Category: Tech

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Ouch.

Microsoft shoots…and misses. Again.

Gizmodo:

In the end though, this is nothing more than Microsoft's tablet. And a buggy, at times broken one, at that, whose "ecosystem" feels more like a tundra. There's no Twitter or Facebook app, and the most popular 3rd party client breaks often. The Kindle app is completely unusable. There's no image editing software. A People app is supposed to give you all the social media access you'd ever need, but It's impossible to write on someone's Facebook wall through the People app, Surface's social hub; the only workaround is to load Internet Explorer. Blech. Something as simple as loading a video requires a jumbled process of USB importing, dipping in and out of the stripped-down desktop mode, opening a Video app, importing, going back into the Video app, and then playing. What.

BGR:

Imagine booting up an iPad for the first time, seeing the OS X desktop exactly as it appears on a MacBook, and then finding out you cannot run any OS X software on the device. As odd as that scenario sounds, that is exactly the situation Microsoft is facing with the next-generation Windows OS…

BuzzFeed:

I've been waiting a long time for somebody to produce tablets and phones that are lock, stock and barrel better than what Apple's been making since the first iPhone. Every year, somebody gets closer. Surface doesn't get close enough. The thing is, Surface is supposed to be so much more than just Microsoft's iPad alternative, the Other Tablet. It may very well be one day. It has everything it needs to be that. But today it's just another tablet. And not one you should buy.

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Bwaaaaaahaha!

From Business Insider:

At first blush, Microsoft's entry-level Surface tablet seems like a good value compared to the iPad and other tablets. That's because you get double the storage (32 GB versus 16 GB) for the same price as the iPad, US$499 (C$519).

But the reason Microsoft started the Surface at 32 GB instead of 16 GB is because the operating system,Windows RT, takes up approximately 12 GB of space.

Those numbers come from a Reddit AMA session with members of Microsoft's Surface team. When asked how much space Windows RT takes up, Microsoft's Surface test manager, Ricardo Lopez said there will be about 20 GB of free space after Windows RT, Office RT, and "a bunch of apps."

It's not a straight answer, but it's pretty clear Windows RT is a massive operating system. For reference, Apple's iPad operating system takes up less than 1 GB. If Microsoft had made the entry-level Surface a 16 GB device, you'd only have about 4 GB free to play around with.

Remind me again why I should care about anything Microsoft does?

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Hospital Computer Hardware Also Suffers From Infections

No surprise there. Until about a year before I left my previous place of employment, all the fetal monitors in the patient rooms had no anti-virus software whatsoever.

From Ars Technica:

Drug-resistant bacteria aren't the only pernicious bugs that hospitals need to worry about.  MIT's Technology Review reports that hospitals' computerized equipment—such as patient monitoring systems, MRI scanners,  and nuclear medicine systems—is dangerously vulnerable to malware, and many systems are in fact heavily infected with viruses.

That's because many of these systems run on older versions of Windows—such as Windows 2000. Medical equipment manufacturers often won't support security patches or operating system upgrades for their systems, largely out of concern about whether such changes would require them to resubmit their systems to the Food and Drug Administration for certification.

The scope of the problem was the topic of a panel discussion (PDF) at a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board on October 11. Mark Olson, the Chief Information Security Officer at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told attendees that malware had infected fetal monitors in his hospital's high-risk pregnancy ward, to the point where they were so slow they couldn't properly record data.

"Fortunately, we have a fallback model," Olson said. "They are in an (intensive care) unit—there's someone physically there to watch. But if they are stepping away to another patient, there is a window of time for things to go in the wrong direction." The systems have since been replaced with new ones—based on Microsoft's Windows XP.

"The systems have since been replaced with new ones—based on Microsoft's Windows XP." Oh, that's reassuring…

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My Dream Turntable


Technics SL-150Mk2 with an Infinity Black Widow tonearm.

Rare—and way out of my financial reach back when it was new, this has always been my ultimate turntable/tonearm combination. I'm not sure I'd play records any more often than I do now if I had one (I haven't even bothered unboxing my existing 1300Mk2 since the move), but I might be more inclined to. Like I've written many times before, for all the convenience and instant gratification that digital recordings provide, there's just something about spinning a piece of vinyl that digital will never be able to capture.

The 150Mk2 has all the positive aspects of Technics first generation Mk2 line with none of the integrated tonearm-related drawbacks of the rest of the series. And even back in the late 70s, the Infinity (who made some kick ass speakers and is today just a hollow shell of its former self) tonearm was considered one of the best on the market. Its tube was made of carbon fiber, for chrissake. Carbon. Fiber. In 1979!

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This is Cool

Wolfram Alpha Can Now Reduce Your Social Life to a Series of Graphs

Facebook is a great place to follow the lives of friends, and family, but it's also an amazing repository of your personal information. Even casual users would be surprised how much data they have poured into the service over the years, and now you finally have a way to put it into perspective. Wolfram Alpha, the world's greatest computational knowledge engine, has launched a service that will reduce your Facebook social life to a series of mathematical charts.

To get started just type "Facebook" into the search field, click the analyze button, and create a Wolfram Alpha account. The data gives you a good idea of how much you participate on the service, and will even give you an interesting breakdown of your friends by country, age, and a visualization of how you all know each other.


If you ever wanted to see your entire life broken down into a series of mathematical charts, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

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This is Cool

Here's a thermal photo of a 13" Macbook Air that pretty much confirms my own experience with the laptop. Warmest parts are the upper center of the keyboard, directly under the CPU and at the top left above the thermal exhaust port:

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And Microsoft Inches Further Into Irrelevancy

From MacWorld:

When Microsoft updated Office 2011 for Mac for Mountain Lion late last month, Retina display users quickly noticed that Outlook was the only app to receive updated Retina graphics. One user described the remaining Office apps as "very blurry and tough on the eyes" on the new Retina Macbook Pro. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Microsoft plans a fix anytime soon, as a response from the Office for Mac Team explained Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will continue to run in the same resolution as on non-Retina Macs:

Outlook for Mac 2011 already supports Retina Display and the remaining apps will have the same viewing quality as on any non-Retina device. Unfortunately at this time, we cannot comment on any future updates regarding supporting Retina on Word, Excel or PowerPoint… Hope that helps!

 

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Film Short

While this is purely fiction, I know this is where we're headed technologically and as a society. And this is also where I draw the line and the old man in me stands up and says, "I've had enough. Stop the world, I want to get off."

At the same time, I know beyond all doubt that future generations will think no more of this tech and welcome it into their lives the way we have welcomed cell phones.

In fact, this reminds me very much of The Reality Dysfunction. This type of tech was commonplace.

BTW, if you love hardcore SciFi, I would definitely recommend the book (the first in a trilogy). It's extremely violent and bloody, but the story is completely enthralling.

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Yes Please

But it probably won't do me any good until 128GB Micro SD cards are available. I'd want to move my iTunes library off the main drive onto one of these, but it's pushing 105GB, so it won't fit on the current maximum 64GB Micro cards. By the time a 128GB card is available, it will probably be time to replace the Air, and I'll just opt for a 500GB SSD.

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Oh Boo Hoo

Maybe if you stopped building cheap plastic crap, loading it up with garbage software and boxing it in such as way as to make unpacking it as annoying and unpleasant as possible, you wouldn't be having these problems.

Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian T. Gladden admitted during the company's first-quarter 2013 earnings conference call on Tuesday that its results "were mixed."

"We fell short of our own expectations," he said, according to a transcript by Seeking Alpha. "There were some areas where our execution was not as expected, and there also are some market dynamics that created some headwinds for us."

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Computer as Appliance

When I first got into personal computers back in the late 1980s, they were still very much a niche product. For about a thousand dollars a geek could go to any of the weekend "computer fairs" that dotted the Bay Area and buy the parts to build a PC. (It wasn't until 2004 that I actually bought my first pre-assembled computer.)  Interchangeable parts were the norm, and if you wanted to upgrade your paltry little 8088 system board to a "blindingly fast" 286, it was fairly simple (if relatively expensive).

Back in the day, system boards were larger than a sheet of paper, and individual memory chips on those boards were still the norm. There was no such thing as integrated video, parallel or serial connectors on a system board. If you wanted any of those, you had to buy separate cards. Hell, at that point there weren't even built-in clocks! (I remember buying and installing more than one clock card over the course of assembling several PCs.) If you wanted to upgrade your RAM, you came home with a bag full of individual chips and prayed that none of them were bad, because tracking down a bad chip when you've just inserted 32 of the things was an absolute nightmare. (I can't tell you how happy I was when the first SIMMs and DIMMs appeared on the scene.) And if you wanted to run AutoCAD (which I did back in the day), you needed to buy a separate math co-processor chip.

Gawd, I don't miss those days.

Fast forward twenty-five years. Apple's MacBook Air and iPad have shrunk system boards to an eighth the size they once were and now include video, I/O and wireless. The amount of RAM has grown exponentially, and CPUs are packing more power than ever dreamt of in 1988. The Air and iPad have no moving parts (except a CPU cooling fan in the Air) and contain nothing that is user-replaceable. Spurred in no small part by the wild success of the iPhone, the idea of computer as appliance is coming to fruition.

When I remember the sheer number of parts required to build a PC once upon a time, I am amazed when I see tear downs of the iPad and the Air (click to embiggen):

In both cases, the biggest parts of both devices are the batteries.

And even if you don't consider them appliances, but simply as portable computers, compare them with this, the Compaq II from 1987:

My ex brought one of these home from work one evening in 1988 and we thought it was the coolest thing evah. I only wish he were still around to see how far we've come since then.

It all makes me wonder what the face of computing will look like in another 25 years…

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Worst Customer Service EVER

I'm starting to understand why so many people say they hate their cell phone companies.

I've had Verizon service in one form or another for about two years, and except for having to jump through hoops to get my cell modem and iPhone put on a single account when I first got the iPhone, I really haven't had any problem with them.

That is, until this week.

When I lived in Phoenix, I got decent 3G coverage from my cell modem and was happy with it. Since moving to Denver, however, it's been next to useless. Since I'm locked into the contract on the modem for another six months and had to pay for it anyway, I sent it to my dad, hoping could get some use out of it (he was still on dial-up).

We started getting 4G mobile hotspots at work for several of our on-the-go users and I've been very impressed with the lil' buggers. 4G service in Denver is excellent, so I finally broke down and ordered one online from Verizon a week ago to replace the cell modem. The device was free with a new 2-year contract, so it was kind of a no-brainer.

I've had to activate enough of the things by now to know it's a very simple matter. That's why I knew I was in trouble when I called the activation number and was immediately transferred to customer support.

Apparently they'd sent out a SIM card with a number that couldn't be activated. The lame excuse I go from the rep was "Since we started selling the iPhone we've had a lot of bad numbers come across." Really. REALLY?

He said he would overnight a new SIM card and made me go through the motions of accepting a new agreement.  That should have been the first red flag.

Yesterday I went online to check my balance and discovered that I now had four lines.  Not only did I have the expected lines for my iPhone and my 3G modem, I had two additional lines, one for the SIM card that couldn't be activated as well as a fourth line for what I assumed was the new SIM that had yet to arrive.  (It turns out the rep lied or was flat out clueless. The card had been sent out two day Fedex, not overnight.)

The new SIM was waiting at home last night when I arrived.  Once again I called the number to activate, and once again was immediately transferred to customer service.

At that point, Ben took the phone from me and acted on my behalf, letting loose on the rep.  It's a good thing he did; I might've had a stroke if I had to deal with the amount of outright stupid on the other end of the line that he did.

Apparently the jerk I'd spoken to two nights earlier didn't know what the fuck he was doing.  What a surprise. In the land of Verizon, the SIM cards are (for whatever reason) tied to the devices they're shipped with and the idiot didn't know or didn't care.  He should've sent out a new hotspot and SIM, not just a SIM.  Idiot. Ben was told that in order to clear this up, and get the extra lines removed from my account everything would have to be mailed back.  Again, the rep didn't have a clue how to handle this other than to read from her script. We were getting nowhere.

At this point, I got on my cell and called the local Verizon store, asking them if they could sort out the mess.  They said it wouldn't be a problem and to bring everything in.

After dinner we drove to the mall and got everything fixed. I left with a activated, working MiFi, and only one additional line on my account (as it was supposed to be from the beginning).

Lessons learned: never ever order anything from Verizon online. GO INTO THE STORE. Secondly, don't ever bother with their phone support. It SUCKS.

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In 1980…

This is what approximately $2000 worth of stereo equipment looked like:

Sure, it doesn't look like much now, but at the time (with the exception of the speakers) it was state-of-the-art stuff.

The only items I still have are—amazingly—the speakers (woofers refoamed and cabinets resurfaced several years ago), although I did pick up another 1300Mk2 off eBay about a decade ago and still use it to spin my vinyl.  I've also had several sets of the Micro Series components over the years, but always end up selling them because their general lack of inputs and outputs make them impractical for use as a main setup in this age of DVRs, DVDs, and the multitude of other tech that you might want to attach to your stereo.

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When I Was In High School…

…I wanted one of these in the worst way. The Advent "Video Beam" projection television:

I had all but forgotten about this piece of engineering until I ran across this image on another website a few days ago and the memories came flooding back.  It was another one of the wonders I saw at Jerry's Audio all those many years ago.

Funny thing is, now I own a flat screen that's bigger and hangs on the wall.  Amazing.  How quickly we lose sight of the incredible technological advances of the last 30 years.

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To Be Filed Under Cool

I've often wondered why this hadn't been done…

From I New Idea:

LG Display has developed a 14.1 inch LCD panel for notebook PCs that are illuminated by sunlight instead of the backlight unit (a backlight unit is an illumination source used in LCDs. It is usually made up of several fluorescent lamps, a light guide reflectors, and brightness enhancing films) when used outdoors. This is the first LCD panel to allow users to easily switch from backlight use (transmissive mode) to outdoor reflective mode with the touch of a button. The display's outdoor energy consumption falls to one fourth the level of indoor energy consumption, providing a significant increase in battery life.

In addition, this new product resolves visibility issues with a contrast ratio exceeding 9:1 when used outdoors in reflective mode. The display's contrast ratio ranges from just 2:1 to 3:1 for conventional notebook PCs when used outdoors, implying difficulty in viewing the screen. During CES 2009, LG Display will showcase its new 14.1 inch sunlight Illuminated LCD for notebook PCs, as well as its newest cutting-edge display technologies featuring improved motion picture response time (MPRT), eco-friendly displays and more at the Bellagio Hotel.