Click here to see the slideshow While the varying parties in the operating system wars like to tout the advantages that each OS holds over its rivals, all of them share one thing in common. Whether it's Linux, Mac OS X or Windows, none of them are particularly quick about booting up, especially if one is using older hardware.
In fact, along with size and price, one the main attractions of Linux-based netbooks is their ability to turn on and boot up fast, letting their users get to work checking mail and browsing the web in seconds. So an operating system option that provided close to instant-on capabilities for any laptop or desktop could be an attractive option for many people.
This is the idea behind Presto, a new beta product from Linux vendor Xandros. When installed on a system, Presto gives users the option to quickly boot into a lightweight netbook style operating system that provides access to core applications such as web browsers, chat tools, and productivity applications.
My colleague Joe Wilcox recently posted on the Microsoft Watch blog an interesting article entitled "The Problem with Netbooks". In this article he puts forth a compelling argument why netbooks won't last as a significant segment and will become subsumed into laptops or disappear altogether.
If I had read Joe's article a week before he posted it I probably would have agreed with nearly all of his arguments. But after traveling to DEMO 09 and getting a firsthand look at how many people are using netbooks, my opinions on the category have changed a bit.
Xandros has long been a major player when it comes to taking Linux and open source technologies and making them easy for non-techie people to use. With Presto, they are taking a stealth approach to work with Windows systems but to make it more attractive to boot into Presto as opposed to Windows.
The second half of day one of DEMO 09 was shaping up to be a disappointment for me. A group of products focused on mobile devices and cell phones failed to generate much interest at all (sadly the coolest product in the bunch was Skout Out, a product for flirting via one's cell phone),
And this group of products was followed by a fairly depressing panel, where a group of Vcs and investors talked about the economy and the state of funding start-ups. The panel can be summed up by one panelist who said that we are currently in "the worst fundraising environment ever."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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