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Over the past few years there has been a subject called Technological convergence not to be confused with Technological singularity In one aspect that event has happened to me this year. Because no one noticed, I have been pretty sporadic with posting on this site. Some of the reason is work related, more of it has been due to me being overwhelmed with events in and out of my control. And others have been due to some health issues. During and between these events, I’ve been without my laptop (for some the sole source of internet communications). However I have not been without my mobile phone. But to call what I have, just a mobile phone, is questionable. I have a Nokia N900, more a small internet tablet than a phone and it has been a complete, in fact more than a complete...

Moog has surrendered to the digital age. Once upon a time, they would rather have gone bankrupt than release a synth with digital circuitry, but now with the release of the "Animoog" iPad app, they have hopped over all that and landed right into the dubious world of the "virtual synth". RIP Bob Moog. I figure that was a good intro to a post about this thing that I have no interest in. Don't let that first paragraph fool you, I'm not a hardcore analogue synth or Moog fan or anything, but I thought it was worth noting. With this Animoog thing being an iPad app it means that it will be nothing more than a yuppie toy for the unprofessional. Not to put the app down, but until they release it on a platform with more than a headphone out jack, use of this beyond novelty will be severely...

This isn't fair of course, because Gates changed the First World as much as, if not more so, than Jobs, we just have short memories. And just because someone didn't get involved with charity doesn't mean they haven't had a huge impact on the world. This isn't a Jobs bashing post (for once) it's more of a pro-Bill post. It kills Bill Gates, I mean really kills him, that he developed and pushed the tablet device for years, convinced it was the future but was unable to make a success of it, and then Jobs came in with the iPad and made it a hit almost overnight. Watch the D5 conference from 2007. Watch Jobs, when Bill as he says he's convinved tablet computing is going to be a hit, even though it's currently failing. Watch Jobs bite his lip. The sly old bugger. It's a great conference....

The recent Blowup about HP exiting the PC/WebOS Business reminds me of an old story about when Sony bought MGM, the movie makers. The story goes like this; executives were briefing Sony Management about how profits were generated from the … Continue reading...

With the addition of a 20€ keyboard/case from Amazon my El-Cheapo 7″ Android Pad becomes a Laptop. And while the keyboard is small, it’s faster and more accurate to type on than the slightly too sensitive resistive touch screen on … Continue reading...

In my previous posting, I mentioned all the things this pad can’t or rather doesn’t do. To make this all balanced, I will put what it can do, into perspective. For Instance, at a cost approximately the same as a Amazon Kindle You still get The Kindle eBook market. … but then you get; A Color Internet web browser, several in fact. A Cloud connected pad, DropBox, and EverNote I’ve even printed from it using the Dropbox trick. A Social Networking wonder machine Seesmic, Twitter, TweetDeck, Fring, Facebook, Meebo, Yahoo Messenger, LinkedIn, FourSquare Email A Blogging client for WordPress A document viewer in Documents-to-Go A Note Keeper, Calendar, Calculator(s) A News Reader (BBC, CNN, Sky , Weather Watcher (The Weather Channel, WeatherBug) A RSS Reader A ebook...

How do you keep your connected devices connected? How many different services do you depend on to keep your ‘stuff’ safe and available from anywhere? Could you imagine a better way? I can, and I almost have it working with my ‘stuff’, now I’m just working on a way to make it easy for everyone else to do the same....

This article MeeGo will not displace Symbian as enterprise OS has now demonstrated that Meego is no longer supported by Nokia, and it will be left to die with Maemo as a ‘Non-Runner’ in the Mobile-OS arena. It also indicates that Nokia Management has gone down the MicroSoft path to complete irrelevance in the Mobile Phone market. It’s no wonder the Maemo/Meego managers and developers at Nokia are leaving. Most are heading to the surviving Mobile OS’s Android, Web-OS, iOS and Blackberry....

When the Nokia N900 does real-time face tracking it again demonstrates why it’s not playing in the same SmartPhone world as the iPhone and Android phones....

This article about a possible ARM-based Nokia tablet to come in the fourth quarter? And the author mentions that the Nokia Tablet MAY run Windows 7 Can you imagine? Nokia management shipping yet another OS on their equipment? I think this is grounds to fire everyone at Nokia from the VP’s on up, and replace them with monkeys. They couldn’t possibly make worse decisions that this group of Nitwits....

I have had a revelation with regards to SmartPhones and the Reality Distortion Field. Simply put, if the device, any device, that does not behave like a profit generating platform for Apple, should not be considered a Smartphone. Platforms based on Symbian OS, BlackBerry , Windows and Palm and are based on a principal that the phone provides smart services to help the owner become more productive. To assist with the communications and telephony functionality and on the side, provide other useful apps. For the newly renamed iOS the goal is looping the customer into more expenses, locking them into Apple products, and Apple’s iPhone Ecosystem. To behave as a continuous advertisement and mobile marketing stream. A profit stream that even Razor Blade Salesmen would love....

Has to be said, the new iPhone now comes with build-in iAds, just what I wanted an expensive phone that pumps Ads at me as a feature. Had to be said!...

With all the iPad hype from the past week or so you would think that the E-Book market was dead. But I have thought of a niche for such things, and it’s one that even the iPad can’t fill. That of a personal printer replacement. My wife is a notorious printer user. Partly as she collects vast amounts of bits of paper in her researches, but she finds it easier to read printed paper rather than a computer screen. Hence our recent replacement of our old, broken, and much used printer with a new HP F4850 . But what if an E-Book reader manufacture produced a ‘Printer’ dock that would allow the E-Book to act as a printer. You could ‘print’ your web research, documents, and any other output normally assigned to paper, to your chosen E-Book? Sounds like a...

This is a simple projection based upon sales-to-date, plus next months iPad 3G launch, and an estimated 10,000 units a week sales through the end of the year. The only real variable here is if (and that’s a BIG if) Apple can maintain 10,000 units a week....

This thought has come to mind as there are many voices out there who have commented on the iPad’s ‘virtual Keyboard‘. Many have found it hard to type on and found themselves unable to touch type on it as the very nature of touch sensitivity makes it impossible make contact with the ‘keys’. In other words, you can’t type long missives, emails or any other textual input. What if the iPad is a form of Censorship? Making it hard to comment on the internet, create content, write Twitters/email/Blogs whatever. Because the keyboard it too hard and frustrating to enter anything other than simple search phrases. A consumer ONLY device, made to fill the passive vessels that constitutes the bulk of the internet readership? Content omnivores as Pew Research...

Having read this article about iPad sales predicted to top 7.1 million in 2010 alone, the term, FanBoy gains a new meaning, Delusional! It’s not that the iPad isn’t cute, or that it won’t BE fun or even useful. It’s that this is still a recession, and there aren’t 7.1 Million geeks in the world who have enough money to buy this thing. The second point, Apple with all it’s planning couldn’t get God to manufacture 7 million of these things this year. I almost assumed that the article was a late April Fool’s joke. But there really are a lot of people who believe that Apple can do no wrong. Mostly because of youthful forgetfulness no one seems remembers the Cube and even though Steve Job’s was not at Apple, still there was the Newton....

In another example why I’m happy with my choice of the Nokia N900 over the iPhone as Apple removes Wi-Fi finders from App Store . After all, Apple knows better than it’s customer what it should allow on IT’S product. The customer is stupid and incapable of using OUR product without proper controls. So Apple joins Amazon in determining what the customer should be allowed to do on THEIR product....

The answer is simple, the processor that Apple has chosen for their new iPad is called the A4 which is really just a ARM Cortex A9 with an integrate GPU. And guess what, there is another OS, a better OS, that is both touch integrated and ported to the Cortex / ARM cpu, Maemo which you can test for yourself on the at maemo.org or handle as the Nokia N900 pocket computer cum Smartphone. This OS can do everything that the iPhone OS can’t do like Multi-task and Flash. Sounds like a perfect iPad, just jail-break the iPad and install......

Since I didn’t bother to comment on what is now a fan frenzy event and the flurry of rumors preceding it, the Apple iPad has now appeared, and I will comment, Meh! Everything that the pad does, I can do with the Nokia N900, for less money, and I can carry mine anywhere. I even have a real, though small keyboard. Mind you I like the new screen, it’s nicely sized, but I have a MacBook with a bigger better screen. Is there really a gap to fill, sure sort of, and this can fill it, maybe, but will it be the next big ‘thing’ NO!...