Jan Blog Posts

Hi All,

Since I started writing agin for the Bangkok Post I have not been updating the blog (which was started because I wasn;t writing for the Post). Apparently thrre are those who read this bog that are not reading the Post so here is the last month's worth. I'll try to keep a bit more up to date in future.

Best Regards, James

Currents – End of Year 2012

For those that remember I like to use this issue to summarise what happened in 2012. This year was finally the year of the tablet PC, and at the same time the smartphone wars. Coming into the year Apple was the dominant player in both the smartphone and the tablet arena with the iPad and the iPhone. It looked like Apple was unstoppable and at the end of the year they were still the biggest computer company beating out Microsoft in total sales. Apple also took a bit hit with the loss of Steve Jobs the main driving force of the company and the individual responsible for putting the company in the strong position it was.

Lurking in the wings however was Samsung and the Android platform that was evolving out of its infancy into a strong market contender. Nokia continued to fall as did RIM and the Blackberry line and then the Galaxy S3 came out. Apple recognised the threat and started a series of court cases aimed at crippling Samsung’s sales mostly based on issues of generic shapes like square versus rounded corners. They won some battles but lost a few as well. A recent loss in Mexico for example meant they could not use the term iPhone or any version of it if they wanted to sell their products there. What Apple could not hide however was the technological superiority of the Samsung product and the customers started to move. Panicking and with the loss of Mr. Jobs they rushed the iPhone 5 to market and the result was a new Apple product that for the first time had no “wow factor,” and exhibited problems in both hardware and software. The result was a lukewarm reception that saw even more people adopt the S3 and saw Samsung top the smartphone most units sold chart. It also started a noticeable slide in Apple sales towards the end of the year that carried into places like China where Apple is sixth in smartphone standings.   

There has been very little progress this year in the regular world of printers. Ink still remains more expensive than Champagne or Chanel No 5 perfume. There should be no reason for this kind of pricing except customer gouging for profit. The big news in printing this year was in the 3D arena where some of these printers dropped below the $1000 mark bringing them into the reach of average buyers. While there still needs to be some work done on image capture technology in a decent price range you can print some interesting bits and pieces. The real market is in the repair space where plastic replacement parts no longer available can simply be printed up for the most part. More on where this technology is heading in next week’s article.

CPUs continued to get more cores without moving upwards much in individual core speed, mostly to keep the power requirements down. There remains a focus on lower power CPUs to power smartphones and tablets where power is in shorter supply. Despite the push from Intel the ultra-notebook didn’t do as well as expected probably due to the focus on the handheld market.

This year saw the advent of the intermediate portable camera, a point and shoot format with a replaceable lens. This is aimed at those who want the SLR experience but don’t want the weight. Personally I don’t see the attraction because the point and shoot now has 25 times zoom, higher megapixel count and full HD movie capture. With the point and shoot market somewhat saturated this new category is the manufacturer’s answer.

Another big release this year was Windows 8, the latest version of the Windows operating system. Originally aimed at the tablet ARM based market it was also released for the PC but was not received very well by organisations and many existing users. The interface is very tablet like, the Start button is gone and it will be quite a shift for traditional Windows OS users to move to the new interface that is a combination of simple and confusing.

The other big mover this year was the Cloud or Internet based storage, remote from your computer. The positive side of such a system is you get an automatic backup, when it works properly and you don’t have to buy new hard drives to store your data. On the negative side your data could be held anywhere, in any country, on any server all protected by someone else’s security. My golden rule here is that anything held in public space in a digital form is never truly safe. So it becomes a risk versus reward scenario and one that banks and other financial institutions would not use. If you don’t care if others get to see your data then it is a perfect storage solution. I suspect that the broader medical industry is not keeping their data in the Cloud either. The Microsoft’s and the Google’s want you to keep your data in their clouds for a number of reasons.                 

There were no real advances in alternative data entry systems this year. We are still bound by the mouse and the keyboard for the most part. Voice input is progressively getting better and is now found on most smartphones but the idea of talking to my phone when I’m not using at as a phone seems a bit counter intuitive and also annoying on public transport.

Media players didn’t really improve much this year either. A few codecs were added but the interfaces still remain clumsy. I have yet to understand why none of the major players have such a device. Where are Samsung, Panasonic and Pioneer? This is a market ripe for the taking but with no suppliers.

Amazon proved itself to be a purely US company this year and by the end there were no Kindles of any kind available for international purchase. I have never understood the American’s there is only us in the world attitude on this kind of thing. While this remains the case I cannot recommend the Kindle for purchase, no matter how much I like them.

So nothing really Earth shattering for 2012 and if you are reading this then the world didn’t end on the 21st.

Currents – Beginning of 2013

This year will be an interesting one and a little like 1998 because the world marketplace will be struggling, there will be little disposable income to go around, sales figures will be down and there will not be a strong push to move computer technology very far as a consequence.

In the smart phone arena I predict that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will eclipse the iPhone 5S for two reasons. The 5S will be a catch up model to the S3 with nothing special about it and at the same time the S4 will be well ahead of the 5S in functionality. Up until the iPhone 4 Apple dominated the market. With the release of the 4S and the passing of Steve Jobs things started to go downhill as Apple started to become reactive to the marketplace instead of a market driver. It moved to litigation and protectionism over inventiveness and innovation. So the downward slide of Apple will continue through 2013.

With the hard disk manufacturing back on track we will finally see some larger hard drives this year. 4TB drives will become common but I’m not convinced we will see anything much bigger than that thought we are due for something around the 6TB capacity. Thumb drives will definitely get bigger and the 1TB model should be available this year. SD cards will also increase in size to double what we had in 2012 pushed by the larger megapixel cameras that seem to be getting a less expensive.

On digital cameras I’m not sure where they will go this year but expect to see more models with smart phone like capability built in, perhaps without an actual phone but rather with Android based touch screen functionality. There is really no need to go much higher in resolution since 16 megapixels and 20x zoom in a point and shoot is more than anyone really needs. Instead expect incremental improvements in low light processing and an attempt to bring in a better starting point at the wide angle range e.g. 18mm equivalent.

Colour eInk will appear this year but probably towards the end of the year and this will start to signal the end of the LCD screen in smaller devices like phones and tablets but not full realised in this area until 2014 due to the higher video speed requirements versus the standard eBook’s static need. Books will continue to move into the digital world and regular paper based book sellers will reduce in number in any countries and if we see colour eInk this will impact the magazine and newsprint publishers as well.      

The higher end tablet market will slow down with the flood of cheaper Chinese knockoffs entering the marketplace that will gradually catch up in terms of capabilities. At the same time there will be a general slowdown in the manufacturing output from China so the implementation speed of this prediction is uncertain. China will also be filling any gaps in the lower end of the smart phone market and will start to produce better models of their own to continue to take space from Apple, Samsung and others.   

The fascination with the Cloud will diminish this year as people realise that it is safer to keep their precious information close at hand instead of somewhere out there in the Internet world. Wireless connectivity will continue to be adopted over fixed line connectivity as the emerging younger generation finds it easier than being tied to a static connection. Wireless technology itself will be very competitive in that area as development continues to improve in connection speed, load balancing and multiplexing capabilities.

In the PC world I expect a lot of angst over Windows 8. It is quite different from previous operating systems so that the older population who upgrade will find them lost and spending a lot of time calling their children to help. I expect Windows 8 to be the new Vista with most people and all organisations staying on Windows 7 until Windows 9 comes out. The OS may be more popular in the tablet and smart phone markets but that remains to be seen.

3D printers will become more popular and more common this year. Different printing materials will be developed to allow more flexible printing. While we won’t see body parts being printed this year the devices will become more common in the home and perhaps used to print up presents for Christmas 2013. Apart from better connectivity I don’t see the normal printer market make much progress or any radical changes in 2013.

Multi core or dual CPU devices will become more common especially in mobile devices. This will involve a lower speed and so lower power multi core for low demand requirements and a higher speed multi core when the demand ramps up. This will lower energy requirements while providing the power when needed. The trend to more cores over individual core speed increases will continue this year.

Games will continue get more realistic and push graphics card manufacturers to have faster GPUs in their products. For most of us the mid-range devices will still be fine for our game playing needs. Devices like the Kinect will continue to improve and there will be more hands free applications made available this year, even in the home PC space. As far as monitors go the new higher resolution standard, over 2000 lines, will start to move in but slower than expected and it will depend on the purchase figures for the larger TVs.

My wish list for 2013 is for a new battery technology to be developed that will give much longer life for all devices, that printer inks will finally start to become less expensive than Champagne, a new input technology to be developed, a major manufacturer will release a media player and that Blu-ray region codes are abolished. It is also that all the readers will have a happy, safe and prosperous New Year.


Currents – 2013-01-09

My parents bought a new ultrabook and it was my job to set it up for them. Since all new home computers now come with Windows 8 it was a chance to take the PC version of the operating system for a test drive. So far I am not impressed. One of the first things I did was install an aftermarket Start button to keep it closer to their previous Windows experience. There are a number of these available,  most of them are free and not only return the Start button but some of the original Windows 7 functionality you may like. Take a look at a few of them and decide what things you want or need to have.

They wanted Skype and the only way to get it is through the Windows Store. The only way to get into the Windows store is via a Windows Account e.g. something@live.com. So not only do you need a Windows account to install some software anything installed this way is only available from the new Start screen with all those squares. This is of course decidedly user unfriendly and restricts you to the Store for some programs, e.g. Skype. Yahoo Messenger installed as usual and is under the Start Menu where you would expect to find it. Sorry Redmond but I’m just not feeling it.

One thing I did learn from the Christmas break was the general reliability or unreliability of eBay orders from suppliers. Local ones are the best but may be more expensive due to local taxes and postage charges. Postage charges from China and Hong Kong are the best but delivery can vary from acceptable to glacial. I ordered one product 60 days before Christmas and it has yet to arrive. I have also received the wrong product twice where it was difficult to get anything back. In general however my online ordering experiences have been excellent and any problems they were resolved to my satisfaction. If you are living in the US and reading this you still have the best options for variety and price. For smaller things China has the cheapest prices.     

Blu-rays have not been all that successful so far for a number of reasons. The new release prices are still high, the players are slow, it takes a while to get to where you want to be, i.e. watching the movie, and many players lack the ability to start from where you finished. You need constant firmware updates to make sure that you can play the latest movies and blanks for any kind of recording are still way too expensive. For many it is easier to just grab a 1080p rip from somewhere and watch it via a media player. That being said I have my collection of favourite movies that look good in HD and a few 3D one’s as well. The best 3D movies to date are Prometheus, John Carter of Mars and The Avengers, mostly because you forget it is in 3D. Many other 3D movies are too obviously 3D and spoil the viewing experience.

Apple has not been doing so well in the legal stakes recently. The latest small but socially stinging fine comes from China where it had to pay about $150,000 in compensation to the China Written Works Copyright Society after a court determined that Apple was responsible for applications which appeared on its App Store containing unlicensed content. This is not the only time Apple has been slow in taking copyrighted materials out of their store and there are other cases pending.

On the subject of Apple there are already some rumours of what will appear this year to wow their followers. The most active one is for a watch based smartphone. This might be a 1.5 inch OLED screen watch with Bluetooth, a SIM card, Intel CPU, Siri as an interface and a few applications. Linked to your iPhone you will be the envy of your friends. Or you could view this as an iPod Nano with a SIM card and a watch strap. The idea of a wrist phone has been around since Dick Tracy so I’m not seeing the wow factor here. It is possible that Apple may not even feature on the iWow list for 2013.

A brief RIP notice for Netbooks. These were supposed to be the future of mobile computing but will vanish from shelves this year, sooner rather than later. Acer and Asus are the only two hardware makers still producing them and mostly to sell to emerging markets like those in South America and Southeast Asia. Both manufactures have announced they will stop making them. These failed mostly because they failed to perform and because other alternatives entered their pricing space.

As a final note for the week, the humble light emitting diode or LED has been around for 50 years and has replaced the old Christmas bulbs on trees, saving energy and all that time required to find the faulty globe. They are now used in car headlights, diving torches, home globes of all types and just about any electronic device you own including your TV.    
        

Currents – 2013-01-16

This is definitely the age of the digital camera. What many people don’t understand when they take a digital snap is the result can be a lot better with a bit of processing. In the old days the best way to do that was with Apple software and there are those who will maintain this view until they die. The PC started to come into its own about 20 years ago when Adobe released its first Windows version of Photoshop and about 10 years ago support started for RAW camera images. Then in 2007 Lightroom came out, a product designed exclusively for the digital camera user.

There are a lot of other photo processing applications out there but I still have vivid memories of some early underwater shots I took with an older digital camera and the magic that occurred when I hit the Auto levels button on Photoshop and added a bit of red to the image. More recently I have been playing around with Lightroom 4 and this is a very nice product for the digital camera shot taker. At around $100 is a lot more affordable than Adobe’s Photoshop. Every digital shot requires some balancing and sharpening to bring out the best so I recommend you give it a try, you can get a 30 days trial before you buy. You can even use it to easily publish your photos and videos to online sites like Facebook. If you don’t like it then try some other products but unprocessed digital images are not what they are supposed to be.

Sick of being limited to Redmond approved software for the Windows RT tablets? Don’t despair, C. L. Rokr has found that s simple tweak to the Windows kernel, all of one byte, will disable the so called protection system and allow any code to run. All of the details are found here http://surfsec.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/circumventing-windows-rts-code-integrity-mechanism/ but as always any changes you make are at your own risk. Typically after a few thousand have done it there is little left to be a problem however. There are currently only a few approved apps which may explain the general lack of interest in Windows RT at the moment. Locking stuff down as Apple found out a few decades back will lead to your general downfall in terms of mass adoption.

Intel tried Winbooks, that failed. Then they tried Ultrabooks that did a little better but the uptake has been poor. This year it will be the touch-enabled convertible ultrabook, the Tecu perhaps? Intel is betting once again that everyone wants what Intel is selling and that the plain old notebook is now passé.

CES 2013 was just in session and the usual droolworthy range of devices and announcements were demonstrated and shown. USB 3.0 for example has been upgraded to a 10Gbs specification. It has also been updated to provide a more efficient data independent transfer technology as well. These changes will effectively double the data rate for USB 3. It will probably also require a cable change or upgrade to get full speed improvements. The biggest problem will be the new name, with 2.0 labelled High speed USB and 3.0 labelled SuperSpeed USB what will they call it?

A couple of articles back I mentioned the threat to smartphone manufacturers from the Chinese. Enter the world’s thinnest smartphone with a 5 inch screen the Grand S from ZTE. This a quad core phone has a 1920 x 1080 screen and a 13 megapixel camera. Huawei has a new 6.1 inch “phablet” or a cross between a phone and a tablet called the Ascend Mate. The target here is of course the Galaxy Note 2. There are more models coming. I warned you.

When I think of tablet computers the biggest they go in my mind is about ten inches. With the announcement of the 18.4 inch model at the recent CES 2013 Panasonic has other ideas. It is a Windows 8 slate with 9.8 million pixels arranged in a 3840 x 2560 grid. That is almost an A3 page sized device. It isn’t any sissy ARM based device either but contains a 1.8GHz Intel i5 core with up to 16Gb of RAM and a 128GB SSD. This power also means the device will drain the battery in mere 2 hours and weights about 2.4kg so the real question for me is why Panasonic built such a device did and who will be using it? It’s not a hand held unit and apart from a few specialised fields I don’t see a place for it in the marketplace. I’m not convinced that it will ever be released or if it does that it will seel many units. Points for being different but how about Panasonic release a media player instead and be the first in that area as a name brand.   

Finally for this week the main technology force behind E-Ink screens says that magazine quality colour e-Ink screens are still a long way off. The problem is the physics of getting enough light involved to make the image pop. I hope they are wrong.

Currents – 2013-01-23

Some businesses still think they can dominate their customers. A good case in point is the recent Instagram initiative to change the terms of use on the Facebook-owned social network so it could use member’s photos and sell them for profit, without any compensation. The result was an instant member’s response and not a very nice one. Facebook made a fairly quick about face on the issue but they never should have tried it in the first place.

According to the tracking group AppStats, Instagram has lost half of its active users since the story first came out and this is still sliding in a non-business friendly direction. Contrary to what online service providers think users are interested in copyright and don’t want someone to unilaterally decide that pictures or videos they take suddenly belong to them. For those in the UK there may not be any choice as the current Coalition want to grab your stuff off the net and use it for their own commercial purposes without the citizens having any say. This will amount to government sponsored intellectual property theft.

Justification is made by claiming that photos without any ID assigned is an “orphan work” and by removing any international protection for this kind of image they can be commercially exploited. In essence photos from anywhere will be open to the voracious UK government and photography groups in the US are already preparing to bring cases against the UK if the laws are enacted. Many photo editing products e.g. Lightroom allow you to put in an owners tag. The scheme will also have some kind of opt out for each photo which is of course counter intuitive and like needing to put a please do not steal label on all of your stuff. 

According to some security researchers in China there is a million unit botnet currently active on Android devices there. The Android.Troj.mdk Trojan may be lurking in as many as 7000 apps. When installing an app look for strange permission requests like wanting to access SMS. You will also want to keep an eye on you data traffic and call history looking for anything out of the ordinary. The Trojan allows a remote user to grab info, use you phone to make false advertising clicks, and download extra apps to your smartphone. In response I installed the free Vipre mobile product to protect my phone.

After a decade of research at Rice University an international team has successfully created a thread that is a quarter of the thickness of human hair by spinning tens of millions of carbon nanotubes into a flexible conductive thread. It is ten times stronger than steel, can be wound on a spool and is as conductive as copper. This will mean thinner, lighter cables for our computer peripherals, smart clothing, and a myriad of other uses for manufacturers in many industries.

HP is still king of the PC pile, just. Dell sales have fallen, Apple doesn’t make the top five and overall shipments are down by about five percent. On the plus side it is the higher end PCs that are more in demand since the lower end is now covered by tablets and smartphones. According to Gartner Windows 8 apparently had no impact on PC sales either. Lenovo is number two.

Apple has cut orders for iPhone 5 screens by fifty percent after poor sales, even with sales expanded to over 100 countries this time around.

South Korean scientists have found a way to make flexible lithium ion batteries that could led to bendable smartphones. The discovery has come from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology by developing flexible solid materials that are fluid like rather than a liquid. The result is a stable battery that performs better than the rigid ones we have today and are a lot safer than the liquid varieties reducing the likelihood of a fire or an explosion. I consider that a good advancement. The manufacturing process will also be a lot faster than for conventional batteries. It will still be a while before the technology is ready for the commercial marketplace however but this is one step closer.

I don’t know about you but I find those plastic figure based games lame. You need to buy different figures for different abilities called power ups, when in a traditional computer game you just restart with a new character type. It might be a great way for companies like Disney to make a lot of money at a parent’s expense but that is about all it brings to the computing game genre.

Finally for this week Google has been blamed for a knocking down a donkey on Botswana during their street view sessions there. Unlike the infamous Bambi incident of 2009 at in Five Points Rd, Rush, New York they appear to be clear in this case. According to a Google spokesperson "Our Street View teams take the safety of people and donkeys very seriously."