to save my friends from such announcements.

So here is the idea. The Keep-Alive option. If I do not log into my Google or Facebook account for a specified time period, let it be automatically deleted. Possibly first moved into a staging area, appearing as deleted, but still giving me a chance to "ping" and recover. And when I do not do that, cremate the content, collect the garbage, free the memories and move on. Let all I have online be in my control. Including power of the last wish. Some people probably do not care. But I do.

Wishing you all to keep alive and well through the 2012 and beyond!

AHM (Automated Hotel Machine)

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:44:00 +0000

Only 10 months ago I complained on the hotel check-in process being so easy to automate, yet still run by humans. The change is coming. A few days ago I was driving home for Christmas after having a couple of wonderful powder skiing days in the Alps. As the drive takes quite a while - ten hours to be exact - I usually stop half way for an overnight rest. And as there is a new highway bypassing Vienna on the North, this time I decided to look for a new hotel, close to the S33.

I opened the Booking.COM application on my Android phone. I do like the Booking.COM app for one particular reason. It shows a map you can zoom and pan, and as you scroll the map, it keeps bringing new hotels to offer. Good-bye text "by address" search. Welcome to the visual experience. Point a finger on the map and pick a hotel. It offered me a cheap Clever Hotel exactly at the point I wanted. Only later I realized the hotel is fully automatic. Booking.COM sends you two numbers - confirmation and PIN (yeah, no 2d codes or NFC stuff yet... but I think it is coming). When you arrive you punch those numbers into the Check-In machine, select the breakfast option and pay with a credit card using yet another PIN. PINs rule. But the entire process is less than two minutes and the machine dispenses keys to your room (contactless cards). And prints the invoice.

I have to say I like it. The hotel is very basic, but very clean, with very comfortable shower. And the breakfast is not bad too. Much better than the Best Western standard I frequent in the rural America. The eggs are real, the coffee machine offers eight tasty options. And there is WiFi in the rooms and around the building.

And I really do love the automated handling of reservations and the check-in process. It is so easy and effective. Digital economy in a nutshell. From selection to purchase to consumption.

Just wonder how long it will take for the big hotel networks to catch up with the pioneers?

Intelligent Power

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

When I first discussed the aspect of power consumption by software back in 2006 (http://headworx.slupik.com/2006/10/software-power.html), it seemed quite weird to many readers. fast forward five years of mobile / wireless explosion and we all now talk about how much power this or that function consumes.

The main reason behind the Apple's decision to reject Adobe Flash was power consumption. It was bogging down CPUs, which in turn were drawing juice from batteries at a full rate. MacBook Air with Flash installed lives barely half the advertised time.

But it is not only Flash. There are many subsystems in a mobile device, contributing to the overall power consumption. The last weekend I went skiing with a group of friends. We had a lot of fun with the Map-To-Snow iPhone application. Unfortunately it was eating through the iPhone battery in about five hours. So at the end of the day we were unable to reclaim prizes, by simply being unable to present collected pins on the iPhone, because the battery was dead.

We need bigger batteries. But more than that, we need intelligent mobile operating systems, paying a lot of attention to state estimation, to manage hardware and applications.

State estimation is based on intelligent processing of data collected from various system sensors to manage power consumption of device subsystems. Take the GPS, which is a good example of a subsystem responsible for majority of power consumption in a mobile device. Therefore it should be turned of when not in use. Automatically. When and how? By gathering data from an accelerometer. If two subsequent positions gathered from GPS are equal, it means the device does not move. So turn the GPS off. Save juice. Now when the accelerometer goes active, turn the GPS on again. I know I am simplifying. But the general idea is there and it works. Whenever I stop, the GPS goes into power saving mode. When I start moving, it tracks my position. A good application should be able to do this.

But this really should be done at the operating system level. Applications should not care.

Different example? Heavy downloads or uploads. Like application updates. Almost every Wednesday, when I get on a commuter train, my Windows laptop starts downloading patch-Tuesday system updates over the GSM connection. Why? When I am on GSM, the OS should route only the priority traffic. Applications should advertise their classes of traffic, and OS should let them go on mains / WiFi and block unimportant packets on battery / GSM.

There are many more scenarios. The bottom line is the OS has the potential to extend the battery life. The problem (and opportunity) here is none on the market today is doing the job well enough.

Multi-SIM Pooled Data Plan Needed

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Connection sharing times are over. Yes, true, I can use the the [Tethering & portable hotspot] option in my Android phone. Which I actually use from time to time when I want to do something on my Android tablet, and there is no public / open WiFi around. I have 3G modem in the tablet, but there is no SIM card inside. Same with my laptop. The 3G option is present there, but the SIM card slot is empty. I also have a portable WiFi hotspot, in use only when we travel in a group of friends or family to places where WiFi is not available. And finally my car is now connected too. There is a SIM card inside.

I realize, with five personal 3G devises and two SIM cards on contract, I am a little bit ahead of the crowd. But over the years I have learned many times the crowd follows. Not exactly following me, but rather accepting and adopting the trends I just discover a little bit earlier.

Yes, people will be carrying many 3G/4G devices with them. They already do. May be not five or six, but two - three is a reasonable bet. A phone, a tablet and a car.

So how about the carriers, the Mobile Network operators (MNOs)? Do they see the trend? Do they acknowledge the status quo? Most of them do not. As usual. Once identified as the most innovative service providers, now lagging behind the trends, trying helplessly to protect their turf.

So here is the deal. I have my primary SIM card in my primary phone, with voice and data contract. $30 a month. Then I have another (the one in my car tablet), data only, $10. And I would love to have three more SIMs, but I will not be paying $10 a month each, as the devices they would enable, I use on quite irregular basis. I prefer not to tie myself to three additional mobile data contracts.

I would love to have five SIM cards, with one contract and aggregate, combined monthly transfer cap at, say, 5GB. Hey, this is the product you potentially have, I want, and here is the money I want to pay, feel the scent?

The story seems very similar to satellite TV providers, for years they had neglected the fact people had more than one TV set at home. We wanted the multi-room option, they did not have it. Now they do. For years I had been using a software I put together on my own, allowing me to watch TV in the bedroom, while the card was inserted into the set top box in my living room. The sharing was over a local LAN network. But now for a very little fee I can get a second card, attached to the same account. It is obvious I will not be "eating" more, as it is rather impossible to watch two moves simultaneously, on two screens.

Same with 3G/4G data. At the moment I use the [Tethering & portable hotspot] to share a SIM card and connection. It is a workaround for a problem that should not exist in the first place. It has to be turned on and off, eats batteries and requires a setup.

They tell me this requires investments (to upgrade their billing systems) and there is no payoff (I will not buy more). I tell them one will step in front and offer this option. Then I will move my contracts over there. It is a free market and it is impossible to stop people from buying things they want. So better be ready to sell what they want. Otherwise you will wake up with diminishing customer base.

Connected Driving

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

A week ago I announced the availability of the Android Car Infotaiment System. Of course this system is connected, meaning it can use a lot of real - time information available on the Internet, on line. I have to admit I always tried to imagine this, but despite that, the real life experience has been very surprising.

A few snapshots worth sharing:

Entering the navigation target. Usually, I mean before, I had to know the exact address to enter into the navigation system. Country, City, Zip code, street and number. Typing typing and typing. It is different now with Android. Launch the "Navigation" APP and speak. Just speak to it. And the beauty is, you actually do not have to speak the address. A company name or a hotel name and a city is enough. Beacause the process is two - step. First it sends the sound wave to Google to be translated to text, and then (all behind the scene) this text is fed into the search engine, looking for an address. You don't even have have to say "Siri". So "Hilton Garden Inn" is enough. It knows where you are, so the nearest match will be set as your destination. Wow!

And now, as we get into the Predictive Mobile Navigation, I experience the reality I was describing back in 2010 () and in 2008. We are not fully there yet (as the computers do not take into account where the drivers PLAN to go, only where they are actually going at the moment), but alternate route selection based on real time traffic works. And this is perfect, especially when navigating the city in the rush hour. I know the routes, so I would not have to use the navigation computer at all. But being able to actually see the traffic around the city is like having the "spies" option in the Age Of Empires game. The entire map is revealed and you have a bird's eye view on the routes around you and towards the chosen destination. And it gives you times based on the actual traffic. Every taxi cab should have this. I have been using this feature for the last couple of days and it really makes route selection easier. Plus the arrival estimates are much more accurate. Less stress, more predictability and fun.

Then there are traffic shortcuts on the home screen. This is nice too. You may place several "traffic" widgets on a home screen, each representing one of your popular destinations (like home, work, school, shopping center, railway station...). And based on where you are they show estimated time in minutes. Information in a nutshell. Green - no traffic. Yellow - a little crowded. Red - jam. When clicked they open a green - yellow - red colored map. Lovely.

Finally there is the weather widget with forecast. A nice addition, again available thanks to the online connection of the car.

I also added Shazam Encore to the set, so whenever the radio plays something nice I like but don't know, I can touch the icon and have the song identified.

Deliberately, I have not included email synchronization on this device. I am afraid it would be too tempting and too distracting. After all you have to be focused on the road while driving. But one day Android will be offered as standard in cars and the system will have to take care of not distracting the driver too much. Or may be there already is a system API restricting certain applications from popping up on screen when the device is in motion?

Android Car Infotaiment System

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Being impatient by nature, I decided not to wait for car manufacturers to introduce Android - equipped models (which will inevitably come to market in the near future). I ripped away the old navigation system in my Subaru Forester and replaced it with the ViewSonic ViewPad 7 Android tablet. It took me good two days of work, and as you see on the photo on the right, there is still some finishing masking to be done. But the upgrade is working and it opens a new chapter of bringing together the Android OS and my car.

"Why the ViewsSonic?", you may ask. Well, the choice has been driven here by the size factor alone. It simply fits the best the original Subaru dashboard console. I wanted it to look as close to the factory - installed system, as possible. Anything looking different always attracts unnecessary attention (you know what I mean...). Then there was the short list of other requirements: capacitive touch screen and built-in GPS receiver. And a few nice - to - have's like an on-board 3G modem and a microSD card slot. The ViewPad 7 has them all. The only thing missing is an USB OTG connector, limiting my storage options to the single microSD card (32GB).

The ViewSonic integrates as close as possible with the car. The most important function - being able to start when I start the ignition and suspend turning the screen off is built into the system. Under the Applications -> Debugging menu there is the [Stay Awake] option. When turned on it makes sure the screen will never sleep while charging. This way it turns on and off just like the original system used to. Of course I had to provide a 12V charger, but the ViewSonic charges via the USB port, so just about any car charger does the job. It also has two very good speakers, giving very good sound for system interaction and navigation functions. Obviously not enough for multimedia output, but this will be done by connecting the 3.5mm audio output jack to the car stereo.

Bringing Android on board brings a completely new experience. May functions you would dream of having installed even in the most expensive models are here out of the box. As I said there is a 3G modem, so the thing obviously is connected and on-line. Which allows me using the built-in Google Navigation as a standard tool. With all the goodies like the traffic layer, showing the road congestion and traffic jams real-time. You can even drag traffic shortcuts of the most popular destinations to the home screen, so it shows real time route estimates based on current road conditions. One look and I know it will take me 39 minutes to drive home from wherever I am at the moment. Or you can even drive in the satellite mode, admiring the panning overview of the streets around you. I have not tried the street view yet, but it must be fun too! The last but not least is the Glympse app, handy when we will be traveling in a group of cars.

Of course I have the [Tethering & portable hotspot] enabled too, so the car operates a WiFi cloud on its own, enabling the passengers to use their tablets or other WiFi gadgets to connect to the Internet.

Finally I will be looking at gadgets like the Bluetooth OBDII interface. When paired with the ViewSonic it will be able to deliver fantastic real - time dashboard using the Torque App.

Autonomous Flight

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Humans fail. Computers do so too. But there is a difference. We are able to improve computers a lot. While we won't be improving humans that much.

Aviation is the area where computers have been introducing the biggest changes. I would even say computers allow the modern aviation to exist. From design of aircrafts through handling the air traffic through handling the operations of airlines. Nothing would be possible today, have we turned the machines off.

It is also impossible to fly a modern aircraft without a computer. The fact is pilots today operate computers that operate an aircraft. And in most cases the planes fly themselves. Humans are needed to go through a printed checklist and handshake some verbal commands with ground staff. Still verbal, because there is no unified digital plane-to-earth interface in place.

Humans seem today like artificially introduced parts of the system. Almost unnecessary. And they fail. Human error has been by far the most common cause of all aviation incidents and accidents. Computer failures were hitting the headlines, when they occurred. But they no longer do. Today it is either a fatal mechanical failure (in minority of cases) or human failure (in vast majority of cases, like the recent YAK-42 crash). And we also have failures of communications between computers and humans, the AF447 being the crown example.

There is nothing today preventing us from introducing pilot-less planes. We have mature technology able to take off, fly and land any plane. It is just a matter of putting all the pieces together. Backup systems. Remote supervision. Cryptography securing the earth-to-plane communications. Telemetry. Proliferation of advanced ILS systems on most airports. Ultimately we will have to convince passengers that pilot-less planes are safer, because nobody will mess with the computers. In the meantime there is the cargo segment that will be on the leading edge. UPS and FedEx already have the most advanced air traffic handling systems in their Louisville (SDF) and Memphis (MEM) hubs. Technologies like ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) and CDAs (Continuous Descent Approaches) have been researched and developed by those parcel shipping companies (not military nor government!). They result in increased safety, reduced fuel burn and reduced flight time, but completely rely on computers. Even the best human pilot, not assisted by these systems, would not be capable of safely approaching SDF or MEM in the crowd of hundreds of computerized planes around.

Autonomously flying planes will revolutionize private / personal transportation too. Look. It is MUCH easier to build a plane that flies itself, than a car that drives itself. A plane does not need to follow a road, stop on traffic lights, watch for pedestrians. It just needs an air traffic avoidance system (which is much simpler than an road traffic avoidance system) and instrumented landing pads. High skills needed to become a pilot have been the main roadblock in widespread expansion of personal aviation. So has the lack of experience of many private pilots resulting in tragic accidents. But when computers take over the cockpits, anybody will be able to fly.

Looking at the timeline ahead of us, I think we will have autonomous cargo flying over our heads in this decade. And then may be it will take until 2025 for passengers to board an autonomous plane. But it will happen. And I am already lining up to be one of the first passengers on such a flight. In the end, does it really differ from riding an automated elevator to the 35th floor in a hotel or an apartment building?

USB Power To Go

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Using USB as a power supply has been a theme on this blog since its inception back in 2006. At that time I coined the Universal Supply Bus term and have been watching the world adopting my idea. Well, not exactly my idea, as the idea of providing power together with signalling and data on a single universal connector has been invented long ago, and USB just made it widely popular. Designers went even to the extreme with products like AA cels charging directly from USB bus. What has helped recently was the EU and GSMA directives promoting the use of Micro USB as a standard communication and charging connectors.

Powering mobile devices is a problem that has not been solved yet, despite being central to the wildly growing market of power hungry mobile devices. Today's standard is a day of work on a charge. It is the minimum that can be offered. Nobody will buy a mobile phone that lasts half a day. And we all assume devices have to be charged overnight. Which is acceptable, as long, as there is power available overnight.

The problem is when something happens, and there is no overnight power. And usually when it happens you would like to use your mobile more intensively. Examples? Winter is coming to the northern hemisphere. Which means sudden weather changes, often resulting in closed airports. I happened to spend a number of nights at airport gates on several occasions. Before that you usually stand in a long line to a transfer desk. And standing in this line you see people desperately trying to make calls and send messages to rearrange their schedules, while their batteries just die. And added to the mess in inadequately small number of wall power sockets available at airports. They were planned for vacuum cleaners, not for charging passengers' iPhones.

Recently I have discovered a nice lineup of portable emergency backup batteries made by Energizer. They cleverly address the problem of depleted mobile power. Conceptually they are simple products. Rechargable batteries with USB sockets. Charge them and then use as a power source to recharge your gadgets later on. They come in variety of sizes. I picked the XP4001 (pictured above), for two reasons. One - it has a decent 4000mAh capacity (an average mobile phone battery is 1500mAh, as a reference point, so this one would be able to fully charge a phone twice). And two - it has two outputs, able to charge two devices simultaneously.

I have to say I do like the concept a lot. And generally I like the product. Unfortunately it has one disadvantage, I have to warn my readers about. It comes with an own charger (yes, yet another charger!). Which would not be bad in itself, but the charger, although rated at 5V (1500mA), is not a USB charger. It uses a custom round pin instead, which I consider very stupid. Later when I have time I will try to make a small adapter cable and try one of a dozen of USB chargers I already have and use. This is not the case with the smaller ones (like the XP2000 model) - they have Mini (not Micro!) USB charging inputs. Energizer probably worried about the current required to charge the bigger battery (the supplied charger is rated at 1500mA, while a typical USB port is rated at only 500mA). But as USB charging standard has been adopted by all tablet vendors, many of them supply chargers able to deliver even 2000mA (like the iPad or the Samsung Galaxy USB chargers).

Goodbye BlackBerry

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

My BlackBerry Torch did not make it to the next generation. I am switching to Android. The decision is made. And some post mortem afterthoughts below.

First, I have to be clear, my initial decision to make a BlackBerry my primary mobile device three years ago was in part driven by curiosity (let's try this...!), and in part (the more significant part) by the fact BlackBerry was the only smartphone platform back then supporting UMA, or calls over WiFi. I cried a river over UMA, especially after Orange decided to turn the service off last June. Something I can explain only by huge misunderstanding and mishandling by the MNO. But simply after UMA had been turned off, my incentive to continue with BlackBerry has significantly diminished. As most of the users, I started judging the platform without any UMA - derived handicap over the others. And the advantages did not and do not look that strong.

Actually I have started seeing more disadvantages of sticking with the BlackBerry platform. There have been two major ones.

The first - carrier control and overcomplicated handling of network connections. Not digging into technical details, it is enough to say many BlackBerry applications do not work, because the MNOs do not allow them to. One such example have been Glympse. It simply would not work on Orange PL network, period. There were also numerous cases when applications refused to work when no GSM network was present (WiFi alone did not suffice for things like the BlackBerry AppStore). It does not feel good when there is connectivity and you cannot make use of it, because the platform requires another *specific* type of connection. And it is a nuisance to have to check with the MNO whether particular app works or not.

The second disadvantage is the lack of Apps. Yes, I have been a long time HTML-5 advocate, drinking the "you don't need an app for the Web" cool aid. But the HTML-5 reality is not here. At least not yet. There are no decent HTML-5 equivalents of applications like Skype, Evernote, Google Reader or Schwab mobile banking, to name just a few I use every day. Google Reader is I think the best indicator of HTML-5 affairs. By design and function, this is the app that should be the crown example of HTML-5 craftsmanship. Yet Google has just released the new version of the app, which by the way is phenomenal. But this is an app, not a HTML-5 web page. So if Google cannot make a good HTML-5 Reader, we are still far from the mainstream HTML-5 adoption.

So why didn't I go for the iPhone then? Two reasons. The first one is religious. I simply do not buy the Apple mantra 100%. I do not like to feel like a lemming. For all my life I have been choosing less popular, but promisingly more exciting paths. The iPhone today is too easy a choice. I wanted something more unique. The second reason is very practical. iPhones do not have and will never have physical keyboards, and I somehow just can't use the touch one.

Considering the above, the only choice has been Android. Fortunately there are just a few Android handsets with QWERTY keyboards. I picked the Sony Xperia Pro. It is a lovely phone. Light, with round edges, fits nicely in a pocket. Fast Qualcomm 8255 chip inside. High resolution screen. Slide out physical keyboard. Good camera. The web browser is very fast and capable, including Flash. Apps work great, the Google Reader being my absolute favorite.

Cons? There are two.

The expected one is battery life sucks. But so it does on the latest BlackBerry Bold. Seems like I need a USB, rechargeable emergency battery (which will be the subject of the next week's post). But so do the iPhone 4s users to survive the night after a busy day. Otherwise I consider the Xperia Pro, and Android as a platform in particular, a huge step forward.

The unexpected one is Sony elected to use 3.5mm headphones with incompatibly wired jack. It is 3.5mm, but does not work with iPods, iPhones, ThinkPads, MacBooks and all single-jack Airliners (including the dual-to-single jack airline adaptors). Geeezzzz... It is difficult to comment, but yes, this is Sony Style. Over the years they have never learned being compatible is the way to go...

Goodbye Outlook

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:55:00 +0000

Exactly three years ago I noted there was no alternative for Microsoft Outlook. But this is no longer true. I have been using GMail for ages. For my private email address. For business, however, it took much longer to migrate. In my case it even took selling one company (the one using Outlook) and setting up a new one (the one that does not). OK this is a bit of irony. But the truth is at our new startup we are extremely, extremely happy with the Google Apps cloud service. We keep on discovering new things almost every day. It is hard to imagine people are still sending themselves DOC and XLS files as attachments. And that after a long editing work they are being asked "Save your changes"? This 30-year old paradigm of editing FILES looks very arcane today. But it still exists at the very heart of the world's most popular Office suite.

But back to the Outlook. As I posted in 2008, the really last thing I was using it for was contact management. It was simply a backup and consolidation place for all my devices using my contacts database. Windows Phone could sync to Outlook. Nokia could sync to Outlook. BlackBerry could sync to Outlook.

But recently I have started mulling on moving from BlackBerry to Android. The reasons are for one of the next posts, but today just worth mentioning is what has been keeping me back from doing that step. Migration of the contacts database. I have close to 1000 entries in it, quite decently organized. With current emails, phone numbers and addresses, where possible. And I have also switched to a new computer recently, where I installed Word and Excel but no Outlook. And I never installed the BlackBerry Desktop software on it either.

Yesterday morning It still seemed I would need to do both steps (BlackBerry Desktop and Outlook) to move my contacts database. But then it dawned on me there was an application called Google Sync. I used to use it for synching my calendar between Google/GMail and the BlackBerry. But it also had a "Synchronize contacts" option I had never turned on. So I flipped the switch.

After about ten minutes I had 922 new contacts in my GMail Contacts database. All nice and clean with all fields and pictures attached. Then I ran the "Merge duplicates" function which shrunk the list by 140 entries. And another flick of the switch on my Android tabled did the trick. They all moved nicely over to the Android device. Voila! No desktop software involved and no Outlook. This is what I call Cloud.

The era of desktop data is passing today. Whatever I have on my machine is a cache of what sits there in the cloud. Picasa photos. Youtube videos. Evernote notes and Dropbox folders. Gmail and Google Docs on top of it all.

What I am still missing is a synced copy of the state and configuration of my machine. Installed apps and metadata. Like on the Android phones and tablets and now even on the iOS devices. But I heard this is coming in Windows 8. Will be interesting to try this out!

Consumerism

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 17:26:00 +0000

A week ago I did a quick jump across the Atlantic to attend the 2011 Singularity Summit. It was a fantastic event, well worth spending two days on a plane. I arrived in New York late Thursday evening. The Summit was on Saturday and Sunday, so having Friday time to spare, I strolled down the streets of the city. Very crowded streets. Seems like a lot of people have a lot of time to spare on Friday morning. Shops were overcrowded. I was standing for more than an hour in line just to get into the 5th Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch. There was nothing special inside. A&F as usual, only crowded and the crowd storming the shop from outside. I kept going towards the Cube Apple Store, where I saw even bigger crowd. Ah - the iPhone 4S - I realized. But they were lining outside the store, while others were walking inside. I soon realized the store had run out of the iPhones. As I did not want to buy an iPhone, I could get in. It was completely crowded inside. I quickly went out. The crowd was still waiting for the new 4S supplies. Seems like a lot of people have a lot of time to spare on Friday morning. And a lot of money too.

And then it dawned on me. The trend I did not identify some years ago, when it must have started. Consumerism. Exactly what has propelled Apple to the market cap reaching 400 billion dollars.

Steve Jobs might have sensed this back around 2000. Or might have not. But building a company entirely focused on consumers was the winning bid. Poor Microsoft. They still target most of their products to businesses. And it makes a difference.

Consumers are chasing the shiny beads. They do not have budgets to fit into. They do not have CFOs nor financial controllers. They desire. They will line for hours or days to get the latest and greatest just to get bored with what had been glittering just a few days before. And then will rush for the new ones. The must have's. Shortening the replacement cycles. No money to spend? No problem. Here is your new credit card. The greedy banks obviously want to ride the derived wave of the spending cycle.

Everything is cyclical. I don't know how far we are in this consumerism cycle. So this is not the moment I would be willing to bet my own dollars on consumer oriented companies. After all, Apple, the biggest tech company on Earth, could disappear completely tomorrow and nothing would happen. Nothing at all. Everything would continue working as usual. Planes would continue flying. McDonalds serving hamburgers. Shops and banks would be open. We would only lose the excitement and hope for new shiny beads.

I think the tide will be turning. It may not be the next year and even not the next after. But I have this feeling of highly elevated irrationality. And we will get down to earth. Gotta get done some serious work again. Return to the Moon. Fly to Mars. Manage nuclear fusion. Conquer diseases. And there is no app for that.

Buying A New Laptop - Fall 2011 Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:42:00 +0000

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day shopping for a new laptop. And I have to admit this was one of the most difficult research tasks I have had recently. And the results of my research have been most surprising, especially after I found the key element, which is 2537M. Remember this symbol, and here is the story.

Up till today I have been using the already famous on this blog Nokia Booklet 3G. The Booklet has been outstanding in several aspects, with its crown features being the 12-hours battery life in a sub 3 lbs, 19mm unibody package. My personal edition of the Booklet has also featured the ultimate storage speed and security solution available - the 256GB FDE SSD drive. Unfortunately the Z530 Atom processor, while responsible with its 2W TDP for the 12 hours battery life, has been too slow for my recent needs, that are now extended far beyond simple Web browsing. Hence the need to upgrade.

I started with formulating the list of requirements in form of must-have's:

Displayport digital video out interface (I have the 27" Apple Cinema Display and it has only one input, which is mini displayport). Also, displayport unlike the HDMI, can route out analog signals for older VGA devices, like projectors.
256GB of SSD storage minimum (I already use around 200GB and do not want to scale back).
New generation processor (the primary reason for the upgrade)

And nice-to-have's:

A good screen with wide viewing angles (I will be partially working as a salesman now, so will often be presenting things to other people sitting by my side).
Long battery life (it is difficult to give back something you have already had)
High portability (having problems with my back, I prefer to travel as light as possible)

Somehow the most obvious step was selecting one of the MacBooks - either the Air or the Pro. Unfortunately there have been a number of cons preventing me from hitting the buy button at the online Apple Store:

No good support for Windows. Yes, there is the Bootcamp, which works very well on my current MacMini, but the biggest problem with Windows on a Mac laptop is poor support for the touchpad. It simply works inferior - bad acceleration settings ruin the experience.
The Airs have no replaceable SSD storage, so no way to use the hardware encrypted drive. Of course there is always the TrueCrypt software option, but I prefer to stay with the FDE option that has already passed my 4-year test.
Also the Airs have only the option of a glossy screen. For a moment I was considering the 15" Pro with the anti-reflective matte high resolution display option, but hey, buying a computer with a spindle CD drive in 2011 does not make sense to me. Apple has got rid of the CD drive in Mini, yet it maintains it still in the MacBook? This does not sound magical nor revolutionary. I suspect the entire Pro MacBook line will be refreshed in the near future. Especially the CD option is very arcane these days.

So doing several quite simple searches I found out my list of requirements limits my choices a lot. Which is good. There is just a handful of vendors offering modern highly portable laptops with displayport interface. One of them is Lenovo, which inspired my smile, as I had several Lenovo ThinkPad laptops in the past and always loved them. The choice seemed simple. The X1. Thin, light, fast, all the modern goodies in (including the gorilla glass display), the lovely touchpoint and user replaceable drive. I almost bought it last Friday. But then the warning signs came in. The gorilla glass does not improve on anything in a laptop, but brings a lot of reflections and collects fingerprints. The screen, while bright, lacks contrast. The battery life is mediocre. And the price is high. Sigh.

In despair I looked at the specs of the Lenovo X220. Displayport - check. Intel Sandy Bridge i5 - check. User replaceable drive - check. Battery life - surprisingly good. Weight - inder 3 lbs. Screen - small, matte, and - reports say - very good IPS with very wide looking angles. I started checking on more reviews in deep. Especially informative is the one by NotebookCheck, where I learned the X220 can have either very good or a very bad screen. The difference is 40 Euro. Unfortunately most shops offering the machine did not reliably list which one they actually sell. I ended up tracking this key difference to "Premium HD" attribute and then double checking with the Lenovo site.

And then I realized there were three processor options. The most common i5-2520 (2.5GHz), the high end i7-2620 and the suspiciously looking i5-2537 running at only 1.4GHz, which was slightly more expensive than the 2.5GHz one. Strange indeed. I started digging deeper, going to Intel.com. So what you basically see there, is the 2537 consumes 17W of power, while the 2520 is rated at 35W peak. This is a HUGE difference. Assuming the X220 has 63Wh battery, the 18W difference is worth 3.5 extra working hours!!! Meaning the X220 may reach 10 hours in a sub - 3 lbs package. I was sold. The last step was to check if the performance of the i5-2537 CPU will be adequate to my needs. It seems it will, as all reviews I could find refer to the performance of the chip as "very snappy".

So in short, the result of my research is NYD2TPB, which is the model number for the Lenovo ThinkPad X220 I selected, featuring the 2nd generation ultra low voltage Intel Core i5 CPU, the 2537.

Looking at what I described above, I can only feel sorry for average consumers, who are likely to shell out hard earned dollars for a computer very similar to the one I selected. Yet they have a big chance to get something suboptimal to say the least, with poor screen and a shorter battery life. Even Apple with its, many would say easy understandable, product line, does not help here. I am sure in the not distant future they will release a refresh to the MacBook line, featuring the i5-2537 chips, or the newer i5-2557 siblings.

In the meantime, when you shop for a laptop, look for the 2537 CPU first. This is the key that will open a new level of mobile computing satisfaction for you. Also the choice, as of today, will be fairly limited, probably just to Lenovo or the Samsung 9-series. Which is good and simplifies the decision process a lot.

Why The Rush And Impatience?

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 09:48:00 +0000

Unfinished products rushed out of the door plague us. We are tired. And not many seem to notice. The accelerated pace of innovation has been what we like. But the problem with the shortening design / products cycle is it does not improve the overall quality and satisfaction. I have posted around this subject many times here on this blog. It is the ROI thing. And being the number one. And delivering value to shareholders. You have to be fast. Or may be not?

There are countless examples of products rushed out of the door just because they were expected. Both by shareholders and by markets. Probably the most famous of the last decade was Windows Vista. Delayed and delayed and yet released way to early. Looking from today's perspective, who really needed it? The Vista failure cut the value of Microsoft by a lot. It frustrated customers, accelerating the migration from Windows to MacOS.

The opposite example is Apple. The market was disappointed with the iPad 2. Calling it even the iPad 1.5. Now everybody expected the iPhone 5, getting the 4S instead. Hey, what is wrong with the original iPad 1? Do you REALLY need a new one? Ditto the iPhone 4. It is one of the finest devices human civilization has ever made. And you have had it for a year now. And you want a completely new one? Why?

I try to pull some brakes on this madness. There is no point of chasing the latest and greatest every quarter or two. Especially as the new ones, are often not fully finished products. Earning bad reviews and disappointing users and shareholders. In today's world it does not make sense to come up with a product that is not significantly better and clearly differentiated from the siblings on the market. Otherwise it is a wasted effort and lost opportunity.

And a look from a little different, but aligned perspective. Being a startup, you do not have many chances to appear on a stage in full limelight. So before you do, make sure what you present will absolutely delight the crowd. Or your opportunity will be lost.

And a footnote. 20 years ago I wrote a good piece of software. At that time it was state-of-the-art, DOS-based. Then 10 years ago I sold the company. And just last year alone the company had record revenues selling this 20-years old software. Not all is what it seems. And very often the value is the opposite of the new. And it not only applies to wine :)

Evernote

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:13:00 +0000

For years I have been refraining from installing extra applications on my systems. Basically trying to live within a browser. It started long time ago with GMail. GMail has taught me using the browser as an application. Since then I have been typing documents and created spreadsheets in Google Docs. Only occasionally reverting to local apps, like PowerPoint for presentations or Visio for drawings and diagrams. Even for mind mapping I have been using the MindMeister.COM. Web platforms have one brilliant advantage over desktop. multiplatform access, collaboration and sharing. It is much easier to share a Google Docs spreadsheet than its Excel equivalent. And you get versioning as a free bonus. With Excel, you still have to maintain file naming conventions and us email as a transport layer.

But one of the big disappointments of the Google Android Honeycomb tablet platform I have been using recently on the Samsung Galaxy Tab has been very poor support for Google Docs. Honeycomb has some very nice applications. The GMail app is fantastic, especially with the support for multiple accounts and contexts. The Reader app is another I love and use every day. Both are perfectly optimized for the tablet experience. Unfortunately the Google Docs app is not. It is and old style application targeted at phones, not tablets and it has very poor support for the editing process.

So I set out on a quest to find a new solution for organizing notes (which I was hoping to use the Google Docs for, but failed). A lot of friends recommended the Evernote, so I have given it a try. First I thought it does not make sense to invest in a cloud platform that is not owned by one of the big guys. After all one day they may shut down the business and users will be left stranded. But it seems Evernote has already reached the critical mass and even if its business fails, somebody will pick it up just to grab the huge user base. The other aspect of the Evernote is it has client apps for every platform. Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Blackberry. And I have to say the Android tablet version is probably the best of the set. I tried Evernote on the iPad but it was crashing quite frequently. Honeycomb version is rock solid (which by the way may have to do with the platform itself - it is MUCH easier to write a good app for Android compared to iOS). Windows version is not bad too, after you learn how to handle it. It continuously messes with formatting, so the rule of the thumb has been to keep the notes as simple as possible. Plain text, little use of fonts and other styles. Works fine for me. The Blackberry version is not that great, but it allows to edit the notes on the phone, while the Google Docs do not. And this was the most important reason I started using the Evernote.
I live entangled in threads. Keeping multiple contexts open at all time. I think many of us do. This by the way is the way we live and communicate today - one of the observations I made at the last eComm conference. It used to be single - context sessions (phone calls), each having a beginning and an end. Today it is multiple threads that never end. So you have to do context switching and the less overhead the switch imposes, the more efficient your work is.

So back to the Evernote - it is a perfect application supporting multiple threads and context switching. I keep about twenty active threads. Some are related to my daily job, as a CEO of an ambitious startup I have to take care and track a lot of threads and even "fibers" within them. Then I have my hobbies, which are related to my daily business, but I keep them somehow separated. Then there are many other threads, like my investments, finances, long term projects and new emerging ideas. Every now and then my brain raises an interrupt signal when one of the threads running in the background of my head requires attention. Usually there are some big or small ideas I have to put down. With Evernote, regardless where I am and what device I use the the moment, I can quickly get to the relevant note and update it. And it all gets synchronized in the background, so I can get back later to whatever I need anytime and anywhere. Not thinking of saving the documents, synchronizing them and retrieving back on the other devices. I would still prefer to use a purely web - based solution for that, and I think Evernote will one day come up with a good HTML-5 client. After all maintaining all the separate platforms must be a huge resource drain for them. In my business I have just two platforms - Android and iOS and keeping them in sync feature - wise is a headache. They have much more.

By the way, in this context I am happy the PalmOS went bust (Amazon, please do not buy it!), and I am happy BlackBerry is going down too (drop the QNX and adopt the Android, PLEASE!!!!). Also Microsoft not gaining much audience for the Windows Mobile 7 is a good thing too. I understand the civilization may need more than one application platform, to maintain competition. But having more than two starts to be a big headache.

My Samsung Tab Is A Convertible!

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:00:00 +0000

As promised, I got myself the Samsung Bluetooth keyboard case for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Even before ordering the accessory, I had had mixed feelings about it. But I had the urge to test drive this new approaching paradigm of convertible mobile computing. So to be fair with my review, I am typing this post on the keyboard equipped Tab.

The first thing that surprised me when I unpacked the case (and to be honest, the one that surprised me the most!) have been the four rubber feet standing out from the four edges of the keyboard. Rubber feet are not unusual, but here they are on the upper side, not underneath the keyboard. First I thought they are there to protect the screen when folded (which is probably true). But then it dawned on me I can have the keyboard upside down. I mean you can fold it 350 degrees out to form a stand for the tablet. Wow this is smart. The true convertible. Exactly the setup I have been looking for. It can be a tablet (keyboard acting simply as a stand with a tilt). Or it can be a notebook.

After the second paragraph I have to say typing on the physical keyboard is very good. Way better compared to the on-screen touch one. So the investment is worth the money and the bulk. Yes it adds considerable bulk to the package. The Tablet itself is very thin and light. And the keyboard case is more or less of the same weight as the tablet. Bundled together they weigh almost the same and have the size almost identical as the Nokia Booklet or the 11-inch MacBook Air. With one difference. For laptops you need a case. And here the keyboard is THE case. Plus. There usually is no power supply to carry around with a tablet. I mean I obviously do carry one. But it is very small and light and has a thin and light cable and I can use it to recharge my phone too. It is a small, 10W - class charger. With a laptop you usually carry an extra 50W - class charger. Which is big an heavy and has thick and heavy cables.

One may ask what is the deal then, when the tablet+keyboard package is physically approaching a modern ultralight system with a fully blown OS? Well, I am asking this question myself, as this is still an experiment. There are two notable differences. The first is the OS itself. Setting aside the iOS vs Android argument for a moment, both mobile operating systems are really optimized for mobile use. Instant power on, applications better designed to be operated on the road, it is somehow easier to use an iOS or Android device outside the office desk, than their full blown alternatives like MacBooks or Windows laptops. Evernote, for example, (which desires a blog post of its own) is much more polished on Android than it is on Windows. Touch browser is fine on an airplane in the economy, while the fully unfolded laptop requires a business class fare.

So far so good. The convertible design and the typing experience are definitely on the bright side. But there are areas where the tablet + keyboard package does not shine at all. Even frustrates. Like the popping on-screen keyboard. It shows up every time I touch the screen within a typing area. Or move a cursor with a mouse and click. Looks like the Honeycomb (Android 3.1) does not understand there is a physical keyboard attached and pops a virtual one of its own. Irritating. Then there is a conflict with a Bluetooth mouse. It seems like either the Samsung Tab or the Android OS cannot properly handle two Bluetooth input devices at a time. When the keyboard is connected, the mouse movements become erratic and even interfere with the keyboard itself (with a symptom of lots of repeated keystrokes). It works all fine when I connect a non-Bluetooth wireless mouse via a USB dongle receiver, but such setup, while works great, looks ridiculous, especially as connecting the USB dongle to the Galaxy Tab requires yet another dongle (30-pin system connector - to - USB). Hopefully the multiple Bluetooth input devices issue is a software one and will be fixed in the next release of Android. The final aspect , I do not feel comfortable with, is the flexible connection between the keyboard and the tablet. Of course this is by design, but makes using the device as a laptop (keeping it on the laps with the screen up) almost impossible. You have to fold the keyboard and use it as a rest and work with the virtual one. Especially as the physical one is not backlit and it turns out most on-the-laps use cases are in dimmed environment.

Also while a considerable amount of details of the keyboard case seem to be very well designed, there are some strange shortcuts. The case - which is obvious - fits the Galaxy Tab 10.1 perfectly. But for instance it comes with its own micro-USB charger, which is completely weird. Samsung must have been thinking about such keyboard case when designing the Tab. So why didn't they furnished a micro-USB charging port on the side of the Tab, so they could provide a Y-splitter with the keyboard, saving the bulk of a charger? These are things Apple would never lt out. They care to the finest detail. And that is why they win. Samsung should note.

I will be using the tablet + keyboard package for a while, to fully asses the usability of the approach. But for the moment, although being one of the finest combinations on the market today, I have a feeling a simple laptop is much more comfortable. Especially as a packages like the Nokia Booklet I have been using for more than a year now, or the 10-inch MacBook Air offer a huge step forward in overall productivity. But they are more expensive. And a tablet is more convenient to browse the Web at a coffee table.

So as you see... a tablet with a keyboard is really like a convertible. No roof by design. Enjoy the ride. But when you have enough of the elements, you may hide under a roof. Obviously that comes for a price and with a roof on, the overall package is less ideal than a traditional sedan.

May be... just may be... the next MacBook Air will be touch enabled. And will allow the keyboard to fold 350 degrees out, acting as a tilted stand for the screen? It seems like with a help from Samsung I have just found the new magical and revolutionary formula for a portable computer, AD2012...

Ah and BTW may be in 2012 Apple will port the built-in 3G modem option from the iPad to the MacBook too?

Touching The Pain Of Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:50:00 +0000

All our smart and mobile platforms are about sharing content, right? Wrong! I mean, that is what they are supposed to be, but do not deliver.

Most of the time it is about as simple task as selecting a piece of text, copying it to a clipboard and pasting later somewhere else (an email message or a Twitter post). And we have to admit all the leading mobile OS platforms have it wrong. Apple did not support copy / paste at the very beginning of the iPhone era. Similarly Microsoft, with the first release of Windows Phone 7. Android (excluding the Honeycomb 3.1 and up) up till today does not provide any way to select a piece of text on a web page.

Later on, both Apple and Google have added the select / mark / copy / paste to their OSes. But this is such a pain on a touch - only device. To do it right you would have to use a pencil sharpener to sharpen your index finger. By the way text selection using a good old mouse paradigm is such a delight, especially when you have just come back from the "touch" world. This is exactly why I was so excited when my mouse, after successfully pairing with the Android tablet, displayed a cursor on the screen.

And to be honest the only mobile platform, that have had the select / mark / copy / paste right from the beginning, has been the Blackberry. Yes. The currently dying Blackberry. And this is 50% of the reason I decided to stay with the Blackberry for the time being. The other 50% is the mechanical QWERTY keyboard.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - And What I Like About It

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Over the last two weeks I have been finally able to spend some more time with my first Android Honeycomb tablet - the [now banned] Samsug Galaxy Tab 10.1. I posted my first impressions more than two months ago and I have to say it has been consistently exceeding my expectations. So much that now going back to the iPad is like a step back in many areas. Nuff said. Now for the details.

Honeycomb Android supports Adobe Flash Player. Not that I really like flash on web pages, but often I just cannot go without. What is a web page worth when it has the content you look for, embedded as a Flash object, and you are on an iPad. Bad luck. But not on the Android. It plays just about any flash content. Of course including the old fashioned Flash popup ads. By the way they can be easily taken care of - the browser has an option to activate Flash plugins on demand. So it is up to what you click on. An embedded movie will play and the ads will not show.

While I find the built-in browser very good, some people prefer the Dolphin. Dolphin is an alternative to the built-in Android browser and just underlines the beauty of the open system. You are free to plug anything. No Steve Jobs will tell you what is right and what is wrong.

Android Honeycomb has very nice system of notifications. They appear silently on the status bar and when clicked tell you what they have got to tell you. No distracting, very informative, perfectly handled.

As a heavy Google user, another thing I really like is multiple Google account integration throughout the system. I have registered my two accounts - the private @gmail.com and my business account running as Google Apps for Domains service. For each account I can select what gets synchronized to the device. Most applications make switching back and forth between the accounts a snap. Not just email. Everything. Calendar. Picasa albums. Reader. And so on.

Speaking of Picasa albums. I have been using the service since my early days of digital photography. I have all my photos there. So what was my surprise, when after providing the device with my Google account credentials all the photos went automagically down to the Tab. No wires. No iTunes. Nothing. Just the account information supplied once at the beginning of the device setup process.

The Google Reader. It has been my most used application for years, on all laptops and desktops. The personalized information hub. Reader is a joy on the Tab, thanks to the new Honeycomb - optimized application. It works seamlessly. Walking through my feeds by means of the up/down hardware volume buttons is like reading a book on the Kindle. Easy and enjoyable.

All those ohs and ahs still have not been enough for the Tab to replace my faithful Nokia Booklet Windows 7 laptop. The reason? With all the hype about touch screens, they are difficult to work with when you want to share or create content. Typing on a physical keyboard is always faster (less typos) and a mouse cursor is really helpful when you want to select a part of text or a web address. Text selection using even the best finger touch on the planet is a painful and slow task. Easily beaten by even the worst and oldest and dirtiest mouse.

So what was my surprise yesterday, when I managed to pair a Bluetooth mouse with the tablet. And guess what. It has a cursor now!!! A real cursor - an arrow moving around the screen, following the motions of the mouse. Boy, what a difference it makes. Like a turbocharger. I also tried a Bluetooth keyboard, and I can see it works too. The Android Tab + mouse + keyboard is as close to become my next laptop as can be. Productivity restored. I have decided to try adding the keyboard case and try how it goes. With a mouse should make a decent on the road desktop replacement. I rarely need the power of Intel Core to browse the Web or type a message or a blog post. But I do care about battery and weight. Should this setup prove to be right, I would then opt for a bigger laptop (like 15 inch) to use as my primary home machine (plugged to a big screen of course).

The bottom line: with the Honeycomb release and hardware like the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, Android has finally caught iOS. Even more. It has overtaken iOS in many areas. Apple may try to chase Samsung in courts, but this stupid game will not stop the Android army to continue marching. Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, HTC... Too many of them. Apple would better start to innovate again, as lawyers alone will not be enough for it to last . Will retina iPad be enough? Well... I would love to have that kind of screen resolution, but it may not be enough. We need more freedom. We don't need no thought control...

Android@Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:06:00 +0000

The ongoing IFA exhibition in Berlin has been entirely stolen by Android. Following the news it was difficult to spot anything that was not related to a release of a new Android tablet. All the big names have been there, with Samsung leading the pack.

The war of tablets is the most intense. There are basically two contenders. Apple, who without discussion holds the crown for creating the market and leading it by a huge margin. Then there is Android, supported by almost everybody else, but RIM, Microsoft, Nokia and HP. Android has already overtaken Apple. But the iPad is still probably the best tablet you can buy. Unfortunately for Apple, usually what really matters is not the current state, but the trend.

And the trend for Android is "to the Moon". It shows everywhere. In fully functional sub $200 designs like the Lenovo A1, in the dedicated book readers like the Nook and the upcoming Kindle and in the high end devices like the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 (I own one) and the all-new Samsung Galaxy 7.7 (I want one!). The iPad is RICH in apps and games and overall appeal. Android, on the other hand has the REACH. Galaxy (pun intended) of tablets to choose from. And there will be more.

From now on Apple versus Android will always be RICH versus REACH. Apple will continue to deliver absolutely top models with top design and top appeal. On the other hand Android will be everywhere.

Everywhere has even broader meaning. Because I am not talking only about tablets.

Few years from now Android will be in just about any electronic device you can think of. A car stereo (like the Parrot Asteroid). A TV set. A heating thermostat. A light bulb.

The age of M2M, or machine - to - machine communications is approaching quickly. All devices will want to be connected. To talk to each other. A thermostat wants the motion detector to tell it, if people are at home. If they are not, it will turn down the heating. Same for a light bulb.

Now for all those devices to connect, each of them has to essentially be a computer, with a software stack. Software stacks are expensive and difficult to implement. On the other hand Android is proven, ready and free. Anybody can grab it and put on their devices. An option hard to resist.

So yes, exactly the way Windows has been an OS for computers for almost 20 years, Android will be the OS for devices. There is no alternative and nobody can do anything about it. Which is good, because this way we have guaranteed interoperability. The devices will indeed talk to each other.

I am not sure if Google had such REACH in mind when it was buying Android a few years back. But I am certain that was exactly their thinking, when they announced the Android@Home initiative back in May 2011. And I am sure @Home will eventually mean almost @Everywhere.

Google / Motorola Afterthought

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:09:00 +0000

People have been saying Apple is the only company capable of forcing wireless carriers (MNOs) to decouple phones (terminals) and phone numbers from network access contracts. The truth is now Google is the other one. Commanding a huge user base, owning the Android OS, the Google Voice service, and now owning a mobile hardware division, Google definitely is in a position to release a decoupled device, with multiple physical, or even a virtualized SIM card slots. It would have a phone number associated with the Google account (not with a SIM card). And would use any network to complete calls.

I have a feeling the GSMA is today, where the record labels were, when the first iPod was released and MP3 took the world by storm. SIM cards in 2011 are, where CDs were in 2001. Obsolete products of the old era.

Gadgets In My Backpack

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:01:00 +0000

I had a wonderful sabbatical last July. Packed my backpack as light as possible (managed to squeeze everything below 20 lbs) and took off to Peru. So how it looked like from the perspective of electronic devices and what worked and what did not?

First of all - the 6" 3G/WiFi Kindle. It was great to have many books (including the Lonely Planet guide) in such a small and lightweight device. Perfect for long flights (Krakow - Frankfurt - Santo Domingo - Panama - Lima) and for long haul bus services in Peru. Kindle was also giving me a backup Internet access. All worked beautifully. Until I broke it. I must have squeezed it too hard in the backpack or something... Anyway at that point I realized how important it was to have paper backup copies of some important documents (like my flight tickets). Electronic platforms are great. But they are so easy to break.

The second access device was my faithful Blackberry Torch. Just after I landed in Lima, I realized my mobile carrier (Orange) does not have a data roaming agreement with any Peruvian operator. So just had to cancel the 100Mb world data package I ordered for this trip, as the data connection was not working. Initially, as any BlackBerry addict, I was feeling strange when the device was silent for an extended period of time. But just after few days I accommodated to the new conditions and never missed the continuous message reminders that clocked my life in the past. The good thing was there was WiFi almost everywhere. In the hotels, hostels, on the long haul buses and even in the jungle, via satellite. In general Blackberry can connect via WiFi, but for some reason the BlackBerry App World (application market) does not work without GSM signal. This sounds like a ghost from the past and is something that scares me whenever I think of buying a new Blackberry... The way they connect to the world is way too complicated... all those tunnels and servers in between...

Another example of how the Blackberry platform cripples application experience is Google Maps. You would think, with GPS on board and WiFi access, the Google Maps app will work. But it does not. It requires a GSM-based pipe (GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSPA), for some unknown reason. Ordinary TCP/IP via WiFi is not enough. Of course it works this way on Androids and iPhones but not on Blackberries. Scary...

I was missing a way to send / receive SMSes over WiFi. When you are out of GSM network and want to communicate with somebody who is not on the Internet (but has a mobile phone), you just cannot connect.

As I did not take my laptop with me, every now and then I was tempted to use one of the publicly available computers (in hostels). But in the end I never dared entering my primary Google password on an untrusted machine. I should have set up the recently introduced Google two - step verification before I left home. But I did not. Lesson learned and now I have it up and running.

I took my faithful FujiFilm FinePix S5-PRO DSLR camera with me. I was using it a lot, all the time with the attached GPS receiver. It is really fantastic to have all those photos geo-tagged automatically. Picasa makes a great job displaying them later on, with a map, or - better - a satellite photo of the place your photo was taken at. I was missing other ways to annotate the photos on the go too. Like attaching my Blackberry via Bluetooth to the camera and being able to both preview the photos on the device and type in comments / descriptions to be embedded into the original picture files. Digital content creation is still in the infancy. The megapixel race has been easy, but nobody (including the magical / revolutionary you-know-who) really thinks in terms of bringing together captured pixels, location, comments and other accompanying data and making it easy to preview, annotate and then share. Seems like a fantastic opportunity to explore, but unfortunately I do not believe the old school camera makers get it, may be Sony could, but I would not count on this in the near future...

Speaking of camera - related issues. When I have a GPS connected, why the time and time zone does not synch to the satellite clock? Of course I forgot to set the time zone before I left, so all photos are time shifted.

Also not having a backup of my photos was generating me some stress... Smartphones still lack USB host connectivity, so there is no way to duplicate camera content onto a smartphone. Cameras also do not have any backup features built -in. I am thinking of things like a slot for a second memory card and an option to copy everything from one card to the other. This is not difficult to build, but for some reason nobody sees the problem (or opportunity - think "differentiation"!!!) and we still have to use big computers to do such simple operations.

The last remark is about batteries. They do die fast. We took a family iPhone with us. It lasts barely 4 hours when used as a GPS (showing a moving map) or as a gaming console (kids playing Fifa 2011). I was using my Blackberry to type the travel log, and it had hard time surviving for two consecutive days without a charge. The good thing is both iPhone 4 and the Blackberry have a fast charging mode - more than half of the capacity is restored in a matter of 30 minutes or so. But still, taking the Berry for a 4-day Inka Trail trek, I was using it only in the evenings to type down the daily memories, and on the 4th day it was already blinking the red empty battery symbol. A three - week trip to places with no electricity at all would still have to rely on a Moleskine notebook and a pencil.

Sharing (Content, Apps) Among Devices

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Despite having wireless connectivity, the Cloud, Facebook, Google+, Dropbox and the entire galaxy of services that enable electronic sharing among people and devices, the user experience (believe it, or not) is still in its infancy. Just recall how "easy" it is to send a photo to a group of friends: take a snapshot with your camera, remove the memory card (or connect the camera to a computer using an USB cable), download it to a local hard drive, learn how to use a cloud service to upload the photo, get the url link to the uploaded copy and paste it to your email application, praying it will become "hot" when you click "send". Then on the other device click "check for new messages", and open the link (if it is not hot, select it - not an easy task on a mouseless device - and paste into the address field of the web browser.

Now imagine the possible alternative: you hold your camera, it is aware of the other displays in the neighborhood, you touch the photo being previewed and swipe it towards the other device. The process is shown starting exactly at 2:00 minutes on this video by TAT.

Back in 2007, at the Microsoft Imagine Cup student competition, I saw a system similar in concept. Called Oneworld, it allowed application sharing among devices by means of pushing and pulling open application windows to computers in the "neighborhood", where the neighborhood was defined in the virtual context (my left neighbor could have been anywhere in the world). So essentially I was (for instance) typing something in my Microsoft Word application and I could drag the open Word window to the right edge of my screen and it would start emerging on the left edge of the other machine's screen. Then the person operating the other machine would "pull" the window (this is a nice implementation of security protocol) to her screen. And after having a look at it, or after making some corrections the Word window would be handed back to me, I could continue typing and save the document.

Implemented at the operating system level such sharing mechanism could immediately enable all the existing applications available today. It is still a mystery to me why Microsoft did not take this idea and prototype developed by the inPUT team back in 2007 and did not make it a feature of Vista or the Windows 7.

Probably they are waiting for Apple to do this. Apple has just patented a similar sharing method, throwing pico projectors to the mix. So it is very likely one day Steve Jobs will be showcasing this as unique, magical and revolutionary. When he does this, just remember, the idea was first developed in Poland :). It is likely the history will repeat itself - after all the flash based, touch operated Business Memo by Univex developed in 1995 inspired the original iPod.

Waiting for the Amazon (Tablet!)

noreply@blogger.com (Szymon Slupik) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:26:00 +0000

As I wrote before, I took my 3G Kindle to my vacation trip to Peru. After my mobile data had been being cut off by Orange (no data roaming to Peru), the Kindle proved to be the great backup window to the world. It worked as expected, I was able to connect whenever I wanted over any 3G or EDGE network there (for free!) and also read the books I took with me, including the Lonely Planet guide. Until I broke it. I had it in my backpack and have no idea what happened. I must have sit on it or whatever... The display crashed and that was it. Quick realization of the importance of backups (like a paper copy of my flight tickets).

After returning home, I contacted Amazon, explaining what I did. They said they were very sorry, but not to worry, as they were shipping me a new one. For free, no questions asked. I talked to them last Tuesday, and the new Kindle arrived on Friday morning. Not a bad timing, considering I was sent from the USA and had to cross the Atlantic and clear the EU customs before it reached my home. Amazon instructed me to ship back the broken one and tell them my shipping costs, so they will refund even that. I have never expected such treatment, considering the broken Kindle was my fault. And I guess I will remain a very loyal customer of theirs. A huge quality - versus - ROI win for them.

To express my joy, on the same day I talked to Amazon, I ordered two new books. One of them right as a follow up to my Peruvian adventure - the Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. The book tries to explain the last 15 thousand years of human history and answer the question why Europeans dominated the New World. Especially of interest of mine has been, what is covered in the fist section: what exactly happened on November 16, 1532 in Cajamarca, where Pizarro with his 168 men conquered the Inka army of 80 thousand soldiers.

Reading the book, I found it helpful to have a map of the World to look up the places mentioned there. So I brought my iPad to the sofa and realized how stupid I had to look with two tablet - like devices, shuffling between them on my laps... I was reading the book on the Kindle, as it is by far the most convenient device to read an ebook (because of the e-ink matte screen). At the same time I was using the glossy bright iPad to operate the Maps application. Can't we have just one device to do this? Certainly we can, there is a software Kindle app for the iPad. But really the bright and glossy screen on the iPad is difficult on eyes for prolonged reading.

But Amazon is working on new Kindles and new tablets. So likely they will come up with something providing the best of both worlds? A best (can be monochrome) screen with some easy interactivity (touch) and a hassle - free, worldwide Internet connectivity, supported by purchases of content they provide?

Amazon is a content monster. Of course they have books. But remember, they also have an Android application store (which BTW may grow to be the biggest Google competition). And they are unique, already having negotiated worldwide data deals with mobile network operators. Three ingredients that combined together may really push them to the front of the crowded tablet market. Would not you want a tablet, that has a no contract, worldwide 3G connection, a screen visible in a sunlight, and a week long battery life? I would. And that combined with Amazon's policy on solving support issues (like my very own described above) would be a no-brainer purchase decision for me.