Drill baby drill! #dentistry
(download)
Mike Costa // UNC School of Dentistry c/o 2014, Instructor at Kaplan Test Prep, Tech Enthusiast
We're Not Touching Windows 7 Tablets With a Ten-Foot Stylus
There's no way Windows 7 tablets aren't going to suck. We're going to see a lot of them this week. And they're going to suck.
They're going to be fat. One of the ways they're going to distinguish themselves from the invading armada of cheaper, tinier Android tablets, is that they're to be bigger. Here's a great idea: Take a portable thing and make it less portable. Also, the beefier chips required to push Windows—at least, unless we see some new ARM-based Windows 7 tablets—means these things need bigger batteries. More weight, more space, more junk.
But! Battery life is still gonna suck. Sure, they'll have bigger batteries than Android tablets, but don't realistically expect the kind of endurance runs you can pull out of the tablets running more effiecient mobile OSes. Windows + Intel chips = power gobbler, even with SSDs.
And oh yeah, they're running Windows 7. Shoving a desktop OS on a tablet fundamentally doesn't work. It hasn't. It won't. Ever. The smooshy, half-assed efforts to paint over them with a "touch-friendly" interface—necessary, because hey, a desktop interface doesn't work for a tablet—are typically designed by imprisoned malnourished children given boxes of broken crayons. And they only glom over half the OS, at best. The third-party software for these kinds of tablets is limited, to say the least.
The thing is, we've seen these things before. Just a year ago, HP announced one held by Steve Ballmer himself, and then was so ashamed of it they effectively shitcanned it, burying them under the "enterprise" label. In fact, it wouldn't be shocking to see a lot—if not most—of the Windows 7 tablets being pushed for "enterprise." Which in this case, is code-name for "suck." And 'spensive.
Which brings us to the last point: All that suck is going to be pricey too. Android tablets, iPads—probably even PalmPads—are going to be around or under $500. These radioactive product spambits? Most closer to $1000.
If we find one that miraculously doesn't suck, we will totally let you know. We hope we're wrong! Honest. Otherwise, don't expect to see 'em on Gizmodo. We'll be busy getting nerd boners over tablets that could be actually great, like the PalmPad.
Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.
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Filed under: Internet
3G technology: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow
by Charles Figueroa, Jr. (RSS feed) on Apr 30th 2010 at 5:00PM
Cellular technology has been evolving since its invention. With the first cellular telephone networks, developed by Bell Labs and AT&T, cellular technology began to make leaps forward in ease of use, voice quality, and data communication. The miracle of technology we know today as the cellular phone was made possible by a steady stream of innovation that continues on into the future.
The history of cellular technology starts at Bell Labs in the 1960's and 70's where they began to iron out the details on what a commercial cellular network would be. A cellular network is a network of base stations, or antennas, that form large pockets (cells) of radio signal coverage that overlap. With a technology called "handover," if you made a call using one base station, and you then moved out of that base station's range and into another base station's area, your call could be "handed over" to the base station that was closer to your location. These base stations allowed you to make calls to other cellular phones or to wired landline phones.
Over the years, the evolution of cell phone technology has been broken up into "generations." It started with the first generation (1G), and it continues to the upcoming fourth generation (4G). In the beginning, cell phones weren't much more than huge walkie-talkies. Over time, though, they evolved into the data powerhouses that we carry around in our pockets.
1G technology was analog. A cell phone's connection to the cellular network wasn't much more than a radio signal. Cellular phones had to be so large that most had to be installed into your car. Later, cell phones would be reduced in size to fit into bulky cell phone packs that you could carry with you using a shoulder strap. Finally, in 1983, Ameritech launched a 1G cellular network in Chicago that offered the Motorola DynaTAC "brick" mobile phone. It was small enough to bring with you, but it still weighed two pounds.2G technology was digital. It was a huge leap forward for cellular technology in that the signal between your cellular phone and the cell tower was made up of ones and zeroes rather than an analog wave. It was much more efficient and allowed cellular networks to expand their capacity immensely. On the consumer side, the technology allowed for much clearer voice communications, without the static common in 1G networks, and it also allowed the beginning of the text message (SMS) and "smartphone" markets.
3G technology, the current standard in cellular service, improved cellular service even more. On the network side, it was even more efficient than 2G and allowed greater capacity on the cellular network. It allowed much faster data connections that approached broadband speeds. It also allowed a consumer to use both voice and data features on their phones at the same time.
However, the march of technology goes ever forward, and now there is a fourth generation of cellular technology just over the horizon. Unlike previous generations of cellular network technology, 4G is not designed around voice services but is designed around the Internet. It will also do away with many of the cellular network incompatibilities between carriers and countries. It will have blazing fast data speeds starting at 100 Mbps (approximately DSL speed), and top out at 1Gbps (approximately LAN speed). It is designed to be used with both mobile phones and more static computers. Unlike today, most US and international cellular carriers will use the same network standard that is called Long Term Evolution (LTE). The only exception is Sprint, who opted for a competing technology called WiMax.
The developments in cellular technology promise a worldwide network of mobile voice and data communication like we've never seen before. Imagine a broadband connection to the Internet and crystal clear calls anywhere you go. Get ready for 4G!
As far as texting apps go, we have no shortage of options. There’s textPlus, TextNow, textfree, and plenty of others. However, the developers Borange and atebits (developer of Tweetie) are teaming up to enter the arena with a new app named Textie.
So, what does Textie bring to the table? It can send messages to other Textie users, email addresses, and most mobile phones; it’s free; push notifications are included; and it can handle photos, too. But the real draw here is its user interface. As you’d expect given the developers (atebits’ Tweetie client is set to become Twitter’s official app), the user interface is stellar, and careful attention has been paid to detail. While the app’s feature list isn’t bursting with bullet points, the app handles texts quickly and cleanly. Your “inbox” looks more like the standard Mail app than a third-party application, and in my book, that’s a great thing!
Of course, there are at least a dozen solid texting apps in the App Store. But Textie is free, simple, and elegant. If you don’t have a free-texting app yet, be sure to grab Textie and take it for a spin. (Just make sure you have a data plan!) The app claims to support a number of carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and more, but excluding T-Mobile in the US.
Tagged with: atebits :: borange :: MMS :: sms :: text message :: textie
Textie MessagingCategory: Social Networking
Released: 2010-04-27
Price: FREE
On Thursday, I set my iPad up for the first time with the fold-out case and Bluetooth keyboard. And I got walloped but good by Nostalgia. Nostalgia that was chunky and green.The heartbreaking fate of the lovable Newton is exemplar of everything that is wrong at an Apple without Steve Jobs, and why a customer reaction of “Is that it?” can be a product designer’s best friend.
Take a little trip in my time machine
We can’t pretend to understand the present without first understanding the past. In this case, Apple’s past:
1998: A revolutionary, lovable Apple PDA with little squareish icons, on-screen keyboard, common icons across the bottom, single-tasking, and the best compact keyboard of the decade, complete with an ungainly but functional fold-out case. The Newton.
2010: A revolutionary, lovable Apple PDA with little squareish icons, on-screen keyboard, common icons across the bottom, single-tasking, and the best compact keyboard of the decade, complete with an ungainly but functional fold-out case. The iPad.
One an unmitigated, iconic flop, the other destined to be a success of Biblical proportions.
What a difference a decade makes.
What a difference a Steve makes.
The unbearable lightness of being steved
Steve brutalizes any attempted whizzbang without a real purpose. He’s so famous for it that he’s got his own verb.
Cutting-edge tech, fabulous, intuitive, friendly interface, lovable design — none of it matters, and nobody knows that more than Steve.
The Newton had all of those things and more. To own a Newton was to love it. It had the smile factor unlike anything else, since the original Macintosh.
The Newton was too ahead of its time. The final version, the MessagePad 2100, was released almost exactly a decade earlier than the first iPhone.
And so when Steve came back to Apple, he steved the Newton.
now, the technical problems were nothing
Critics slammed the Newton for being overpriced, for not having enough software, for the green screen, for the handwriting recognition’s imperfections, and for its chunky design — well, they didn’t get it then, and they sure as hell don’t get it now.
The problem with the Newton wasn’t any physical or technical problem. Those are easy to surmount. The problem that broke the Newton was that nobody was prepared for it.
There was no mental slot in people’s heads that the Newton could glide into.
Nothing like it had ever existed before. It was revolutionary. It was a total surprise.
the ipad has technical problems too, but it doesn’t matter
Today, of course, it’s an entirely different story: we’re all intimately familiar with the concept of the little computer in our pocket. We fell repeatedly for watered-down Palm handhelds which, in reality, we used rarely; we replaced them with iPhones, which we use too much.
Now the same critics who shit-canned the Newton for the wrong reasons are shit-canning the iPad for the wrong reasons.
The iPad, though, unlike the Newton, is going to win, and win on an epic scale.
Nevertheless, the shortsightedness of punditry is evergreen. Instead of praising the iPad, critics express their disappointment, because they expected more. They expected a genre buster. They expected something they’d never seen before, something beyond their imagination. Something revolutionary.
They’re disappointed that the iPad is so… well… unsurprising.
Therein, of course, lies the genius.
the ipad is barely a surprise at all
The design, delivery, and timing of the iPad couldn’t be more different than the Newton. The iPad wasn’t a surprise at all. It’s the capstone in a family of devices.
There’s a cozy, pre-existing slot in people’s brains that the iPad fills quite nicely.
“Oh,” they say. “It’s a big iPhone.”
It doesn’t matter if they utter that phrase in distaste. That little sand grain of dismissal becomes the core around which will form a pearl of understanding.
“Trying to deal with email on the iPhone is tough. The screen’s too small.”
“I wish we could both work on this at the same time.”
“I’d like to sketch concepts with touch, but I keep running off the borders.”
Ding ding ding.
Steve knows, better maybe than anyone else, that you don’t just slap a product out there and hope it will succeed. You have to prepare people for it, first.
And it’s better that people misunderstand a product, at first, than not understand it at all.
the “of course” model of innovation diffusion
People won’t buy a product if they can’t understand it immediately. They can’t understand it immediately if their worldview doesn’t already have a readymade place for it. And their worldview won’t have a readymade place for it, if they’ve never seen anything like it before.
Steve expertly wields the powerful tool that is the feeling of recognition.
That feeling tells us, hey, I’ve been here before, and good things happened, and people were nice to me. Recognition is a poor man’s wisdom. It helps people decide whether to buy. Without recognition, they won’t even entertain the question.
So, because one Steve is worth a zillion other CEOs, Apple paves the way to the future by giving us devices we can understand today, in order to create more revolutionary (but still recognizable) devices tomorrow.
Do you doubt that the iPod was laying the groundwork for the iPad all along?
the takeaway for you, the designer
The question becomes not Why is the iPad so obvious? but rather, What’s next that we’ll consider obvious by the time it comes?
And How can I be the one to do it or take advantage of it?
And, How can I use the feeling of recognition to introduce my next product?
Intrigued? My personality-based recommendation system suggests that you also try my previous essay, Don’t Listen to Le Corbusier — Or Jakob Nielsen.
I wrote and edited this essay in its entirety on my iPad, using my Apple bluetooth keyboard, and the iPad Pages app, and posted using the Wordpress app. I only inserted the images on my Mac. It was awesome… and reminded me of writing posts for my old Mac news site, circa 1998, on my Newton MessagePad. Sniff.
Don’t forget to subscribe. Or follow me on Twitter.
This is brilliant!
We're not sure what this means, if anything, about the security of Apple products. But in a congressional hearing today, Apple's wonder-tablet received the very unofficial endorsement of the country's top security geek.
The hearing was aimed at determining whether the head of the National Security Agency, Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, will lead the U.S. Cyber Command, and produced few surprises. Much of Alexander's written testimony remains classified, and little was revealed about how he would change the mission of the Pentagon's hacker division, though he did try to address fears that his nomination would represent a military power grab on the Internet, and argued that the U.S. has the right to retaliate against enemies in cyberwar.
In one area, however, Alexander was more forthcoming: He mentioned, with no prompting, that he owns an iPad, and with very little prompting, that it is "wonderful."
"I am a technologist. I love computers. I have a new iPad," Alexander told the committee of Senators. A few minutes later, Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Colorado couldn't help but bring it up again. From the Congressional Quarterly transcript:
Udall: I'm tempted to get a critical review of the iPad, but perhaps we can do that--
Alexander: Wonderful.
Udall: Wonderful. I will put that on -- for the record.
Glee on iPhone More Than Good—It's Fabulous
When Glee first hit the air I loathed it. Sure, it was sharkfully wicked, but for a show about the joy of simply singing, I found the autotune insulting. I survived. Smule's Glee app makes autotune a blast.
Here's how it works: You sing into your iPhone's (or iPad's) microphone along with background music. A live pitch meter will let you know how if you're in tune or not. All pretty standard stuff for a karaoke game.
But what's extraordinarily clever—and technologically impressive—is that Glee doesn't just automatically autotune your voice as it is output through the headphones but also generates live autotuned harmonies from your own voice. It takes your mediocre singing and turns it into overproduced pop pap—and it's fantastic.
Oh, and then it records all of that live so you can share with other users, who then can add their own voice on top. And if you're actually a decent singer, you can turn off the autotuning and harmonies and just go it audio natural.
Now because it's an app from Smule, the social layer is incredibly simple and fun. Click the "Listen" button from the top menu and up pops the now trademark spinning globe. Shining beacons of light show other singers around the world. Touch the light and listen in live. I'm listening to a guy named "quisguous" stumble his way through "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" as I type this.
Whoa. Actually, I'm listening to four people singing versions of this at once. I don't think this is happening live, but that each person has layered their own singing over the track. Too cool.
There are three songs included for the $3 price: "Rehab", "Somebody to Love", and "You Keep Me Hanging On". "Can't Fight This Feeling", "Imagine", "I'll Stand By You", "Lean On Me", and "No Air" are each available for a $1 each. As Glee is a universal app, buying a song on one device lets you redownload that song for free on another authorized device. (The iPad version isn't really different than the iPhone version, except for the resolution of the graphics.)
I have only one complaint: The background music is too quiet and cannot be adjusted or mixed with the autotuned singing. As anyone who has tried to record themselves singing with headphones on knows, it can be really distracting to hear yourself coming back into your ears in realtime while you're trying to sing. It's even crazier when the voice coming back is autotuned and ever so slightly delayed. I think being able to bring up the volume of the background music would help a lot. (You can also just keep the microphone further away from your mouth, but even that is a bit tetchy.)
Shockingly, the Glee app might be one of the best karaoke games yet made and it's a pity the catalog will be limited to songs from the television series. If you're a fan of the show or music games in general, it's worth every penny.
Even Mark Wilson, who started to try to cough out some goofy anti-Glee commentary in our edit channel—about Jane Lynch as Madonna of all things! Heresy!—came back from playing the Glee app for a few minutes and was like, "So you're right. This is the best thing ever." It wasn't long before he was daydreaming of a version that used a front-facing camera, a sort of karaoke Chatroulette.
GMail Labs adds nested labels, better message previewing
by Lee Mathews (RSS feed) Apr 9th 2010 at 8:15AM
Hopefully you've checked out GMail labs before. It's packed with slick additional functionality that you can bolt on to your Web mail client like these 10 useful options. Two new features have been made available that are definitely worth enabling: Message Sneak Peek and Nested Labels.With Sneak Peek turned on, you can right-click a message in your inbox and a snapshot will appear above your inbox. The message remains unread (it is a sneak peek, after all), and you can page back and forth between other messages in the thread, archive, and delete from within the window. A quick reply feature would be nice; to respond, you've still got to click through to the message as before.
Nested Labels is a dream come true for the organizational fiend. Set up new labels like so:
...and your labels pane will display them in a hierarchical tree. You can then click the plus sign to expand and the minus sign to hide. It's an excellent way to get more labels crammed into the limited amount of space provided by default.Home
Home/Bills
Home/Bills/Hush Money[via Gmail Blog]
The TSA, in a blog post yesterday, said that eReaders including the iPad need not be removed from bags during pre-flight screening:
I’ve read many a post from people wondering if these items should be treated like a laptop and removed from their carry-on bags for checkpoint screening. Great question! Electronic items smaller than the standard sized laptop should not need to be removed from your bag or their cases. It’s that simple.
So theoretically, netbooks — often with footprints smaller than an iPad — should be excluded as well.
How about an official size so that we can avoid the jailhouse strip search next time my kid's Baby-Einstein-filled EeePC doesn't get pulled from the baby bag?
Whatever, it is all theatrics anyway. (Image courtesy of TSA Logo Contest)
