Run! He Has a Snow Globe!!

If It Could Actually Scale In Real Life

My first impression of the iPad was "meh". And as just a big iTouch I think they should have called it the BigTouch.

Here is a side-by-side of the BigTouch iPad versus the iPhone




What would be cool is if these two were the same device - it would be small when you need it as a phone, but you could pull the corners and streatch it out into laptop mode when you needed something bigger or wanted to type. Then push a butten to snap it back down as a phone or put in your pocket.

I actually think something like this will be possible in my lifetime - but just barely.

"Uniquitous Video"? Give Me a Break.

I was visiting the Met last week and watched several tourists walking through the museum with their camcorders slightly above their head and permanently on as they filmed their entire experience. Most of their attention was on their camera instead of directly absorbing the art and antiquities that were around them.

And, according to surveys I've seen (paid for so no link), do you know how many times the average person will sit down and watch a video they have taken from a vacation or trip? Zero. That's right, the majority of people don't even watch the vacation videos they take! The next largest is once. And hardly anyone sits down and watches a vacation video more than once (wedding videos do a little better with a few viewings).

At any rate, although people don't watch their vacation videos, they apparently like taking them. Keying in on this trend were several companies at CES promoting "ubiquitous video", or some sort of contraption that will let people videotape everything they are experiencing, relieving them of the burden of actually absorbing and remembering.

Seems to me it would be more efficient to just "watch" your experience the first time and remember it. And then use a still picture or maybe a short video to share with others or remind you of the experience.

Self-Controlled Army Vehicles?

This is sort of interesting:

To save a soldier's life a day, the US armed forces have been ordered to convert one third of their combat vehicles to driverless operation.
...
Today nearly every piece of agricultural machinery can drive itself...GPS subcontractors, partners, or aftermarket suppliers provide the GPS based guidance systems to ag equipment manufacturers...Perhaps this technology could be applied to a US Army supply truck delivering the urgently needed supplies to our troops.

Drones are already there, not requiring pilots. It's not a stretch to trick out a truck full of supplies to drive supplies to soldiers in the field.

Ultimately we'll see "virtual reality" planes and tanks, where the soldier is safe in some room miles away while he controls in 3D a real tank in the field or a plane in the sky. Call it video-game soldiering. It's not that far away.

CES: One of the Best and One of the Scariest Demos Both in the Microsoft Booth

This is a giant touch screen - I would say 8x10 FEET. Each of the little boxes represents a space on the internet. When you tap it a little screen with the relevant info comes up. Waaaaay cool.

The next display, on the other hand, made me cringe. My first thought of was that if Microsoft gets into a car the "Blue Screen of Death" would become literal phrase rather than a metaphore.



My second thought was that the trade show manager should have thought of a better sign than a big blue screen - of death.

There are a lots of analyses of CES out there, but this year it's all about one thing: 3DTV.

Heard In Some Companies This Month: "Happy New Year - You're Fired"

All the bean counters and strategy folks worked hard over the holidays while the rest of us overate. "Rationalization", "belt tightening" and other general bad crap are going to be hitting corporate America over the next few weeks. Here are two actual emails I received this morning:

I can see the belt tightening already.... there will be smoke from the burnt bodies and more...

and

We got a nice letter from management over the holidays saying we will have a 5% layoff coming up early 2010. Happy New Year!

My guess this is a LOT of this out there....unemployment will NOT be improving this quarter.