Category Archives: Hardware Technologies

The one reason I have a Laptop *and* a Tablet PC

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I saw this article, and imediately read through it … it’s #5 that I agree with the most.  The reason that I have a laptop *and* a Tablet PC is the screen.  The screen size and resolution that is included on most convertibles is still just too low for me.  I heard that the Gateway was a full 14″, but then the resolution is still only 1280 x 768 pixels … too small for what I am used to.  I’ll look forward to seeing what Dell does in this space … but I want pixels!

As for the value of a Tablet PC … I love the Tablet PC for notetaking.  It is still the most amazing computer to take into presentations or conferences, or when walking around having to take notes and sketch diagrams of things.  For these purposes, the Tablet PC beats out the laptop any day.

Eight reasons tablet PCs have missed the mainstream. Tablet PCs haven’t caught on with consumers and remain a niche market for certain users, such as medical personnel and insurance adjusters. Cost and technology problems are among the reasons, according to analysts.

[Computerworld Mobile/Wireless News]

Microsoft Robotics

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I know that some people are going to say that this is old news, but today I came across some very cool software from Microsoft … the Microsoft Robotics Studeo.  Where the heck have I been?  For all of my life I have loved the interaction between computers and the outside world.  I remember writing my first code that controlled a floppy disk drive, and it was fun to use keyboard commands to control the heads … stepping them back and forth and returning them to track 0.

I came across this offering from Microsoft while looking for information about White Box Robotics back in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I’m going to be taking a vacation back to Pittsburgh this summer, and am lining up various things to do.  I want to stop over and check out what White Box is doing, as they are looking pretty impressive on the level of research and development that they are doing for “home” robotics.

White Box Robotics was founded in 2001 by Thomas
Burick to fulfill the vision of changing the world one robot at a time.

We remain committed to the ongoing development of the
PC-BOT, a new class of networked mobile robots that delivers exceptional value
and ease of use. This achieved by leveraging mature PC technologies, adopting
open standards and creating a plug and play environment that allows just about
anyone to build exciting PC-based robots.

The White Box Robotics
laboratory is based in Pittsburgh PA and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Frontline Robotics Inc. Thomas continues to pursue his vision as the company’s
Chief Robotics Officer and now is part of a new enlarged team of
multi-disciplinary and highly experienced engineers. This team delivers the
depth and breadth to catapult this technology into the rapidly emerging market
for personal, commercial and security robotic applications.

What I really like about this is that there are a number of vendors all working together to create some standards for the platforms.  The Microsoft Robotics Studeo press release lists an impressive group of companies and researchers in the robotics field.

I’m reading … and I think I’m going to download this for my new laptop tonight!  Cool to see robotics making some good jumps!

Sending E-mail from Cingular SMS Text Messages

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When I got my new Nokia E70, one of the things that really disappointed me was the different way that e-mails were sent from the text messaging. No matter what I did, I was unable to figure out how to send an e-mail using the “basic” SMS text message. Instead, I was forced to use the “multimedia message” … which I quickly found out was being charged to me per message, even though I was just sending simple text. 🙁

So why do I really care about this? Well … I have formed the habit of using SMS text to e-mail as a way to send reminders to myself that I later will find in my e-mail inbox! If I am out and about, and away from my computer, I can quickly jot a message on my phone and e-mail it to myself. When I get back in front of my laptop there are my reminders sitting in my inbox! Also … I’m working on a cool SMS text messaging site that I have had under construction for years now … and I am sending messages to it also … for purposes to be announced soon. 🙂

With my older Nokia phone, I could easily send a basic SMS text message, and specify an e-mail address … the phone handled dispatching a properly formatted message to the SMS e-mail gateway at Cingular and everything worked. With the E70, although I am able to add e-mail addresses to my contacts, when sending a basic SMS text message, I am unable to pick an e-mail address to send to! Instead … I have had to use the costly “multimedia message” format, and then I get a pick list of numbers and e-mail addresses to send to.

Tonight, while experimenting more with my phone I realized something … that I could reply to a e-mail that was sent to my phone as a “basic” SMS text. If I could do that, then I figured that there must be a way to properly format a basic SMS text to send as e-mail. By searching Google, and remembering some obscure settings, I finally figured it out. So for anyone interested here it is:

To send a SMS text message to an e-mail address on the Cingular network:

  • Address the message To: “0000000000” (ten zeros)
  • Write the text with the format “{e-mail address}({subject}) {body of e-mail}

Now the exact format has to be followed. An example would be:

joe@somedomain.com(This came from my phone) I figured this out!

The key points in this are that the e-mail address and subject are separated from the body of the message by a space! Do not put a space after the e-mail address … it must be the e-mail address, then the subject – in parenthesis – with NO space between them. Then a space before the body of the e-mail message. If you want to, you can leave out the subject and the parenthesis, and just get a message with no subject.

Now I do have to admit that I am still very disappointed with Nokia, in that I can not find how to get the e-mail address from a contact to appear in the text message … so I end up having to type this EVERY time. But the cost of these messages is included in my plan … so it’s worth the extra effort!

Materials Science … gel body armor!

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I love to read about new technologies like this … something truly futuristic … a “viscous gel” in a vest that is fluid until struck or impacted … then it turns to a hardened material.  Afterwards … it returns to a gel.  Bullet-proof vests that morph … very cool!

Prison Guards Saved by Syrup. A new viscous gel that hardens on impact could make bulky, conspicuous body armor a thing of the past. By Vince Beiser from Wired magazine. [Wired News: Top Stories]

Portable keyboard for mobile computing

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Nice … I like it. It’s a portable keyboard like no other. Simply sit it down and turn it on … there are serial and Bluetooth versions. For those who want a full size keyboard for their mobile devices … this is a very cool solution!

Review: A virtual keyboard for any surface. I-Tech virtual laser keyboard uses infrared and laser technology to project an outline of a full keyboard onto any surface.  [Computerworld Breaking News]

Privacy … still just a case of obfuscation …

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Once again we are reminded that “privacy” is simply a case of obfuscation.  We have “privacy” only because it is too difficult to sense certain things.  We have the “privacy of our own homes” only becuase others can not see what goes on “behind closed doors.”

This article is demonstrating that even that level of privacy is slowly eroding.  With the newest version of this product, different military and police agencies can actually “see” through walls.  Now obviously this is something that will be very costly as a product … but with the rapid evolution of technology, how long until you or I will be able to purchase a device like this?  10 years?  5 years?  3 years?  It is inevitable that we will have our own personal versions of this before too long …

Company with a camera that sees through walls gets $14 million. Blog: Camero, a company out of Israel that has developed a camera that can “see” things through solid walls, has raised $14 million,… [CNET News.com]

iPhone … is theirPhone …

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Well, it’s already turning into a bummer.  It appears that the iPhone is going to be locked down against 3rd party applications.  What a loss.  I was really looking forward to some sort of developer angle here … but it seems that Apple is going to lock things up tightly when it comes to applications for the iPhone.  From this article:

But it’s not like the walled garden has gone away. “You don’t want your
phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write
applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s network, says
Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t
want to see their West Coast network go down because some application
messed up.”

In addition, I’m hearing more and more that they are locking the phone tight to the Cingular network … not allowing you to change to alternate networks.  David Isenberg comments on the same issues in his blog post: Apple blows it.  I agree with him completely … I’m shocked at the complete lock-in that Apple is creating around the iPhone.  Bummer.

My $0.02 about the iPhone

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Ok … it’s cool. So far I like what I have read, except for a couple of things … which I expected.

  1. The price. Wow … that is a lot of money for a phone. I know that it is more than a phone, but ouch. I’m also a little cautious about the cost of the cellular plans also. I already use Cingular and the data plans are not the most aggressive.  The interesting part is that I already know they are going to sell as many as they can make.  Steve Jobs knows how to market.
  2. The storage.  This really caught me off-guard.  Only a 4GB and 8GB version?  I have become so used to my 80GB Video iPod that I can’t even imagine going back to only 8GB.  I really enjoy taking such a huge portion of my music collection – along with several videos and numerous podcasts – everywhere that I go.  I would really have to reset how I use my iPod if I was going to drop back to only 8GB.  Maybe I shift to using my phone … oops, I mean iPhone (trademark Cisco Systems) … for all of the podcasts, but still keep my Video iPod for my music, etc.
  3. Touch Screen.  As usual, Steve has outdone himself as the iPhone appears to have even further enhanced the user interface.  I have always liked touch-pads and touch interfaces, and hearing about some of the new multi-finger aspects really impressed me.  It has me thinking about how natural some of this is going to become.
  4. Application Support.  I’m also impressed with this aspect … it appears that this is OS-X and has support for the Apple Widgets.  If there is truly compatibility with the standard development environment for Widgets this is going to really open up development for the phones.  In addition, if Apple has truly opened up the iPhone and it’s APIs, then things are going to get fun.  When I last looked at some of the API limitations, I was unable to write an application that could access the camera, and even the text/SMS interfaces.  I’m hoping that Apple will break through these barriers.
  5. Battery Design.  I had heard about the two-battery design, and it makes complete sense.  Cool idea.  Now if I use my iPhone for music too much … I don’t kill the battery for my phone.  Nice.

I stopped by the Apple store here in Salt Lake City today.  They said they have no idea when they will see one.  It’ll be interesting to see when the iPhone begins to show up everywhere.  I’m sure that it won’t be too long.  It’s already the thing to be seen using …

Video vs. Audio … an iPod feature that I want!

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This weekend I spent some time with some friends that are into podcast and vidcasting.  As we discussed the huge explosion in Internet video content, I started to think about some of the implications.  I actually think that the growth of video content is about to drive even more audio content.

My reasoning is that video is simply more difficult to consume than audio!  I can listen to audio almost anywhere, anytime.  I can listen while driving, working, skiing, etc.  Video on the other hand is a much more demanding sensory experience.  It requires that I commit far more attention to it, and I can’t do it when driving, skiing … well … any time that I have to be present to things that might kill me.  🙂

As I thought more about this, I realized that two things might emerge.  The first will be more attention being paid to the audio tracks being done for video content.  This will involve careful production of videos that can be listened to … audio only.  The second thing will be new generations of multimedia players – like the iPod – that allow you to turn off the video when “listening only” to a video.  So when I go skiing, I can listen to a video without burning up my batteries displaying content that I’m not even watching!

My request to Apple … please give me an option to turn off the video display on my iPod when I want to … so that I can listen when I can’t watch!

Head-worn displays still being worked on …

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During the Tech Boom there were numerous companies and people working on Head-Mounted displays.  As a dealer for Xybernaut, one of the only dedicated wearable computer vendors at the time, I bought a nice unit from Olympus.  It was one of a very small lot of units, and was built to integrate into the Xybernaut units.  I used it for a lot of my WarBlading efforts … our “war driving” on roller blades.  🙂

Shimadzu is one of the vendors who has persisted in this space … they have always had an impressive (yet costly) solution.  Their Data Glass 2/A has some impressive specs, and I can’t wait to see exactly what the Data Glass 3 will be!

What got my started looking at this again was a post I read that lead me to some more current research.  I came across this web page by Ozan Cakmakci who designed a new head-worn display, and wrote some papers about them.  It’s cool to see that people are still looking at this.