Incremental Blogger

Dan Farber writes about a presentation Microsoft’s Craig Mundie gave today on the future of computing.

Most of the things he mentions are pretty much bundled lists of things that exist today. Who knows though.

I’m not that good predicting things 10 years out, but he’s probably correct in constructing a future view out of today’s experimental realities.

Where this approach fails though, is to take into account the pragmatic engineering and business balances that will change over time.

Take something like computational transparency, for instance. Over the next 10-20 years will be see remote computation clusters providing much of our needed computer needs or might computer costs come so far down that each of us owns a slew of computers in our houses that are all networked together providing the computaton transparency we want. It all depends on the cost.

I’d also add that some things that would benefit us all in the digital realm have little to do with software per se. Take live video recordings/broadcasts. I expect to see more and more of them, however, no one has stepped up to the plate to address the mic/sound issues. We need wireless mic and cooperative/ad hoc mic array standards so that we can capture sound in videos just as well as the video. This is a big problem with video broadcasts online right now.

I also think some things in the future will see so trivial and obvious looking back, though unlikely looking forward.

Take automated cameras, for instance. What if we had “smart” cameras so a camera operator isn’t needed for many cases–you instead need the domain, a director’s model of what is to be recorded–and the “camera” does the rest. This seems like overkill today, but maybe some day the processes to achieve it will be so well understood, that it’ll seem like an incremental, trivial advance.

Here’s to the future.

The other day I blogged about how I’d like to see the OS support video (more specifically “enhanced” video) as a native data type to ease sharing and recording of desktop content directly. I’d also like to revisit another idea that I’ve blogged about before that’s also along these lines: I’d like to see direct audio recording supported on laptops, video cameras and mobile devices.

What do I mean by “direct audio recoding?” If I’m recording a talk and the speaker is using a wireless mic (in particular), I’d like to be able to record directly from the wireless mic to my device. Why record over the air in this electronic world when a simple electronic solution is practical and would produce much better results? How many times have you tried listening to a recording that some one’s made in a large class or at a conference and instead of hearing the speaker you hear those around the recording device whispering, adjusting their chair, typing, and the like?

Seems to me with wireless recording of audio every college student, conference goer, and reporter should have an appropriately equipped device. These are all three very attractive customers for OS vendors because they include influentials and new buyers. Kind of seems like a great differentiating “feature” for a company, doesn’t it? Imagine if Apple supported a standard like this? Imagine how much additional market they’d capture? Would we see reporters on TV holding up their iPhones all recording directly to their phone? Would we see even more college students using MacBooks?

How might this work? There are a couple possibilities.

One is to have a “sound server” that the speaker can plug into which digitizes the stream and broadcasts it in a stream over the network (WiFi/Internet) so it can be directly recorded locally. This might be a good way to go because it only requires a single hardware change on the broadcast side–at least for laptops. And, of course, it would require WiFi support in the recording devices, which is a reasonable assumption going forward for many devices.

There would need to be some additions on the device end, however. For laptops, Tablet PCs, and the like we’d need a way to record the live audio stream. Lots of possibilities here. An OS built in feature would make sense to me, but it could be an extension.

A downside to this approach is that it would place more stress on the network–particularly WiFi where there could be many users such as at an industry tech conference. WiFi at settings like this are already overloaded.

Another approach would be to add circuitry on each device that could record the audio. Unfortunately, it’s probably not practical to record from the mic itself. It may be of a proprietary format. Some of the companies that make the wireless technology aren’t going to want to make their technology cheaper and more accessible to the vast number of digital devices. They’re all focused on the high end, which makes sense. They have to be focused on quality for professional productions. Providing mass-market access is another game. 

One solution might be to add an FM-based repeater in the network and integrate FM-recorders on each device. This might be better in the sense that it would not load up WiFi networks and it’s more broadcast oriented than connection based. It wouldn’t matter how many people are recording. It could be 10 it could be 1000.  There are some USB FM digitizers on the market which hint at how much this might cost each supporting device. (I’m not sure if an FM-digitizer would consume less than a comparable WiFi-based one. That’s a question for the double Es.) I did try a simple experiment where I took an ultra-small FM radio and wired up its audio out to my Tablet’s audio in and then recorded some test broadcasting I did from a wireless mic. It worked OK although the range wouldn’t support large-hall uses.

So if this is such a good idea, why doesn’t it exist already? Well, essentially it does exist, in pieces at least. But the reason is simple and a couple fold: First, this is something that mobile devices really need. If you’re primarily using a tethered desktop, you’re unlikely to be anywhere that you might want to record “over the air.” That being said, we’ve all probably wanted to record audio/video streams over the network at some time. Unfortunately, this technology has been held back for various reasons in order to prevent people from recording online music or broadcasts. Silly though. This should not be a high-end feature. It should be made accessible to everyone and everywhere.

And I don’t just mean laptops, Tablets, MIDS. Video cameras should support features like this. While you’re video recording let’s say Bill Gates at a presentation, you should be able to switch the audio feed to come directly from the WiFi network or possibly some radio (FM) frequency. If the videographer wants crowd noise they’d turn off direct recording and use the device’s mic. If they want to focus on the speaker, they’d switch to the direct recording “channel.” Sure would make for more professional audio recordings.

CNet has an article which seems to just now recognize the fact that the PC hardware market has gone through some massive changes over the last couple years. In the article Trouble on horizon for ‘white box’ PC makers, the author points out how there really aren’t any good ‘build your own’ options for notebook buyers. 100% correct. But it’s not because Intel and others haven’t tried to inspire this market. They have. They’ve tried working with the channel to bring about standard notebook components. But it hasn’t worked. Why? Because I think Intel and others have focused on lagging designs rather than the prosumer market. That’s where the action is.

Case in point: Any whitebook (build your own notebook) has to have good display options. Let me snap in a plain vanilla display or one with a digitizer. There has to be an upgrade path–not just here’s a display to snap in when you first build your unit or when you find a bad pixel or two. Simple swapping isn’t what people want.

Here’s another example: Battery life. Give me options. Some manufacturers do it right with swappable bays. A good whitebook has to be at least that clever.

Also: Thin is in. Give me two or three laptop case designs to pick or upgrade through. One has to be super thin. One has to be super expandable.

Another example: Connectivity. It better come with a new model for paying for WiMAX or EVDO or whatever. I want to build two or three whitebooks or at least migrate through a handful of machines. I don’t want to pay $60/per laptop.

And another lagging indicator: Where are the UMPC or MID whitebooks. Don’t these make a ton of sense? At least the UMPCs are fairly bulky. Don’t tell me the platform couldn’t be more flexible. Want capacitive touch for the display? Swap it out. Want an active digitizer? Or EVDO? Or a Flash drive I can upgrade as the prices drop. With a stock motherboard, can you imagine the variety of case designs people might buy and try? First a swivel case, then a slate design, then a miniature looking notebook.

Isn’t this all obvious? It is. But I think the market convinced itself that the prosumer market wasn’t interested. It is. But the prosumer market is going to go where the value is–and right now that’s Apple and its closed systems.

One more point–about dollars and cents. I think the mainstream notebook makers are ripping the market off right now. For the most part the notebooks are holding margins and I don’t think they want to see whitebooks and the market drop. That’s why it should.

Intel has had it right to try to inspire the whitebook market. Where they went wrong is trying to build boring designs. That’s where the low end of the market is. And that’s where it’s all about price. I’m hoping as Apple kicks everyone’s butt over the next year, that Intel and others will figure this out.

JKOnTheRun is looking for a real handheld computer.

AnandTech checked out the forthcoming ASUS Eee.

This thread on Engadget is bothering me this morning. It’s about a college student that’s looking for a replacement computer. I posted about this yesterday, but I can’t keep shaking my head at much of the advice he was given. To recap, here’s what he’s looking for:

“I’m a Uni student doing IT Security, and I’m looking to replace my now four year old Windows laptop, and am tossing up between getting another Windows PC or getting a MacBook, and just wanted some advice on how it would suit me. Essentially I do some C/C# programming, Web design, presentations, reports and the like, with assignments needing to be in PPT and DOC formats. Could I get some advice on how each one would fare for my purpose, and iWork and Office compare for University use? Any help would be much appreciated!”

There are some good suggestions in the currently posted 243 comments in the thread, however, a vast majority of them are posted more to advocate a particular product that respond to what the original poster is looking for. Come on folks. Is this really the way to do things? I realize there are people with strong opinions all around, but would you really suggest that someone get a Linux machine if they need to develop C#? Really? Sure there’s Mono, but the Visual Studio environment is tops for developing C#. No doubt about it. Sure it’s probably a great idea to try out Mono and learn what its advantages and disadvantages are, but that doesn’t mean I’d recommend a development environment centered around it as a student’s primary machine–unless there’s some very good reason to do so. In this case, there doesn’t appear to be.

And then there’s the discussion about Open Office versus Office or iWorks. Again, there are lots of “Get a Mac; use iWorks or Open Office” or “Get Linux; use Open Office.” Really? Are these really the best recommendations here? Now a Mac running Mac Office (or Mac running iWorks to a degree) is fine. Depending on the school that this person is attending this could work out well. However, would you place it at the top of the list for this particular person, considering that they appear to have existing investments in the Windows platform? Moving OS’s, like moving apartments or homes can get expensive. You have to consider that–especially for a student. Yes, there could be some significant advantages going with the Mac I think if the person is looking to do videos, let’s say in their web development work. iMovie (V6) (and Garage Band) has the low-end edge, if you ask me for producing videos. Of course, he didn’t mention videos, but that’s a question I’d ask. For instance, what about Flash development? Or is his web development more database and form oriented?

There’s also a strong bit of advice around picking Open Office in order to avoid giving Microsoft any money. That’s fine, if someone wants to take this stand, but is that really good advice for a student–especially if it doesn’t give them the full advantages that they otherwise would get? I’m not saying Open Office couldn’t work, I’m saying that given let’s say the flexibility of recording class lectures and synching them with your notetaking and later searching its contents–all provided in OneNote–I’m asking is that worth giving up? For $20 or in some cases nothing–since OneNote is included on a variety of PC laptops and Tablets on the market? Well, if we’re talking about a Mac, OneNote has some alternatives, but Open Office doesn’t.

Now on the Mac side, Bootcamp is a great suggestion for someone who needs access to Windows technologies, as this person mentions that he does. Parallels is OK, but it is slower, and if you’re doing development work, slowing things down isn’t my first choice. With Bootcamp the Mac machine can be evaluated just like any PC. From this standpoint it’s personal preference if you ask me. Which notebook would you like to carry around and do you see yourself being more productive with? Realize that to pull this off you’d have to purchase a standalone copy of XP or Vista–which isn’t too painful at student prices, but does add to the total if the person is price sensitive.

I also was surprised that in all of the early comments, no one suggested looking at a Tablet PC–especially for someone in a tech field. What about taking notes in a math or physics class? What about brainstorming UIs? Or “whitepage conferencing” with others online using OneNote? Seems like a great solution to me. Now there are some that don’t see themselves handwriting or drawing anything, so in this case, a Tablet PC isn’t necessarily a perfect match. But I’d ask the student how often they see themselves needing something other than a keyboard and a mouse.

Now there is another valid take on all of this. I remember well being a college student and watching every penny. The Linux/Open Office/Mono route can work. But would this be my first choice in this case? Absolutely not. If I had no other choice and couldn’t afford anything else, would I give someone the thumbs up if they came up with a solution like this to get by? You bet. But this wouldn’t be at the top of my list of recommendations.

Anyway, all this jabbing back and forth over products is really getting unfortunate. What gets me is that most of these same commenters would probably find it offensive if they’d go to their local computer store and then be encouraged to purchase a particular product simply because it’s in the seller’s interest–and not yours. It’s not right when this happens there and it’s not right online. We should do better than this.

Rensselaer Polytechnic researchers are experimenting with paper batteries. So far they’ve managed to create a prototype battery that yiels 2.3v. Not bad. That’s not going to drive your UMPC anytime soon, but this could be a promosing beginning.

How is the paper battery built? According to the article linked above:

“The battery contains carbon nanotubes, each about one millionth of a centimetre thick, which act as an electrode. The nanotubes are embedded in a sheet of paper soaked in ionic liquid electrolytes, which conduct the electricity.

The flexible battery can function even if it is rolled up, folded or cut.”

I’m watching Gnomedex’s video feed again this morning–there’s also a chat room on the page. Chris Pirillo is on stage now opening the show and he sure sounds tired. That’s what conferences will do for you. Lots of talking, walking, and exhaustion is par for the course. It sure is more relaxing to sit and watch the video stream from a distance.

The conference yesterday had a few sparkling highlights: Guy Kawasaki gave a top-notch presentation on product evangelism–probably the best talk of the day. Hopefullly it was recorded and will get posted somewhere. It’s worth watching. I’ll keep an eye out for a link.

Besides watching the video or participating in the chat, you may want to follow some of the attendee Twitterers via Gnomenet. Dave Winer and Robert Scoble among many others are Twittering the conference too.

I don’t know what I was thinking, but I missed out on SIGGRAPH this year. I particularly wanted to go to get a first hand opportunity to try out Microsoft’s Surface computer. Here’s a video of the Surface device that one of the attendees recorded and posted to YouTube:

So cool. Look at all the different people try to resize images at the same time. It gets my brain thinking about how I could modify MathPractice for a very unique and different experience. I realize that the Surface computer is being targetted towards other markets, but maybe someday. Someday.

uichirow is the photographer of this video and has a couple other recordings that you can check out here.

JazzMutant was also displaying their Dexter multi-touch mixer. From what I understand the digitizer uses a resistive technology. I’m curious to give it a try. After using the iPhone’s capacitive touch, I’m leaning towards capacitive as the way to go for multi-touch. It’s so much more responsive and it appears to be more precise. Here again, the real way to tell is to give it a go and SIGGRAPH would have been the place to try it out.

Multi-touch sounds like it was a hot topic at SIGGRAPH, but there were other new technologies I would have liked to check out, such as the latest version of he E Ink devices. I’ve seen them before, but each time they seem to be getting better and better. Larger, higher resolution, more vibrant. Anderlanglands.com has some photos here of the E Ink e-book as well as several of the other emerging technology exhibits.

I’m kicking myself, why did I miss SIGGRAPH?

I’m watching the live video feed from Gnomedex at live.pirillo.com.

This video by Robert Scoble of Tom Rolander (of Digitial Research fame) has to be the best first-hand account of the story behind the OS included on the first IBM PCs.

If you’ve heard the stories about how Digital Research’s Gary Kildall lost out on one of the biggest business opportunities in recent times because he wanted to fly a plane instead of meeting with IBM or that he refused to meet with IBM because of an NDA, then you’ve got to watch this interview. The stories wrong and some very important ways. To hear Tom Rolander tell it, in large part the failure of Digital Research’s CP/M came down to price–and I’d also add in their belief that the IBM PC would fail.

What’s so fascinating about Tom’s account is that it highlights how established, successful businesses can have difficulty adapting to expanding business opportunities—opportunities that challenge existing cost structures.

We’ve seen a similar challenge and churning going on over the last decade plus with the Internet. It’s changed the cost structure of distributing information, of managing services, or of what it means to stay in contact with others or to communicate with them. Costs are being driven down.

Amazing video. You have to watch it.

Jim Forbes (founding producer of DemoMobile) and Tablet user has a couple great posts.

Here he talks about his recent experiences helping a friend try to purchase a Tablet PC for his college-bound daughter. It was a little rough going, however, eventually there was a happy ending. They purchased a Fujitsu Tablet at Frys Electronics. I’m so glad this had a happy ending.

And for those interested in computers and the classroom, you may want to check out his post here. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what an “education computer” might/should be like. (I’m thinking in terms of elementary students for now.) Of course, I’d add pen and touch technologies. That’s a given. But what about the networking? Should communication be more group focused than “Internet” minded? What I mean is that shouldn’t local ad-hoc networks of devices be more important to the “group” or classroom than “external” access to let’s say Google? There’s a time and a place for searching and communicating with information and people outside of your immediate area, however, during a learning session, doesn’t it seem like local networking is the most important? The thing is that that’s not the way our networks are set up. Networking comes from the mindset that computers are tethered together and that everyone is connected to everyone else. That’s not quite what you want here. Seems to me, that classroom networking is one of the next areas that needs improvements. I’m not sure though, if there are very many industry forces that will help this evolution. Education software vendors are probably going to have to solve this themselves and then nudge the OS folks to make accomodations to them.

[Links found via Dave Winer]

In the first GigaOM Show, Om Malik and Joyce Kim interview Seagate’s CEO Bill Watkins and among the many topics they discuss they go over the advantages and disadvantages of solid state drives (Starts at about 22:56 mark in video).

Here are some points Bill Watkins makes about solid state drives:

* Flash drive power savings yield about 15 extra minutes on a battery charge. (My impression: I don’t think he considers this much of a gain. It would give back the 15 minutes that Vista supposedly takes away on many systems. Is it that noticeable?)
* A hybrid drive would give about 2 extra minutes
* A solid state drive boots faster and so does a hybrid drive. I think he says there isn’t much difference.
* 32MB solid state drives don’t give enough storage space to be satisfying.
* 64MB solid state drives will appear in volume about 2010 or 2011.
* Don’t have random write performance with flash drives and the write reliability is “very poor.”
* Shock performance on flash drive is very good although returns are about the same for current flash drives and hard drives when used in the field.
* Cost per gigabyte is the key

Seagate doesn’t make a full solid state drive currently although they do have a hybrid drive, so some of his remarks have to be filtered with that context. He also says Seagate is open to make a flash drive, however, it won’t be for notebooks. It’ll be for “enterprise” and devices first. I wonder if he considers a UMPC a “device.”

He also didn’t mention anything about noise and heat. Both are annoying beyond the energy costs.

Another tidbit in the video: Average hard drive sizes in notebooks growing 10-15 GB per quarter. The current average size is about 100GB. The cost for these “average” drives? $40. This goes to show a big challenge flash drives will have in the market? Cost.

[Found via Robert Scoble]

It just hit me today….I’ve been dabbling with programming and personal computers for 30 years. Yes, 30 years. I knew that I’ve been programming for awhile, but I didn’t realize until today that it had been that long.

My first hands-on experience with programming was at a middle school I attended in Connecticut. It wasn’t anything formal. My brother and I heard that the PDP 11 (I think) was open for students to use after hours. So we gave it a try. Neither of us knew how to program. It didn’t matter. We just started typing, we looked over the shoulders of those that knew how to code, we just dug in figuring things out as we went along. It was a blast.

A couple years later in high-school I was introduced to microcomputers and had my first opportunity to actually build small computer systems. I didn’t know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor. It didn’t matter. I had a great teacher and a couple of friends that were as enthusiastic about learning how to build and program computers as me, that we just figured things out as we went along.

After a few years of tinkering with my home-built computers, I began to realize I wanted to learn more. I decided to get a formal computer science degree. I didn’t know the difference between a quicksort and a bubble sort, but that didn’t matter. I knew I could study and figure things out as I went along.

After I graduated from college I didn’t follow the traditional path towards an IT job. Instead I kept programming. I worked on a computer vision system platform. I worked on graphics libraries. I learned C++. I taught myself Windows development. All along, I realized I didn’t exactly know what I was doing, but I kept going. I knew I could figure things out along the way. I read. I talked with friends. I practiced.

Over the next several years, the web came along. It took me awhile to figure out how to even get connected up to the Net and when I did, it took me awhile longer to learn how to set up a server, write a CGI program, code in HTML and the like. I really didn’t know what I was doing. A few friends showed me some key steps on how to get on the Internet, but most of it was “discovered” through lots of reading and experimentation. I just figured things out as I went along.

And then came the Tablet PC. Here was a chance to challenge the traditional notion of what a personal computer was and how, when, and where it should be used. I didn’t know where it was going to take me. All I knew was that I could figure it out.

Today, I’m part of a PC market that is strongly embracing many of the concepts central to the Tablet PC–that mobility is a good thing, that wireless connectivity changes how you think about being connected and when your computer needs to be accessible and in what ways, that form factor can be as critical as the software it runs, that there’s lots more to personal computers than sitting in front of one at a desk.

What strikes me as I sit here and reflect on my years of programming, is that what interests me today is very much the same things that has excited me all along–the things I do not know.

I wonder about how I might create virtual “robots” that let me walk through closed doors as I inspect my house or place of business while away on a trip, how I might integrate handwritten notes into Google Calendar from my Tablet or phone, how I might create a virtual camera operator so I can make better video recordings using just myself and software, or how I might write a program that coaches me through painting a landscape I’ve just captured on my camera. There are so many things that would be interesting to work on. All of which I don’t know how to do. That’s the best part. That’s what keeps me going. There are so many things to learn and discover. It’s why I keep programming.

After several weeks of a blogging hiatus, I’m back.

I’ve been bursting at the seems the last couple weeks, thinking I should blog this or that, but for a bunch of reasons I never got to it. One thing struck me though as I contemplated posting more words to the Internet: The fun is only beginning.

Take TwitterVision. Although I don’t run it, if someone is that’s sitting next to me, I can’t help but look over their shoulder and…..stare.

Take what Google is doing with Ad Words. No sitting still here. Don Dodge’s right about this one.

And on the development side, it’s going to be interesting to see if Apollo knocks out the no name contender WPF/e. I haven’t played with Apollo yet, but my gut is talking to me bigtime and it keeps gurggling WPF/e. I trust my gut. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that WPF/e is going to be bigger than WPF itself in terms of the exposure it gets on the Internet over the next year. We’ll see if the development community gives Apollo a Java-scaled round of acceptance. Could be. Things are going to get very interesting, indeed.

Maybe it’s my time off to read and reflect on things, but I’m filled with engineering-grade enthusiasm for a bunch of creative technologies right now. I’ve been stacking ideas up in my mind, tinkering with little projects, and finishing up some big ones. Exciting times ahead.