The question here is why would such a forward thinking organization like Samsung take a couple of giant steps backwards by introducing proprietary connectors and dropping off useable, and expected, pieces from their new products. Apart from the ability to play Flash the 10.1 instead of standing out from the iPad is trying to be like one. Lots of negative point for Samsung on this one, if they haven’t done an Apple then they have definitely done a Sony. Fail
As I type this in under 21 hours Wikipedia will go off the air for 24 hours. No it is not being hacked, or facing any kind of legal action. This is a decision by Wikipedia to voluntarily take the site down to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act currently making its way around Washington DC. This rather nasty piece of legislation will pit online providers against ISPs, search engines, and a range of others. A tweet from a founder Jimmy Wales to students he recommends finishing those assignments early. Actualkly it read "Student Warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday."
With over 25 million hits per day 24 hours is going to have some affect on users who seem to rely on it for answering every question. Supporters are being asked to contact the Representatives supporting the bill and "melt their switchboards." There are those against it so it will come down to the biggest lobby as the usual way that things get done there. According so some in the Obama Administration "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." There is another acout out there with the rather long name of "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act" or PROTECT IP.
Industry News
So what were some of the big items at the latest CES show?
Wi-Fi. The first news was the new gigabit standards. You would think they have some cool names but they are just 11ac and 11ad. After that came the usual range of new tags like ZigBee, WHDMI, WiMAX/3G, WirelessHD and some new additions to Buletooth. There was also something called wireline cables that sounded a lot like a LAN cable to me so I'll have to do some research on that one.
Next comes smart TVs that are rapidly turning into just another peripheral on the network with companies like Sony and Samsung making big inroads into this space. My TV has this capability and so far I haven’t used it beyond taking a look. How successful this becomes will depend on what services are and can be connected to it for what kind of price. The more it costs the less likely that people will use it.
There was a lot more on Cloud technology, another one I am not convinced about. The push this year was towards the more mobile devices started by Amazon and the Kindle Cloud and quickly picked up by the likes of Acer, HTC, Sony, Google, Apple and others. Like most areas of technology there is rarely room for more than two or three at the top with the rest just following on behind. Google is well positions to be one of the three so it remains to be seen who the others may be.
As an aside here Amazon has released an application that will let Kindle users synchronize and view Microsoft files held in cloud storage via their devices. The PC application is called “Send to Kindle” and adds a right-click option on any Windows application that then adds a Send to Kindle option to the Select Printer list in the Print dialog. Send to Kindle then converts the file to the Kindle’s .azw format, boots the image up into cloud storage via email, and synchronizes with the device. Sorry but PDFs need to be converted separately.
The Web book range did not do so well, low power, low functionality and sloooow. To try and entice you once again we have the advent of the ultrabook, a big display item at CES. Every year there needs to be at least one new form factor and this year it was the ultrabook. Success here will depend on what they can really do once the demos have stopped running. I suspect that they will go the way of the Web books but as usual time will tell. They seem to be too close to the iPad or the Mac Air to distinguish themselves in the marketplace.
4G Smartphones a.k.a. LTE phones hit the marketplace. Pushed into the US by Verizon it won’t be long before the new technology spreads further afield. Apple has not yet entered this marketplace but they will and this may propel the new standard to a wider audience, or not. The Apple 3 is supposed to be an LTE device or at least have that connectivity built in. This will boost the iPad's ability to access the wider data network and service, where supported of course. High pixel count screen, quad core CPU, and probably at least one other version that will be WiFi only so that non-4G punters can also play with the new device. Due out in March this year it will be 1mm thicker, a slightly bigger camera lens for better pictures but all in all it will look a lot like the iPad 2 case.
On the subject of Apple the US International Trade Commission has been unable to find evidence that Motorola is infringing Apple's patents and so ruled that any ban on imports, as requested by Apple, have been refused. Apple will appeal of course but for the time being Motorola Mobility (now Samsung owned). While the ITC does not have any relationship to patents as such any favorable ruling for Apple will make any court case easier and at the very least cause an import suspension until the case has been resolved. Given the high rate of change in this market space that is what Apple wants, time to push out their products before any competitor can go on sale. This would affect the target's productivity hence the attempt to get any imports banned or suspended. More evidence that Apple has turned into the Evil Empire. Losing against Motorola has not stopped Apple going after HTC, Samsung and Nokia. In another 2 months the same kinds of claims will surface from Motorola against Apple.
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