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February 9, 2009

Monday, February 09, 2009 3:40 PM/EST

20 Things About Technology that Drive Me Nuts

Given the current "25 things you might not know about me" craze, there are a lot of people out there who have to tell you all kinds of things about themselves. This whole thing seems a bit nuts to me, after all, if there are things about me that people don't know, it's probably because I don't want them to know these things.

While I've tended to ignore these lists as they've ended up in my mail or Facebook updates, the one's I have read tended to be pretty positive and good natured. Again, this seems nuts to me. In my opinion, if you really want to know someone, you should find out the things that they hate, the things that really drive them nuts.

So to put my money where my mouth is, I've done just that. Without further ado, here is my list (in no particular order) of the Twenty Things about Technology that Drive Me Nuts.

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January 23, 2009

Friday, January 23, 2009 11:10 AM/EST

Looking Back (and ahead) as the Mac Turns 25

This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the first Macintosh computer, easily one of the most influential computers of all time.

As many like to point out, almost all of the innovations of the Macintosh (its windowed GUI, its use of the mouse, its intuitive interface touches) had been introduced previously, many of them at Xerox Parc. But while original innovators are important, often just as important are those who can take these innovations and make something that is truly useful to many.

The Mac was definitely this type of innovation. For those who had used other computers and mainframe systems of the time, trying the Mac led to a light bulb moment. The first time you used a Mac you usually felt, oh, this is how a computer is supposed to work.

January 22, 2009

Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:59 AM/EST

This Week In Emerging Technology - January 22nd

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of January 19th.

Zero-Watt PC - Fujitsu has announced that they will unveil a PC at the CeBIT show that uses zero watts of power while in standby mode. This should be the one of th first of many PCs in the future with this capability.

More Progress in E-Ink - Flexible computer screens technology continues to progress, if somewhat slowly. Researchers are developing a new semiconductor ink that should accelerate the development of bendable screens.

Advanced Micro Motors - Nano motors have long been the goal of nanotechnology but most of those shown so far are fairly basic. According to this report, researchers have made significant strides at developing more advanced nano motors which could greatly improve nanotechnology in many areas.

December 17, 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 2:51 PM/EST

OLPC's 'Give One, Get One' Notebook Offer Returns

It has been in many ways a tough year for the One Laptop Per Child project. Several of the original team that made the XO laptop possible left the organization, a new chief operating officer and president, Charles Kane, was brought in, some orders by some countries never went through and (worst of all, to some people) the OLPC agreed to run Windows on the XO.

But whatever one thinks of the OLPC or some of the personalities involved in it, its goals still remain laudable, and even a year after its launch the XO laptop is still one of the most interesting pieces of computing equipment available today.

December 3, 2008

Wednesday, December 03, 2008 2:45 PM/EST

This Week In Emerging Technology - December 3rd

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of December 1st.

Liquid Cooling Macs - Looks like Apple might be looking into liquid cooling techniques for laptops. Given how hot some current Mac laptops are supposedly running, it might not be a bad idea.

Sprint/Clearwire Merger - Finally the long awaited merger between the 4G wireless networks of Clearwire and Sprint is complete. Now we can all look forward to having these high-speed wireless Internet networks available in our towns . . . someday.

Home Heating Control Via Smartphone - Next year Nokia will supposedly release a device that will make it possible to remotely manage home tasks such as controlling heating systems remotely over via PC or smartphone. Would be nice to boost the heat on a cold night just before you get home but I would hate to see it get hacked.

October 10, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008 1:19 PM/EST

Tech Most Likely to be Ignored in 2009

Future tech In the article "Technology in 2009", I look at some of the emerging technology trends that I think will be important and will get a lot of attention in 2009. But along with these technology trends, there are also going to be important technologies that should receive attention in 2009 that are likely to be ignored.

Anyone who casually watches the pharmaceutical industry can easily get confused about its priorities. It often seems as if there is a lot of effort going towards finding cures to sexual dysfunction, sleeping disorders and other similar problems, while much less effort is being put into curing the many deadly and widespread dis-eases.

But the technology sector isn't free from this same kind of out-of-whack priorities. Just look at everyone, from small startups to huge and established players, jumping on the social networking bandwagon, while important technology problems such as security get very little attention in comparison.

This can be a huge mistake. While sexy and heavily hyped technologies get a lot of attention, they often aren't addressing a serious problem, especially for enterprises. Given the current economic situation, vendors should really be looking at innovating in the areas that companies have to spend on instead of shiny new toy technologies that most businesses will decide they can easily live without.

This isn't to say that no one is working on innovating in these technology segments. As always, there are interesting startups trying to push the envelope. However, unlike Web 2.0, most of these technology markets aren't in an area where a small startup can make a big impact. What is needed to move these technologies forward is for the big players to innovate and not become comfort-able and stagnant.

So in counterpoint to my article on the emerging technologies that will be-come important in 2009, here are some technologies that should be seeing innovation and improvement, but will most likely stay static with little activity towards advancing them.

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July 30, 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 9:42 AM/EST

This Week In Emerging Technology - July 30th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of July 28th.

Lasers get in the Groove - Researchers at Harvard and Hamamatsu Photonics are working on a new technique to focus lasers using etched grooves rather than large and bulky lenses. If it works it could revolutionize the use of lasers in a whole host of fields.

A $10 Laptop from India - An institue in India says that they are working on a education laptop that they hope to be able to provide for $10. Not sure how that will be possible for anything but a toy but we'll see.

What will be our next display options? - Nice little roundup of Boston area companies working on next generation displays, everything from e-paper to display glasses.

Driving with Clippy - Microsoft is announcing a new focus on providing computing resources for automobiles. Intriguing possibilities though jokes about Blue Screens of Death on the highway are inevitable.

May 20, 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 1:38 PM/EST

OLPC Provides First Look at the XO 2.0

Click here to see images of the XO 2.0
At a special One Laptop Per Child event held today, May 20, at MIT, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte provided a first glimpse at the next generation of the XO laptop.

The XO 2.0 takes a radically different approach from the current version of the XO laptop. This version is designed more as a e-book reader than as a traditional laptop.

No working model was displayed by Negroponte, but in photos the XO 2.0 was seen as a smaller sized (about half the size of the current XO) right and left pane e-book that could be used in multiple modes, including as a tablet and as a laptop. (Click here to see images of the XO 2.0, some of which were photographed from a presentation so I apologize for the quality.)

January 4, 2008

Friday, January 04, 2008 12:59 PM/EST

OLPC Having Bad Start to 2008

OLPC XO Laptop
The calendar has switched over to 2008 and so far it has been anything but a happy new year for the One Laptop Per Child Project. First, OLPC Chief Technology Officer (and the first employee of the OLPC) Mary Lou Jepsen announced that she was stepping down as CTO in order to start a new company. Then we found out that a Nigerian company was suing the OLPC over a claimed patent violation. And then at the end of the week it was announced that Intel was stepping down from the board of the OLPC.

If you're the OLPC you have to be hoping that the old adage of bad news comes in threes holds up and that they've seen the end of this string of mishaps. And if that is the case, just how damaging are each of these announcements separately?

The Intel news is probably the least unexpected. It was always a strange marriage, and one that in my opinion mainly happened because Intel didn't like the bad publicity it was receiving for fighting with the OLPC. Since this marriage was mainly about PR, it was inevitable that it would break up once issues of commitment, integration and cooperation came up.

January 3, 2008

Thursday, January 03, 2008 2:20 PM/EST

This Week In Emerging Technology - January 3rd

Here are the emerging technology stories for the week of December 31st.

Lots of Laptop Storage - Following on a recent announcement from Hitachi about new 500Gbyte laptop hard-drives, Asus recently announced that they will be releasing a laptop using two of these drives to provide a terabyte of disk space.

Pocket Presentations - A very cool little projector, and I do mean little, will be made available later this year. Called SHOW this iPod sized projector uses lasers instead of standard bulbs.

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