Tag: Technology

omg ur bn robbed

Posted by Shane – December 29, 2008

The New York Times has just posted an article about a particularly annoying pet peeve of mine. Since owning an iPhone I have had numerous arguments with people regarding the iPhone’s lack of MMS (picture text messages). These people ridicule the iPhone over it’s lack of this “feature”. The basic argument is thus: “My phone can send pictures in a text message, why can’t your shiny new iPhone?”. No matter that their phone can’t send or receive email, which is an exponentially better messaging platform than SMS or MMS. What everyone that has argued over this fails to understand is that they are being ripped off by this amazing and wonderful “feature”. The cell phone carriers are charging exorbitant amounts of money to send tiny, text based messages and blurry photos to and from cell phones exclusively (excluding the SMS/MMS to email gateways). I can send a photo attached to an email to a phone or computer. It can be viewed on any number of devices and it doesn’t cost me anything extra. SMS should be free, it doesn’t cost the cell phone carriers anything (relatively) to deliver the messages. MMS should go away and be replaced with email on all phones. Neither should be touted as a “feature”.

On a side note: I am actually a little upset that AT&T requires that I have a text messaging plan in my contract, I would prefer to never send or receive messages via text messaging as it is an old and over-priced technology. That I am forced to pay a flat rate for a text-messaging plan is ridiculous.

Posting from iPhone

Posted by Shane – August 4, 2008

I just downloaded the WordPress application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It was painless to setup and seems to work really well. One thing I would already like to see is automatic completion for tags. Other than that, A+!

iPhone 3G

Posted by Shane – July 23, 2008

iPhoneI have had my new iPhone 3G for a little over a week now and I absolutely love it. As some people have noted, the OS on the phone does seem a tad glitchy. I think Apple may have rushed the SDK enabled OS out the door. That being said, I fully expect any minor issues to be fixed with simple software updates. Enough about the issues, on to what makes it the best phone I have ever had…

The iPhone 3G is the best phone that I have ever had. Now, I am not much of a gadget junky, so I have only owned a few smart phones, and that name was a complete misnomer for them. My first foray into the smart phone world was around 2003 with the Motorola MPX220. This phone worked well enough as a phone, but the limitations of the “smart” aspects of the phone left me wishing I hadn’t spent so much money on it. In fact, the phone completely turned me off to the whole smart phone scene. While the phone hinted at the glorious future of a workable mobile computing platform in a phone, it delivered none of it.

My next adventure in smart phone land began in 2007 when my employer decided to provide a number of us with a Nextel/BlackBerry 7100i. This is perhaps the worst phone I have ever seen. It is large and bulky and quite simply doesn’t work. If the phone isn’t answered within the first nano-second of a ring, it goes to voicemail. The email functionality via a corporate BlackBerry server again leaves me wishing for more. When an email is deleted on my desktop, it still shows up on my BlackBerry. The synchronization does not work as well I would like. Also, the web browser is decent, but certainly not perfect. Oh, and it has PTT which is perhaps the single largest hindrance to communication that mankind has ever invented. Why, when it is completely possible to engage in a duplex conversation would anyone opt for simplex? The phone does have a couple of nice features though. It has a good speakerphone and the battery lasts forever, probably due to it’s massive size.

So, on to the iPhone and why it is so nice. First off, the “phone” is rock solid. Calls are clear and the sound quality is really good. I think any smart phone needs to focus on being a phone first and “smart” second. I carry this thing around with me because it is a phone, not because I can read my email on it. “Smart” is a bonus, the phone is a necessity. That being said, the “smart” in the iPhone is really smart, genius level smart. The UI is very intuitive, Apple must have poured money into the development of the UI on this phone.

Perhaps the single greatest feature of the iPhone is also the one that I think about the least, the touch screen. So much of my time is spent focusing on the content being presented that I quite frankly ignore the technological marvel that is the iPhone’s touch screen. Actually, until I began writing this, I hadn’t given the touch screen a second thought. That is truly the hallmark of a great design, I don’t ever think about it. Since the moment I bought it, I have swiped, typed, pinched, scrolled and cursored my way across that screen a million times without ever thinking about the way it works. It works so well, it is so intuitive and natural to use that I simply forget about it while using it.

The last thing that I will write about in this installment are the applications on the iPhone. The whole iPhone and Apple community were up in arms over the lack of native application development support on the original iPhone, so Apple began working on an SDK equipped version of the OS for the second generation of the iPhone. While Apple certainly has delivered, I am not so sure that they wanted to do this. When the first generation iPhone was released, Steve Jobs touted the phones fully functional web browser as the sole target for iPhone development. I think this was a brilliant move and, while not sad to see native applications, I do think that the existence of the SDK will detract from the web based development on the iPhone. Of the few applications I have downloaded so far (Last.fm, Sudoku and Twitterific) I only really use Soduku. I do however use the web applications I have added many times a day. I currently have Digg, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Hahlo on my main screen. These “web apps” work flawlessly and I am truly impressed with them. I think that Apple was correct with their 3rd party development strategy for the first generation iPhone. Limiting development to web apps, while certainly constraining was also the way of the future. I hope that the existence of the SDK doesn’t mean that web app developers will lose momentum.

Hybrid Trains

Posted by Shane – December 5, 2007

There is an interesting article on Inhabit about a new train from General Electric that is utilizing hybrid technology to decrease fuel consumption and emissions. Trains have had hybrid drives for ages. They all use a diesel engine powering a generator that sends electricity, via large batteries, to the electrical drive motors. The difference with the new technology is that they are using regenerative braking to significantly boost the charge in trains batteries.

OpenID is coming

Posted by Shane – November 14, 2007

You probably haven’t heard about OpenID yet, well if you are one of the few readers of this blog I can almost gaurantee that you haven’t. OpenID is, quite simply put, the end to usernames and passwords. Think about it, how many different sites do you frequent where you have to login with a username and password? How great would it be to be free from all that mess?

This has been done in the past, Microsoft tried with their “Passport” system (now called LiveID), but it was dependent upon Microsoft. There has been a move to get SAML into the mainstream, but that has all but failed as well due to vendor issues (although Google is using it for Google Apps).

All of these various systems basically work the same. Let’s say you want to sign in to some website to access some online service , maybe Last.fm (which I love!). Well, Last.fm needs to know that you are who you are so that it can provide you with its services. Currently they maintain their own username and password database for authentication. If they were to implement LiveID or SAML or OpenID then you would simply provide your username and password for one of those services and after some behind the scenes magic, Last.fm would authenticate you and allow you to log in.

The primary difference between OpenID and the other attempts at SSO for the web is that with OpenID you get to pick who does the authentication. With Microsoft’s Live ID, Microsoft provides the authentication. With SAML, it is some 3rd party identity provider. With OpenID it can be you (well, your website at least) or any number of OpenID providers. The point being that it is free, open, distributed authentication; which is cool!

MIT’s Stackable Car

Posted by Shane – November 14, 2007

via: Inhabit

MIT's stackable city car MIT has created a site with a mock-up of a super compact car for use in a city. This is a really interesting concept! As you can see from the picture, the car is super compact when stacked and not too small when flattened out. A quote from MIT’s site

By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility.

This would certainly address a key problem associated with the use of mass transit.

Google Street View!

Posted by Shane – May 29, 2007

Filed in the “holy-crap” category! Google Maps with Street View.

Google's Street View

F1 Going Green?

Posted by Shane – May 28, 2007

The governing body of Formula 1 (F1), the FIA, has prescribed a roadmap for engine development in F1 that would have the teams use smaller engines running on bio-fuels in the 2010 racing season. This was decided as a result of the FIA’s decision to have the research and development of the F1 teams provide a more direct impact on the automotive industry. F1 teams have enormous development budgets, if even a small percentage of this is spent helping to increase fuel mileage, or alleviate the dependence on fossil fuels, then I am all for it.

Hopefully, this decision by the FIA will lead to some significant advancements in the automotive industry. I for one think that this is definitely the direction the FIA should be taking. In addition to these changes, I would like to see a few more changes to the rules that I think would benefit the driving public even more:

  1. Decrease fuel cell size to a point where 4-5 pit stops would be required to get through a typical race with current fuel mileage ratios. This would help to increase the miles/km that the cars achieve in order to reduce the number of pit stops that a driver must make to get through a race.
  2. Reinstate a number of the electronic assistance devices that have been removed from the cars. This would help the motoring public immensely by providing safer cars as a result of advancements in traction control.
  3. Remove the mandate of the use of the V-8 engine configuration, but keep the displacement restrictions in place. By allowing the teams to use any engine configuration imaginable they would be using their enormous development budgets to figure out which engine they can squeeze the most power out of.
  4. Allow hybrid technologies in F1 racing! Notice that I said “allow” not mandate. If an F1 team can develop a car that performs better while utilizing some hybrid technologies, then why not allow it? If they decide that storing energy from regenerative braking is worth the extra weight of a dual drive system and batteries, then why not let them do it?

REAL ID

Posted by Shane – May 1, 2007

The 9/11 Commission suggested that the U.S. Federal Government improve it’s system for issuing secure identification documents. To that end, Congress passed a law, the REAL ID Act in 2005. This act requires the DHS to set some standards for State issued ID Cards that will supposedly make the U.S. more secure. Yeah… right…

I personally think they are going about this whole thing the wrong way. My primary objection to this is that they are proposing to have each state create a repository of personally identifiable information that will be accessible to a variety of agencies. Any system that would store personally identifiable information on all the citizens of a particular state would be in dire jeopardy of being hacked.

My solution to the problem would be to use a variety of biometric data, stored directly on the card. That way if someone wants to know if I am who I say I am, they simply ask me to submit my finger, iris, face or combination thereof to a scan. No going back to some server at the State capitol, no repository of data inviting abuse. While not completely fool proof, this system would tell the person checking identities that I truly am the person shown on the card. The only hurdle then is one of preventing forgeries. The solution to this problem is simple, but does require a central repository of data. The primary difference being that this data need not be personally identifiable. The card would simply need some super long, random string of characters that has no association to the individual in possession of the card. If a particular card’s identifier is in the database, and the person who is in possession of it has been verified by a biometric scan then it is safe to say that the person is indeed who they claim to be and that the card itself is not a forgery. Seems simple enough to me.

I am the person listed on this card (verified by biometrics) and this card is valid (verified by central repository of valid card numbers), therefore I am not a terrorist.

Perhaps there is some flaw in my logic, but I don’t think so (otherwise I wouldn’t have written this!)

Switch?

Posted by Shane – July 6, 2006

Macintosh PowerbookI think I want a Mac. A Powerbook to be exact. I am getting more and more frustrated / let-down with the Windows enviroment. Everything works in Windows, it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I am using the desire for a Mac as an excuse for my recent lack of creativity. It seems like all the good musicians, writers, artist and all other generally creative types are using Macs. Perhaps if I had a Mac I could be more creative also. I do know that when I sit down at my PC to do something, get halfway through it and my PC locks up I generally just give up! As time goes by I am becoming more enamored with OSS (Open Source Software). I don’t think I am quite ready for Linux just yet, but switching to a Mac is definitely a step in the right direction for me.