April 7, 2007
Enjoying The Hoax this afternoon reminded me of a couple of high-profile online April Fools’ jokes this year that have turned out to be real. One was ThinkGeek’s 8-bit tie that the company is already working on producing. An even more elaborate joke was Gmail Paper but, aside from the delivery aspect, it’s really not too conceptually different from what Presto is trying to do, is it?
March 12, 2007
I saw a Google ad today that took me to Danny’s Scam Review, which links to two, er, questionable sites. (Hmm, let’s see, they use the same exact floating banner as Danny’s Scan Review. Could they possibly be related?) Anyway, the noteworthy part is when “Danny” writes, “I was scammed by 37 different ‘get rich quick schemes’ and I lost over $4800 in 3 months.”
Right, that’s just the type of savvy individual from which I’m eager to take advice.
February 23, 2007
In enumerating his latest ideal features for a podcast player, Dave Winer illustrates a dilemma that convergence poses. Dave wants Blackberry-like synchronization, which I agree would be a nice feature, but one that would probably translate into carrier support and distribution. It would be a tough sell to get carriers to offer such a product as it would be deemed too niche. This is partly why cheaper. more accessible wireless broadband, via WiMax or some other source, can’t come soon enough to reinvigorate the consumer electronics market.
Dave also wants the product to be a platform of sorts. I’d support plug-in functionality, but would oppose making the thing completely open as Mike Elgan has argued the Zune should be. As Michael Gartenberg notes before tempting me to buy niche coffee-making products, there are already several multifunction products that could easily meet Dave’s requirements, yet they are not considered for the task because of their loosely defined functionality.
February 16, 2007
I was intrigued and then a bit confused by this iPhone column written last month by my friend and former colleague Noah Elkin. The intrigue came from considering the iPhone as bringing the dawn of mobile “Web 2.0″ and then the confusion came when I realized that Noah was not talking about mobile “Web 2.0″ but “Mobile Web” 2.0 — the tyranny of punctuation-specific jargon.
In any case, it’s one of the first pieces I’ve read to discuss the Web content implications of the iPhone. Noah’s raises valid points about the iPhone’s slow 2.5G radio and limited installed base for the foreseeable future. He also anticipates a backlash against mobile marketing. Apple is promising a “desktop-like” browsing experience courtesy Safari. Java won’t be supported but I believe that Flash will. If not, it should be.
The better Apple executes on that desktop experience (and the browsing UI is definitely one of the most promising features shown to date), the less distinction there will be between the next generation of the “mobile Web” and the one we access from our PCs in terms of information access (Web 1.0). We’ve also yet to see if the iPhone’s version of Safari will support RSS as the Mac’s does. However, there’s even greater potential if Web developers target the iPhone for the application-like features commonly associated with Web 2.0.
Certainly in the short-term, it could provide some relief for Apple’s third-party lock-out, but many Web 2.0 interfaces would have to be recreated to be optimized for the lower resolution and finger-driven interfaces of the iPhone. Apple should also open up widgets to third parties. It’s a limited access environment, after all, and third-party adoption was key to widgets’ success on Tiger.
February 1, 2007
January 18, 2007
Last year I got to try one of Worldgate’s pricey Ojo phones (marketed by Motorola). One of the few advantages it had over a PC running Skype or Windows Live Messenger was that it enabled better eye contact, or at least the illusion of it, as the camera was closer to the screen.
Now Bodelin has released a clever laptop/flat panel accessory called the “SeeEye2Eye.” Essentially, it’s done with mirrors. The video window is moved near the top of the screen and is positioned under one mirror, which reflects the image up to another mirror that moves it into the correct position and orientation. It’s really just a miniature periscope, but the results look impressive and address what’s one of the biggest downsides of video chat and videoconferencing today.
Unfortunately, the unit itself looks a little bulky, especially for travel use. Their must be a way to slim it down or make it foldable. I continue to hold out hope for that Apple patent of embedding cameras within the display itself.
From The Raw Feed via Gizmodo
January 5, 2007
The media center capabilities of Windows Vista included in Vista Home Premium and Windows Ultimate represent a step-up in high-definition optimization. If Microsoft can live up to its claims of improved system stability, it should improve the appeal of PCs in the living room. However, CableCARD integration is not even necessary for its main competitors — inexpensive (at least to acquire) cable and satellite TV set-top boxes.
Microsoft has thus far focused on content integration, UI quality, consistency and responsiveness, and appeal to a digital generation used to managing content via PCs. However, Microsoft would really give its media center capabilities a boost in the arm if they could provide functionality that overshadows the now commodified DVR that has been its centerpiece.
It’s now offering a TV-based user interface to Windows Live (above) that includes support for voice and text chats and VoIP calls using Verizon Web Calling. But the navigation of Spaces shown above, while certainly visual, seems designed to terrorize the agoraphobic. It reminds me of the intimidating layout of the Grand Convocation Chamber in the Star Wars prequels (left).
From PVRWire
November 20, 2006
It looks like the clock is ticking on what many have said is digital music sales done right (wherein “right” is music for ten cents on the dollar and no DRM) — Russian Web site allofmp3.com and its client-side software allTunes. Apparently, MasterCard has joined Visa in blocking payment to ChronoPay, the intermediary that handled credit card transactions for the controversial site.
So, unless would-be customers can get their hands on a Diners Club card right quick, the loophole site will have much of its revenue base cut off. Then again, it might be able to survive just on Russian revenue. Without reimbursing labels or artists, one might call its overhead low.
Kevin Maney nails it by noting that it looks like Visa and MasterCard are deciding copyright law.
October 22, 2006
In the early ’90s, I wrote reviews for MacWEEK magazine; it was the tail end of what I’d consider the golden age of Mac software; there were lots of fresh approaches to tasks. I reviewed many interesting personal information managers. In addition to the staples of the day — Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact – I evaluated organizational tools such as Rae Assist, Chena Software’s InfoDepot, Common Knowledge’s Arrange, and Attain’s In Control, the latter two of which were among my favorites — really useful products.
Unfortunately, none of those companies made it. Perhaps they would have done better in this age of Internet distribution and Apple stores. I still miss In Control, which elegantly combined an outliner with a spreadsheet. The Omni Group’s OmniOutliner looks like a terrific, and perhaps even superior, modern-day implementation for Mac OS X that even has a free (as in beer) version available. I haven’t seen anything like it for Windows.
So, I don’t get too excited when I see AJAX applications come close to approximating the functionality of desktop software but not demonstrate much rethinking of personal organization. It seems that’s all about to change with Scrybe, which, from its first video preview, blows the banners off other online calendars and seems more fluid than any desktop calendar I’ve ever seen. It also has a terrific approach to Web information gathering.
Going far beyond their self-proclaimed holy grail of offline browser-based access, Scrybe’s developers have thought through information management so well that they’ve incorporated specialized paper printouts for on-the-go pocket information. Indeed, this was an early key feature of DynoDEX, an early Mac address book that printed out pages compatible with popular paper-based organizers years before Palm Computing introduced its first digital one. It will be interesting to see how far they take unstructured data. Here’s a tip for them, though: add columns to Scrybe’s lists, like In Control did. It expands their usefulness exponentially.
Scrybe’s next video will focus on its collaboration features; this could get viral very quickly. I can’t believe I’m excited about a Web calendar.
October 20, 2006
Microsoft has finally graced Windows XP users with Internet Explorer 7. While it’s redesign isn’t as severe as the one planned for Office 2007, it’s certainly a taste I haven’t acquired yet, even after playing around with it in Vista. At least the XP version doesn’t break some implementations of Outlook Web Access.
The positive additions include a tabbed interface and a good one. I particularly like how you can add a new tab by clicking a blank one and the “Expose-like” “Quick Tabs” button (although it shouldn’t be a tab itself). There’s also an integrated feed reader with auto-discovery and an integrated search bar that has arrived too late for me to dump the Google Toolbar.
Overall, a lot of these features are playing catch-up to Firefox and Safari. For newbies, there’s a host of security improvements designed to overcome the design flaws of the popular ActiveX and anti-phishing technology, but the former often gets in the way and the latter to slows down browsing. Wouldst that Microsoft would see the error of ActiveX’s ways and find a way to retire its support gracefully.
In terms of questionable UI changes, Microsoft now hides the menu bar by default, and activating it puts it below the unmoveable address bar; I seem to remember someone mentioning that Microsoft wanted the address bar to be long to provide more clues as to a site’s authenticity; URLs are now displayed atop popup wndows. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be a way to put it under the window title bar where it “belongs.” Alas, as someone who uses Outlook Web Access a lot and depends on IE’s Search feature that isn’t supported in other browsers, I will have to get used to it.
