Digital Living

Netbooks Increasingly Becoming More Disruptive, Innovative & Interesting!

Netbook computer increasingly becoming even more innovative, disruptive and interesting. This latest prototype model from Toshiba for example, it allows "hand browsing" and "touch navigating" (ala .. you know who). Yet at the same time it also being targeted to come up with a great price that Eee PC pioneered.

Imagine one day at $250-400 price range, people will have their thin portable "internet tablet" up and running. Enabling them to surf the internet better than ever before, with form factor that is larger than iPod/iPhone form factor, yet as thin, with lightness and simplicity that is better than today's ordinary notebook PC, and with navigation capabilities that is as simple as an iPod/iPhone interface.

Imagine also that you can write on top of this "thin surface", makes your "portable paper" experience even more digitized and your jot experience better.

Such would make our net-browsing, net-surfing, "net-writing" and "net-working" experience even more awesome. Through such devices, one day may be we will just "hand-glide" through the internet and "writing to our blogs" with our hand and "digital pen and digital paper", rather than "mousing through" and "typing" into it.

Fascinating future!

Would You Like To Try An "iBeer" Sir ? ... :-D

Human creativity sometimes took "a creative juncture" that you could never predict.

This surprising application for iPhone for example. It simulates the process of drinking beer. Embracing the "tilt sensor" that iPhone had, this application let your friends experience the process of seeing you "drinking beer" ... while actually you don't. :-D

I am not exactly sure what this application is really useful for [in real life] :-) but as a "cute", fun idea, it's quite OK lah. We respect the spark of creativity that surround it. :-)

Does anyone have an idea of creating and "selling" an "iCola" ?? I probably buy one. :-) *hahahaha*

Microsoft Start Defending Vista

Microsoft start defending Vista. They have taken various "route" to make Vista truly "successful":

• Forcing hardware vendor to adopt Vista.
• Terminating Windows XP (as of June 30).
• Allowing people to buy Vista yet downgrade to XP if necessary.

Now, claimed their site:

• They are "humbled" by the fact that millions of users are adopting and VERY HAPPY with Vista.
• They are proud that NY Times raved "Windows Vista is beautiful".

This is exactly the kind of self-narcissism and typical self-lie crazy moves that is so "Ballmerian" by nature.

In the past, Microsoft never have to justify such claim at all. Microsoft products are simply works. Backward compatibility was just simply excellent. Bloated memory and slowness is rare.

I still remember:

• When IBM claimed OS/2 as the "next GUI based OS", Microsoft humbly simply say: "Windows is the GUI for DOS", the "next step" before transition to "OS/2". No arrogance attached.
• When DOS is being upgraded from version to version, Microsoft backward compatibility is always awesomely great. No "self-proclaim" necessary.

But that was the posture of OUR beloved Microsoft in the 80s, and early 90s.

Now, under Ballmer, Microsoft is trying to "pose a picture" that no matter how louzy, slow, photo-copying MacOSX everywhere, and bloated their software was, it is still a defacto standard and a "great" winning product that people (and the industry) will (or must?) consume and "adopt". People will "swallow" it anyway; by "trick" and "force" if necessary.

Microsoft becomes a tricky dinosauric "sales company", start loosing the strategic, competitive, innovative engineering root that makes it a great, competitive, fascinating, loveable "underdog" company in the past.

Intrinsicly, Ballmer is a perhaps "narcissist salesman", Bill Gates is a "budding entrepreneur". The difference in their inner-value system and leadership-style matters:

• Ballmer loves interpreting/justifiying number the way "he like", Gates loves creating a great,  winning product that win programmer's, industry's and market's heart.

• Ballmer is arrogant. Gates is working, supporting, collaborating, dominating (and competing at the same time) with everybody.

Being humble (a.k.a no arrogance) perhaps was one of the greatest "secret sauce" behind Microsoft greatness in the past. Microsoft never claim something in the past, they just passionately and systematically do. And over deliver it each time. As a consequences: People simply love (and truly passionate) working with Microsoft at that time.

These totally change during Ballmer reign and leadership.

There was a time when Microsoft was a really great loveable company. Everybody love building things on Microsoft platform. We understand Microsoft "internal" cause, competitive stand and  attitude as a company towards the growth and longevity of the "young" PC industry. We were passionate about their cause so much, perhaps as much as we understand and passionate about the  internal working of DOS's B800:0000, INT 21, FAT, and Windows WM_ event-driven messages at that time.

As such:

• We all simply truly passionate about the leading-yet-underdog Microsoft at that time. No need to for Microsoft to hopelessly shout "Developer, Developer, Developer ..." (like Ballmer strangely "does" these days), because developers indeed loves Microsoft at that time. We are all unified behind this great "vision" to make PC a truly great machine that contribute and dominates the computing industry.

• No need for Microsoft to do the "stupid, silly ugly, nerve wrecking, embarrassing" Ballmerian-monkey-dance act -- like what happen recently (which shocked and embarrassed everybody that supported and loved Microsoft in the past) as it resembles nothing about what Microsoft value system is all about.

Everybody in the past loves Microsoft for what it does and stands-for (a.k.a innovating the humble, simplicistic yet fascinating and fastly growing PC industry).

No need for stupid, silly, strange, embarrassing "monkey dance" act to "justify" all that. Great product justify itself. Great company speaks with less arrogance. All things are just naturally happen greatly, in a natural, fun, fascinating, "humbler" yet consistently magical way that was "truly Microsoft's".

Now -- under Ballmer -- Microsoft is just another Redmond company. A narcist to its greatest degree. Something we love to fight back.

Advertising Should Be "Small" !

I wonder why media-people and big-companies are consistently "fighting" for big-size, ineffective, non-communicative, cluttered, confusing advertising placement battle, if a small, thoughtful, effective one could do even better?. I seriously wonder.

Firefox Sets A New Guiness-Book World Record As The Most Downloaded New Released Software!

The formal announcement is not yet made, but the official is now preparing to announce Firefox as the most downloaded new-release software on the internet.

We always believe in the power of the people. The magical act of people doing things together.

But the way they do it is really really awesome. How they come up with an idea that makes people around the world do something great and really excellent together is really really awesome.

And -- at the end -- the way they let everybody that is involved to keep a "token-of-rememberance" of such world-scale accomplishment is really really wonderful. Truly wonderful too. This is how they did it:

People around the world. We can create truly magical things together.

Truly awesome!!

ps: I'm waiting for my "banner" too :-) Such would be really really awesome to keep and remember. :-) :-) :-) Once, in a lifetime occassion. :-)

The "Skype Nomad" Proves That Now You Can Skype From "Almost Anywhere" Around The World!

Rebecca from Australia do this "daring experiment" of travelling to different places around the world and testing whether she can still use skype to make phone call to her friends and colleagues or not.

Apparently her conclusion -- as quoted from skype.com -- is this:

"She did it! The Skype Nomad finished her epic 34 days of non-stop motion at the Skype office in Tallinn, Estonia. She visited 12 countries and proved you can talk on Skype from almost anywhere on the planet".

Her motivation?

I'm taking up the Skype Nomad challenge to travel non-stop around the globe. Over 33 days I'll be using as many different forms of transport possible for a girl - from jumbo jets to dog sleds, canoes to camels, sky diving to revolving restaurants... Definitely not what I though I'd be doing 6 months ago.

So watch this space for my escapades, encounters, films, pics, highs and lows from my adventures in China, Alaska, Australia, USA, Europe and the UK. I'll be sending it all for free using the gadgets Skype has given me.

It's all for a good cause - the charity Motivation which helps provide ways for disabled kids to get around.

This is one of her video:

Amazing! This Digital Screen Could Be Folded Like Paper!!

It is amazing to see the form factor, dimension and capability of latest digital screen that Sony produced and reveal to public just recently:

Oh My GOD, can you believe that this ultra-thin, plastis, foldable object is actually a screen???

It is so magical.

People say that this "foldable screen" is made of organic plasma, which is being encapsulated in foldable plastic film. By design it is extremely "paper thin"! People can fold it and carry it around very lightly.

Here's a video that shows that:

Purely magical!

Imagine what would happen if one day this "foldable screen" also become so "affordable" in price, and so "connectable" to the internet.

1. More and more people would eventually more prefer to carry this "foldable digital paper" around,   instead of carrying physical paper anymore, because this digital paper can stream and browse information direct from the net.
2. We no longer need to carry "stack of paper", because everything is now available from the internet's digital realm.
3. Our computer would become thinner and more flexible, and we can fold this "computer" to make it easy to carry around. Then we can "unfold it" quickly when we want to start work at anytime.
4. Eventually we might be able to "write" on top of this "digital paper" computer, and send the result to the net to be stored and saved. We no longer need to carry our today's "thicker, luggable notebook computer" around anymore, because eventually our "digital paper" has become the "computer".

Imagine how a great amazing future it would be!

Through this "digital paper", everything that we want to do suddenly probably could be done more intuitively, more ergonomically, more flexible, powerful and easy than we could done it before.

Everything back become "as easy as paper" once more. The difference is that we are all now doing it "all again" through the new "digital realm" that is made possible by this cute little powerful "magical paper".

Wonderful!

ps:

• Some more information about this "foldable technology" current research state, and its future development, can be found here.
• Also do take a look here to see the latest state about this technology's reincarnation and development.

iPhone 3G -- "Double" The Speed, Half The Price -- Awesome!!

The magnificent beauty now comes with better speed through 3G, and with its magnificent price cut in half!

Awesome. Splendidly awesome!! A big platform war is about to begin!

We'll see how Microsoft, Blackberry, Android and Symbian will respond.

ps: Here's a video that depicts people's "prediction" about what the "next" iPhone features would be; and how will look like. Pretty fascinating stuff. Enjoy!

Microsoft Shifts To The Cloud? May Be ... (But Not Under Mr. Ballmer Leadership!)

Cartoon by Tom Bower

As the cloud computing momentum increased, Microsoft seems to "acknowledge" that this "next internet initiatives" might bring future impact to its business. Nicholas Carr writes in more detail about in his blog.

With this shift happening, the days of "Microsoft customer chasing (or begging) Microsoft" for the mercy of Microsoft's license scheme might eventually over.

Today's arrogance that surrounding Microsoft camp might systematically be replaced with new attitude. As customer start to have alternatives to its Office offering, Microsoft sales people eventually would have to "reasonably learn how to beg their customer" for a piece of their business.

With cloud computing, Office will become a great commodity. Just like the PC that makes mainframe "lock-in" obsolete, cloud computing could make office "lock-in" obsolete. The power of choices soon will be back in the hand of the customers.

Because the product become a commodity, Office then will be only as good (and as competitive) in the  the market if it is being "offered" with great proposition and service. The kind of arrogant attitude and monolithic scheming and pricing that Microsoft sales people under Mr. Ballmer demonstrate today won't work.

Would these all mean that eventually we would see a "re-born" Microsoft?, a humbler Microsoft -- in the next future? Probably. Would this "re-born" Microsoft be a "humbler, friendlier, more open and more reasonable" Microsoft, the way it use to be when it was still a tiny software company? Could be.

Change, being able to become more open, and being able to timely adapt is probably the surest way for Microsoft to survive (and stay relevant) into the future. Across time, Microsoft has again and again prove that once it understood it need to change, usually it can adapt and act quickly to secure its relevance and survival.

Change might need to start from the top. The most worrying incompatible factor in all this is -- suprisingly -- Mr. Ballmer's arrogant attitude itself! As and when (and if) Mr. Ballmer is out, and probably as the next leadership is fall under the hand of Bill Gates once more, then Microsoft could be the "humble, respectable, strong, powerful, loveable" great company once more -- just the way it used to be.

Without such leadership-style change at the top, the future fate of this once great loveable very potential software company could be just a so-so. If not careful, they could become irrelevant -- sometime in the future.

People "hate" Microsoft for its arrogance and for its irrelevance these days. But deep in our heart, often we actually all still love Microsoft so much, because Microsoft was once a really great, loveable company that we all love and support.

We all -- the generation X, Y and Z -- were all born and grow with it. We were part of its evolution. In a way, we were the "market" that makes it grow fast and great too.

Change into humbler attitude is the only thing that probably Microsoft need today. If change can happen at the top leadership level (replacing the 'crazy, arrogant' leadership style that ruin Microsoft today), love of the market (and the whole industry that surrounds it) might be back, and Microsoft -- just like Apple when it come back under the returned leadership of Steve Jobs -- might become everybody's loveable icon once more, just the way they used to be, more than any company could ever imagine.

We look forward for that "humbler, friendlier, open, loveable" Microsoft once more. The world would be so much better when that happened.

As one of the commentator at Nick Carr's blog wrote:

"I can't wait for the day when a Microsoft salesperson phones and asks if I want to move into the cloud. I'd be willing to pay more".

As for Mr. Ballmer? Out may be the biggest contribution that Mr. Ballmer could contribute in this daring, major shift and transition period; to secure Microsoft's important future.

Here Comes XP ... On OLPC??!!! :-(

To many people, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) recent decision to adopt XP raise the question whether Mr. Negroponte -- who is (no doubt) knowingly great with ideas -- is also as strategically capable in executing and advancing his idea forward.

• Why on earth, we would need XP on OLPC? Couldn't Linux do the same?
• Does OLPC really need to compromise just because some government said they would prefer XP for their subsidized OLPC computing platform?
• What if OLPC just keep being only available in Linux? Wouldn't those governments eventually adopt it too as well, because of the benefit and advantages that Linux based OLPC offer?

Sometimes strategic business war is won because the general (who lead the battle front) is smart, capable, inspiring, strong in principle, persistent, discipline in executing its strategy and -- the most important -- know the "core essential essence" of the executed strategy itself: what makes it tick, and what makes it not, in business, in practice, and in the marketplace.The market vote with their heart. When they love the idea, they "vote" to support it. If they found the leader ambiguous or shaken, often the market flown through.

XP's place is definitely within those great older PCs (or within those recent pre-downgraded Vista PCs). What on earth does XP do inside the new OLPC??!! Such "compromise" lowers and dampen the fascinating beauty and the great excitement of the OLPC concept by itself! Many people that excitingly try to change the world (for the better) by supporting this idea, might have now flown off -- distracted (or sadly discouraged) by OLPC leader's lack of strength and commitment to walk through the difficult battle, and execute the key essence of the strategy -- no matter what.

Mr. Negroponte seems to already loose the battle before it even begin!