Tag: Technology

WebOS 2.1 Released

Good news everybody who has a Palm Pre 2 (you know that other guy and me), HP/Palm has released WebOS 2.1. It’s an over the air update meaning your device will find it and automatically notify you of its availability. Needless to say I’ve not had much time to play with it but the update doesn’t seem all that significant.

The main additions is the inclusion of voice dialing and exhibition mode. Voice dialing is pretty self-explanatory but it allows you to dial a number by holding down either volume button and then speaking the name of the person you wish to call. Exhibition mode is rather neat as it allows your Pre 2 to display information when it’s placed on a Touchstone. The information it displays is configuration about mine is currently displaying my daily agenda. It will be a bit before any developers make real use of this feature but I can imagine some cool things coming down the pipe (I know I have an idea on how to utilize it that I’ll likely be working on in the near future).

As HP/Palm aren’t big on releasing any changelogs for WebOS updates in a timely manner I’m not sure what else has been included in this update. I’m guessing not much.

iOS 4.3 Released

Last night Apple released the newest version of their iOS operating system. As it sits you can upgrade if you’re running an iPhone 3GS or GSM 4 (the CDMA iPhone 4 doesn’t get this update), iPad, third or forth generation iPod Touch, or an Apple TV. All support for the iPhone 3G appears to have been abandoned which isn’t surprising considering how Apple doesn’t really like supporting legacy products (although they seem to support their devices longer than most phone manufacturers).

So what’s changed? Most notable is Apple has now included Wi-Fi hot spot functionality… to those who have tethering plans. This allows you to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi access point. When a device connects to your iPhone it is able to use the iPhone’s data plan. Of course being you need a tethering plan (which I don’t get on AT&T since you pay by data usage you should be able to chose how you want to use your data) this feature is potentially very expensive.

Another feature is the ability to use iTunes Home Sharing. This feature simply allows your iOS device to access your iTunes library (podcasts, music, videos, etc.) if you’ve set it up to use iTunes Home Sharing. I can see this being nice if you have a media collection too large to place everything on your iOS device.

Under the hood Apple has included enhancements to Safari’s JaveScript engine, AirPlay improvements, HDMI-out capabilities (with purchase of the Apple 30-pin to HDMI adapter), and the ability to configure the iPad’s side switch to either be a mute switch or an orientation lock.

Needless to say nothing really Earth shattering was included but that is to be expected with a point release.

Xcode 4 Released

Bear with me everybody because today is going to be mostly geek news as every major company I follow has seen fit to release new versions of stuff. Apple has finally released the newest version of their integrated development environment (IDE), Xcode 4. I will say it’s a major update as practically the entire IDE has changed.

Apple seems to be moving from the separate window interface of yore to single window interfaces. Xcode 4 integrates most everything into a single window now including the console (which even using the single window interface of Xcode 3 was a separate window). Another thing Apple seen fit to do is integrate Interface Builder into Xcode. I don’t really see any upside or downside to this but it does remove an icon from my already crowded dock.

I’ve not determined if all the interface changes are for the best as I’ve only played with a tiny bit of it last night. I do find adding linked libraries to be more straight forward and I feel the debugging interface is improved. I’m still up in the air on the new way auto completion is done. Instead of simply filling in the word you’re typing with the most likely (to the IDE, probably not you) word Xcode 4 now presents a pop-up menu under what you’re typing with every potential option (think the Eclipse IDE). I’m finding the new method faster but also much more in your face.

As I said I’ve not had time to really play with it but so far I’m liking it. One thing I don’t like is the fact Apple now charges for the IDE unless you’re a registered developer (registered Mac and iOS developers still get it for free, which means I didn’t have to pay for the upgrade). They aren’t charging much, only $4.99, but it’s still a barrier for entry. An advantage of providing free developer tools is you’re more likely to get people willing to try developing software for your system. Most people don’t want to spend any money to try something they may or may not enjoy. Even Microsoft offers free version of their development tools in the form of Visual Studio Express. I haven’t a clue what made Apple decide to start charging for a previously free product.

The iPad 2

Well Apple announced the iPad 2 yesterday and honestly it’s about what I expected, and evolutionary change to the current device. Apple added a front and rear facing (because taking pictures with a 10″ device is going to be so practical) camera, thinned the device down, and tossed out AT&T and Verizon models. The new iPad also utilizes a dual core processor which I will admit is pretty neat.

Beyond what I’ve mentioned little has changed including available storage which still maxes out at 64GB (I was hoping for a 128GB model). The price, display, and claimed battery life have all remained as they once were. I’d mention the HDMI out adapter but that works on current iPads and iPhone 4s so it’s not really an iPad 2 only accessory.

In the end not enough has changed for me to want an upgrade from my current iPad. Honestly the entire announcement was a bit lackluster as noted by the fact that Apple actually took time to talk about their little magnetically attached cover. Positively exciting.

Slow News Day

It’s a slow news day so that means I’m going to toss in some filler material. The current filler material is going to be speculation on Apple’s new iPad 2 which is going to be announced today at noon (for those in the central, and therefore only one that matters, time zone). I have a current generation iPad and like it quite a bit so some of this speculation is going to be wish list while other is just stuff I feel is rather no-duh.

First I don’t think we’re going to see a retina display on this thing. We may see a new higher resolution display but not nearly as high resolution as the current iPhone 4 screen. Why? Because it would cost too damned much money. The higher the pixel density that higher the cost when you talk screens.

There will likely be a GSM and CDMA iPad for those people who need the 3Gees on their tablets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had a single 3G model which worked on both Verizon and AT&T’s network, in fact that would make a lot of sense. Apple is a company that likes to have the bare minimum number of models available for each device. Having a separate AT&T and Verizon iPad 2 would be slightly confusing and it would make sense that Apple would rid themselves of the hassle.

Currently available cases for the iPad 2 almost guarantee a front and back camera. I’m betting the back mounted camera will be equal or just slightly better than the one found on the iPod Touch but will remain far less capable than the iPhone 4 camera. Likewise currently available cases point to a redesigned speaker grill.

We’re likely to see 512MB of RAM on this new device. Shocked? Didn’t think so. In fact a bump in RAM would sum up what I think the iPad 2 will be; an all around improved iPad with no real revolutionary features. I doubt we’ll see anything super ground breaking with the new iteration of the iPad simply because Apple’s style is to slowly increase the capabilities of their devices over time instead of make large jumps. I would be willing to bet money that we won’t see any 4G capabilities on the new iPad.

Don’t Get a Drobo

Since I have a massive amount of data on hand I’ve been spending a lot of time looking for an external multi-drive enclosure that either had RAID capabilities or something similar. Due to reading enough positive recommendations that had the Drobo been a person it would be nominated for sainthood I decided to go with one. A bit before Christmast I ordered a standard FireWire 800 four-bay Drobo using a $100.00 discount. I was going to run it for six months and determine whether or not I could recommend the Drobo has a solid backup device. The damned thing didn’t even make it two entire months and I’m going to advice anybody looking for a solid backup device look elsewhere.

For those of you who don’t know a Drobo is nothing more than a fancy four-drive enclosure that loads all of the contained drives into a common pool with redundancy. This means all of the drives are seen as one to any computer you attach the Drobo to. Having redundancy means you can lose any single drive without losing the data on the Drobo, at least in theory. This is similar to RAID although unlike RAID the Drobo doens’t require each drive to be the same capacity in order to work. This sounded ideal to me since I could simply drop in larger drives as they were needed instead of dropping in four new drives every time I wanted to add space.

I had problems right from the start, namely with the included software called Drobo Dashboard. What’s the problem? The software won’t install on my Mac Pro. Why? I haven’t a clue. When I try to install the software I’m informed at the end that the software couldn’t be installed but am given no error message and no entries are made in the system logs that could inform me of what’s going on. Basically I haven’t a Thor damned clue what’s going on and no message is ever displayed that could clarify the problem. This means I had to setup my Drobo on my laptop where the software installed without any trouble.

Setup is easy enough and once the Drobo was initialized it was detected by my Mac Pro without any trouble. From there I started using the Drobo as a Time Machine backup destination and it worked OK until an undetermined time when it failed. Why do I said an undetermined time? Because it was completely undetermined.

The problem with my Drobo is the fact it’s been stuck in a state where it claims everything is running correctly but my computers can’t mount the Drobo. The drive lights on the Drobo are all green indicating everything is working as expected. According to the Drobo Dashboard software my Drobo’s data is great and everything is running in tip-top shape. The problem is when I plug it into any computer it will not mount. Yes Disk Utility can see it will not mount the infernal device.

I’ve tried everything recommended by Data Robotics Inc. (the makers of this piece of shit) including unplugging the Drobo, shutting down the computer, letting them sit for a while (overnight in my case), replugging in the Drobo to the computer, and starting the computer back up. Nothing works. Basically I’ve got a several hundred dollar paperweight that serves no purpose other than to piss me off by it’s existence.

When looking for a backup device the first and foremost thing the device must be is reliable. The Drobo is not reliable and from doing searches online I’ve found I’m not the only person who’s ran into this exact problem. I share with each person who has written about this problem something else, nobody has managed to get the damned thing working again without doing a full reset which includes erasing all the data on the Drobo. My advice is to stay clear of Drobo and any Data Robotics Inc. products. Their software is shit and doesn’t even tell you why it can’t install, their device is shit and reports itself as working perfectly even though it’s in paperweight mode, and the only way to get the device out of paperweight mode is apparently resetting the device which destroys the data and defeats the purpose of a backup device.

If anybody has any recommendations for a good multi-drive (four or more) enclosure that does redundancy (RAID is find by me) I’d love to hear them. At this point I’m looking around again for a proper solution but just wanted to inform everybody to steer clear of Drobo devices. They’re headaches and not at all reliable.

Thunderbolt I/O

I’m kind of a gadget whore. I love new and shiny devices and honestly the MacBook Pro line hasn’t really had anything shiny added in a few years. This year Apple finally lifted a few fingers and added something new, Thunderbolt. I should first note that Thunderbolt is the new marketing name for Intel’s LightPeak technology which doesn’t actually run on anything fiber (hence the need for a name change).

I want to talk a bit about Thunderbolt because it looks fucking awesome. Apple’s implementation uses the mini DisplayPort connector which I find a bit odd but at the same thing it’s a pretty nice sized connector so I’m not going to argue (unlike the giant plug for FireWire 800). I would say Thunderbolt is Intel’s answer to USB 3.0 but it’s really not. Thunderbolt has a maximum read and write speed of 10Gbps which is pretty damned impressive. Currently it’s only used to connect to monitors but any peripheral should be capable of plugging into a Thunderbolt port including USB 3.0 hubs and even graphics cards. How? Well underneath everything Thunderbolt uses good old PCI Express as it’s transport mechanism. This is what makes Thunderbolt more than a simple USB competitor, it can act like a faster PCI Express slot on any laptop built by somebody besides Apple.

The other nice feature of Thunderbolt is the fact devices can be plugged in sequence. This means even through this is only a single Thunderbolt port you can plug in another Thunderbolt device to the primary one much like SCSI or FireWire. This means you could have a Thunderbolt capable monitor at home with an external Thunderbolt hard drive plugged in. When you plug in the monitor both the monitor and the hard drive will start up and connect to your laptop.

Honestly Thunderbolt is pretty impressive technology to say the least. I can’t wait to have a computer with it equipped in a few years (as that’s how long it will take before any peripherals come out that use Thunderbolt anyways).

Do Want

Everybody has strange esoteric things they like to collect and I’m not exception. I like to collect wrist watches with unique functions. My day-to-day watch is a Tissot T-Touch which has gadgets upon gadgets inside including a barometer, thermometer, compass, and altimeter. Previously I wrote a Fossil write PDA that ran Palm OS 4. Well somebody pointed me to a watch that is probably ungodly expensive but functions as a dosimeter.

A wristwatch that can detect radiation? I want one! I don’t expect to ever find it useful (although walking through the TSA’s back scatter scanners while wearing one could be interesting) but it has a stupid feature built into a wristwatch so it’s on my to-get list. If anybody has any idea what the going price of one of these things is please do let me know (and if you can tell me where to get one if the price is reasonable that would be appreciated as well).

Full Motion Video on an E-Ink Display

It’s not secret that I love E-Ink displays. Comparing reading on my Kindle to reading on my iPad always comes to the same conclusion, the Kindle is far superior for reading. Not only do E-Ink displays cause less stress on the eyes but they also consume far less power. The downside of E-Ink displays is the lack of color and the slow refresh speeds. It appears as through Bookeen may have found a solution to the latter problem and have demonstrated full motion video running on an E-Ink display. Bookeen claims that the display running in this mode sucks no more power than an LCD screen… that isn’t back lit.

Before anybody bitches that it’s not in color I realize that (believe it or not I can see color). Color E-Ink displays are in the works already. If we can get E-Ink displays to the point where they look comparable to modern LCDs we could increase the battery life on our mobile devices by a good margin (the main power sucker on modern smart phones and laptops are the displays). Likewise we’d actually be able to use out device in direct sunlight. Honestly I’m all for replacing current LCD technology with E-Ink displays once the technology has fully matured.

A Novel Idea by Cellular Providers

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the new cellular data standard that is being adopted by Verizon and AT&T Even Sprint is considering switching their WiMax network to LTE. I’m rather excited for the technology as it means we’ll be able to blow through our impending data caps even faster now.

Currently there are two competing cellular standard in the United States, GSM and CDMA. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA while AT&T and T-Mobile (and the rest of the world) use GSM. Both standards have pros and cons. While CDMA is less susceptible to interference GSM allows a user to access their data plan while on a phone call. Data networks give a means of bypassing limitations of both GSM and CDMA but cellular providers haven’t been willing to utilize this potential until now.

AT&T and Verizon have both announced plans to do voice over LTE (think Skype). This would allow both carriers to use their upcoming LTE networks for voice and data through the wonderful fact that voice really is just data (as both CDMA and GSM use completely digital voice networks). Utilizing voice over LTE would alleviate many of the problems faced by nothing having a universal cellular standard in the United States, namely you could take your roam on Verizon’s network if you were an AT&T subscriber and visa versa (so long as both companies used the same voice over LTE protocol and had roaming agreements). This would be great being many locations in the United States have great coverage for either GSM or CDMA but not both (for instance my hometown has CDMA coverage but not GSM coverage).

I’d love to see this happen. It also makes economic sense since there wouldn’t be a need to support multiple radios and protocols for separate functions of phones. Likewise anybody who has used Skype on their phone has already done what AT&T and Verizon are looking into. It’s not a difficult idea to implement as the technology is there and the LTE networks are being built.