The diverse (and often pointless) face of mobile computing...

I'm a pretty big fan of mobile computing and technology. It always seems better to be able to keep doing "stuff" without having to be tethered to your house. And so, i watch mobile computing trends come and go with eager interest. Okay, so i'm not an eager kind of person, but i pay some idle interest, which is a departure from the norm.

At the moment, it seems like there are a couple of different ways into the mobile computing brand:

1. The JTIO mob. (The Just Tack It On Mob). Their ideology is simple. Find a device. Put internet on it. Everything from camcorders to e-book readers. Generally a useless waste of perfectly good internet.

2. The BIFTG mob. (The Build it From the Ground mob). Not so simple. Biggest example is the netbook, which was built as a laptop, but the makers were too lazy to do it properly, so they just ripped some stuff off the internet and made it seem local, and BANG! The netbook is born.
(This whole category is made worse by the fact that whenever you take it away from the Internet, it becomes a useless pile of crap. I've seen bricks with more functionality.)

3. The RATPFMS mob. (The Re-Align the Product for More Sales mob). This is where we have a perfectly good product, but for the sakes of making it better, they suddenly add a whole new dimension, and feature set, just cos its useful. Generally, results in some of the most useful stuff around. Anything from PlayStations to TV's have had this treatment, and all have come out the better for it.

However you want to do it, everyone can see it coming. Some want to embrace it, some won't touch it with a barge pole. But everyone knows it's going to happen. Everything will be connected. The future is with the Internet as the centrepiece of a connected society, or to steal Cisco's ad slogan a "human network".

Me, I'm looking forward to it!

E3 continues...

Having had Nintendo and Sony present their anticipated press conferences, it thought it apt to refresh my E3 coverage. They had big targets to meet after the Microsoft bombshell, and they were impressive, but was it enough...

We'll start with the Sony camp. One of the biggest unveilings (and the worst kept secret) was the PSP Go! Official details were released which was pretty much the same as the pre-release specs. Lighter, smaller, no UMD, now with Bluetooth, slide-out controls, and still no second analog stick. Also interesting was the online-style features. A partnership with eMusic for PSP-based music on the go, PS3 inter-operability, and a couple of other nice bits, apart from the obvious DLC-only gaming.
The PS3 has also been hit with a possible future revolution, with Tretton premiering not just an incredible volume of new games, but also a motion senitive controller, that is even capable of doing soft touches, such as knocking over dominoes. Impressive, and definitely a Wii-hunting move.

Now with Micorsoft and Sony going Wii-hunting, what would Nintendo's response be?
Pretty much nothing as it turns out! Their biggest announcement was a couple of DLC titles for the DS platform and the improved Wii Motion Plus. Yawn!

So that's it for the big three for this year. Let's hear it, who do you think won it? Who was most impressive? Who was an absloute dud?

UPDATE: I almost forgot. Nintendo released a heart-rate monitor for the Wii! Yes, i know it's pretty weird, but they were struggling...

E3 is here!

E3 2009 has started, and some of the big guns have already thrown in bombshells on the first day!

Biggest news of the day was, of course, Microsoft's big press conference. They were starting to look a touch like the lame duck of the console business, but they've just delivered a whopping great slap to the Wii! The next Xbox 360 add-on is based on the idea of your body controlling the game. Details are still a little on the sketchier side, but it seems that rather than having something like a Wiimote, the Xbox 360 add-on, codenamed Project Natal, uses a bar setup with camera, motion, sound, and even suggestions of 3D perceptions. If it works as well as they claim, it should be really impressive. But it still has no name, no price, no release date, no specs, no (or barely any) compatible games, and not really anything concrete at all. Crave even thinks that it won't be ready for E3 2010! My bet? When the Xbox 360 gets replaced, Natal will be ready and waiting.
Microsoft also announced a swag of new games for their soon-to-be-reborn console. Not too many gorundbreaking titles, but interesting nonetheless. Many sequels. Rock Band, Tony Hawk, Final Fantasy, Crackdown, Left4Dead, Splinter Cell, Forza Motorsport, and Halo (two of them) are all current franchises about to be given a boost. In fact, there was really only two new games, and one of those was a lightweight online-only game...

Yet more suprising Microsoft news :  Facebook and Twitter are coming to Xbox Live. Now i've always thought that Sony would throw in a port of either Facebook or MySpace (or new kid Twitter) into the PS3's PSN capabilities. But i've stopped waiting. And now Microsoft has jumped in and is (to be brutally frank) holding Nintendo and Sony by the balls. Only sign of light on the horizon is the Facebook Connect Standard which may yet make the jump to the PlayStation family. Wouldn't it be awesome to have Twitter on a PSP!

There are some other nice games from the likes of Ubisoft, but none seem earth-shatteringly new or particularly attention-grabbing, so i won't waste your time now.

Keep your ears (and/or eyes, unless you are somehow text-to-speeching my blog which is just weird) peeled as i try to keep you updated as Nintendo and Sony hit back tomorrow at 9:00 and 11:00 respectively (American time)...

Kindle 2? What were they thinking!

My opinion of the intelligence of our collective human race has taken a step down since the release of Amazon's latest baby, the Kindle 2.

For those of you not so up-to-date as Yours Truly, Amazon.com, book retailers of the Interweb released a fair while ago, a device by the name of the Amazon Kindle, a portable book reader made for use with Amazon's extensive collection. Now, they've released its successor, the imaginatively-named Kindle 2. It has grown in size, functionality and tech appeal, as has Amazon's Kindle-friendly catalogue. But there is really only one question that comes to mind with this little gadget: Why?

If people want to read a book while sitting around at home, they will probably read a book, available for a much smaller price than Amazon's eye-watering $360 dollar tag.

If they want to read a book while they are out and about, they will probably want to get themselves a decent PDA, a smartphone, or even an iPhone will do it. And if you know the right places *nudge nudge* *wink wink*, you can get the books for free, and in nice .pdb or .lit files, not stupid proprietary type...

If they want something bigger, that they can annotate on, or do things like shop on the go with a full QWERTY keyboard, they can get a netbook, like one of the mini Dell Netbooks (especially the one with Wireless Broadband built in. Hurrah!). Something they can do all kinds of things on... (Waaaaaaaayyyyy!)

Okay, so maybe some of you want something to do all of these things, and only these things. Then you should consider dropping the $360 for a Kindle 2, which in all other regards, does its job very well, even if it is a bit big.

But this all returns to the age-old question: A bunch of devices to do lots of little specialised things well, or just the one to do all of them, but not quite as well?

Is anyone going to dispute the value of, say, a nice Palm TX, or a mini Toshiba netbook with a wireless Broadband card? (cue Godlike choral singing as the clouds open and light floods down upon these pinnacles of technology.)

Judging by the explosion in the smartphone industry (some freaky numbers floating around!), the consumers have decided on the latter, and this particular technophile agrees.

Dude, where's my Netbook?

Asus has unveiled their new Eee PC (Yes, another one), and this one is actually worth the effort of looking at.

Asus has crammed the gizzards of an Eee Netbook (including what is thought to be a full Atom chipset) into a keyboard and then put a little 5-inch touchscreen on the right-hand side. Oh yeah...

People walk into the room and wonder what the f*** you're doing typing into a keyboard with no computer attached. And if you were really dedicated, you could even buy yourself a nice 22-inch wireless LCD monitor and confuse your mates more, while attracting the green-faced envy of every geek who's sure that the cables surrounding his desk are actually breeding...

This is one of those really great ideas, that probably won't catch on, cos nobody could be bothered. Anyone remember the laser projector keyboard? The little thingy that made a picture of a keyboard on a desk and somehow worked out when you were 'typing', what keys you were hitting, and then folding into a package the size of a small ballpoint pen... Way cool, yes. Popular, not so much...