kdmurray.blog

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Tag Archives: Futurism

5 Things You Did See At Apple’s September Announcement

So now that all the hubbub has come and gone, I’m pleased to announce that I was 100% correct in my non-predictions for the Apple event.  So I thought I’d come back with a review of just what did make the cut, and tell you about the my top 5 from the “Let’s Rock” announcement.

New iPod Nanos — No surprise here, at all.  Announced today, shipping sometime between now and Christmas, a return to the slimmer, sleeker design of the iPod nano.  The screen is much larger than the Gen 1 and Gen 2 nanos, and the ipod is now oval shaped (read: won’t sit flat on a table).  It also comes in about a dozen different colours.

“New” iPod Touches — Though not receiving anywere near the revision that the nanos did, the iPod touch now sports new side-mounted volume controls and a small external speaker.  Both of these will make the App-store games much more fun to play.  I’m sad that they’ve chosen not to integrate a microphone (though the exclusion was one of my predictions), the external volume controls will be a very handy new feature.  I wonder how hard they had to convince Jobs to abandon his “no buttons” policy?

Apple & NBC Kiss & Make up — Again, not a big surprise, NBC is returning to the iTunes store.  All your favourite syndicated NBC crap will once again be available in iTunes.  Meh…

iTunes 8 — The next version of iTunes is out, and it sports a fancy new “genius” feature whereby Apple takes a look at your listening habits and makes recommendations.  It’ll also build playlists for you.

iPod Touch / iPhone Software 2.1 — A revision of the software for the two fanciest iThings to hopefully fix the bugs and constant crashing that have plagued the devices (even 1st Gen iPhones / iPod Touches) since the 2.0 and 2.0.1 releases.  I sure as hell hope it’s stable ’cause I’m planning to get a new iPod touch to replace the one that “disappeared” somewhere in the Minneapolis airport.

So there you have it.  5 things that actually did happen, to go along with the 5 that didn’t.

5 Things You Won’t See At Apple’s September Announcement

So I’m lying here, unable to sleep, not because I’m dreaming up what Apple is going to announce tomorrow, but it has given me some time to think.

There’s been lots of ideas floated around, so I figured I should jump into the mix now before the news so I can call these predictions of things you definitely WON’T see

The iPod Touch with a built-in microphone and bluetooth — This would harshly cannibalize iPhone sales, particularly given the cost of iPhone data plans.

iTunes Music Subscriptions — People like to own their music. ’nuff said.

iPhone Revisions — Not a chance, with the 3G iPhone barely 3 months old, there’s no way that Apple can justify a revision already.  The backlash from iPhone early adopters last year will be a lesson.

The “MacBook Touch” — Even though a niche of Apple fans would love to see a Mac tablet to compete with all of the Windows based tablets out there, it just doesn’t make up a large enough piece of the overall computer market for Apple to try to carve out a piece.

Beatles Music in the iTunes Catalogue — Despite recent notions from some pundits that the Fab Four’s music will be part of the “Let’s Rock” announcement, there have been far too many false alarms for this to be the case.  Besides, the music is being remastered right now and will probably go through some kind of digital release next year once that’s done.

So there you have it, the five things you definitely won’t see at the Let’s Rock announcement.  Now we can sit back and see what the all things “i” maker will announce later today.

Apple Support Treats Us Like Babies… Sometimes

Please Apple, heed my call.  We’re not all n00bs.

I performed a series of software updates on my computer today.  Apple has learned that some of us would like to know what our update contains, beyond the simple “bug fixes” or “compatibility fixes” that it typically lists with each update.

My ask is simple, whenever there’s a software update, tell us what’s in it.  This way we can assess how important it is to us, and how soon we need to apply it.  If I find out that the Finder has a bug in it which will allow a malicious web-page to access my hard drive when I use Safari… I don’t care.  I don’t use Safari.  But if I did, I’d apply that a lot more quickly than I would an update to add the latest HP printer drivers.

Here are examples of two recent Apple updates.  One is done correctly.  The other is not.  See if you can spot the difference.


BAD!  Why? “Compatibility Improvements” isn’t very damned descriptive.


Good!  Link is provided to give those who actually want to know, the information they need.

Apple has long been seen as a very easy platform for the non-geeks among us to learn quickly and easily without the configuration and security nightmares that plague the Windows world on occasion (though that’s usually due to market share… but that’s a rant for another day).  Constantly focused on ease-of-use and design Apple makes beautiful and elegant products which are easy to understand, and for the most part to intuit.  A little consistency in documenting things wouldn’t kill them.

Providing people with the information they need to make an informed choice and just maybe understand their computing experience a little bit more is something that all software developers should consider.  It’s nice to have the option to know what people are telling me is a “critical update” so that I can decide for myself.

Passing of a Legend: Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Yesterday marked the passing of a legendary figure in the literary world.  Sir Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and dozens of other works, passed away in his adopted homeland of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

Clarke was a pioneer of science-fiction, along with others like Isaac Asimov, helping to build the genre into the strong source of insight, foresight and entertainment that we enjoy today.

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.”

- Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke’s brilliance not only as an author but as a futurist brought him to write not only about fantastic other-worldly adventures, but also about the future of the the earth, space travel and humanity’s role in it.  Another prominent member of the science-fiction community who was inspired by Clarke was Gene Roddenberry.  Clarke’s vision and writings helped to fuel his passion to pursue Star Trek which has grown into one of the most popular and prolific science fiction series of all time.

You can see Dave’s short video comment on the GGP blog, and a video dedication by Rod Roddenberry.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, dead at 90.

The future of Gaming?

I was sent a link to this YouTube video a couple of days ago, and it took me a bit of time to get around to watching it in its entirety. When you stop to think about what this means for the future of gaming, the future looks pretty cool. This type of thing could give a whole new element to not only first-person shooters, but many other game types too.

The video was done by Johnny Lee, now a quasi-famous Internet personality for a series of articles he’s done about Wii-hardware-related topics on YouTube.  The other two being Finger Tracking and the Multi-Touch Whiteboard.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw]

The software for the demos are available from his website.  All of the PC development work has been done in C# using the Direct-X SDK and Visual C# Express (which I’ve blogged about before).

After seeing these videos I want a Wii more than ever.

Web Trend Map 2007

Information Architects Japan has just released the updated version of their 2007 Web Trend map. This provides an amazing visual record of where the biggest sites on the web are, and how they inter-relate with each other.

iA WebTrends Map 2007

The analysis also includes descriptions of how sites are faring (using cool weather icons), and an indication of which “Web” they belong to. The Wall Street Journal is listed as “Web 0.5″, MSN is listed as “Web 1.0″ and popular social media sites Flickr and WordPress were listed as “Web 2.5″.

Its definitely worth a look to get a better idea of just how your digital world is connected to itself… and to you. The map has been released in several formats, I for one am going to try out the very cool OS X Screensaver version. :)

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

This is a simple, and very effective summary of how Web 2.0 is changing the way we manage knowledge in the 21st century.

Video on YouTube

Though it doesn’t get into great detail about the specifics of Web 2.0, it provides some points for thought around how we interact with the web today, and how it has begun to alter the way we interact with each other. The fact that you are reading this blog is and example of how Web 2.0 technologies have permeated our online experience… and we’re getting deeper in every day.During the process of posting this blog entry alone there are eight separate Web 2.0 technologies which will come into play:

Food for thought.

Thanks to Amber and the folks at CommandN for pointing us in the direction of this video.

Hawking: Warp Drive the Key to Survival

Speaking after being awarded the Copley medal in England last week Prof. Steven Hawking spoke out about the need for mankind to extend its footprint outside the Sol system. His proposed method for making this happen: matter/antimatter annihilation to propel a craft to near-light speeds.  This is the method popularized in the television (and movie) series’ Star Trek.

The key difference between Hawking’s proposal and the Warp Drive technology used in the Star Trek universe is the degree of speed.  Star Trek uses matter/antimatter annihilation to move a craft at many times the speed of light, something which Hawking and most other theoretical physicists consider to be impossible based on the physical universe as we understand it.  In Hawking’s proposal this technology would be used to reach sublight speeds which are very close to the speed of light.

His estimate is that with the ability to travel just below the speed of light, a craft could reach the next nearest star in about 6 years. A vast improvement from the 50,000 years it would have taken the Apollo rocket series (assuming it could ever carry enough fuel).  As far as organizations like NASA are concerned, faster-than-light travel is speculative at best.

Maybe this is yet another one of Gene Roddenberry‘s visions coming one step closer to reality.

EPIC 2014 – The reign of Googlezon

This presentation was put together by a couple of university students at Georgia Tech. It tells an orwellian tale about the demise of what we would call “modern media”. The clip is narrated and runs 8 minutes. It packs a lot of thinking into those 8 short minutes.

This project has caused me to do a lot of thinking since I saw it. It is based partly in reality, and partly in conjecture. The presentation shows us a world that could be, some say it is the world that will be.

The first link below contains a written version with some added details that aren’t in the flash movie. The second link is the flash movie itself. This was originally published several months ago, so it may be old news for some of you, but this is something that really made me think, and its worth another look.

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2004/11/29/summary_of_the_world_googlezon.htm

http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

“In feeble protest to Googlezon’s hegemony, the Times has become a print-only newsletter for the elderly…” go figure…