Category: Technology

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Saffo: essays: Why the Next Computer Is Like the DeLorean Automobile

Saffo: essays: Why the Next Computer Is Like the DeLorean Automobile

Just stumbled upon this interesting essay, written in 1990 at the time NeXT launched their 2nd generation Workstations. The article compares the NeXT computer with the DeLorian. Good, almost prophetic points, are being made. The design concepts of the DeLorian was adopted by Detroit, and NeXT was eventually acquired by Apple, and the NeXT legacy lives on in the core of the Apple.

What hasn’t happened is that the computer industry, still largely in it’s infancy, hasn’t really seen a consolidation into a “big three”. Today we’re seeing an increasing amount of garage start-ups, thanks to the DIY software tools that are being made. Who could have predicted that an Open Source operating system offered for Free, made practical by a Finish student, could become a serious contender for a “big three” spot.

I’d rather compare the computer industry today, with the time following the rediscovery of mechanised printing by Guttenberg. Thanks to the Internet, projects – many of them with highly questionable business models – are made possible through a global, largely volunteer, work force, willing to invest time to make the projects happen.

At the time when the article was written, the computer industry was largely hardware driven, today it is software driven. The “big three” today are all software companies, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.

Computer hardware has been commoditised, and only Apple and SUN remains as suppliers of complete solutions, with branded hardware and software. SUN has already changed their strategy towards Open Sourcing their software, and offering Linux as the operating system. At some point Apple will have to follow suit, as the commoditised hardware and software bundles, catches up with the pure aesthetics of OS X. It will, in many ways, be a sad day, because what makes the Mac such a compelling platform, is the fact, that the hardware and software fits so well together.

Finally I return to the topic…It is true that there’s a lack of innovation in the hardware market, and the last real innovation we saw, might have been the NeXT cube, the clamshell configuration of the ordinary laptop, made popular by Toshiba.

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Blogs Design Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple unveils cut-price iPod nano and MY ode to the shuffle

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple unveils cut-price iPod nano

Well…In keeping with tradition, commenting all the new product launches made by Apple, rather than spending my time speculating (too much) about the mysterious ways in which the infinite loop moves…Apple has, as expected, just announced a 1GIG iPod nano, and that they’re lowering the price of the iPod shuffle.

The biggest news is that the shuffle hasn’t been sent to the scrapheap – wow an Apple iPod product without any updates for more than a year, except a price cut – a first?

I’m happy that the little fellow is still with us. The shuffle really offers a completely different approach to portable digital music, I’d go as far as to call it a philosophy, than any other player on the market (besides the ill fated Motorola ROKR phone).

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Technology

Apple’s iWork emerges as rival to Microsoft Office | CNET News.com

Apple’s iWork emerges as rival to Microsoft Office | CNET News.com

According to this c|net report, Apple’s iWork office productivity suite is now the second best selling Office suite, out selling Corel Office, both of course being distanced by Microsoft Office.

This is very interesting news, but you can’t really compare iWork to Corel and Microsoft Office. For one iWork doesn’t include a dedicated spreadsheet program.

Like the commentaries to this article points out, what is driving sales of iWork is the Keynote application.

Again it is pretty amazing that a Mac only software package can compete with Corel Office in terms of units shipped, and I see it as a direct measure of Apple’s surging market share, which I for one welcome.

Guess I have to give Keynote a spin.

Now if Apple would only produce a full fledged office productivity package…

What stops them? Well they’re too snug with Microsoft. Just look at the billing Office was given at the MacWorld keynote, it looked a bit like the main reason Rosetta exists, is to make Office run on the new Mactels.

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Mactopia Technology

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear PB, happy birthday to you

Today marks my first anniversary as a Mac user.

On the 20th of January 2005 I decided to pay the MacCenter Gl. Mønt in Copenhagen a visit, I went there to get my hands on a Mac mini, that had just been released, “unfortunately” there was a serious backlog of orders, no Mac mini for me. While I was putting in an order for a Mac mini, something strange happend, my eyes wandered, resting on the PowerBook G4 12″…WOW that was love at first sight, wasn’t that the first computer in the history of mankind that I had put my eyes on?

I left the store with a beefed up PowerBook G4 12″, and since then I’ve never looked back, it’s a fantastic computer, that I can bring with me, and use, everywhere I go. It has changed the way I use my computer, OS X really support my way of working, people that have seen me work are baffled by the number of applications and windows I keep open, I never close anything, right now I have 17 applications running and several Firefox instances with something like 70 tabs open, Windows and PCs just can’t support that the way OS X can, the Exposé´interface is fantastic for gaining an overview of what you’re working on. Exposé has to be seen in order to grasp it.

I did however get a little too excited by Apple, you could say intoxicated, dissing everything not Apple, and yes Steve Jobs epitomises kewl, but he is only a businessman, albeit one with a vision, I was on my way to WDDC 2005 to meet the man…Then I wised up after I realised how much UNIX, OS X is, and that all important Open Source projects are supported on the Mac.

After attending the LinuxForum 2005, I went from Switching evangelism to Open Source evangelism.

I still flash my Apple gadgets every opportunity I get, and I still do my share of switching evangelism, people really make eyes when they see a PowerBook, it’s so beautiful and well designed.

If you’re a serious computer user considering buying a notebook, and you’re prepared to spend some time replacing your familiar PC software and Windows user interface, you should really consider buying a notebook from Apple. But if you want to do serious gaming, get a PC or, better, a gaming console and a Mac.

But…With the switch to Intel that Apple is doing, the Apple hardware will actually, in theory – I haven’t seen it – be capable of running Windows (Vista) natively, as well as ALL major operating systems (e.g. Linux) and of course OS X…How’s that for choice.

One year later, my PCs are gaining dust

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Rumforskning Technology Videnskab

NASA – NASA’s Pluto Mission Launched Toward New Horizons

NASA – NASA’s Pluto Mission Launched Toward New Horizons

The New Horizons Pluto mission launched successfully yesterday.

Quote from the above press release:

“The United States of America has just made history by launching the first spacecraft to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt beyond,” says Dr. Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. “No other nation has this capability. This is the kind of exploration that forefathers, like Lewis and Clark 200 years ago this year, made a trademark of our nation.”

Congratulations to NASA with the success, they’re batting a 100.

After the spectacular failures of a number of robotic missions in the 90ies, lead NASA to change it’s traditional complicated space craft designs to simpler, innovative (like the use of airbags for soft landings) and last, but not least, cheaper designs, the success-rate of the robotic missions has been increasing, and it now seems like routine that the missions are so successful, that they are extendend again and again.

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple addresses iTunes concerns

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple addresses iTunes concerns

Apple has announced that they’re addressing the privacy concerns over the MiniStore feature introduced with iTunes 6.0.2, that I reported on earlier.

According to the BBC article above, this is amongst the changes:

The changes include a pop-up warning about MiniStore that gives users a chance at installation to turn off the feature so no recommendations are made and no data is passed back to Apple.

So far I haven’t seen a new version in my software updates.

But Apple has definitely done the right thing.

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Open Source Technology

Linuxforum 2006

LinuxForum 2006

Så er det tid til LinuxForum 2006, sæt kryds i kalenderen den 3 og 4 marts 2006. Der er masser af spændende keynotes, sessioner og udstillere.

Bestil billet her…

Lørdagens program er klart nu. Jeg glæder mig til at se fredagens program, sidste år var der mange spændende talere fra det offentlige, der kunne rapportere fra the “bleeding edge” indenfor OpenSource i det offentlige.

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Blogs Bookmarks Design Kim Blog (English) Technology

First iPod Compatible Jeans

First iPod Compatible Jeans

Well this had to happen, jeans with iPod support build right in.

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

BBC NEWS | Technology | Snooping fears plague new iTunes

Like I predicted in a previous post, Apple has come under fire because of privacy concerns regarding the new MiniStore feature introduced with iTunes 6.0.2.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Snooping fears plague new iTunes

The comments made by the critics are indeed valid, and Apple has to be criticised for launching such a fundamentally new feature, without any mention, and with a minor point release, going from version 6.0.1 to 6.0.2.

Apple has released information on how to turn the MiniStore off, and it has been confirmed by independent sources, that there is no communication with the iTunes servers if you turn the MiniStore off.

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Blogs Bookmarks Design Kim Blog (English) Technology

Fogscreen – new display technology

Fogscreen

The Fogscreen is a very cool new display technology, I doubt that it will ever enter homes, but it’s really well suited for convention displays. Below is a quote from the website:

The FogScreen is a new invention which makes objects seem to appear and move in thin air! It is a screen you can walk through! The FogScreen is created by using a suspended fog generating device, there is no frame around the screen. The installation is easy: just replace the conventional screen with FogScreen. You don´t need to change anything else – it works with standard video projectors.