William F. Garrity

Sunday

Dec302012

2013: Future Technology

Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 08:22PM

It is the time of year for "prediction" lists. Here are two from a source I respect -- IDG's TechHive (IDG is the publisher of PCWorld and Macworld) -- about mobiles (smartphones) and tablets.

Future Tech 2013: Phones -- wireless charging (already have with my Droid 4), quad-core (http://www.william-garrity.com/blog/2012/12/27/quad-core-mobiles.html), bigger screens, and near field communication.

Future Tech 2013: Tablets --

Tablets have evolved at a lightning-fast pace. And for 2013, we expect another year of rapid and significant change in areas ranging from performance and displays to battery life and price.

Just two years ago, the tablet market that is so large today was in its infancy, dominated by Apple’s first-generation iPad. Android tablets were barely getting off the ground, and were saddled with an inappropriate cell-phone operating system slapped into a tablet’s larger case.

Today, we have competition and diversity. Apple’s iOS-based fourth-gen iPad and iPad mini still dominate, but Android-based tablets are finally making inroads. Leading the way is Google’s own Nexus lineup, consisting of the affordable 7-inch Nexus 7 (which starts at $199 and goes up to $299 with HSPA+ mobile broadband connectivity), and the 10.1-inch Nexus 10 (with its crazy-high resolution). Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, a competing $199 tablet built around Amazon’s media and services and running Android apps sold through Amazon’s own store, has done well, too. And now Windows 8–based tablets are here, led by Microsoft’s own Surface With Windows RT tablet.

So what lies ahead? Big growth, for one thing: Research firm IDC expects worldwide tablet shipments to hit 165.9 million units in 2013, up from 117.1 million in 2012. And by 2016, IDC says, worldwide shipments should reach 261.4 million units. This growth will come at the expense of traditional laptops and desktops, and it will foster a growing acceptance of tablets as tools in everyday life, whether as a “second screen” to accompany your TV viewing, as an e-reader, or as a productivity tool.

Continued at link

Update on Monday, December 31, 2012 at 06:03AM by

williamgarrity

Friday

Dec282012

Facebook and Its New "Poke" App

Friday, December 28, 2012 at 08:34PM

This piece by Brittany Darwell in Inside Facebook about the new Poke application actually serves to describe Facebook's constant aesthetic over the years.

Too close for missiles, Facebook switches to guns and has some fun with Poke

Dec 23rd, 2012

Facebook’s new Poke app seems in many ways like a departure for the company.

While most of Facebook’s products are meant to preserve memories and save interactions, communications in Poke disappear after a few seconds. Facebook emphasizes functionality over flair and tends to put a lot of structure to how and what users share, but Poke lets users doodle over their photos with different colors and send virtual pokes to their friends. Most of all, Poke is playful while the rest of Facebook is very much a utility. If you haven’t tried Poke, you can get a quick sense of this by listening to the app’s silly notification sound — reportedly recorded by Mark Zuckerberg himself.

Although some aspects of Poke might seem out of character for the Facebook most of us know now, it’s actually a fitting addition to the platform with roots in Facebook’s past.

Continues at link

williamgarrity | tagged

Facebook

"7 myths about quad-core phones (Smartphones Unlocked)"

Thursday

Dec272012

By CNET's Jessica Dolcourt, a medium-simple primer on mobile (smartphone) processors -- specifically, what multi-core processors are, and how the new quad-core processors are (or may be, or may not be) more capable than the current mainstream (more-or-less) dual-core processors.

Smartphones with quad-core processors are always faster than dual-core processors, right? Only if you believe the myths.

by Jessica Dolcourt

April 8, 2012 3:14 PM PDT Updated: December 19, 2012 9:48 AM PST

Editors' note: This article originally posted on April 8, 2012, and was updated on December 19, 2012.

Open up your wallet today and there are no fewer than five smartphones you can buy running on quad-core processors. Seven months ago, there was one, the HTC One X, and only if you bought the international version, which lacked the 4G LTE speeds coveted by U.S. phone-buyers.

(Credit: ARM)

After CES next month, expect the number of announced quad-core devices to double as the core war continues to heat up.

By summer, you may turn up your nose at perfectly fast devices running on dual-core chipsets, wondering if you should saddle yourself with something so "slow." After all, the more processing power, the better the phone, right?

Continued at link

williamgarrity | tagged

Mobile

Tuesday

Dec182012

Sulia: Social Network Discovery

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 03:31PM

Sulia is a social network of social networks; that is, it is a social network that tracks various social networks, and other sources, on your behalf and aggregates information relevant to you.

From http://sulia.com/about:

Sulia is a subject-based social network that connects you to the top social sources on subjects you care about.

We all have interests that we're extremely passionate about. Whether it's our family, a sports team, breaking news, Hollywood gossip, a hobby, a career or a political issue, we obsess over our interests everyday.

However, with an endless number of sources talking about an endless number of topics, it's nearly impossible to find the best sources to follow across your interests. And, even if you were able to identify the top sources, sifting through all of their content is maddeningly time consuming.

We built Sulia to address these problems (which were driving us mad too).

Sulia's subject-based structure of social channels connects trusted sources and enthusiasts on shared interests across thousands of subjects, including breaking news and events. How?

We use a combination of network managers and sophisticated algorithms to identify the best-regarded sources across thousands of topics. We then dynamically filter content from those sources, regardless of where it's created (a blog, a social network, a media site, through Sulia's publishing system, etc.), into high-quality, realtime social channels. The result is streams of timely content from trusted sources that is always on-topic, readable, and relevant.
People use Sulia everyday to discover new sources and engage with their interests. We hope you do too!

It has a number of "buckets" -- Android, Microsoft, Information Security, Open Source, etc. -- and for each presents columns for "Live," "Featured," and the "Leaderboard." There is also "Suggested" trending topics (right now, the top three are Newtown Massacre, Daniel Inouye, and Royal Baby).

En toto, for the interests I picked, there are still too many items for me to stay on top of; there is a daily email summary, but it's too selective (too few) for my purposes.

The idea is promising; it would be the bee's knees if I could tune the email summary.

williamgarrity | tagged

Social