Entropy

Break out the tin-foil, another solar fare threatens!

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:12:00 +0000

The media seems to have gone all tabloid when it comes to reporting solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME).

This story in today's media is also filled with gloom and doom, suggesting that:

"a torrent of charged particles that could disrupt power grids, GPS and flights"

Yawn!

Yes, a significant CME has the potential to disrupt some services, both on the ground and in orbit, but so far all the recent "alarms" raised in the media have proven to be fizzers.

In fact, we now run the very real risk that, thanks to the media's crying wolf too often, warnings of a really serious solar event might go unheeded by the general public.

Of course that raises the question - just what could you do about it anyway?

Well a really bad CME does have the potential to disrupt power supplies over a very wide area so I guess having a small petrol-powered generator, even if just to keep the freezer cold and the TV set running, would be worthwhile.

If it were a massive CME then maybe you could try wrapping your valuable electronic devices in several layers of alumninium foil -- but I doubt this would really be necessary or effective as a way of preventing damage.

Laying in a store of DVDs might be a good idea -- because I can imagine the massive disruption to the recreational activities of Kiwis if SkyTV was knocked off the air through satellite damage.

Of course those of us with a sense of adventure who have a little time and money to spare, might want to race down to the bottom of the South Island in anticipation of a possibly stunning display from the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights).

But for myself, well I won't be wearing a tinfoil hat and I'll just carry on as usual. If needs be, I'll keep typing with crossed fingers (polease exques the spulking maskates).

Showdown on the wild wild web?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:46:00 +0000

For a long time, the internet was a pretty lawless place.

Files containing all manner of copyrighted and sometimes illegal information was swapped with impunity -- simply because the Net operated beneath the radar of "the powers that be".

Those who used the internet were geeks or academics who were of little importance or interest to lawmakers and enforcers. Nobody much cared what a spotty-faced teen did in the small hours of the night while locked up in their dingy rooms, washing down pizzas with copious volumes of Coca Cola to the flickering light of a computer screen.

Of course that's all changed now.

Net-connected PCs are ubiquitous, most homes having several and very few businesses capable of surviving without such a tool.

As a result, the Net and those who use it are very much in the spotlight -- the target of much surveillance by police, intelligence and other agencies, quietly watching for signs of "offending".

This surveillance has been helped along by generous "lobbying" from the creative industries who see their copyrights being treated with contempt by armies of consumers who feel they have a right to trade music and movie files online.

Then there are the reactionary hackers who choose to engage in cyber-attacks against any individual, government or corporation that they feel is acting unjustly. Anonymous is perhaps the highest profile of these groups -- and "the powers that be" are now acting very swiftly to try and crush this movement.

According to recent media reports, Interpol has just arrested 25 alleged members of the Anonymous group in the wake of recent attacks against US Government agencies -- mainly in protest of the arrest of Kim Dotcom.

The majority of the suspects were from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain -- where agents also seized phones, computers and cash.

It strikes me that we're rapidly reaching a point were full-blown war is about to break out.

A massive army of young people with plenty of time on their hands and who are intensely irritated at the authoritarian clamp-down on what they see are their "rights" while online may soon become a might adversary for law-enforcement agencies.

If they thought that Anonymous was a problem, wait until these clever, time-rich kids start organising themselves (using the net as a communications medium) to really create trouble.

Unless efforts are taken to defuse this looming conflict, I suspect that there's a good chance everyone will suffer the fallout.

As key systems and services are attacked by the youth forces I have no doubt that authorities will seek to clamp down even further on internet freedoms -- thus aggravating the situation. Eventually we (the regular Net users) may find that the speed and reliability of the Net is compromised by the fallout from this war.

Perhaps it will result in a global "internet licensing" scheme, whereby all those wishing to access the Net will have to authenticate their true identity before being allowed through the door to cyberspace.

Maybe it will simply be that the levels of surveillance and the number of DOS attacks brings the Net to a crawl -- ankle-tapping legitimate traffic in the process.

Of course it might be that I'm just in a pessimistic mood and looking at the worst possible outcome for a situation that could perhaps resolve itself without a drop of cyberblood being spilled.

But somehow, I don't think so.

Shedding light on energy-efficient electronics

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:27:00 +0000

There are two items of consumer electronics that I have owned for over 20 years and I don't intend parting with either of them any-time soon.

They are incredibly useful devices which, despite the fact that most electronic gadgets are usually replaced at ever-shorter intervals, remain as useful today as they were when I first purchased them.

In fact, they have one key feature that few of their contemporary equivalents offer.

They're both solar-powered.

I'm talking about my Casio FX-115 scientific calculator and a small AM/FM radio.

The really great thing about these devices is that I've never had to replace a battery in either of them, despite their many long years of faithful service. I shudder to think how much rubbish and potential pollution this ability to recharge themselves from ambient lighting has eliminated.

Other radios that I have tend to need new batteries at very regular intervals and even rechargeable technologies such as NiMH cells don't completely eliminate the need for periodic replacement. The AA-sized NiMH cells I purchased about seven years ago are already reaching the end of their useful life, holding only a quarter of their rated capacity these days.

Yet, my calculator and solar-powered radio just keep on working.

Some years ago, I predicted that with advances in low-power electronics and more efficient solar cells, we'd eventually see an increasing percentage of electronic devices that were powered by the ambient light in which they are usually found. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened as quickly as I'd hoped -- but...

Intel have announced that their own experimentation into solar-powered processors and memory is delivering very encouraging results.

Although far from being ready for commercial production, the semiconductor giant has also twigged to the potential for modern devices to be self-powered to some degree, if not totally.

With this in mind, Intel intends to demonstrate its "Claremont" concept processor at a conference in San Francisco next week.

While not designed for full-speed operation when powered solely by its inbuilt solar cell, the processor has a "near threshold voltage" (NTV) CPU which can retain its state and even idle along at much lower speeds -- without the need for external power.

The company claims that by entering this near-hibernation state, laptops and other computers could "suspend" operations without drawing power from the main battery.

However, I expect bigger things from this technology and I have no doubt that before too long, many tablet computers will boast an integrated display, touchscreen, solar panel -- all rolled into one. They will recharge themselves from ambient light when not actually in use and the output of the screen/panel will further extend the length of time they can operate without recourse to a conventional power source.

Look for most other bits of electronic kit to also boast solar cells -- even if only to eliminate the insidious (but not insignificant) cost of "phantom drain" -- such as that used by TV sets, DVD players and other items when turned off via their remote control units. And of course, those remotes will also never need new batteries - because they'll also be solar powered -- taking advantage of ambient and artificial lighting to keep their batteries or supercaps fully charged.

Small is beautiful (finally)

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:43:00 +0000

I recall that when I first got into computing, way back in the late 1970s as a result of the invention of the microprocessor, mainframes were "the" computers de jour.

Even once the early 1980s rolled around, "real" data-processing professionals such as systems analysts, programmers and even data-entry personnel looked down on these "toys" as if they weren't really computers at all.

To be fair, a lot of the early 8-bit micros were pretty crude and wimpy -- with their blocky graphics, hard to read characters, reliance on low-quality monitors and rather nasty keyboards.

What's more, many had barely 48Kbytes of RAM and most relied on floppy disks rather than "serious" storage media.

But my, how time has changed things.

These days, the micro is king and it is the mainframe that is looked at with scorn and derision from some quarters.

Today's microcomputers have far more power than many of the mainframes that were so wonderful just a couple of decades ago -- and they also use much sexier languages, user-interfaces and software.

Although -- somewhat surprisingly, I'm told that mainframe Cobol programmers are still in demand, the big demand now is for those skilled in microcomputer architecture, software and systems. Except for very large enterprise and some scientific applications, the mainframe looks to be headed the way of the Dodo.

Who, apart from a few smarty-pants young upstarts like myself, would have dreamed all those years ago that all that iron would be replaced with a few beige boxes and some network cable.

That's just one of the reasons that I love technology -- anything is possible.

And just what prompted this column?

Well it was NASA's announcement that they have just unplugged their last mainframe computer.

Who'd have thought?

MPAA and RIAA can't see the wood for the trees

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:21:00 +0000

The website MegaUpload has been yanked from the fabric of cyberspace and its owners have been arrested on a raft of charges, including copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering.

How coincidental that this all happens at a time when the MPAA, RIAA and other "parties" are pushing so hard to have the SOPA and PIPA bills passed into law.

It's almost an "I told you so" move on their part -- isn't it?

Spokespersons for the MPAA and RIAA claim that MegaUpload was making around US$175 million per year from this site, while costing their members around $500m in lost revenues.

Hmmm... a stupid person would probably say "oh dear, how terrible!"

A smart person would probably say "clearly, given the financial success of MegaUpload, the MPAA/RIAA are simply pricing themselves out of the market".

Obviously, since MegaUpload's subscription revenues were significant, it's clear that people are willing to pay for the material they were accessing there. Given that, it's not so much about downloading stuff for free as it is about getting value for your money.

If the RIAA/MPAA really wanted to kill MegaUpload -- and any others that might seek to take their place, all they have to do is simply sell their members' products at a price the market finds acceptable -- rather than a price the studio execs would rather charge.

Obviously the studios presently have a huge disconnect from their consumers. They don't realise that digital technology and the internet have changed forever the premiums that could be charged for movies and music. No amount of legislation will change this.

The sooner the studios and publishers wake up to the fact that subscription is the revenue stream of the future the better for all concerned.

I suspect they will eventually wise-up, just as they eventually wised-up to the wonders of selling product via legal downloads.

But don't hold your breath -- they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer -- as the events of today clearly showed.

Is the media suppressing SOPA reports?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:59:00 +0000

SOPA is a nasty piece of legislation designed to empower the US government and those who support it in a way that could see any website or service struck from the face of the internet by little more than an accusation of copyright infringement.

Details of what SOPA proposes and how "the powers that be" plan to implement it are widespread on the Net so I won't repeat them here but I strongly recommend that readers do familiarize themselves with the subject -- it may be rather eye-opening.

So just why is it that such an important piece of legislation that potentially constitutes a major constraint on the freedom of online speech has not been widely reported by the mainstream media?

In fact, if you search the mainstream news sources such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the like, you'll find very little coverage of this proposed legislation, despite the fact that it is the kind of "big government" that many such news services love to sensationalize.

The answer can be found in the list of corporations and companies which are actively sponsoring and supporting the SOPA bill -- here are just a few:

News Corporation (also own Fox News)

Comcast/NBC Universal (owners of NBC and MSNBC)

Time Warner (owns CNN)

Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc. (owns ABC News)

My oh my, isn't that revealing?

It seems that editorial independence for our major news broadcasters and publishers may be in very short supply when it comes to this proposed draconian law. Their sponsorship of the SOPA bill would appear to be significantly compromising their willingness to alert the public to its presence and its effect. Because these corporations deal in the kind of copyrighted material that SOPA protects, they are naturally very keen for it to be passed into law and that means they do not want the public alerted to the darker side of this draconian legislation.

We can only hope that, through blogs, social networking and other more direct routes, the public of the USA (and the world at large) are educated as to exactly what's being proposed here and what the repercussions to free speech may well be.

I urge you to do your best to spread word of SOPA and its nasty "presumption of guilt" premise to all your friends, families and associates.

If we don't educate "the great unwashed", the first thing they know about SOPA may be when their favorite websites start disappearing without trace for no apparent reason.

Two sets of rules in the internet age?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:27:00 +0000

Copyright remains a big bone of contention on the internet.

While we tend to think of copyright as being an issue mainly for music and movie studios, it's also a problem for the news publishing industry.

Recently, Rupert Murdoch had a hissy-fit over Google's use of headlines from his online publications in its Google News service although he eventually saw the light and backed down from a threat to take action against the search giant.

However, there are still a good number of organisations within the news industry who are highly protective of their content and regularly threaten bloggers and others who reproduce their copy without permission (such permission almost always requiring payment).

With this in mind, I was gobsmacked to see a judgment made by The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in which it ruled that it was now okay for the news media to publish images it had snatched from FaceBook - without the permission of the original poster.

It seems that the ACMA believes that such content, if it's made publicly available by the FaceBook account owner, can be republished without infringing copyright.

With this in mind, I'm certain that the ACMA will be standing behind any blogger or other Net user who chooses to republish (without permission) any of the work the news media -- so long as that work has been made "publicly available" by being first published by the news-organisation concerned, via its own website.

I will contact the ACMA to get their position on this but I think we all know what it will be.

Does this sound fair to you?

A solution in search of a problem

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:28:00 +0000

The quantum world is fascinating...

So much uncertainty and so very different to the Newtonian world we're all familiar with.

When we measure the position of a quantum object, we can't be sure of its speed and if we measure its speed, we're no longer sure exactly where it is.

Totally fascinating.

As we continue forward into the second decade of the 21st century, we are still gifted with only the slightest understanding of the quantum world but already, we've done something very, very clever.

A group of scientists at Bristol University have created the first programmable quantum photonics chip.

Woohoo...

It won't really do anything you can show your mother -- but never the less, it's a gigantic step forward in our attempts to harness quantum effects.

Of course it's pretty much useless as anything other than a proof of concept and, as a practical device, it's even less useful than the very first integrated circuit - but oh the potential!

Unfortunately, we're just not sure what that potential can be used for.

In theory, the quantum computers that may eventually evolve from devices like this one, will be immensely useful for such complex tasks as data encryption and complex mathematics but, as of now, it's all theory.

However, just as the CPU in the computer you're using right now, with its millions or billions of individual silicon junctions grew from those very first transistors created over half a century ago by Bell Labs -- the computer of the future may be filled with devices that owe their very existence to this quantum photonic device.

The future will be a great place and fortunately, that's where we'll all be spending the rest of our lives. Enjoy.

YouTube's new look, not a good look according to many

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:02:00 +0000

Regular readers will recall that just a few short weeks ago, I wrote a column titled Stop messing with my user-interface in which I criticised Firefox for stuffing up what was a perfectly good user-interface.

Well it seems that nobody is listening when users vent their dislike of user-interfaces or websites that are arbitrarily "updated" and "improved" without warning or consultation.

On several occasions, Facebook has angered tens of millions of users when they decided to implement changes to the world's largest social networking site and now, it would appear, Google has made the same error of judgment in updating YouTube's look and feel.

If the comments posted in the Youtube feedback forum are anything to go by, the new look is roundly disliked by YouTube users.

Key functionality, such as the ability to see who is subscribed to what channels, is now missing and there are many other niggles that seem to be upsetting the very core of YouTube's lifeblood -- those who contribute and watch the videos around which it is built.

It's becoming pretty clear that Google's stated intention to convert YouTube from a "community" to something more like a regular TV system may lie at the heart of the changes.

Google no longer wants a collection of eclectic videos that people have to subscribe to in order to receive regular updates -- they want to turn the site into a huge video resource that automatically offers-up video content to its viewers. This will make it a far more practical source of content for an IPTV service -- because TV users just want to watch, not go searching for their viewing.

As a result, the emphasis seems to have gone out of building a one-to-one relationship between the content producer and the viewer -- to the extent that now, YouTube content creators don't actually know who has subscribed to them -- they simply get a head-count.

It will be very interesting to see what happens next.

It's been my experience that most people are averse to change. Like a comfortable pair of slippers, they like what they know and are familiar with. Unexpected and unsolicited change can often create feelings of dissatisfaction but, eventually that passes and users just forget about it.

On the other hand, the internet is a fickle place and, as some have found out to their cost, upsetting the great unwashed masses can turn a popular hangout into a ghost-town almost overnight -- so long as they have somewhere else to go.

In YouTube's favour, there aren't a lot of other places to go and certainly none of the alternatives are nearly as convenient as Google's flavour of user-generated video content.

So I suspect that the wailing and gnashing of teeth will continue for a little longer -- but eventually it will subside and, in a month or two, it will be as if nothing had ever happened.

However, wouldn't it be nice if, just every now and then, companies actually consulted the people who use their products and services -- before they decided to make major changes.

How to say "I don't care" this Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:37:00 +0000

Christmas is less than a month away and, no doubt, many folk are now considering what gifts to buy friends and family.

If you were hoping to post a gift to Aunt Agatha in the UK or your old friend Eustace in the USA then chances are you've already left it a bit late -- but fear not, the Internet will save you!

Online shopping is a great way to save money and ensure that last-minute gift is delivered on time to those people in far-away lands - what's more, it's almost certainly cheaper than buying locally and then spending a small fortune on postage.

Unfortunately there are often a few hiccups in the process.

Some online retailers won't ship to a country other than that in which your credit card is registered. That makes a lot of sense -- since the trade in stolen/cloned cards is rife and the savvy fraudster will always try to use a card from a foreign country when buying online.

However, if you can find an online store in the UK that will accept payment from NZ for delivery to a UK address then you'll save a bomb (on the postage at least) when buying for Aunt Agatha and the time from clicking "buy now" to actually having the item in her wrinkly little hands will be greatly reduced.

So cyber-savvy makes good sense when buying gifts -- but there are instances when you really ought to give the Net a very wide berth at Christmas.

Please, please please -- do not send e-cards to people you care about.

It reeks of "I'm so cheap I couldn't afford a stamp" or "you're so unimportant I just figured I'd spend 2 seconds sending you an e-card instead of a real one".

Not only do these e-cards make you look like a cheap, insensitive clod, they also make it much easier for malware producers to sneak nasty payloads onto the PCs of unsuspecting victims.

For every genuine e-card that arrives there are goodness knows how many unsolicited malware-versions that are sent out by those seeking to build or grow their botnets -- and collect credit card details from the unsuspecting, in order to fund their own fraudulent online purchases.

So there you have it -- my Christmas tip -- don't send *anyone* an e-card and be very, very wary of opening any that might arrive in your own inbox.

In fact, why not send an email to all your "friends" and family right now, advising them that you won't be accepting e-cards this year for security reasons. That'll mean that those cards which do arrive in your inbox will almost certainly be bogus and it'll also remind those cheapskates who were planning to save themselves a stamp that they really need to think again.

Interesting times in the world of science

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:29:00 +0000

A couple of interesting reports caught my eye on the science wires today.

The first was the result of further experiments designed to try and prove or disprove recent observations which hinted that neutrinos may have been observed traveling faster than the speed of light.

Back in September, scientists working in Italy as part of the OPERA collaboration announced the results of an experiment that shook the very foundations of modern physics. They produced data that was at odds with the predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Numerous peer reviews of the experiments failed to turn up any explanations for the data which suggested that neutrinos had been observed traveling at faster-than-light speed -- but the underlying belief was that it was the experiment at fault, not Einstein's theories.

In an attempt to solve the mystery, another experiment was performed last week -- yet the results are consistent with the first and still indicate that a stream of neutrinos released from CERN arrived in Italy faster than it would take a beam of light to traverse the same distance.

The importance of these findings is so great that the scientists involved are still focused on searching for any possible alternative explanation for what they've observed. Stay tuned, this will be a very interesting outcome -- either way.

Another exciting report was practical proof of theoretical predictions relating to the Casimir Effect.

In theory, the Casimir Effect would allow energy to be extracted from a vacuum, simply by positioning two plates a microscopically close distance apart.

Quantum physics predicts that if the plates were close enough, a force would appear that tried to push them together. This is because, subatomic particles are supposedly constantly popping in and out of existence and if the plates are close enough, there is insufficient room for many to "pop into existence" between the plates but plenty of room for them to do so on the other side of those plates.

The net result would be a pressure that worked to push the plates together -- at least that is the theory.

As part of this theory, the Casimer Dynamical Effect says that a mirror traveling at near light-speed through a vacuum will itself produce light, as it encounters the transient photons that "pop in" ahead of it.

Scientists have been unable to test this theory due to the difficulty in accelerating object with the mass of a mirror to a sufficiently high speed. However, by using a piece of quantum equipment called a SQUID (a superconducting quantum interference device), they have produced the same effect using microwave signals.

What does this mean?

Well it proves that even the most absolute vacuum does contain energy and perhaps one day we will be able to extract that energy.

If ground-breaking scientific discoveries in the field of physics are like most other things, big news will probably come in threes.

I wonder what's next?

Stop messing with my user-interface

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:23:00 +0000

In the beginning -- there was a row of switches and lights.

That was the interface between man and computer - and it sucked.

Over time, and as technology became more powerful, this interface evolved and became a whole lot more efficient and friendly.

For a while, teletype printers and keyboards ruled. They allowed programs, commands and data to be input in English-like languages and phrases. They also allowed the computers of the day to output information in an easily read and archived form.

Then came the CRT and the electronic keyboard. Suddenly the need to kill a forest simply to initiate a few batch commands or debug a problem was gone.

After a while, the plain, monochrome, character-based CRT display evolved into a pixel-addressable screen capable of displaying tends, hundreds, thousands or even millions of different colours.

Gone was the need to laboriously type in every command using a keyboard -- point and click became the norm once the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer) interface took ahold.

Of course it's probably best not to talk about the oft promised but never delivered natural language speech interface but who knows, maybe that too will become practical one day.

So now, in the second decade of the 21st century, we're focusing on the feature-set and ergonomics of our software but still using the WIMP paradigm.

Unfortunately, those who design and implement software seem to be running out of good ideas and I get the feeling that some applications are actually slipping backwards when it comes to the effectiveness and efficiency of their user interfaces.

Strangely enough, I am not alone in this observation and others in the industry have voiced similar concerns over recent updates to popular software.

Just last night I upgraded from Mozilla 3 and 4 to Mozilla 8 (did I miss four versions already?) and I'm not at all happy with the changes I now have to adapt to.

For instance... where's the reload button? As a developer, I use the reload function a lot -- but that important click is now two clicks (right button, point to "Refresh", click). Why?

And why did they move bits around for no apparent reason? Simply so that it looked like a new version rather than a minor revision perhaps?

When I upgrade my software, I don't want to have to relearn a whole bunch of stuff for no real gain in efficiency or ease of use -- that's a false economy.

Are we now reaching a point with user-interface design where our interfaces are so good that any change (especially for the sake of change) is simply a retrograde step?

If so - then I would ask the programmers to please "put down the mouse and step away from the keyboard"

Malware makers opt to target mobiles for the big money

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0000

For many years now malware authors have discovered that there are rich pickings to be made by infecting people's PCs with trojans and back-door code that offers to harvest key bits of data such as account logins, credit card numbers and online banking data.

Interestingly enough, as PC operating systems become more hardened to such attacks, mobile phones are seemingly becoming more vulnerable and far more attractive targets.

Thanks to the widespread use of two main operating systems (iOS and Android) and a growing appetite amongst users to have the latest and greatest applications, the job of the malware writers has been made somewhat easier than was the case when every phone had its own proprietary environment.

What's more, the increasing power of smartphones has greatly increased the number of people who now use them for activities such as online banking, online purchasing with their credit cards and even mobile payments.

However, if the latest reports are to be believed, the biggest money-spinner for the malware makers is the creation of applications that masquerade as bona fide code while covertly sending of SMS messages to expensive online services. Those services operate very much like an 0900 number and a charge, sometimes quite significant, is levied each time a message is sent to them.

Mobile users who have downloaded malevolent apps can soon find that, with out their knowledge or permission, their phone has racked up huge bills against their account -- or completely depleted the credit on their pre-pay account.

More often than not, the numbers to which the collect SMS calls are made are offshore, therefore the chances of recovering money stolen in this way is remote.

Then of course there are the other trojan apps which simply report on other data passing through the phone, potentially allowing the harvesting of credit card numbers and account logins.

One thing is for sure -- mobile users will have to be come increasingly vigilant when using their phones and, in particular, when downloading applications -- even if they're from approved sources. Already some vendors have had to pull a number of apps from their app stores after it was discovered that they were carrying an unauthorised payload that spied on the user or racked up unexpected bills.

It will be very interesting to see how the industry addresses this increasing problem. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime, my $50 "dumb" phone will be the safest option.

Good product, bad pitch

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:24:00 +0000

Today I called in to Dick Smith Electronics because my wife, who now has a brain injury, wanted to take a look at the Kindle ebook reader.

She particularly wanted to evaluate the Kindle because it offers a text to speech function that has the potential to significantly restore much of the enjoyment she used to get from reading.

Unfortunately, since her injury, reading is now very difficult and she finds it much easier to follow the words while they're read out-loud -- hence, the Kindle sounded like the perfect answer to her problem.

We entered the Dick Smith store and asked an assistant where we could find the Kindles. The woman, obviously more interested in doing something else rather than serving nuisance customers, gestured towards the back of the shop and continued with what she was doing.

Off we strolled in the general direction of her pointing and eventually found a pile of empty Kindle boxes labeled "Take this empty box to the checkout to purchase your Kindle". Atop this pile of empties was a working unit operating in "demo mode".

I showed the wife how the buttons worked and we marveled at the high contrast and resolution of the e-ink display.

However, the real reason for the visit was to experience the quality and practicality of the text to speech function so I called over another young shop assistant in the hopes he'd be able to produce such a demo.

He fiddled with the unit for a few minutes before deciding that perhaps the demo model had that functionality disabled.

Another customer came up to us at this stage and began to expound the wonders of the Kindle, saying that he couldn't live without his -- but still no demo of the text to speech.

While we were talking to this customer, the youthfull Dick Smith salesperson finally managed to get the speech system working -- but we couldn't hear it over the extraordinarily loud music that had been screaming from one of the stereo systems throughout our entire time in the shop.

No matter how hard we listened, the Kindle's sound was obliterated by the thumping base and crashing treble of this stereo -- which was right across the other side of the shop.

We said "we can't really hear it over the music" -- to which the sales assistant simply looked blankly at us. Perhaps he couldn't hear us over the noise either.

By holding my ear really close to the Kindle I was able to hear a typical monotone computer synthesized voice which may have been okay -- except that it was reading very fast, far too quickly for my wife to keep up with.

"Can you slow it down?" I inquired.

"Dunno" I was told -- and no attempt was made to find out.

What should have been a very easy sale for DSE was totally ruined by the seeming disinterest of the staff and some strange need to fill the showroom with the emanations of the local radio station to such an extent that a demo was virtually useless.

I'll probably just import one now by purchasing online. After all, if this is the level of service one gets before you lay down your money, how bad would it be afterwards if something went wrong?

DSE -- epic fail!

Now I'll use the Net to find the answers to my questions. Thank goodness for technology.

Google's monopoly to be strengthened?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:34:00 +0000

Word on the wires is that Google is seriously contemplating a buy-out of Yahoo.

Well actually, they're not being quite that blatant about it because a direct attempt at acquisition by Google would likely be disallowed by anti-monopolies (antitrust) legislation and thus would fail.

However, there is more than one way to skin a cat and information has come to light that Google may attempt an indirect buy-out by funding a third-party group of companies to bid for what was once the Web's most valuable property. I say "was once" because Yahoo has fallen on hard times in recent years and is now ripe for takeover.

However despite falling from its once mighty position as "the defacto hub of internet content", Yahoo still has a larger share of the search market than its nearest competitor, Microsoft's Bing. It is because of this that a direct pitch by Google would fail.

Right now, Google has a massive 65% of the market and Yahoo has around 16%, versus Microsoft's 15% so a complete acquisition would give Google more than 80% market-share, clearly a situation that would cement its current move towards "owning" this sector of the industry.

Of course Google has another reason for wanting to buy Yahoo -- simply to avoid Microsoft doing the same. If the boys at Redmond were to purchase Yahoo, they'd double their share of the search market with the stroke of a pen (and the rustle of dollar bills) -- and that would erode Google's own position.

According to reports, Microsoft's Bing has not been the success they'd hoped -- in fact it's bleeding red ink quite significantly. Although Yahoo itself isn't exactly massively profitable, the synergy of the two search engines and the resultant ability to rationalize costs could see a turn-around on the Microsoft ledger for this part of its business.

Google has a mantra of "do no evil" which it has managed to keep to (by and large) so far. There are grave concerns however, that if it does establish such huge dominance in the search market, the temptation to stray from this ideology may become too great.

You know what they say... power corrupts, and ultimate power....

Perhaps what's needed in the online marketplace is more competition rather than less.

Plug and prey

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:43:00 +0000

I'm a bit late with this week's column and that's because I'm still recovering from the painful experience of passing a kidney stone.

However, the ordeal was not without some useful insight into our technology and the way we use it.

When the ambulance arrived in response to my 111 call (yes, it was *that* painful and I was getting really concerned that I might pass out and vomit at the same time), they rolled up and threw a blood-pressure/pulse monitor cuff on my arm.

This unit is attached to a fancy box with big LCD display, touch screen, knobs, buttons and a price-tag that would probably make your second car look cheap.

When they pushed the "go" button, a firm but polite voice said "please connect".

The ambo lady frowned and pushed the button again....

"please connect"

She wiggled the wires, removed and reinserted the plugs -- then frowned again when it continued to say "please connect".

Eventually it started working and the cuff inflated, my BP and heart-rate displayed and there was a barely perceptible sigh of relief from its operator.

For a moment I was wondering (amidst the pain) if I'd have to start diagnosing a fault in the medical gear before we'd even get into the back of the ambulance.

When I got to the emergency room I was wheeled behind a curtain and, after the usual questions (are you alergic to anything? What is the capital of Peru? etc, etc) an ultrasound machine was wheeled out.

The probe was greased up and applied to my abdomen which, fortunately, was now not as painful as it had been just 15 minutes earlier.

This ultrasound machine was pretty new apparently. It too had a big LCD display with touch screen and lots of blinky lights.

Unfortunately I saw the doctor frown as he began stabbing at the screen.

Was I going to die? Had he seen something awful inside me?

No... as it turns out, he was having trouble making the machine work.

Or, to be precise, he was having trouble figuring out *how* to make the machine work.

After much poking (of the screen, not me) it finally started behaving and he had a good old virtual rummage around inside me.

Nothing wrong there -- everything about the right size and in the right place -- although he couldn't find my left kidney but attributed that to a little gas in my intestines.

It was becoming increasingly clear however, that our medical people are often quite naive when it comes to the use of their hi-tech gear. Obviously, in making these things fool-proof we remove any need to understand the basics of how they work.

Unfortunately, that means that when/if they don't work -- all you get from those trying to use them is a nasty frown.

This drawback to uber-friendly technology has been a trend apparent ever since the middle of the 20th century, when automotive technology changed from something you could easily understand and fix with a screwdriver or hammer -- to a big box of "magic" that requires shelves of diagnostic computers and a PhD in nuclear physics to properly comprehend.

Now, so long as all this new-fangled stuff works as it should, we all benefit.

Unfortunately, when it doesn't do what it's supposed to, I can easily see that (at least in the area of medicine), doctors and nurses could become to focused on "fixing the machine" rather than fixing the patient.

Me thinks there's room for improvement here.

Time to stop imitating and start innovating!

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 01:08:00 +0000

A growing number of tablet makers are discovering that they have to drop their prices to compete with the iPad.

In fact, Amazon has hopped straight onto the discounted hardware model and is shipping its Kindle Fire at a give-away price from day one.

Even with the move towards fire-sale prices however, most of the tablet-makers are not doing brisk sales -- in fact, some industry insiders believe that the tablet market is turning out to be a major bust for "brand name" players, except Apple.

Why is this?

How come none of the other "big names" can replicate Apple's success?

Well I'm wondering if it's not actually the "tablet" computer that has people (and their wallets) captivated. I'm starting to think that it's actually just the iPad.

The iPad may be a tablet computer but no other tablet computer is an iPad. This is a one-way equation and as such, means that other wannabe tablet-makers are wasting their time and their money trying to compete because... they'll never be able to build an iPad.

Today I received some junk mail in my letterbox from Noel Leeming and two items made be think "they have to be kidding!".

The first was a "Pre-order Now" ad for the new "Sony S" -- Sony's new tablet computer.

Now I'm sorry but there's just no way I (or anyone else I know) will spend $950 on a tablet that isn't an iPad.

This product is being pitched as a device for music and gaming -- are they kidding? Tablets are not gaming platforms and I can buy a rather nice little MP3/MP4 player from China for $50 that will do the job very nicely.

The other ad which made me look twice was a pitch for the new Sony e-Reader. Once again, I'm not spending $230 on an ebook reader that isn't a Kindle.

No, I'm not a brand-name snob -- I'm just aware that the Kindle is "the" ebook reader. It has everything anyone might want *and* it comes with wireless or 3G access to Amazon's incredible ebook shop. Why would I spend as much for a second-tier device as I would for the recognised industry leader?

I'm afraid that companies like Sony, LG, and all the others will have to learn that the days of making money by playing the "me too" game are quickly drawing to a close.

Simply trying to out-tablet the iPad or out ebook the Kindle is only going to earn you red ink on your sales ledger.

Come on you people -- stop imitating and start innovating!

Software clash - the case for a single-source

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:42:00 +0000

Something very interesting happened this past week.

Microsoft declared Google's Chrome browser to be a piece of malware and suggested people delete it.

Was this a cunning ploy to try and promote Internet Explorer as the best browser?

No, it was a simple human snafu that resulted in the kind of software clash nobody likes to contemplate.

It seems that Microsoft Security Essentials was updated with an erroneous signature which happened to match that for Google Chrome and, acting on that errant information, some users were mistakenly told by MSE that their computers were now infected with the Win32/Zbot piece of malware, renowned for stealing login details and credit card numbers.

Microsoft quickly posted an advisory detailing their mistake but by then it was too late for some users who'd already acted on MSE's recommendations and obliterated Chrome from their PCs.

Unfortunately, in a world where multiple software vendors are competing for a slice of your IT spend, such clashes are occasionally inevitable and I'm sure this won't be the last.

It is interesting that the new model for software distribution, as used by Apple for those wishing to buy iPhone apps, is to vet each and every program before it's released for sale. Once given this "seal of approval" and made available for purchase, customers can buy with a slightly increased level of confidence that major clashes won't occur.

I say "slight increase" because, as we've seen, even this model of software distribution is not infallible.

While Microsoft's blunder was surely accidental, there can be no doubt that it will likely result in a benefit to the company, within a market that may now be more inclined to use a browser they could expect to be more compatible with their operating system -- because it's from the same vendor.

For those who acted on MSE's directives, Google has announced that it will be releasing a "fixup" that should restore affected systems to their previous configuration.

System administrators will likely now be adding up the cost of "putting things right" and whether they reconsider the use of MSE and Google Chrome (or any 3rd-party product) as bed-partners on their systems.

Don't believe the internet

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:58:00 +0000

Having its roots in the world of academia, there was a time when, if you read something on the internet, you could be fairly sure it was at least partly true.

My, how times have changed.

These days, thanks to the fact that the hurdles to publishing articles, comments, videos and even news stories have been lowered so much, a lot of what you read is far from true. In fact, sometimes it's just a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Several good examples of this have appeared recently all related to video which purports to show a huge NASA weather satellite plowing across the skies above Canada.

When this video and the claims made for it first surface online, a number of otherwise reputable news publishers latched on to it and reported that the satellite must have crashed in Canada. In doing so, they confused speculation for fact.

Later, once it was reported that the satellite had actually splashed down in the ocean off the West coast of the USA, that video and the early reports were clearly discredited. Some news organisations quickly retracted their initial stories or edited them -- by placing a question mark in the headline.

There were plenty of other faked reports popping up online, many like this one purporting to show the satellite crashing to earth nearby.

Eventually, most of the fakers have been exposed but this event does truly highlight the fact that, just because you read it on the Internet, doesn't mean it's true.

But why would people go to all the trouble of creating a hoax and misleading the public?

Simple... money!

The original video now generates revenue for the poster through YouTube's partner program and, based on the number of hits received so far, has probably put a princely sum in their pockets already. Unfortunately, in an age when it has never been easier to create such misleading material and never been easier to profit from it, the internet is becoming a huge source of disinformation.

What a shame.

Should we keep taking the tablets?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:21:00 +0000

Tablet computing is the current "big thing", with every man and his dog rolling out new tablet PCs to sate the apparent demand.

The iPad is clearly the market leader but there are plenty of challengers to that crown, although none has come even remotely close to delivering the slick, polished, product that Apple has created.

The big question however, must be: Are tablets just a fad?

The answer is "yes and no".

What kind of answer is that?

Well the tablet is a device for "consumers" of information -- which most of us are.

The tablet (of any flavour) is best suited to viewing information created and posted by others -- rather than creating and publishing information of your own.

Yes, the tablet has a nice touch-screen which makes it kids-play to interact with the device but just try to knock out a 2000 word essay on a particular subject or edit some graphics with precision and you'll find that the tablet is far from the best machine for the job.

When you're viewing video, text or other material, you can point, swipe, pinch and gesture to your heart's content and the whole process is silly-simple but I can bet you anything you want, that content wasn't created using the same techniques.

Of course you can dock your tablet and plug in a proper keyboard and a mouse -- but then you've basically got a laptop -- except you've paid more than an actual laptop would have cost -- plus you don't have the almost limitless storage that a hard-drive offers.

Then there's gaming...

Apparently, one of the most popular uses for home computers is playing games -- I wouldn't know, I seldom have enough spare time to even contemplate installing a game.

There are tablet-based games but they can't rival the most popular genre amongst hardcore gamers -- the first-person shooter. Again, you could dock your tablet and plug in a joystick but even then, there just isn't the processor grunt to support those ultra-fast frame-rates and super-fast graphics that games salivate over.

But tablets are portable aren't they, you can't lug around a desktop PC and the average laptop is bulkier than a tablet so surely these are the best option for computing on the go -- aren't they?

Perhaps -- but if you're planning to move around a lot, you might find a decent PDA or mobile phone offers a better compromise between portability and performance. Even a small-screened netbook could be a smarter choice.

So I'm left wondering if, once all the iPad fever dies down, whether we'll see a drift back towards netbooks, laptops, hi-end mobile phones and PDAs.

Perhaps the tablet craze is just that -- a craze.

Or I (and HP) could be totally wrong of course.

Look out, it's raining gold (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:18:00 +0000

Just last week I read the news that scientists now believe virtually all of Earth's gold and platinum reserves were deposited on the planet as a result of meteor impactsover a 200 million year period.

I guess that's pretty interesting -- but even more interesting (and worrying) is the fact that we're about to get another big lump of gold possibly dumped on our heads and it could arrive as soon as the end of the month.

What am I talking about?

Well NASA has warned that one of its satellites, worth a cool billion NZ dollars, is about to fall from the sky and plummet to earth in an uncontrolled fireball of flaming metal. Some of that metal will actually be gold.

The upper atmosphere research satellite is a 20 year old lump of orbiting space instrumentation that weighs an astonishing 6 tonnes and is expected to start falling earthwards within weeks as its decaying orbit brings it into contact with the upper layers of the planet's atmosphere.

Although NASA is working hard to downplay the level of risk to those over whose head this lump of metal is orbiting, they do admit that about half a tonne of the original six, is likely to make it intact through the fiery descent. If that lump of metal were to hit a population centre, the results would not be at all pretty.

But fear-not. Those NASA guys have crunched the numbers and come to the conclusion that there is just a 1 in 3,200 chance of anyone actually being hit by a piece of this falling satellite -- and even then, it might not kill them -- perhaps just inflicting a minor flesh-wound.

How reassuring ;-)

If you're still worried -- you can check out the official NASA advisory.

Some have predicted that Europe will be right in the middle of the possible impact zone but NASA simply tell us that there will be a "debris footprint" some 500 miles long and that the impact could be anywhere in a zone between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the equator.

So, even if you didn't win Lotto this week, you might still be in luck around the end of the month. Who knows, a big chunk of gold could land in your back yard.

What should you do if this happens?

Well NASA say: "Do not touch it. Contact a local law enforcement official for assistance".

Yeah, right! eBay here we come! This lump of metal will likely be worth more than gold.

The dawn of a new era in media

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:36:00 +0000

The provisions of section 92A of the NZ Copyright Act came into force this month and serve to highlight the huge void between consumer demand and supplier delivery in the world of audio and video media.

On the one side, we have an antiquated business model that expects to be able to control in minute detail, exactly how, where, when and for exactly how much their product is sold around the world.

On the other, we have a tech-savvy audience who are not prepared to wait any longer than absolutely necessary or to pay any more than they have to in order to listen to or view the music, movies or TV programmes of their choice.

Personally, I think this law is a futile attempt to try and stop people from adapting to the way the Net empowers them to sidestep the tarnished and outdated distribution methods of the past.

With the appearance of IP-ready TV sets in ever-increasing numbers and the proliferation of IP-based set-top boxes, consumers are already gearing up for the new era in media distribution and, unfortunately for the old "stick in the mud" wrinklies who are presently running the media empires, it's adapt or die.

Even the most draconian of laws will have no effect if the public chose to disregard it in large numbers -- as will increasingly be the case.

Right now, there are a good number of people who use P2P networks to illegally download movies, TV shows and music and, despite the best efforts of the publishers and legislators, I see this number increasing rather than decreasing.

When regular TV viewers tire of the same old repeats, encore screenings and "classic revues" of the same boring oft-seen material, they'll power up their IP connection and seek out more interesting, entertaining and up-to-date content. Inevitably, some of that will involve illegally accessing material that is available via the internet.

Look for a massive boost in the popularity of anonymising proxy-servers which will give Kiwis and others outside the USA, direct access to the content on sites such as NetFlix and Hulu -- despite the most determined efforts of content publishers to quarantine content by region.

Look for new methods of distributing such content to appear online. Perhaps "drop-boxes" on anonymous servers or even public file-sharing sites, with access and decrypting details being distributed by secure email amongst approved lists of friends and associates.

If the publishers think they can keep their old model rolling much longer they are simply deluding themselves.

I'm betting that within the next five years, the whole planet will have, for the purposes of media distribution, become a single market and the Net will be one of the primary conduits.

Prepare for a paradigm change! It's coming whether the media moguls want it or not.

Lawyers trump programmers

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 08:17:00 +0000

There as a time when the success of a hi-tech product was pretty much in the hands of those who designed it, those who implemented the design, and the marketing team that sold it.

Come up with a great idea, design a solution around it, get some kick-ass engineers and programmers to turn that solution into a reality then let your ace sales-team take it to the world. Pretty soon you'll be able to kick back and count your profits.

And that's the way it ought to be.

Unfortunately, in the second decade of the 21st century, that's increasingly *not* the way things are working out.

It seems that these days, it's the lawyers who are determining which products will succeed and which products will not.

Take the tablet and cellphone marketplaces for instance.

Right now there's a huge battle underway between patent-holders -- each of which is trying to shoot their competition down by filing suit for all manner of infringements.

Of course patent law is there for a purpose and all good ideas need protection yet, for some reason, it seems that we've almost reached the point where you can't make anything new without infringing someone else's rights.

Apple claim that Samsung are infringing their patents with the Galaxy mobile phone and their tablet computer. In some jurisdictions, the courts are siding with Apple. Sucks to be Samsung.

Of course Samsung, like many other manufacturers, is basing their software on Google's Android OS but have made a few tweaks that apparently fall foul of those Apple patents.

Then there is the war brewing between Google (with the VP8 video codec it has built into WebM) and the patent pool entity MPEG LA who are rattling the lawsuit sabre.

Many commentators claim that ridiculously lax patent laws are partly to blame for the fiasco that is currently emerging in the hi-tech sector. Some argue that many of the patents which have been granted, especially in the software area, are neither novel nor without significant prior-art and therefore ought not to qualify for protection.

Unfortunately, so long as all sides have plenty of cash and a seemingly unlimited army of lawyers, the only winners will be the BMW and Porsche salesmen.

In the meantime, Google and other companies are now finding that it is often cheaper to buy up those companies who have the patents you might otherwise infringe than it would be do battle in a courtroom or to license a right to use that intellectual property.

Let's hope this whole situation gets sorted soon and we can get back to the process of coming up with really smart, innovative, affordable and useful hi-tech products.

Am I holding my breath?

No.

HP dumps PCs and notebooks for software

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:05:00 +0000

Just three short weeks after proudly stating that NZ customers would play 40% more than others for their Touchpad tablet computer, HP has announced that it's pulling out of the hardware game.

Not only is it going to ditch the TouchPad but it's also looking to divest itself of all its PC hardware lines and even its WebOS Smartphone products.

Instead, the company is investing heavily in acquiring software talent and intends to reposition itself as a major player in this field.

Although the company's realisation that the Touchpad was never going to fly must come as a relief to shareholders, the company's stocks still took a hit on the news.

One thing is for sure, if HP had tried to do an Adidas and charge Kiwis 40% more than the rest of the world they would have been held up to ridicule and derision by savvy consumers.

This strategic withdrawal from the PC hardware marketplace is a bold step for HP but not a silly one. Although they still have a significant market-share (17.5% of the US market) it is very clear that, in the face of intense competition from rivals such as Apple, the whole market is undergoing significant change. The company has reported significant decline in its netbook and notebook sales -- clearly a result of the iPad's runaway success.

One of the keys to success in an industry as dynamic as the computer one is knowing when to refocus -- fortunately, HP seems to have done this in time to avoid major embarrassment -- although some claim that the Touchpad was proof that it might have been prudent to make this move just a little sooner than they did.

Right now, only 2% of HP's revenues come from software so this redirection is perhaps a risky decision that wasn't taken lightly, especially when you consider that they're now spending $10bn to buy the UK software company Autonomy to establish more of a foothold.

Observers and commentators will be watching HP's progress and reinvention over the coming months to see just how well this gamble pays off.

The great thing about this industry is that the only constant is change.

The end of the PC?

noreply@blogger.com (Aardvark) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:33:00 +0000

It seems that some experts are now telling us that the PC, as we've come to know it, is reaching the end of its reign.

Ever since IBM launched its industry-defining personal computer way back in 1981, most people have associated home and small-office computing with a beige box having a separate keyboard and monitor. Apparently, now that era is ending.

Thanks to massive improvements in user interfaces and the miniaturisation of processors, memory and other peripherals, we no longer need that box, that bulky monitor, or even that array of push-buttons ordered in a typewriter-like fashion.

Today and tomorrow's computers are far more likely to be as varied in form and style as the PC was fixed.

Notebooks and netbooks have already stolen a significant share of the market in recent years but the newest and most revolutionary form of personal computing has to be the tablet computer and in particular, the iPad.

However, personal computing has long gone past requiring us to use tools with generic capabilities such as web-surfing, word processing and some accounting functions. The arrival of uber-powerful microprocessors has meant that almost every bit of consumer electronics we own has an inbuilt computer which usually performs a specialist task, rather than the more generic role the PC once played.

Instead of listening to audio files on our computers, now we use our iPods or other MP3 players.

Instead of surfing the web and checking our email on a PC, an increasing number of people are performing these tasks through their mobile phones.

Game playing, which was once one of the most popular applications of the home PC has been offloaded to a large degree onto gaming consoles, most of which have internet connectivity.

So, if these experts are correct, the humble PC may be about to become an endangered species, seldom seen in the office or home -- eventually replaced by other smaller, sleeker, more effective and possibly more purpose-specific computing devices.

Alas PC, I knew you well.

Now where did I put that iPad?