Apple Tablet: Will Jobs Deliver?
Apple is hosting a press event on January 27th, 2010. It is widely expected by the consumer electronics press and bloggers that this will be the unveiling of the mythical and long-rumored Apple tablet device. That is to say, they are to announce a product in the constantly failing, niche category that falls somewhere between a smartphone and a notebook computer. Tablets as we know them usually have 7″ to 12″ screens, and usually run the gamut in terms of operating systems. From over-sized media players, to full-blown desktop operating systems like Windows, to variations of Linux, to Windows Mobile, and now Android, tablets are home to variety. Tech companies have really tried almost everything to make a tablet device compelling to consumers. Yet they keep failing. Apple itself has experimented in this market (and failed) with the Newton, which was more PDA-like in its nature.
Photo of the Apple Newton next to the iPhone by Blake Patterson from Alexandria, VA, USA
The most defining features of tablets are generally the lack of the keyboard and focus on the touchscreen, and maybe even handwriting recognition. Tablets try to accomplish so much, but they’re not really great at one thing. It won’t make phone calls. However, it browses the web better than a smartphone, and comparable to a PC browser if done right. It plays music and videos on a bigger screen than your iPod (or media player of choice, I own a Zune), but you can’t really take it with you for a jog. In simple yet not entirely accurate terms, it’s like a giant iPod Touch.
So tablets are this mix and match collaboration of electronics jammed in a form factor that is its triumph and it’s downfall. It’s lighter than your laptop but bigger than your phone. So where do you put it? You can’t put it in your pocket, so it has to go in a bag. Well then you might as well carry a small laptop and get more productivity out of it. It’s not really that portable then. Is it just a device you use on your couch, while laying in bed, in the back seat of a car, or on the bus? Is it like a magazine/newspaper replacement that you use to consume media and news?
No manufacturer has gotten the tablet just right yet, as is evident by their failure in the mainstream market (unlike smartphones and laptops). Maybe it’s just the form factor that’s wrong. Do we really need a device that sits between laptop and phone? Apple wants to change that. Hopefully they’ll succeed and find out what everyone was doing wrong in the tablet market. Speculation knows no bounds, aside from finally a user interface that makes sense on a touch screen of that size. Will it use WiFi or have an always-on Internet connection via 3G? Apple might wrangle up some content deals for on-demand video, music, and especially books and periodicals; they’ll give all those e-readers a run for their money. Also, a screen of that size really lends itself to video games. They really can’t shoehorn OS X into that device, the UI would be too forced like on Windows tablets. If they use the iPhone OS then they can leverage their gigantic App Store. Apple’s other challenge aside from making the device compelling and useful is the price. If the device is too expensive only the Apple fanatics will buy it. Apple will place this product above their iPod Touch line so it most likely will not cost less than $200. However, if it costs more than $500 few people will be willing to drop that sort of cash on a non-essential device.
I want Apple to pull off this product successfully and bring some innovation to a market that’s in sore need of it. Personally, I’m not an Apple fan, but this is a product category I’ve always been interested in. Steve Jobs better rock our socks off when he gets on that stage.
Free Software: STDU Viewer
I had been using Foxit Reader to view PDFs as a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader. However, I recently found STDU Viewer (Windows only), and I liked it enough to switch to it and uninstall Foxit. STDU Viewer is your standard document reader, but it has some key features that made it stand out for me. First of all, it’s free and doesn’t have annoying messages to update to a paid version all over the place. I also checked how much memory it was using while running, and the number was pretty low (about 18MB with two documents open).
There’s a few features in STDU Viewer that really won me over though. When you close the application it saves which documents you had open in it (they’re sorted in tabs, which is also great) and your position in the document. The next time you open it, it prompts you if you wish to continue reading those documents where you left off. Very handy! The other major reason I made the switch to STDU Viewer is that it also opens CBR and CBZ file types. Those are the standard formats for digital comic books, and now STDU Viewer has double duty for me. I can uninstall another program from my PC!
Pseudo-review: Infamous (PS3)
Over the past week I’ve been playing through Infamous on the PlayStation 3. Infamous is an open-world, platformer, third-person shooter game with RPG elements (What a mouthful, eh?). The game centers around Cole, an average guy who is bestowed electric super powers in a post-apocalyptic, quarantined Empire City (sort of, kind of New York City). You’re thrust into this city and you have to save it from an evil secret society trying to… um… be evil and essentially kill a lot of people for something. I thought the story was kind of muddled and a lot of the plot points seem forced to just move you to the next area.
The game has a Karma system which has you make decisions as the story progresses which affect whether Cole turns into the hero of the city or an all-around dick. Save for a few story-altering decisions, most of these Karma moments seem insignificant. For example, in one of the game’s missions you have to turn off some valves that are poisoning the water supply. You can shut off the valves in two ways. One of these ways will “hurt” Cole (making him see blurry for roughly 5 seconds) and the other will leave Cole “unhurt” but kill a lot of people. Oh no, Karma moment! To the player, this is an irrelevant decision. There is no temptation or anything to gain by being evil, at least nothing tangible by the player.
Presentation-wise, Infamous is a mixed bag. The sounds effects sound great, and the voice acting for all the characters except Cole are good. Cole sounds like he’s constantly angry and in pain with his raspy, angst-filled voice. The music is apparently forgettable because I was about to write about it and realized I have no real recollection of it. In terms of graphics the game is very pretty, albeit from a distance. While you’re running around, jumping from building to building and shooting, it looks great. However, when you get to a cut-scene the characters look poorly detailed and the animations are pretty bad.
On to the important part: the gameplay. The platforming is very fun in a parkour kind of way. Something about jumping from rooftop to rooftop and grinding across power lines is just awesome. The “shooting” is well designed and ejoyable. The game is essentially a shooter where instead of guns you have electric energy. You have your mid-range normal bolts of electricity, you can snipe, you have electricity “grenades”, and rockets too. The controls are simple enough, and aiming is easy. A lot of Cole’s superpowers, however, are done with the controller’s face buttons; this makes it impossible for you to aim with the right stick while shooting them (short of finger gymnastics to do both). Now, the bad stuff: Despite how fun it is to run and gun through the city as a superhero (or supervillain), the game eventually became dull and repetitive for me. All the missions felt pretty much the same: Go to X location and kill X enemies, maybe press a switch or grab an object of interest. It’s worth noting the way that the game becomes more difficult. Most games follow a pattern of getting harder as you progress and gain skills. Infamous is not an exception to this, but the way it goes about it is what gets to me. With each story arc, the enemy soldiers change. First they were red colored, then an off-white with some greens, and now they’re just gray and brown. I have to squint and sit closer to my TV each time just to be able to spot them against the game’s muddy, city color-palette. Also instead of having them be smarter or aim better, they just throw more and more soldiers at you at a time, which is sometimes annoying.
The reason why this is called a pseudo-review is because it’s not a full review since I haven’t finished the game. I’m almost done with the game, but I can only play it in short bursts now because it just feels like I’m doing the same thing over and over. This frustration is what encouraged me to write my review early, if only to drive that point across. I would say this game is worth a rental or borrowing it from a friend, but not a buy unless it drops to $20 or $30. Many other critics have nothing but praise for this game, but personally, it just got old fast.
EU fails at attempting to control web browser monopoly
The European Union has been on Microsoft’s case for most of this year, demanding that it give users an option to choose a web browser instead of defaulting to Internet Explorer. This is to supposedly stop it’s “unfair” monopoly of the browser market. First of all I’d like to say that I’m not an Internet Explorer (IE) user, and haven’t been for the past 7 or so years. I’ve been using Opera as my main browser and occasionally use IE or Chrome for compatibility; I never really liked Firefox much.
To elaborate, the EU wants Microsoft to include a program in Windows that will list, download, and install different web browsers for the user to choose from. These include Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. This seems great for the consumer doesn’t it? The novice computer user who doesn’t know about alternative web browsers will be instantly informed and given a choice. The general consensus is, after all, that IE is definitely not the best browser out there, and is certainly not known for it’s adherence to web standards.
So what’s the problem then? I believe that Microsoft is being treated very unfairly in this matter. Let’s analyze this from their point of view. Someone buys a PC that runs Windows. Microsoft includes it’s very own web browser with it. It couldn’t possibly ship an OS without it. Can anyone really imagine an OS shipping without a web browser? Of course not! They have to include a web browser, and of course, it’s their own. Mac OS X ships with Safari, and Ubuntu (which I’m using for the sake of argument since it’s the most popular Linux distribution) ships with Firefox. Is anyone complaining about that? It certainly seems to be the common practice with OS’s across all hardware platforms. Why is Microsoft being singled out simply for being successful?
Consider this: When you buy an iPod (which is by far the most popular portable audio player) it asks you to download iTunes. It does not (officially, anyway) work with any other music software. Is this not an unfair monopoly as well? Why can’t I use Windows Media Player? Or better yet, why doesn’t it just let me drag and drop music into it using a file manager? This can also be considered a monopoly. As if that wasn’t enough, Apple then proceeds to install Safari on your system along with iTunes unless you manually opt-out, which most users will not even notice. Now this is something that should be frowned upon.
I’m not saying Apple is bad and Microsoft is good. I’m just saying it is unfair for Microsoft to be legally obligated to cripple its market share, and everyone else gets out free. Isn’t Apple also forcing Safari onto OS X users by including it as the default browser on their systems? They should also be forced to include a browser selection screen with alternatives. It would only be fair.
Imagine that Wal-Mart was legally forced to show its competitors’ prices next to their own price tags, so as to give the consumer a freedom of choice. Seems silly doesn’t it? Why would they advertise a competitors’ goods? No one forced the consumer to walk into Wal-Mart. Why should Wal-Mart have to tell their customers that Best Buy has that same TV for cheaper? Ridiculous! It’s up to the consumer to shop around. Not only that, but imagine that Best Buy doesn’t have to show Wal-Mart’s prices… I rest my case. The EU needs to treat everyone equally, or not bother with this kind of legislation at all.
Link: More info and history of the subject via Computerworld
Lack of Classes? Movie Time!
With the current state of turmoil in Puerto Rico, there has been a week of chaos and student strikes in the University of Puerto Rico. This week was given as an academic recess by the President of the UPR to “avoid conflict” which has of course been received with even more criticism. Regardless, I’m not here to write about politics and the UPR’s situation, not in this post anyway. In such dire times, I’ll instead write about what I’ve been doing this past week when I’m not busy worrying about activists and politicians screwing with my education. I’ve been to the movie theater more frequently than I’ve ever been. Setting a new record for myself by watching four movies in one week. All the movies I saw were awesome in their own ways (bonus!). I watched Jennifer’s Body, Zombieland, The Informant, and Adam. Now, I will indulge myself and proceed to put my thoughts on these movies into words.
Last Tuesday, I went to watch Jennifer’s Body with my girlfriend. Jennifer’s Body is a horror/comedy movie with smart dialogue. I’ll let that sink in for a little bit… OK. It’s pretty unexpected for a Halloween-timed horror movie to not simply be a quick cash cow with no real merit, but here we are. Jennifer’s Body was written by Diablo Cody of Juno fame, and she does not disappoint. Jennifer’s Body is the tale of a teenage beauty and her geeky friend. The beauty gets possesed by a demon, and begins to kill teenage boys. Typically, I don’t like horror movies since the great majority of them are laughably bad. This flick made me laugh, but because the dialogue was funny. There are no cheap scares in this movie; the scary parts are genuinely scary and creepy based on their content. That said, the movie has a lot of gore, which might turn some people off, but then again it is a horror movie so you can’t complain. Personally, I thought the gore was damn cool. The soundtrack was great, and the story was entertaining and not too corny. One thing I must note is that at one point I felt the movie was running a bit too long and not wrapping things up fast enough. Shortly thereafter, about 5 minutes, it did wrap up the plot though. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who loves good dialogue and gore in their movies.
Thursday did arrive, and ‘lo and behold ’twas movie night once more! I had heard good things about Zombieland on these here Interwebs. The movie sounded promising, and the cast was solid. I’m a pretty big fan of Woody Harrelson too, and he’s a zombie-killing badass in it, so I was sold on that alone. The movie is a zombie comedy, and it’s not at all scary. It has tons of action, great jokes, and a story with a surprising amount of substance. The movie centers around four characters: the badass, the shy dude with the heart of gold, the hot girl, and the hot girl’s spunky little sister. The characters all live up to their stereotypes, and it’s a fun ride. Seriously, I’m not going to bother explaining any further. All you need to know is that it’s hilarious and there’s lots of awesome zombie deaths.
A few days passed, and we decided to go on a road trip. On Sunday, Jose, Leo, and I drove to San Juan to the Fine Arts Cafe theater for some flicks that won’t reach the mainstream theaters. Since we already going on a long drive, we decided to make it a double feature and watch two movies. The Informant is a dark comedy starring Matt Damon. The movie is about a corrupt executive turned FBI informant. He’s also a compulsive liar; hilarity ensues. It’s a very funny talking heads movie; don’t expect any action here. I liked it, and you should give it a try if you’re into smart, funny, dialogue-based movies.
For our second round, we watched Adam. Adam is a drama/comedy about a young man with Asperger Syndrome and his struggles with life and romance. It has very sad moments and very happy moments. The story is very well told and the acting is superb. Personally, I really loved this movie. I’d write more, but it’s a very story-driven film and I think it should be experienced.
It was a fun week in cinema for me, and I hope we keep getting good movies this year!
Thoughts on the PR Government's proposed late-night alcohol ban
The Puerto Rican government, under governor Luis Fortuño, is proposing a new law that prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages from midnight to 6 a.m. This applies to all businesses except for officially designated hotels by the tourism board. Their reasoning is that there are many crimes perpetrated during these hours, and by banning the sale of alcohol, crime will decrease. There are so many things wrong with this proposal that it makes my mind reel.
- First of all, the government (which has no money) would actually lose money from this legislation. They have a tax on alcohol so by lowering the sales they’d be missing out on potential income to help the dire financial situation they’re in.
- Their hypothesis that by not selling alcohol, crime will lower is completely unproven. This might even provoke an inverse scenario where people will resort to illegal means to get alcohol at that hour, turning a once normal process into an illegal drug deal.
- Small businesses are the big losers here. The local bar will lose potential sales and income, driving one more nail in the coffin of the small business being replaced by large corporations.
- Of course, you can still go to a hotel’s bar to buy your alcohol (at a premium price since it’s a hotel). Likely of no benefit to the Puerto Rican economy, since most large hotels are owned by foreign investors/corporations.
Don’t worry though, they really know what they’re doing. They’ve got empirical data to back up their reasoning! The police superintendent claims that because 142 of 609 homicides committed this year have occurred from 12:00-6:00 a.m., this law will help bring down that number. Let’s do some quick math here: 12:00-6:00 is 6 hours, 24 hours in a day, that’s 6/24 = 25%. For the homicides 142/609 = 23.3%. That means that 23.3% of homicides occur in 25% of the day. With the power of logic we can determine that those late night hours are not the hours with the most homicides. This renders their reasoning as unfounded and illogical. Good job sirs!
As we can see, the government loses money on this, small businesses lose money on this, people are stripped of their freedoms, and crime is largely undeterred by this. Who the hell came up with this, and who is it benefiting? Apparently, there are still sane people working for the government, and the Hacienda agency requested that the law first be implemented in a temporary state to gauge it’s effect on the government’s income. They’re not questioning the actual validity of the proposed law, but it comforts me that at least someone there has the power of reason and organized thought.
Short Film: Balance
Over the course of the last few weeks I’ve been working on a short film for my film creation class (a pretty cool free elective). First I had to come up with a story and pitch it to the professor and the rest of the class, and they’d give suggestions. The film was not free topic. We were assigned the topic (a single word) pretty much randomly by other students. My word was “balance”. We were given a few restrictions by the professor, namely a one-minute running time and no dialogue allowed (including on-screen text). My story is about a man who works as a tightrope walker, who has perfect balance at work, but his personal life is in shambles. So with a couple of weeks to make this short film, and a pretty difficult-to-film concept, I decided to film using my old Legos. I present to you my finished work, Balance. If you find yourself not understanding it, give it a few watches and pay attention to detail. I tried to cram so much into that one minute that you might not be able soak it all in the first time.
Comments are appreciated 
Smartphone OS Platform Supremacy
Over the last year, smartphones have gone from an exclusive tool for the always connected businessman (and technologically-inclined geeks), to a mainstream gadget. Everyone (and by everyone I mean the average Joe consumer) is awed by the iPhone and it’s apps. It’s a portal to the Internet. It’s a portal to social networking, further solidifying the mobile phone as our link to friends and family. Also, it’s a novelty. It’s got a fancy touch screen (with pinch to zoom no less!), and thousands of useless apps and a few cool ones. Here’s the thing though. Technophiles have had this core functionality for years on smartphones/PDAs for most of this decade. What pushed the iPhone into the mainstream and made consumers aware of this technology? Ease of use, a friendly UI, a nice price-point ($200), and Apple “cool and hip” branding was the sorcery used. The smartphone is now for the everyman (that can afford an outrageously priced data plan). OK, so maybe at least for a vastly greater percentage of the population than the Treo 600 was.
So now everyone and their social-networking-happy little brother wants a smartphone, and handset makers are eager to sell them one. Palm, the veteran, was bloody and beaten, but they revamped their platform and introduced WebOS. Now the Palm Pre is out there clawing for market share, and is a damned good first generation device. Google has shown it’s prowess by launching Android, an open source platform freely available to handset-makers. It was slow to catch on, but now there’s a whole slew of devices at the ready, and their market share is sure to grow. Nokia, the elder giant of the group, is still holding strong… in Europe. Its aging Symbian needs a revamping or the new kids will beat it off the map. RIM, makers of the BlackBerry, are now the fastest growing company in the world apparently. They had the highest marketshare in the US smartphone market in Q1 2009, mostly because of the cheap-as-dirt Curve 8300 and Pearl 8100. Windows Mobile… Honestly, Windows Mobile would be nothing right now were it not for HTC and Samsung. The platform, currently at 6.5, has not been revamped in ages, and is really starting to look antiquated next to all the others. Windows Mobile 7 is really not getting here fast enough. Corporations love its integration with Exchange,and that seems to be keeping it alive.
Now the battle of titans is at hand. These companies are all trying to outdo each other with each new phone and platform update. I’ve read a lot of technology bloggers stating that there are too many players in the market, that some will die off. and we’ll have only two or three survivors. What I’m saying is I think they’re wrong. Before, the market could only support 2 or 3 players (Symbian, Windows Mobile, and PalmOS), but then again smartphone sales were nothing compared to now. I’d like to make an analogy with other industries. The past three decades have shown that the games industry can only support three console platforms. Households share a console; there’s not a console per family member, they share one. The home video industry only supports one player, VHS or Betamax, DVD or Laserdisc, HD-DVD or Blu-ray. However, mobile phones are a different story. Every person (ideally) would have a phone. As smartphone prices lower and smartphones eventually become the norm, the sheer size of the market, I believe, is enough to sustain quite a few platforms. Why can’t we have six competing platforms? Don’t we have way more car manufacturers? With more competition comes more innovation and better products. Personally, I welcome that.
The Move to Digital Distribution
Entertainment media is moving to digital distribution. Movies, video games, books, and music are available as downloads in addition to traditional retail, brick and mortar stores. Some of this media is exclusive to digital distribution and some is exclusive to retail. Soon though, we’ll be purchasing most of our media online via downloads. I was thinking about the benefits and flaws around this form of distribution and decided to write about it for a bit. To end on a high note and make the world seem a little brighter, I’ll discuss what I believe are the flaws first.
Flaws:
- DRM: Digital Rights Management is the easiest flaw to point out. It chains down your media. The media you bought is sort of yours… sort of rented. When implemented, it limits where and how you consume your media. You can only playback videos/music/games/books on certain devices, and need to jump through hoops if you need to change your device. Music is mostly being sold without DRM lately, but games, books, and videos are still prisoners to this practice. If the distributor you bought your media from decides to pull the plug on the service, you find yourself in a spot where you can’t access your media any more. That’s not fun at all!
- Pricing: The retailer middle man is cut out of the picture and so are manufacturing costs. so prices should be cheaper for the consumer now that the creator doesn’t have to split profits with retailers right? …Right? Unlikely. So far, most of the digital media costs the same as it does in our physical realm. Also, if you’re like me and tend to shop for bargain bin clearances, consider that a thing of the past. With no inventory to clear, you won’t really see many price drops occurring unless the distributor needs to push some sales. Valve’s Steam online game distribution service has frequent discounts and promotions, so hopefully this practice will catch on.
- Stuff: Personally I like to own stuff. It’s a great feeling, tearing apart shrink-wrap and popping in that game I just bought. The smell of a new book is part of the experience. Digital media robs us of fulfilling our desire to own things. Hey, I guess it helps me save shelf space.
Benefits:
- Convenient: Easy, quick, painless, don’t-have-to-leave-the-house transactions. How awesome is that? Try before you buy! Game demos, book excerpts, and music clips let you give the media a trial run before plunking down your hard earned cash punching in your credit card information.
- Availability: Copies of old, classic, hard to find media usually goes for a pretty penny (seriously, $70 for a Chrono Trigger cartridge is insane). That situation doesn’t really happen with digital distribution. Media is always in stock since it’s just downloadable data which can be downloaded as many times as necessary with no manufacturing process involved.
- Durability: No more scratched discs, lost DS cartridges, or torn pages. Your media is digital so it is impervious in it’s hard drive fortress, or not. So yeah, hard drives crash and flash media eventually becomes unusable, but then you just buy new storage and redownload the media since it’s all probably tied to your account anyway.
- Independent works: Indie developers, bands, filmmakers, and authors can distribute without the need for a large publisher/label/studio to handle distribution costs. The cost for making media available for online distribution is virtually null, and there are channels in place for the indie folk to thrive. Delicious original, innovative content is at your fingertips.
I can’t think of anything else to write right now; I’m too sleepy and tired. If you, the awesome opinionated reader, can think of any other ideas worth mentioning make sure to leave a comment!
Weekend Musings: Redux
Much to our dismay, Rotier’s isn’t open on Sundays (epic fail on our part). So, we went to Jason’s deli and had amazingly huge sandwiches. Also a random guy on the street yelled at us to “Stop! Don’t move until I go by!” very angrily. He looked disheveled and quite insane so I completely ignored him and kept walking, and everyone followed. He then called us “Stupid [Expletive deleted]” and stormed off…
