If I had to stand behind one prediction on where high-tech devices are going, I'd pick my strong belief that single-purpose devices are going the way of the dodo.
I mean, why carry a device that only does one thing when you can carry something that does lots of things? I know I'd rather have one device that does many things fairly well than a device that does one thing really well.
And you can see this playing out in the market. Single-purpose music players are on their way out (even Apple knows this), and I don't think dedicated e-book readers have much of a long-term future either (sorry Kindle).
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.
According to a recent series of tests done by Microsoft, Internet Explorer 8 is the fastest browser available today. Of course, it doesn't take a lot of searching to find similar studies claiming that Google Chrome or Firefox or Safari or Opera or WebKit is the fastest browser available today.
So what do I think about all of these "fastest browser" tests? Which do I think is the most valid? Well, in the immortal words of Bill Murray in Meatballs, "It just doesn't matter!"
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.
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.
Click here to see screenshots of JavaFX It was a little less than a year ago that rich Internet application technology finally matured enough to become a usable tool, although it was still very much in the early stages of development.
At the time, eWEEK Labs took a look at the RIA sector and reviewed four RIA platforms, coming to the conclusion that the technology had reached the point where it could be called RIA 1.0.
Now, I'm taking another look at RIAs, evaluating the maturation of the platforms reviewed last year and testing out a new--and old--player.
On. Jan. 8 a developer's release (which is basically pre-beta) of Chrome 2.0 became available from Google. Most of the new features and changes are fairly modest and in many cases simply add capabilities that are already found in other browsers. If this is all that the final version of Chrome 2.0 will offer, then it will be more in line with point releases from competing browsers rather than a big, full new version release. However, I expect that when Google Chrome 2.0 is eventually fully released there will be more new features and capabilities than are showcased in the current release.
While in some ways 2008 has been an exciting and historic year, in other ways it has been a year that many people would like to forget, especially those who have seen their businesses, job prospects and retirement savings shrink or disappear altogether.
But when it comes to emerging technologies, 2008 wasn't just a good year, it was a very good year. The past year saw the rise of many new exciting products and technologies and also saw renewed growth in some areas that had become stale.
Best of all, these technologies of 2008 aren't just limited to this year. Many of them are the building blocks that will be used to create and grow the technologies that will be important in 2009.
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.
Click here to see screenshots Yesterday, Dec. 15, I posted my review of the new Google Chrome browser, which is no longer a beta. Without a doubt Google Chrome is a very impressive new entry in the Web browser market and will have a big impact on how browser interfaces are built in the future.
But Google Chrome isn't without its own shortcomings. As I point out in the review, Chrome is the least customizable browser out today. And it has more than a few of the weaknesses typical in a 1.0 release.
Since posting the review, I've already had a few questions and comments from readers about issues that weren't covered in the review.
If I had to stand behind one prediction on where high-tech devices are going, I'd pick my strong belief that single-purpose devices are going the way of the dodo.
