GSlashMitch's Blog

Testing 1-2-3

gslashmitch — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:54:56 +0000

I’m normally on Blogger but I find it frustrating to format so I’m testing WordPress.

Cell phone television

gslashmitch — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:47:19 +0000

Soon we’ll be able to watch television on our cell phones. The major networks – ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX – will be launching the service in 22 cities, with NY being the first at the end of the year. LG and Samsung will be leading the charge to bring the service to their handsets. This isn’t surprising since Koreans have had TV on their cell phones for years so the two companies have perfected the convergence in their local market.

I can see it for sports and other live events where time is critical and one is not likely to watch it later. Advertisers will love it. But since you can download or view just about anything whenever you want, its’ usefulness and appeal seems limited to me. I started dabbling in live TV on my phone years ago but found it’s hard to find something you want to watch if you just have a spare moment. YouTube is more entertaining.

Hello world!

gslashmitch — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:16:09 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Total Drama Island

gslashmitch — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:10:00 +0000

I once worked on stuff geared for Tweens (11-14) stuff and got hooked on kids entertainment. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Truth is I’ve always been a big animation fan – from Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry to the Simpsons. My current favorites are Family Guy and American Dad. Seth MacFarlane is a mastermind.

On the kids side, I’ve seen a few shows that are fun – Angry Beavers on Nick, awesome – but now I have a new obsession. Total Drama Island on Cartoon Network, a spoof of Survivor-type reality shows. The clip is the opening sequence and gives you just a taste of the wit in this show.

What is great about the show is the ‘dress down’ of various reality show and teen drama stereotypes. Think Breakfast Club meets Real World meets Survivor. Fun show. I’ve only seen a few of them but look forward to seeing them all.

And now, a break for puppies

gslashmitch — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Blogger

gslashmitch — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:29:00 +0000

GRRRRRR. I love this blogging thing but Blogger, I don’t love. The most annoying thing about it is text formatting. I never know what it’s going to look like and sometimes it mucks things up. How can I change this???

Palm Pre Thoughts

gslashmitch — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Last night I watched the Palm Pre introductory keynote address. In a nutshell, well done Palm. I haven’t interacted with the device – note to self, I’m going to Vegas next year – but based on the address and other reviews, I think it will do well. Will it knock the iPhone off its’ throne? I don’t think so but it is certainly a better #2 than Blackberry’s Storm.

Overall thoughts

Overall, I think Palm did a great job of addressing many of the short-comings of the iPhone. However, so many of the improvements are borrowed from Mac OS or elements from the iPhone, I wonder how unique they will be once Apple addresses these short-comings in typical Apple fashion. If anything, WebOS gives me faith that Apple can address them easily. Competition is awesome!

Palm and Apple have very different objectives so it’s important to acknowledge where they will never meet. Let’s face it. The iPhone/iPod Touch are both trojan horses into Mac land. It’s a handheld device that runs the primary Mac OS, Leopard. Programming for the iPhone is meant to be similar to programming for Leopard, to give developers an incentive to take on both platforms. Therefore Apple will never let users stray too far from their computers, and preferably their Macs.

Palm wants to rid the world of ‘legacy’ desktop/laptops by offering a platform that focuses on the ‘cloud’. To me, the Pre is just the handheld version of Web OS. I am sure there will be a netbook version and maybe even a tablet version. If they are successful, Web OS could be a strong competitive OS that will shake the foundations of the PC market in a way even Leopard hasn’t. Interesting times ahead.

A note on the address itself. Rubenstein makes a poor Steve Jobs; his delivery was wooden and often cringe worthy. Ed Culligan did a much better job at being relaxed and enthusiastic, energizing the crowd. I also think Palm was expecting a lot more visceral enthusiasm from the audience than they received. I would say at least half of the jokes didn’t land well if at all. Areas where they expected oooohs and ahhhs received none.

Part of the problem is Palm spent a lot of time linking the Pre/Web OS with previous Palms and cooing about how ‘new’ the paradigm was. Yet Web OS borrows A LOT from Mac OS X – specifically Spaces, Dock (lower and off to the left), and the iPhoto like handling of pictures, to name a few. It also borrows from the iPhone – curved back, accelerometer, single hardware button, touch/gestures, and the Card metaphor. An example of the Card metaphor is flicking through ‘cards’ of applications or different Safari pages appear to be individual cards. So on the face of it, the Palm Pre/Web OS feels like a Mac device, just not from Apple. I think that’s a dangerous place to play.

Technology Review

I LOVE my iPhone, as I am sure is obvious, but there are a few areas that drive me nuts. None of them detract from the excitement of using the device but they certainly ding the experience.

Single task orientation: I’m often doing a few things at once yet the iPhone can only do one thing at a time. Taking an example from yesterday, using the clock as a kitchen timer, using the Remote app to control my Apple TV, and using a recipe I stored in Evernote, a note keeping application. Plus, every time I open an app, it starts from scratch, wasting time.
Messaging interrupts other functions: Getting phone calls in the middle of a game often quits the game. Texts appear out of no where and it’s hard to remember to return to them once you’ve dismissed them.
Weak PIM functionality: I’m beginning to think that Apple just doesn’t get task and contact management because both the iPhone and Apple’s native desktop apps suck at it. Why can’t I sync and interact with To-Dos in iCal and Mail.app? Why doesn’t the iPhone have a call database where it captures and allows me to work with whom I’ve called and who calls me?
No cut & paste: I should not need to use my memory to re-enter an address that someone sends me in a text or an email. Even without cut & paste, Leopard has data detectors that recognize time and place information that should be brought over to the iPhone.
Keyboard foibles: I don’t hate the keyboard and find it reasonably easy to use. However one thing that annoys me is how much space it takes up. Three or four lines on a screen so narrow is sometimes only two sentences and it’s not easy to scroll up.
Weak email client: It’s better than it used to be but the lack of a unified inbox slows things down.
Fixed memory: This is the main reason why the iPhone does not have video capture. I’m sure the limitations on removable media are linked to restrictions from the music/video industry. Now that DRM is being stripped from the iTunes store, this situation will hopefully change.
No flash on the camera – most camera phone flashs are crap but something is better than nothing
Weak phone / Network: The best 3G reception I’ve had was in flat uncrowded Minneapolis. It rarely works in my apartment and works intermittently throughout swaths of NYC. I hope the recent bandwidth switch for EDGE will improve things, albiet on the backs of EDGE users.
Mobile Safari: I love how it renders pages but it’s unstable. Sometimes it quits after a few minutes.

Palm addressed many of these, in some ways blowing the doors off the iPhone.

Unified messaging: Messaging is focused on the person not the service. These leads to seamless conversations: start in IM > move to Text > jump to voice > back to Text > back to IM. Most importantly, one has a record of all of your interactions, which the average businessperson needs.
- Con: It’s easier to forget which address one is using, increasing the likelihood you send something to someone you don’t want to send or use an address you don’t want to use. For example, a celebrity posts sex pix to Facebook instead of sending it to the gal in question via email.
Better PIM functionality: The Pre retains Palm strengths in terms of calendar management – especially the week at a glance view and the ability to press a button to switch to another calendar vs. sliding back and forth. I’m sure task management is also as strong as previous Palms
Fewer interruptions: The gesture bar and display at the bottom doesn’t interrupt you with alerts as on the iPhone. Plus the windows resize to make critical data important, so you don’t lose your flow just because a call comes in.
Sprint network: more consistent data connection than AT&T
Power Puck: a totally rad way to charge your device – just set it on this hockey puck looking thing. Most awesome thing I’ve seen in power/cable management.
Universal Search: you just start typing and appropriate stuff shows up, even if that means a Google search. Time saver.
Even easier to program than the iPhone: iPhone webapps failed because the data network couldn’t deliver a constant enough connection to make ‘cloud’ data easy to access. Palm fixes that using a more consistent data network and an auto-save function that saves your data from ‘hiccups’ like a lost connection. It may also be easier for developers to monetize their applications through advertising, something the iPhone isn’t that good at.
Cut & Paste: Nuff said

In spite of these competitive threats, I still believe Apple will retain the lead.

Apple Stores: Sprint is gearing itself up to be the Apple Store for the Palm but I doubt they will be able to deliver the product story as well as the folks that work at the Apple Store. Plus there will be fewer opportunities to cross sell products that adds to Palm’s bottom line, namely a Mac
iTunes Store: It’s the number one retailer of music and video, in spite of the competition. The removal of DRM will make it easier for others to compete but it’s still the first place people go for music thanks to the iPod user base.
Penetration: there are a lot of iPhones and iPod Touches out there, which means a huge customer base to sell applications. As of December, 300 million applications have been downloaded. People are making millions from iPhone apps. People I know.
First to market: There are over 10,000 applications available and more in development. Some of these apps are incredibly sophisticated and make use of the unique iPhone hardware. It’s great that Palm has made the Pre so easy to develop for but I wonder if developers will be able to access hardware protocols as easily as they can for the iPhone
Economies of scale for a global rollout: Say what you want about a soft keyboard, it makes it easy for one to sell one or two SKUs around the world with simple software localization. This is especially important in critical markets that do not use Roman alphabets, namely Japan, China, India, Korea and Russia.
Global phone: Related to the switchable keyboard, sometimes people speak more than one language or come from one place but live in another. Shocking. Being able to switch from English to your native keyboard/language, back to English is really helpful.
The iPhone is out now: While the Palm announcement showed a concrete device, there are many unknowns, including cost and availability. Many of the UI foibles on the iPhone/Touch outlined above can be addressed with a single software update, especially multi-tasking. Judging by their Apple’s own schedule, June is iPhone month and a hardware update could be imminent, which could stop Palm’s momentum.
Sprint: The company has the worst customer service of the big three networks and lost over 3 million customers in the first three quarters of 2008. Probably most of them flocked to AT&T. Sprint did a mea culpa in the keynote but it remains to be seen if they have improved things enough to retain the customers they have much less attract new ones.

So all in all, I think great things will come from this announcement. The legions of Apple haters will have a competent device to obsess over. Palm fans will find redemption in their loyalty. Apple gets a solid competitor and be forced to up their game even more. Blackberry will have another whip cracking on their backs and get to work on improving the woeful Storm. And Microsoft will have just another line shining on how awful Windows Mobile truly is.

Competition is a wonderful thing.

Robot, Fetch that Vodka

gslashmitch — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:14:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to do a post on robots and this post is the start of several on the topic. It’s a topic close to my heart because my Mom has MS and is beginning to have trouble with certain tasks. I would love her to have a service dog but the waiting list for one is between five to seven years and it takes two years to train one. Too long. But what about a service robot?

If you have a disability, it’s the basics that you have problems handling – stuff like picking things up, putting things down, and fetching things from across the room. Georgia Tech is working with dog trainers to duplicate eight to ten core functions that dogs currently handle. Rather than voice commands, the user points a laser at the object he or she wants the robot to handle.

This technology is the perfect segue to the robot servant à la Rosie on the Jetsons. An all-singing all-dancing robot would be great but advancements in robotics tend to focus on specific functions, which is easier to program and build. If it’s possible to construct a helper robot that duplicates the core functions of a service dog, more people will get the help they need.

Hopefully the fruits of their labor will be available sooner than later. In the meantime, Mom’s on the list.

Hat tip [Tom and the Innovation Report]

Princess of NYE on her throne

gslashmitch — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Queen of NYE on her throne
Originally uploaded by mitchsfo

A friend and I went to Double Crown for New Year’s Eve. It was a total trip. They cleared out all of the furniture and decorated the place along the lines of the Imperial Britain’s Indian Raj. Tons of fun.

As we neared midnight, some Indian musicians started playing and two female servers were placed in chairs and hoisted above the crowd, thanks to the efforts of some long-suffering male servers.

The iPhone is flash-free so most of the pictures I snapped were grainy and dark. But I did manage to capture this picture, illuminated by someone else’s flash. There’s something to be said for spontaneity and taking a lot of pictures.

The Geek uses his hands

gslashmitch — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:35:00 +0000

Everyone that knows me well knows how much of a geek I can be. Hell just looking at this blog, nearly half of the entries are about technology in some way.

However, as I detailed in an earlier post – The Butcher, the Baker – I’m beginning to spend more time on manual pursuits, namely cooking and DIY. I ran into an interesting dilemma that I wanted to discuss.

This all started with the instructions for the Sprinkles cupcake recipe. The instructions assumed the presence of an electric mixer. It’s probably a safe bet that the majority of cooks have one. I don’t. So I had three choices – 1) buy one, 2) borrow one and 3) do without. I investigated option one but just didn’t want to spend the money and have no space to store it. Option two was a dead end since no one I asked had a mixer; most of my friends don’t cook or don’t do a lot of baking.

I went with option 3 – do without. I arrived there thanks to swift kick in the pants from a friend of mine. She said, and I’m paraphrasing, “A mixer? Just use a whisk! You’re a strong healthy boy. That’s how my Mom did it.”

I reflected upon that. When faced with a problem, I’ll usually take the tech path first and then circle back to the non-tech solution. Not using technology – and mixers aren’t exactly the cutting edge of technology – seemed strange. How would I know when the batter is done if there’s no indicator light or warning signal? Yes I’m sick and need help. Nevertheless I powered through it. To be sure, mixing by hand is a lot of work. But I turned on one of my favorite audio podcasts – Design and Architecture by KCRW’s Frances Anderton – and wisked away. The most interesting thing is I knew when it was done. The instructions helped since they described the state it should be in when done. But it felt great to see for myself – yep, good job.

Judging by my friends’ reaction to the cupcakes, option three was the right one. My luddite conversion is underway.