Can we have more phone-less handheld computing?
Not so long ago we had Personal Digital Assistants, PDAs. I owned a couple of the later ones, a Toshiba Pocket PC and a Palm TX. PDAs started as companion devices to keep you organized, but eventually their operating systems became advanced enough that they expanded functionality to include media players, games, and web browsers. These started merging with cell phones, and now we have the smartphone revolution, where our ever-connected, pocketable devices can do pretty much anything we want them to.
Leading the pack, at least in terms of consumer appeal, is Apple’s iPhone. However, they keep updating their “mp3 player”, the iPod Touch, to be feature-complete with the iPhone. It offers a low-cost, low-commitment entry point into the world of handheld computing. It’s essentially the modern incarnation of a PDA. The iPod touch sells incredibly well. And why wouldn’t it? It has no competition.
The former heavy hitters of the handheld computer have abandoned it for phone-only versions. Palm (HP now) and Microsoft have two great operating systems that could very well compete with the iPod Touch. Just strip the phone apps from WebOS and Windows Phone 7, and there you go. Instant iPod Touch competitors. Worse yet, why is there no Android-based iPod Touch equivalent (aside from the Archos players, but those are pretty big, not really pocketable)? You don’t even have to pay a license fee to make one of those. So why are all these companies letting Apple take the whole market?
I have no idea.
First of all, there’s the whole smartphone-less (for now) youth market (kids and especially teens). Let’s face it, the Nintendo DS and the PSP have their fingers far, far from the pulse of where the handheld gaming. Their upcoming, single-purpose, portable gaming consoles will retail for more than the cost of an iPod Touch. Then, of course, they expect you to pay at least $40 per game. You know how many iOS games you can buy for forty dollars? Infinity, give or take. I could write a whole post on how much they’re screwing this up, but I digress. The point is the iPod touch can entertain the youth (and adults, myself included) with games, but not only that, it has a metric ton of social networking apps, web browser, YouTube, etc. It’s a cheap, starter “computer” for all intents and purposes. So let’s say kids gravitate towards iOS. A few years from now, when they’re all grown up and it’s time for a smartphone, what do you think they’re going to want? I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the OS in which they already have all their games on and are used to. It works the same way Microsoft gets students to use Office. Later, when they go into the work force it’s all they know how to use, thus what they need.
That’s what gets me, Microsoft knows this trick. Get them while they’re young. Yet here they are, wasting a huge market. They already have the most popular console gaming ecosystem with Xbox Live and the Xbox 360. Windows Phone 7 (WP7) has Xbox Live functionality. It’s simple logic, really. Use Xbox Live as a Trojan horse to get the youth on a phone-less WP7 device! Hell, I’d buy one. Achievements are magically delicious, you know. That brings me to my second point, I’d really like a secondary “entertainment” device. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t really think the whole games/music/movies on my phone is all that great until we get some real leaps in battery technology. Smartphone batteries barely last a day as it is, let alone if they have to satisfy your Angry Birds and Netflix streaming addictions.
The “handheld-computing/entertainment-device that’s not a phone” has a lot of potential, but no one seems to care. Can we fix this now please? I really want to get a nice little smart device for gaming and MP3 player use, instead of these ridiculous 3DS and NGP consoles.
Sony brought PS3 security breach upon themselves
This month the PS3′s security was finally busted open. The hacker community has enabled unsigned code to run. This opens the door for homebrew software and piracy. Sony is now suing the developer of the exploit, George “GeoHot” Hotz.
You wonder why it took so long to develop homebrew on the PS3. It goes like this: almost every console has had its security broken for homebrew purposes, and then piracy ensues. Sony had the perfect defense against this by giving the PS3 owners the ability to run their own OS on it (Linux). Therefore, there was no need for the homebrew hacker community to break the PS3′s security. For a nice little breakdown of all the different consoles’ security timelines check out a minute of the tail end of this talk about the Xbox 360′s security system, starting at 43:57 playtime. It will show how Sony dropped the ball on this.
Then, Sony went and shot themselves in the foot by removing the Other OS option on PS3 Slims and later on every PS3 via firmware updates. Good job at pissing off your fans Sony! Now the homebrew community had a purpose! Not that much later now, we’ve got homebrew running.
It’s no coincidence that the PS3′s security was broken only after the Other OS option was removed. Sony has no one to blame but themselves for the rampant piracy that could (most likely will) result from this!
Apple Stickers Create Fanboys – Marketing Genius
Photo by ifranz
Apple Inc. has positioned itself as an upscale brand, with stylish and reliable consumer products. They enjoy great profit margins on their products, and have a devoted fanbase. The majority of their customers have a certain brand loyalty. Even though their products usually have comparable analogues made by other companies, there is a certain elitism associated with the brand. Most people have at least some brand loyalty to the products they own, not many people like saying they made stupid purchases of course. You like to be proud of the products you own, but Apple users take this to another level. There’s nothing wrong with this as long as they are not blindly loyal, but I believe it was worth writing a post about.
I believe this all stems from a basic marketing tactic: Every major Apple product I can think of ships with an Apple sticker in the box. This creates a bond with the brand. You put this sticker on your car, on your non-Apple laptop, whatever. It’s visible. It now represents a bit of who you are, and everyone can see it. Now when someone speaks negatively (or positively) about Apple products, it’s personal. You identify with the product, it becomes part of your lifestyle instead of just something you bought. Now this is also prominently evident in their actual devices: Mac PCs, iPods, and iPhones all have a very minimal design aesthetic with a large, bold, Apple logo smack in the middle. This faces outward of course, making sure everyone notices. This is logical marketing thinking — there’s no doubt they’re going to put their logo on their products — but Apple really built that customer/brand loyalty better than any of its competitors. The only other brand I can think of that comes close is Sony.
This is my practical explanation for why Apple fanboys are such a prevalent part of the Apple culture. You might think, “but it’s because the products are so good!” I will say that yes, they consistently create good, even great, consumer products. However, I do not think their products merit the rabid fanboys / hipster elite that they generate. This is a product of good marketing and branding.
Flobots and k-os
On June 2nd, my first week in Nashville this summer, I went with a few buds to the rockin’ little venue of Exit In. I had been looking for worthwhile upcoming performances in the area and found out that Flobots and k-os were playing that night, so off we went. I had discovered k-os a few years ago on the Obscure Sound blog, and I had barely heard Flobots aside from watching a few of their videos on the YouTubes. There was an opening group, Champagne Champagne, but we got there a little late and just caught their last song.
K-os caught me completely off-guard with a quite good show. I always kinda liked his music, but the man’s stage presence and crowd involvement brings his live performance to a few levels above the recordings. The blend of funk, rock, and hip-hop in his musical stylings is distinctive and well executed.
I was pretty new to the music of Flobots so I didn’t really know what to expect of their performance, but it was nothing short of awesome. They started off their one and a half hour long set with a percussion-only intro and started melting my face off from there. Their music is a blend of rock and hip hop with two main vocalists, guitarist, bassist, drummer, and a violist. As expected by their unique intrumental lineup, their music is quite a unique experience. That, and they really knew how to work a crowd Catchy beats with good melodies and aggressive vocals put the audience, and myself, in a state of euphoria.
New Desk for My Room!
I’ve been wanting a new desk for my room for quite a while now. My horrible looking set-up for the past almost 2 years was as follows: 32-inch TV on a weak plastic table, next to it my desktop PC on one of those little folding tray-tables, and next to that my old computer-cart desk from 1998 with my laptop and/or monitor. Spread across all this I had random computer parts (old keybords, HDDs, video cards) and wondrously stacked piles of CDs and DVDs scattered around. Some high shelves above this held my home theater’s receiver and game consoles with all the wires dangling down to the TV and power outlets all messy-like.
So I finally got around to designing my desk on and went to Home Depot to get the necessary materials. When planning it, I also wanted it to be cheap to build so I designed it in such a way that the whole thing could be built out of a single 4×8 piece of 3/4″ wood panel. The desk would be held together by some L-brackets and reinforced from behind by a brace spanning the width of the desk; below is a picture of my design on paper. I wanted the desk to fit my monitor, the TV, and have shelves for all my consoles, PC, and the receiver.
Click to make zoomy big magic.
The next day I started working on it with my father’s help, who has a lot of experience and is really good at this whole DIY bit (and has cool tools). After a day’s work we managed to get the whole structure built and stained the wood a darker color after a break to rest and eat. The only changes made to the design was the addition of a thin wooden panel in the left part of the desk for further reinforcement of the structure (less wobble). The next day we bought a can of varnish and applied it to give the desk a protective coat.
One more day passed, and today the varnish has dried and anxious to get my desk in my room already, I started to clean up the sprawling mess that composed my desk/tv area. About six hours later (Hah!), I finally had everything cleaned out and my new desk in place. I must say, wiring everything back up was excruciatingly tedious. Now that everything is set up though, I’m very happy and really enjoying my new spacious desk!
If you click to zoom in, you'll be astonished by its glory.
Trippy ASCII Art Playback in VLC
I was reading this article on Lifehacker today, and they mentioned how mplayer has a mode to output video in ASCII art generated on the fly. I thought this was a pretty nifty, if useless, trick and poked around in VLC for a similar option. ‘Lo and behold, it indeed does have this option as well. Even though it makes things generally unwatchable, it’s still pretty cool to watch and show some friends.
Enabling ASCII Output
To enable it you first go into the Tools menu, then Preferences. Once there, on the bottom left hit All under Show Settings. Click on Video in the sidebar, and then click Output Modules. On the right pane change the Video Output Module from Default to Color ASCII Art Video Output and save your preferences. It’s now enabled. To change it back, simply switch back to Default.
ASCII Charlie Brown is so hip and fresh!
Review: Kick-Ass
Originally a comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., Kick-Ass is quite the film. It’s a superhero movie set in the “real world” in the sense that it is aware of superhero comics and films. The story revolves around comic-book geek and overall average teenager Dave. The setup is that Dave decides to fight crime and become a real-life costumed hero (Kick-Ass) in a world where no one’s really tried it before. Note that Dave has no martial arts training or cool gadgets; he’s just an eager-to-help geek. As the story continues, we are introduced to Hit Girl and Big Daddy. They are a daughter/father crime-fighting duo with serious training and firepower at their disposal. I don’t want to give away any of the pretty awesome turns the story takes, so I’ll try to steer clear of any further plot details. The story is great, and there are plenty of jokes to go around. Taking a slight departure from the comic book’s decidedly dark story, Kick-Ass ends up as a pretty light-hearted movie with lots of action and laughs.
Visually, I found the movie to be quite engaging. First of all, the fight scenes are very well choreographed and kept me excited, gripping my seat. After seeing a couple of the fights you’ll start to wonder why the movie is called Kick-Ass and not Hit Girl; they make that little girl fight something fierce. There’s so much adrenaline-pumping badassery in this film. I loved it. On another note, the color palette they used for the sets had a lot of focus on grays and browns, and it gave the film (and the city it was set in) a very gritty and run-down feel. The characters on the other hand seemed to pop with color. It’s not as dark as Christopher Nolan’s Batman series reboot, but not quite as colorful as the Spiderman flicks.
The soundtrack was one of the high points of the film in my opinion. Even though it was a licensed soundtrack and little or no original score (can’t recall any of it anyway), the songs they chose were excellent and fit great. The soundtrack actually enhanced the movie experience. Compare this to last year’s Watchmen movie adaptation where the licensed soundtrack was detrimental.
The performances were mostly great. Dave/Kick-Ass as portrayed by Aaron Johnson was pretty good and spot on to the comic book character. Nicolas Cage (Big Daddy) was awesome and he captured the essence of a grown man living his dream of being a superhero very well. Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit Girl really stole the spotlight from everyone else with a great performance of a hardly-believable character. Christopher Mintz-Plasse playing Red Mist was a good pick, but I kind of wish they would let him break out of his, now typecast, McLovin/Fogel role.
Compared to the original comic, the story stayed pretty much the same, but certain plot elements were changed to give the film a lighter and happier tone. While departing from the original story, I don’t think they were good or bad, just variations on storytelling. Although I do think they were influenced by the mainstream moviegoer expecting happier stories than a comic book geek. One thing I didn’t like was the very last scene which went on for a little too long and was a little fantastical compared to the rest of the movie (Highlight text to reveal SPOILER: Jetpack with Gatling gun WTF? ).
As I left the theater, I exited with a feeling that the flick was well-worth the entrance fee, a great comic book adaptation, and a film that can stand alone and be great. I highly recommending watching it. Also, the comic is a very good read if you have the chance.
