Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

WebOS Released

Hewlett-Packard is releasing WebOS as open source software.  While the company will still support WebOS, the move allows other programmers to take the source code and modify it to their own needs.  This could be a move to get people to use both the Palm Pre smartphone and the HP TouchPad, both of which use the OS.

--Scott

Analysis - RIM Shot?

Research in Motion Limited, aka RIM and the creators of the BlackBerry, has had several hard hits in the past year. The Playbook wasn't as accepted as wanted and had several shortcomings making it hard for the tablet to complete in the marketplace. RIM's stock took a hit and fell drastically in May 2011, forcing the cancellation of several projects. A global outage this month caused by a hardware failure in a BlackBerry server had RIM offering rebates. What happened to RIM?

It's starting to look (to me, at least) that RIM wasn't ready to expand into the consumer market. The demands of consumers are different from those of business and government, RIM's previous core user base. The company's signature device, the BlackBerry, was launched in 1999 as a personal digital assistant. By 2004, the BlackBerry, called "Crackberry" by users and detractors, had over one million subscribers worldwide. Many of the devices were in corporate and government offices. The various departments of the Government of Canada rely on the device. Who knows how many BlackBerries were taken to Khandahar, Afghanistan, by senior officers in the Canadian Forces? Suffice to say, RIM knows how to handle a client base consisting of large organizations.

Along comes Apple, first with its iPod, then its iPhone, and finally the iPad. Competing with Apple is the Google-created Android on a variety of hardware platforms. These are RIM's first real competitors, with Palm and their Pilots having been left in the dust due to lack of versatile functionality (no email, no wireless). The iLine of devices and Android storm the consumer market. RIM had some inroads to the consumer market, primarily through a userbase that were familiar with the BlackBerry due to work. But, now, there's a choice.

RIM's Playbook tablet would have been enough for the corporate and government sector where there is already a BlackBerry infrastructure set up. The users needing one would already have a BlackBerry, the main item needed to provide the Playbook with wireless and email capability. In the consumer market, though, a tablet that also needs a PDA/smartphone connected is a non-starter. The cost of both would not compete with the iPad, with everything needed all included. Indicative of RIM's current issues was the announcement of a new OS, BBX. Although the OS is a good step, users were also expecting a new device that BBX would be running on. This disconnect is a major issue.

There's two ways for RIM to go. The first is to focus on corporate and government contracts. The infrastructure, particularly the BlackBerry Exchange Server, is in place at many sites, including throughout the Government of Canada. Devices can be upgraded along with the OS. Apple and Android have made little headway there. The other is to find people with vision, technical and non-tech, people who can get a feel for the consumer market and determine what the large consumer base wants before the base itself does. The second choice is harder, but may be what keeps RIM as a technological leader instead of a specialist.

Steve Jobs, In Memoriam

Since I became active in fandom, I have called myself Sailor Mac. It was a name I chose on impulse, but it's one I've worn with pride. It's always been a tribute to the two people whose visions had a big hand in shaping my life - Naoko Takeuchi and Steve Jobs.

When I heard Steve Jobs had passed on, I did something I rarely do when I hear about celebrity deaths - I teared up. Because we lost more than an American businessman - we lost one of the founding fathers of geekdom.

Launch or Be Lunch, Day 28 - Building a Better Yin-Feng, Part 2

Well, as you'll recall yesterday, I detailed the fun of trying to find a name that fits for our dear Yim-Fong Yim-Feng Yin-Feng.  All the headaches, the horrors and the hemmorhaging of trying to find the perfect name for a character that is so vital to the series.

Well, I am happy to report that I have teh easy part of the deal.  The artist, my lovely wife Ayne, has the bigger headache of actually coming up with the visuals for Yim-Feng.  So, here you go, a Fan to Pro exclusive - the first drawn image from the final work sessions.

Go Farther: The SocialBox

SocialBox

So Google's Hangouts may be a killer app: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/is-googles-hangouts-its-killer-app/.  The article - and indeed Hangouts itself - emphasize what people want in social tech: immediate, human connectivity.

This got me thinking, which is not unusual.  Hangouts, Skype, Facebook chat, all point me towards what I believe could be the future social "killer app;" indeed a service so needed I expect multiple companies to try and make it.  I'll call it The SocialBox.

Review of “Reality is Broken” by Jane McGonigal

“If I’m going to be happy anywhere,
Or achieve greatness anywhere,
Or learn true secrets anywhere,
Or save the world anywhere,
Or feel strongly anywhere,
Or help people anywhere,
I may as well do it in reality.”

- Eliezer Yudkowsky, futurist.

Ever wonder why the daily grind is so bloody boring?  Or why tacky “team-building exercises” are more humiliating than engaging?  Or why video games are so fun?  Intuitively, one might guess that it’s because work is work and games are leisure, but that would imply that humans are happiest sitting around doing nothing.  And as gamers know, sitting around doing nothing is a boring waste of time.  This message is occasionally lost in mainstream culture, however, as one of the biggest misconceptions out there is that gaming means sitting around doing nothing.

Ecosystems: One Of The Next Big Things

So as the smoke clears from the Microsoft-Nokia deal, one word stands out - Ecosystem.  Microsoft and Nokia outright discussed of creating an Ecosystem of technology in the mobile space.

"Plans for a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new global mobile ecosystem; Windows Phone would serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform."

This doesn't surprise me in the least.  The reason for my lack of shock is that the importance and interest in building technical ecosystems of products has been building for awhile.  It's been heading this direction for years -  several companies bilding ecosystems of products and services.

Usage Based Billing is an Unfair Bad Bargain

And now, News from the North* with regard to Usage Based Billing and the coverage thereof.  First, a long and boring intro for those who are unfamiliar with the situation.

All of the radio, TV, Internet, etc in Canada is run by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.  That is, if it involves using electricity to send information a long distance, it’s the CRTC who manages the connections.  Why is it set up like that?  The same reason that everything in Canada is set up as a Crown Corporation and not a bunch of small competitive businesses.  Because, in the early days when Canada was just getting itself together, there was this massively powerful emerging country to the south whose competitive businesses could easily stamp out our own.  Therefore, Canada stuck whatever resources it had all together, so we would have something that would survive and remain Canadian.  The fact that we use our Canadian media to tune into American content anyway is one for the Irony Files. 

Fear not that I have painted a picture of Soviet Canuckistan as a socialist wasteland.  It is required, by law, that our big ISPs (Bell, Rogers, and Shaw) must lease some of the infrastructure to smaller companies.  Even though it’s the big guys who built our infrastructure, they have to allow for some competition.  Now, these little guys often offered better deals and lower prices, until one day...

Dun dun dunnnnn.

Kinect Hacks, Microsoft, And Consumer Experimentation

So how many ways can people do bizarre and unusual things with the Kinect?

• How about simulated breasts (Not Safe For Work - or sanity)
• If that's disturbing, cleans your mind with an Ultraman hack and just marinate in the awesomeness. 
• Or just play World of Warcraft.

The Kinect seems to be getting hacked left and right.  Yet, it seems beyond some of the pornographic elements, Microsoft is saying very little about this.  This leads me to two conclusions I'd like to discuss.

(And, yes I could joke about a Microsoft product being hacked, but that's serious low-hanging humor fruit).

Those Powerful Christmas Gifts

(Some of this was covered in a past podcast, but I wanted to revisit the idea).

What do the Kindle, the iPad, and Smartphones have in common with Gift Cards?

If you answered "flat and I'm sick of hearing of them as gift options" you're close, but I think you're missing the larger picture.  Though I too nearly burnt out on Kindlepadphone news over Christmas, despite my high news-capacity (news is mental jello to me), I believe there is something important about the sales of the Kindle, iPad, and Smartphones over the holiday.  In fact, I think there's a trend here that is worth exploring as it's going to affect technology use, and sales, and any jobs related to them.

We've all heard how Amazon's Kindle sales have been awesome. (I did my part in contributing to them as you saw).  Of course it seems that iPads are selling like crazy(at least in estimates) and have been doing well since the beginning.  Smartphones appear to be hot gifts.  So what is this trend beyond "technical stuff sells" that I'm all worked up over?