Computers

I just found this excerpt (over on the ZumoDrive Blog) from a 1985 Interview with Steve Jobs just as the Mac was launching on just what computing entails:

PLAYBOY: Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work?

STEVE JOBS: Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this cafe [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, "Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward..." and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this cafe, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions—"Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number"—but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

That’s a simple explanation, and the point is that people really don’t have to understand how computers work. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don’t have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh—but you asked

Personally, I think that is one of the most brilliant descriptions of computing I've ever heard. And it is still technically correct, despite its simplicity. What this quote, I think, actually draws attention to, is just what computers are doing, and what we are doing that could make computers such an amazing thing.

Think about it, a computer is basically just a large calculator on steroids and yet, they've now taken on an enormous part of out lives and are capable of what people could only dream of not that many years ago. How we've come from a basic calculation device that filled a room and would give you results after about a week to near instant global networking of innumerable consumer PC's to create a network of information and people that can answer almost any question is even today a bit of a mystery. It seems to be the story of a series of very visionary people (Jobs among them) and some very dedicated groups each advancing in their own way, succeeding and failing in just the right places to create systems which then evolved and evolved until we have today's globally connected electronic world.

On a smaller scale, though, it's this evolution of systems that can really fascinate. Computers initially ran on actual physical glass valves and now the technology world gets all excited because we release a new line of processors which decrease in architecture size from 90 nanometer process to a 45 nanometer process. That's a change from .00000090 meters to .00000045 meters hoping to become .00000011 by 2015. The scale of computer electronics development is amazing not just for its capabilities, but it's evolutionary path. Fuelled by a realisation of possibility, few other things in the history of man with the possible exception of fire and the wheel have evolved quite so rapidly, so fervently and on such a scale. To obtain developments such as the 90nm to 45nm example, takes such levels of technology in itself that it is truly mind-altering. Engineers have managed to bring about a change of 0.00009955 meters since 1972 and this is a truly astonishing feat. Just the idea of 0.00009955 metres makes no sense to us. Our minds have not yet learnt to think on such scales, nor have we learnt to think on galactic scales, which only makes the computer evolution the more astonishing. We have put such development into this technological pursuit that it has (in some ways) evolved faster than our minds have been able to.

The majority of this lies in the same principle that makes parts of the internet so astonishing, elements of group theory and population dynamics combining to create a situation where such scales of individuals are working toward innumerable numbers of goals in myriads of pursuits, all combining into one crowning piece, combining the work of so many into one system.
And all of that is why us geeks absolutely love what we do. Bceause we all want to be a part of that 0.00009955 metres and we all can be.

Google Fast Flip: the new news-worthy revelation in news...

Google has finally unleashed it's latest Google Labs (experimental features) beta. Called Fast Flip, it aims to revolutionize the way people read news. Judging by what I've seen, it will.

The great hallmark of Google News has always been that it was one place where you could read news from just about every reputable source. This is still the case with Fast Flip, which not only increases it's catalogue offerings, but also allows you to filter by not just topic, but also publication.

But here is where the resemblance to Google News ends. Rather than present readers with plain text news on a page under headings. It gives you actual images of the actual stories from their original locations, complete with headlines, bylines, stories, and unfortunately ads. Then, you can simply Flip through all the stories under whatever category/source you're looking at. And in true Google fashion, there ain't no waiting for thumbnails to load here. It's blindingly quick. During our hands-on, I only managed to get to a story without it's thumbnail already loaded once. And I was being pretty demanding.

Then, choose your article with a simple click and it gives you a bigger preview of the story with some more options, including to see the whole article, or "Like" the story, the usual share options, etc. Then, one simple click and you have the whole story, at its original source. Right there.

It's freaking brilliant. It works like an absolute charm, and I have had no problems with the (still experimental) tool yet, so that's a good sign.

It also has a dedicated iPhone page, which is also fantastic. It operates as above, but a bit better because it has all the functionality of the multi-touch interface. First page you see you can choose your category, then flip through the stories with a simple slide. Then, you can either pinch or rotate your iPhone to get a closer look. Tap to get all the usual options in it's own dialog box as well as some more info on your selected article.

But of course, there is a far more sinister side to all this. The two-step process between preview and story means that it has opened a whole new world of options. Options that aren't so great for us, the consumers.

One of the reasons Google put the effort into creating this, and also into changing into a preview-view operation lies in the Internet's very nature. Online press is notorious. It is almost impossible to make money out of online press. More than that, it takes revenue from more traditional sources. Why buy a magazine or a newspaper if you can just jump on your iPhone and look at all for free, on the fly. So far, neither have publishers been able to find a way to successfully monetize the online press, because either your readers run away from costs to someone else who happens to be free, or you can't generate enough money to cover your costs, or that there just isn't an efficient way of visitors paying for their content without too much hassle.

However, it's been reported that much of the Fast Flip architecture has been designed with future options to monetize the story, if you want to move past the article preview. On top of this is the fact that another part of Google Labs ongoing work is the Google Checkout, a payment method similar to PayPal, which we assume forms part of the underlying structure behind Fast Flip.

The implications of this aren't exactly great. It means that soon, not even Internet news will be free. We could all be paying for our news, even from our (almost) entirely free friends at Google.

What is the world coming to when you have to pay to know what the world is coming to.

Google hits back...

Some time ago, I may have said some things on how everyone was beating up on Google and yet, it was all actually a complete waste of time. And now, i get to show you all why!

So, in the last little while, there was Wolfram|Alpha, there was/is Microsoft/Yahoo, there was some piece of forgettable drivel with a crap name like Bing, or Bong, or CRAP or whatever it is. But now, Google has returned to its original famed position at the top of the pile.

Google has done a couple of things. Like Google Squared. Like Chrome. Like Chrome OS. Like Android improvements. Like everything. And so everyone loves them again.

But now lets get into my attitude part of things. All these tools like Wolfram Gamma, or whatever, are a complete waste of everyones time. I'm happy to report that in the interval between its release and now, I've used it once and it failed me. There are also a couple of other bits and pieces that have come along and tried to claim the throne, but lets look at what has actually happened in the meantime. Firstly, and well, lastly too, nothing.

Has any regular Google user actually decided: "yes. I think Bing is better." and actually started using it. And before you all jump on my arse in the comments about god-knows-who, I don't care if your best mate's dog's previous owner's second cousin's ex-girlfriends niece twice-removed's grandmother's parrot's friend's owner's fiance's grandfather's brother's uncle's best friend has started using Bing. Nobody cared. Not even the grandmothers parrot.

Since then Google has made many announcements. They launched Google Squared, a new search tool which enables users to compile a lot of information on a number of things in one easy format, all using Google's amazingly freakish technology. They have also announced that Google Chrome will become Google's second OS, alongside the more lightweight Android. Interestingly, both OS's have claimed they're aimed at the netbook market, which already has two OS's vying for control. Bizarre. They have also announced and showcased one of my most anticipated Google features in ages: Google Wave. A form of realtime collaboration, it appears to solve the perpetual problem of there being so many conflicting and co-existing standards and networks by bringing all the mediums (text, images, video, web) together onto one place (the Wave) and allowing anybody to use it (but still allowing control over who joins the Wave). Cool, no? And this is the first time that I think I'm going to find a collaboration tool useful, if not because Google are the people to do it, and this is the first all-in-one solution...

Of course, there have also been a number of controversies. One of the biggest was after Apple rejected Google's Google Voice from its App Store for reasons of "duplicating functionality" which really just means: Google were freaking us out! This little blunder got Apple yet more publicity for its archaic App Store rejection policies and its continual refusal to cite reasons for its many and varied rejections. As well, Google got a lot of publicity for its tribute to HG Wells, which confused most of the interwebs for a long time, complete with bizarre Twitter posts referencing GPS co-ordinates and the iconic "All your bases are belong to us" reference, which should be in every geek joke.

Of course, this series of doodles which had people confused for quite some time, shows exactly what I'm talking about, and what I have been saying the whole time: Google is huge. Just from the Guardian, a fairly respectable publication, a search about Google's little joke returns 96 results. Searching on Google News returns 182 separate publications with articles on the "Google Crop Circles". A comprehensive search on Google News for Google hits me with a staggering 1.66 million results. And that's just the news articles from Google News...

Google is now so large, it actually is a part of our society. If you ask someone on the street for 5 words relating to the Internet, Google is almost guaranteed to come up. And that's my point, if you could find it somewhere in that incredibly difficult to follow, attitude-ridden, information-starved and generally non-sensical stream of absolute nothingness...

The Return: Yahoo and Microsoft evokes flashbacks

Sorry to all my readers for the long hiatus, but I've had a lot of work on, and then I took a 3 week trip to France, and then had more work, but I'm back and hoping to return to my previous semi-regularity of posting.

Now this one is a little out of date, because it's been sitting here waiting to be published for a while. Enjoy anyway ...

But now, to the post proper. As is the buzz on every vaguely tech-interested news service, Yahoo and Microsoft have finally clinched some sort of deal together. While nobody has any strong details, it appears that Microsoft is the big brother in this little relationship, with some speculating that it could be the end of Yahoo. I, for one, believe they won't die out, but it won't be a good omen for Yahoo, who are already struggling against the friendly giant Google, and who are about to have half of their business stolen out from under them by Microsoft.

There is another question that is annoying me, and one that crops up so often i may as well rename the blog: Why?. (But FerretWhy just doesn't have the same ring...) Microsoft is not exactly short of a penny or two with the world's most heavily populated OS smothering the Earth, and they've just gone and put God-doesn't-even-know-how-much effort into creating, broadcasting, publicising and (as Microsoft tends to do) smothering everyone and anyone with "Bing!", which seems to be Live Search but with a new face, a less dorky name, and options to verbify it later. Although I doubt anyone's going to walk around saying, 'Why don't you Bing it', if not for the potential of horridly inappropriate mispronunciations, but more because Google is just sooo good, and soooo everywhere. And works so well as a verb...

So why, then, has Microsoft spent a good part of that fortune on buying a company that is being beaten silly by a certain company with one more letter in its name. And quite a lot larger than 1% of the market. Critics have suggested that its just for the advertising money, but this still just doesn't quite fit. For me, it evokes flashbacks of that wonderful tech match-up between AOL and Time Warner. Wow. I'm not sure I've seen a more woeful sop story from a company other than this one. If you're wondering what I'm rambling on about now, it's creatively discussed here)

As far as anyone can tell, nothings been set out about what's going to happen, or even what is happening. Only that Microsoft and Yahoo are getting together and what odd bedfellows they make

As usual, I could be wrong about all of this (which wouldn't be the first time) and it could just be money-hungry Microsoft trying to grab Yahoo's pathetic little share of the online advertising market. After all, they are feelng more than a little pressure from Google lately...

Is it really necessary?

Everyone. And i mean, everyone feels the need to hate the big guy. It's even more apparent in the tech world. Microsoft. Huge. Hated (although that might be for a different reason, something to do with their products being, i don't know, can't remember, maybe someone can help me in comments...). And the latest casualty to the We Hate the Big Guy Syndrome (WHTBGS) is Google. Everyone was just fine, using Google every day, it had become one of the most used verbs in the English language, and then, BANG, everyone hates it, and everyone should use Bing, because, well, it's not Google.

To the first of Google's new rivals (and probably the worst): Microsoft's Bing.

(That name could only have come from a Google wannabe, hoping to have a new verb entered into the dictionary: "to Bing". No chance, mate. Sorry about that.)

Microsoft's first disastrous attempt at a search engine Live Search, failed. No doubt about it. It Failed. The only traffic it received was from people who accidentally typed something in the IE search box, forgetting that they hadn't changed the default yet. That, and people living under a rock for the last 10 years, and/or those who live in the suburbs, have huge armchairs, are over the age of 75, and do crochet for a hobby. They don't know what that Internet thing is, but it scares them.

Anyway, the point is that while for Microsoft they couldn't just abandon the huge search sector of their business, but i think their usage stats are going to be a bit misleading, since everyone will use Bing, just cos they don't want to use Google. It's just not that good...

And now to Wolfram Alpha. I am no huge fan of Wolfram Alpha. There has been no secret hates, or shady commenting. I admit. I don't like Wolfram Alpha. I have near to zero use for a computational engine like this. I like Google. I like Google Squared. There is very little i would use Wolfram for, that i couldn't do in my head, have no use for, or want to know more about (i.e. Google it). When in want to know how fast 5mph is in m/s, Google tells me, followed by links to tell me exactly why. When i enter it into Wolfram Alpha, it accompanies it with 5mph in kilometres travelled per year, and a small series of increasingly useless data. I will admit that Alpha has its uses, but all those idiots claiming it is some kind of Google-slayer are just idiots. Alpha is for a different audience, and a different kind of search, where being limited to a small database, rather than a huge index doesn't matter. It may be good, but it's no Google beater, as much cos it's not even taking Google on (you'd be mad to! *cough* Microsoft *cough*)

There is also no getting around the fact tha Wolfram Alpha was made by some dude in his basement with too much time on his hands.

To the bigger issue here: The need to demolish Google. Google is incredibly useful, and it has transformed the Internet. There is no getting around it, and there probably never will be, just like there probably never will be an engine quite like Google. Do we need to fight it so harshly? Can't we all just get along?!!

To my devoted followers: This (suitably attitude-ridden) post also happens to be my blog's 50th post! Right from the start , through the shaky start , then the 10th post , the 25th , the 40th , and now the 50th.

I hope to continue well into the next 50 and beyond, with similarly high-quality, highly-objectionable, and highly-attitude-filled posts, to maintain my standards of awesomeness (unlike a certain other blog , which turned into absolute drivel, and was suitably rejected). Happy Birthday FerretTech!

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!

The future of Computing?

I've been having a bit of a think, which is always dangerous, and as i see it, the current model of computing can't last the next decade. My vision: Distributed cloud computing.

to the first part of my divine epiphany: Distributed computing. I think this is definitely going to happen, for two reasons. One, PS3's have got it. PS3's know everything before it happens. Reason Two, Quad-core processors. As most of my readership would probably know, quad-core processors are everywhere. On a more technical side, quad-core processors have no real increase in actual CPU speed. But, can they multi-task or what? They can do everything,at once. They can run multiple different games of Unreal Tournament. They can be editing twenty-five PowerPoints at once. They can even run mutiple OS's (Macintosh, yay!). And yet, nobody actually uses four processors worth of power at any one time. So what are the other three cores doing. Jack all. Why not, in this ultra-connected world, let the freakin huge network that is the rest of the world, have a bit of your processor. This way, if any computer slows down for a little bit, it nicks a bit of power off someone else who's not using it and KA-BOOM everyone's computer goes way faster.

And if everyone's connected up anyway, why store anything locally? Or on a USB disk. Or on a Portable HDD, or even on an iPod (i've seen it happen waaay too many times). Why not just store it on the biggest cloud in the entire blue sky (i'm pretty sure it's the biggest): the InterWeb. What a great place to store it. Drop it off at one place, pick it up again three continents later and it's still good. You don't need software, there aren't any file types. Everything, just, works. So my opinion might be a little skewed by the fact that 80% of the computers i use won't remember me or anything i save on them after i log out, and the other 20% have no veritable means of connecting with the 80% except for a tired old USB key that tends to randomly disconnect and connect again. Not fun. Whereas, the internet can hold anything, anywhere. There is already a bit of work on this front, especially with online documents. Some are brilliant (Google Docs), some nothing short of dismal (Windows Live Workspaces), but there is still a lot of untapped potential there.

I think if tech keeps advancing at the veritably rapid pace it is at the moment, it can only go closer toward the internet...

It's not that my guess is any better than yours, but i've got the blog...

The Google Empire.

Sure, we're all going to die. Google has reported its first quarterly drop in sales. OMG! It is also, however, accompanied by a more-than-pocket-change $17.8billion in cash and equivalents...

But I'm not here to talk about their overly boring financial statements, as interesting as some may find that, I'm here to talk about what I've dubbed the "Google Collective Principle". In my mind, it consists of a series of ever more complex statements effectively summarising people's behaviour with Google through my eyes. For your benefit, here is the biggest foundation of my principle in simpler terms: "Anyone who uses a Google service is incredibly likely to continue using other Google services".

Just to be clear, i'm not suggesting that using Google search will make you into an active Google advertiser. What I'm saying is similar to handing someone one end of a piece of string. Eventually, they're going to get mighty curious about what's on the other end and work their way down the string.
What I'm trying to prove here is that once someone starts dabbling in Google, even just for Gmail (but it's not the best example) they are probably going to wind up heading further into Google products. Who knows whether it is a benign curiosity, an overwhelming desire to have an online presence or what, but someone like Google having services for everything and anything gives rise to an explosion in the services used. Google's dominance over Yahoo! and Microsoft helps, but also the differing approach between Yahoo! (everything on one page, whether you like it or not, and loads of ads) and Google (autonomous services, each with a Google touch, and only minimal ads) stands out.

For example, Yours Truly has had a Google account (but not a Gmail one) since about 2005. Since then, i have replaced that with my current Google profile  and it accompanied an explosion in the Google Services I use from a simple Gmail account and iGoogle page, then Google Reader, then the floodgates opened and suddenly I had almost every service they offer. On my account settings page, I now have icons for :
1. AdSense
2. Blogger
3. Calendar
4. Gmail
5. Picasa Web Albums
6.Web History
7. Alerts
8. Bookmarks
9. Docs
10. iGoogle
11. Reader
12. Webmaster Tools
13. Analytics
14. Book Search
15. FeedBurner
16. Notebook
17. Talk
18. Youtube
19. News

Yes, 19 different services. In case you're wondering, Google has only 4 remaining services, being Groups, Directory, Scholar Search and Code. I even use Google Mobile!

This blog is the perfect example of my Google Collective Principle. First, I saw a couple of other people's blogs, and decided I wanted my own. So, already having a Google account, I chose Blogger. My Blog of course needed some tracking, so after my disastrous attempt using StatCounter, I reverted to Google Analytics, which is truly legendary, then I wanted to track my RSS feed, cue FeedBurner, indexing management, cue WebMaster Tools, picture integration, cue Picasa, and if I could be bothered I would have AdWords on my blog by now.

Feel free to comment and tell me I'm horribly, horribly wrong, but I still think that the Google Collective Principle stands...

A little Off-topic...

This vid is not very technological. Okay, it's not at all, but it is brilliant video anyway.




Truly amazing!

Yeah okay, so it was only a publicity stunt for some reality TV show, but nobody cares, everyone just loves the video, and i'm one of them...

Now for a bit more off-topic rant on that most favoured of philosophical conversations. Internet sociology. And as an example, so-called viral videos are an amazing concept alone. Not only do they implicate that humans are in fact connected to a lot more people than it seems, but they must be, in all honesty, the fastest spreading anything. Like, i'm talking living, or otherwise. Take the 'Rick Roll' phenomenon, one of the longest-lasting, most widespread, and best remembered of the virals. It lasted for many months upon months, caught god-knows-how-many people and introduced a whole new phrase into the lexicon.
This particular one is likely to join some of the other virals, as a short-lived, quickly-forgotten, but much-loved memory. But look at the speeds involved. The actual incident was on the 23 March, less than a month ago, in Antwerp. It is going to take some time for all the various footage to come together and be released, so now we are talking weeks, but coming out of the editing room (which is just as likely to be some guys room in the basement of his mum's house), it would simply be a file floating around the Net. Another couple of days for it to be discovered, it catches on, and then FOOOOOM!! It explodes across every popular channel on the Net and otherwise, and becomes part of the illustrious "viral league".

Quick word on the first issue, which ties into this incredible speed, is the breadth of its expansion. Sure, it takes a lot for a video to make the jump from Internet sensation to cross-media phenomenon, but some have done it. Even if we deal with these Internet-only vids, there is still an incredible amount of people involved. Just looking at the first 6 or so videos, just off YouTube, I have come up with a juicy 2,525,214 views. Yes, 2 and a half million. Admittedly, some will be repeat views, but they would only make a small amount, and on the larger scale, that's a lot of people. More than 10% (12.02% to be vaguely accurate) of the population of Australia, for example...

And that's just the first page of one video host. I would put my guess at the larger side of 5 million, once you have all the main video sites rounded up. And, as such, it deserves the title of viral...

Portable World : Part 1

Announcing a new (and hopefully recurring) segment to FerretTech : Portable World
I will (somewhat) regularly report on what's happening in Portable Gaming, Computing and Communications.

First up is today's topic: Portable Gaming.

Portable Gaming has positively exploded in a few short years. With the release of ever better and smaller GameBoys, then the DS, Apple's App Attack, and of course, Sony's heavenly PSP.

It is no secret that I think the PSP is the best by far, especially in its latest PSP-3000 guise. Nintendo has also been improving on their success with the new DSi (which has controversially dumped the old Gameboy cartridge slot!)

But there is one thing i want to focus on and that is the Apple products : The iPod touch and iPhone (which i can't be bothered typing out twenty times, so if you see iPhone, chances are i'm talking about both...)

Everyone has been talking about how it is the new king of portable gaming. But, as i see it, it's not even part of portable gaming. About as advanced as gaming gets on the iPhone is Air Traffic Control (legendary!), as opposed to the PSP's headliners like Resistance:Retribution (even more legendary!) and MGS Portable Ops etc etc.
Sure, an iPhone is a good enough all-rounder when it comes to portable gaming, communications, connectivity etc. But saying it is a good Gaming machine is absolute crap. A PSP is a gaming machine, a DSi is a gaming machine, but an iPhone is not!

And that brings my first Portable World post to an end.

Now that is out of the way, let me explain why a PSP will always be better than anything Nintendo can throw at the DS.
1. PSP's are powerful. 333MHz in a device that fits in your pocket! That's pretty impressive. Up until recently, most PSP games (which are technological masterpieces in their own way) have only usually used 222 MHz. I don't actually know the exact figure for a DS, but i know it is less.

2. PSP's can do anything. They play video, they play music, they show photos, they play games, they browse the internet, and given some eggs, and a whisk, i'm sure they could whip up a damn fine omelette, too!
Yes, there are better ways of watching videos, there are better ways of listening to music, there are (probably) better ways of looking at photos (someone once described the PSP as the modern-day 6x4 print), but there is nothing else that can do all of these, and definitely nothing that can do all of these as well as the PSP...

3. PSP's are supported. Apart from Sony's brilliant team sitting in a dungeon somewhere constantly making little tiny variations to improve the PSP, third parties everywhere are jumping on the PSP. From hacking and downgrading to themes and downloadable wallpapers, you can make a PSP do whatever you feel like with a little digging on the Net, which you can do straight from the PSP.

There are plenty of other reasons, but that would run the risk of RSI from the furious rage-typing so i'm gonna leave it at that...

Breaking news (and associated attitude): the NBN!

(Okay, so it's still breaking for me!)

Our favourite Prime Minister (God help us all) Kevin Rudd has announced that after all the tenders were in... He just ditched the whole thing.

The Government has abandoned all the registered tenders and decided to build their own, supposedly using private investment. Good luck with that, seeing as you kind of sunk us even deeper into a deep Global Financial Crisis....

After several consortiums spent millions upon countless millions putting together proposals, (fine, Telstra saved the cash and went to the pub instead), and then the Government spent countless millions setting the whole thing up, and checking the consortiums, Krudd decided to just ditch them all and "run with it".

So now the Government is somehow going to muster up enough cash from private investors (could've done with those $900 cheques, hey?) to lay fibre optic cable to "90%" of the population.
Hang on! 90% of the population get Broadband?90% of the population also happen to live in all the major coastal cities who happen to have broadband coming out their ears, yazoo, arse and just about every other bodily orifice. So why exactly are we spending all this money on laying fibre optic cable up to houses who don't need it. Hmmmmm...

Technologically speaking, he is promising all kinds of great Nirvana-like improvements, but without anything to really back it up. This plan has been cooking since the Howard days, but nobody has really sussed out how exactly they're going to do it. Now with the Government doing it, there's a bit of a mystery as to who will control, charge, and/or maintain the system. he's claiming up to 100kb/sec, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't that much.

Oh well, at least now i can add another wannabe to the list of people trying to get us to buy their internet connection. Meh...

Stupid twit...

As any of you who actually visit my blog may've noticed, i've added a new widget! An online petition against Labor's proposed internet filter. I first saw the widget on Hugh's Blog, and decided to drop it on mine also.

As for the filter, i first saw it many, many months (probably verging on years) ago, when there was a bit of a flurry with news articles, online petitions, and even public debates. But then it disappeared for a while, until now. ABC's Q&A, SBS's Insight, and countless other publications of every sort have gotten back on poor Conroy's ass.

But ignoring the media circus, i want to deal with the actual proposal. Created under the ideals of cracking down on pedophilia, euthanasia, and anorexia sites, Labor's Senator Stephen Conroy has failed miserably.

Lets look at a couple of unmissable truths:

1. It's pointless. It will not slow down the spread of internet child porn. Think about what it covers. It covers pages on the Web, period. No coverage of peer-to-peer networks, no coverage of FTP, newsgroups, torrents, nothing else. There is no doubting that there is child porn on the internet, the problem is that it is also in so many other areas. And any system that is complaint-based (that is, it is only blacklisted once someone actually complains to ACMA that it should be) will never get any large proportion of inappropriate sites.

2. It's going to backfire. It is technologically impossible to filter out all the nasty websites, but no good ones. You either end up barricading a glass of water with 6-inch concrete, or you hold back a dam with a paper-mache balloon. My bet is on it doing a bit of both. There have already been reports of people's business websites being blocked by the ACMA list without even knowing! Chances are my site could be blocked because now it has the words 'child porn' in it.

3. It's impractical beyond belief. How on earth are you going to place a server-side filter on the ISP feeds and not slow down the internet, or raise costs, or any number of other problems. And you will never be able to effectively stop any and all internet traffic. My estimate is on around 30 seconds for someone like myself, 5-6 seconds for a trained pro, maybe 10 minutes for someone with out any tech experience, and they will have bypassed the filters. Two main reasons for this. One, other filtered countries like China, Korea, Iran etc have already got a nice semi-black market running in unblocking sites.

Second problem, is the legitimate stuff like, secure data connections used for remote access to business servers etc. Given a little time, this could be easily adapted to the task, and thanks to the heavy encryption, and secure transmission methods, there is no way the Govt could know if it's child porn, financial figures, or a Google Image Search.

4. How? Linked to above is the rather large issue of how to do it.

Technologically, there are two options: Regular URL filtering, or content analysis.

First one never works at actually limiting child porn since there are gazillions (yes, gazillions) of pages on the Net, and URL filtering is also fairly easily bypassed.
Content analysis works by checking every page as it loads. Similarly useless for a couple of reasons, such as the speed. If you have to check every page, it's going to get mighty slow. Also, it doesn't know context. It could block the medical sites because they have a bit too much exposed flesh. Or block news pages, blogs etc. because they have the word child porn in it...

That'll do for now, but if you want to have a real debate, e-mail me or check the chat room below. But be warned, it could get very heated indeed if i get into it...

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.

Windows 7 and Microsoft

Okay, so we've been told so many times that Microsoft is staying Personal Computer-oriented and not going Web 2.0 and keeping it that way...

That's all well and good and i've read so many articles saying that is the way it should be...

And then I walk down to the city and read that Microsoft is releasing Azure alongside the supposedly PC-based Windows 7. Now in case you hadn't noticed, Azure is not PC-based.

For those uneducated of you, Azure is a system that actually replaces Office, and other apps with a server-side system of 'cloud apps' that each user could 'connect' to in order to empower their computer's abilities.

There are two problems with this. First up, why buy Office for a couple extra features. I'm paying $450-odd dollars for the ability to make a mail-merge (oh yeah, i do those all the time). Releasing Azure as part of a product range made for PC's, is like giving a gun to prison inmate, it just guarantees that things are gonna screw up.

Second problem, unless they do things like shipping computers with it, setting defaults to it, or integrating it with Win7, i find it difficult to believe that anything Microsoft comes up with will be more successful than Google's efforts.

They do have one thing going for them but, Google is a bit of a 'fringe' company compared to Microsoft. The other bigger thing is that Microsoft's monopoly (yes, it's a monopoly) on shipping OS's means that every copy of Windows will encourage and coerce every Windows user to begin using Azure rather than begin using Google. While previous Google users will probably continue to use Google Apps/Docs, new cloud users will be likely to move toward a system thats designed to integrate with almost every single computer on the planet. While Chrome users will be familiar with the concept of web applications and shortcuts as will anybody who has used an eee PC (by ASUS). This is a great idea, being able to run cloud apps off a local terminal, but it is a bit of a problem for Google since every Windows user will be able to run Azure as if it was Office and probably have it interact locally with their machine.

It will be a sad day, when Google Docs calls it quits, and by then it will be Netscape all over again...

Google can't be that old...

Can you believe Google has made it to ten years old already. Google seems like something that has been simultaneously around forever, as well as a real newcomer.

Google has made a pretty big point of their milestone, with their Project 10 thingymabob (its a word now). Some of it is quite interesting in particular their April Fool's Day jokes from their long and illustrious history. PigeonRank has got to be one of their best...

They have also released a copy of their 2001 Search Databases. I haven't had a chance to fiddle yet, but further reading reveals some interesting things:

"September 11" yields a bunch of random dates and places.
"Paris Hilton" goes to the actual Hilton Hotel in Paris
"Kevin Rudd" you've got to go to result #5 to get to our idiotic PM

Any Search engine that relegates Krudd to fifth spot has got to be good...

But on a more serious note, has anyone noticed that not only is google eerily good but it has entered society to such an extent that it is both a common noun and a verb.

If there's one thing Google can be happy about it's that has anybody actually heard someone say "Just go Live Search it".

Anyone?
I Didn't Think So...