Too Many Options, not enough Differences
November 21, 2007
With the holiday buying season impending and black Friday at the end of the week, I’m asking myself what I want.
I know what you’re thinking: What a selfish jerk - always thinking about himself. Well, in my defense let me say that you are absolutely right - I am a selfish jerk.
But, setting all finger pointing aside, I wanted to look at a few things and discuss their ultimate relevance.
The market for consumer electronics, which is really the one that I’m most interested in, becomes more and more fragmented with each new product, and I thought it’d be worth the time to just go through the products and get the general definitions.
- Desktop PC - Any computer that’s too big to put anywhere but on top of a desk.
- Laptop PC - Pretty self-explanatory methinks.
- Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) - Starts getting tricky here. What the hell is a UMPC, anyway? Seems to me there are just as many things under the UMPC banner as there are outside of it. But, for safety’s sake, let’s just assume that this is a portable PC with a screen that is smaller than 12 inches that doesn’t include a telephone service plan through any of the major providers.
- Cell Phone - More self-explanatory goodness.
- Digital Cameras - Pretty straight-forward, I think. Average these days is about 7 megapixels.
- Ereaders - You can read about these in my post from yesterday.
- Miscellaneous other gadgets - There are a plethora of these, all of them with their own “groups,” but I’m only focusing on the things that I want. Because, I’m writing this, and I don’t really care what you want.
Now, if you go back over the list there you’ll see that the only one where there is any trouble is the UMPC. The definition I picked was one of about a thousand, and I picked it arbitrarily from a longer list of definitions.
Wikipedia, in the article I linked to above, defines them as:
Ultra-Mobile PCs have a 20 cm (7-inch) or smaller touch sensitive screen at a minimum resolution of 800 × 480. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is used with slight tweaks to the interface to make it more suited for the small form factor. In addition, a software suite known as the Touch Pack Interface is included to make the interface more suitable for use of stylus as well as hand.
And reading back over the article, I realize that it’s about a specific device.
The problem is that whether or not UMPC was originally the name for a specific manufacturer’s device or not - it has now become the ubiquitous name for anything smaller than a laptop that isn’t a cell phone… Or… A PDA…
Dammit, this is getting harder and harder.
A google search for UMPC produces results for a wide range of products. Seemingly, the highest ranked links are for handheld tablet style devices with touch screens. Maybe I was wrong to define them as miniature laptops. It seems that my earlier definition might have been made a little to hastily.
But, if small laptops aren’t considered UMPC’s then what the hell are they? The OLPC and Asus’ Eee PC aren’t traditional laptops. They have specific form functions that are slightly less than a laptop, but definitely more than a PDA. So, if they’re not UMPC’s what the hell are they?!!
This is where I usually shut down and give up on the semantics of technology. Because that is really where a lot of the problem lies.
If my girlfriend thinks she might want an Eee PC and wants to know more about it. She doesn’t want a UMPC, and she already has a PDA and she wants to know the difference, what exactly do I tell her?!! Do I give her the dumbed down explanation, and tell her that it’s a miniature laptop?
She deserves better, but at this point that’s really the only option.
The other problem, semantics aside, is the UI. The input/output devices to be more specific. We’re at a point in technology where we are past the point of needing traditional keyboards and monitors, but we haven’t yet found a viable alternative.
Several alternatives have been introduced, including touchscreen monitors, voice input/outputs, and even highly modified keyboards.
Voice inputs are too error ridden and voice outputs are too slow - you can’t scan a page when you’re listening to a voice. Touch screens and modified keyboards are just reworks of the same problematic solution.
Improvements on the interface problem, like the iphone’s touchscreen, are leading towards a new movement in user interfaces but they’re just not there yet.
So, the differences between PC’s, laptops, UMPC’s, mini laptops, and cell phones, at this point, are really only defined by the size of the device and its capacity.
And, dividing them that way is ridiculous without specifications.
Don’t get me wrong - I give shit all about specifications - and I really don’t want them, but the divisions, as erratic as they are, are confusing and annoying to most shoppers.
Devices today, because of a lack of any really revolutionary new UI, are all crossing the lines and muddling the definitions.
And, really they’re all the same. They use the same I/O devices and should therefore be considered identical by definition.
The problem, of course, is a lack of anything to contrast them with. And, until manufacturers come up with an alternative way for us to communicate with our devices, a mini laptop is just a smaller, lower capacity computer with a keyboard interface - and a UMPC is just a smaller, lower-capacity computer with a touchscreen interface. Ultimately, they’re all the same.
The next big thing will be a new user interface, and until we have one that works as well as the one we have now - everything will look the same to me. And, really, it should to you too.
Betting against ourselves
November 20, 2007
The concept of health insurance is fundamentally flawed. Every time my paycheck comes to me I look at the deductions, and there it is, staring up at me so insipidly, health insurance deductions.
I’m a relatively healthy person. I probably go to see a healthcare professional once every two years. And, usually, the only reason I’m going to see a doctor is because I can’t write a prescription for antibiotics myself. So, I go sit in the waiting room for 45 minutes, surrounded by contagious sickies, only to be ushered quickly through the examination room and out through the exit with a prescription.
And, what do I get for all my trouble? A twenty dollar copay bill.
After two years of paying my health insurance, I still have to pay a copay.
It’s not fair, I think to myself as I write the check. Hell, I would have done a lot better by just opening a savings account and calling it my health fund!
Today, I was considering this and actually playing with the idea of canceling my policy when it hit me. What if something bad happens? What if I catch a bad illness or have a crazy accident? What then?
What if I get a bill for thirty thousand dollars because I just barely survived a horrible para-sailing accident.
Not that I para-sail, but you never know!
And, that is the problem with health insurance: health insurance is a bet against ourselves.
I say that’s a problem, when realistically I mean that it’s the only thing that keeps health insurance alive.
Every penny that we pay toward health insurance is a penny raised in a bet against our own well-being. If we win the bet, and get all of our money back, it means that we have lost a physical bet: our health. If we lose the bet, and never get ill, the insurance company wins the financial bet - they get the money.
In essence, health insurance is each and every one of us betting that we’re not up to the challenge of staying healthy and that we’re more likely to brain ourselves in a horrible and stupid accident than we are to live long and healthy lives.
Furthermore, the likelihood that we will need help, outside of the means a savings account would afford, us is extremely unlikely. I think we have a sick fascination with the number of accidents there are on the roads every year, but the truth is that most people NEVER die in a car accident. Most people NEVER get life-threatening diseases.
So, why do we do it? Why do we fund an industry that’s making money on both sides of the deal? Why do we perpetuate this insanity?
I decided to cancel my policy. To free myself once and for all from the extortion that feeds itself.
As I walked to the human resources office to end the tyranny, I stopped and turned back to my office. And, as I slowly trudged to my desk, I realized that I keep betting against myself because It’s a bet I can’t afford to win…
The Kindle - Amazon’s answer to Gutenberg.
November 20, 2007
This week Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, announced the Kindle. The Kindle is the latest product in the line of ebook readers, preceded by Sony’s Reader.
The ebook is technology’s answer to the printed word, a low-tech technology that has succeeded quite nicely for well over 500 years.
Here are the problems that Bezos is facing with his contribution to the ebook:
- The book fanboys - there’s a group of people out there who, based on their past experience with the old fashioned paper-and-glue books, refuse to accept that there might be a reasonably more efficient alternative. They cling desperately to the memories of their youth, when they could hide away from the cruel world and escape into fiction.These people associate literature with its smell and the feeling of paper rather than with the text itself.And these people are bullies. Let’s face it, in any market the luddites are the people that prevent consumers from trying new things. The threat of laughter or ridicule from this group of aging semi-elitists will cause a problem.
- The technology - the technology isn’t there yet. This category actually breaks down into several problems: the first and foremost being the exorbitant price tag. The price will have to drop significantly before an ebook can compete with a…erm… book…Another problem is that e-ink, the technology used in both the Sony Reader and the Kindle, just isn’t good enough yet. It hasn’t yet matched the contrast quality of the printed word.In order for this new technology to replace the old one, not only is it going to have to have equal readability, it’s also going to have to do something that the book can’t.
And, I don’t mean any of the simpler things (ie: hold more text in a smaller space, and be lighter weight), it’s going to have to tackle a problem that the printed text attempts to solve but falls short on. In the same way that the cd replaced the cassette tape, the ebook is going to have to attack the printed word on its own turf and win.
When I try to imagine the perfect ebook it’s a thick card, about the size of a paperback, with a small control/handle. In my mind the ideal ebook is not only cheap (Possibly even disposable) but also very easy to handle.
The Kindle, with it’s QWERTY keyboard and EVDO access, although an interesting contender isn’t the replacement for printed text. Jeff Bezos may have over extended himself on this one, and I hope that the company isn’t relying on profits from the ebook. But, I will say, that I think a replacement for the book is on it’s way. When e-ink becomes better, the prices drop significantly, and the consumers learn to stand up to the book-supporting bullies of the world, I think consumers will run to the stores.
More Reading:
What I’d Rather Have than an ebook reader…
The luddite dream of Jeff Bezos
First look: Amazon’s Kindle Reader
Amazon’s Kindle
The Kindle: Books Don’t Need Saving
E-ink
Genetically Engineered, Fearless Mice Created in Tokyo
November 13, 2007
Check out this link for the details Fearless Mice. Briefly, it gives the information about a genetically-engineered mouse that has no fear of cats, foxes, dogs, etc. Scientists in Tokyo changed the connections to the mouse’s olfactory bulb, in essence blocking the receptors that cause instinctive fear.
I have no problems with genetic engineering. A lot of the time it’s done as research. A way of getting to the center of mysteries. It clarifies things in the fields of science and medicine and, ultimately, makes our lives better.
But, I also have an overactive imagination. I started imagining how else something like this might be used.
Keep in mind this is all based on the premise that basal reactions like fear and anger are reactionary. In other words, there is something physical, outside of ourselves that draws a specific response from animals/humans.
Which, by itself, seems to bring up some interesting points about who we are and what we are made up of. Boiled down: Are we completely autonomous creatures, or are we products of our environment? That’s an old question, but if you accept that our emotions are responses to outside factors, you say that we are products of our environment.
That, seems to me, to be the core of this experiment in Tokyo. The mouse, because its perception of the outside world was changed, is completely and utterly different from his brethren. The mouse has been changed in a way that has removed it from it’s entire race. Which seems even more powerful when you consider how small a thing it is to change: its sense of smell.
So, where am I going with this?
Well, the fear-through-sense-of-smell is a hard to share basis on which to compare different species, so let’s change it to an inability to sense hormonal odors. Let’s say, using the same technique, that these scientists turned off the mouse’s ability to sense the pheromones secreted by mice of the opposite sex. A change like that would kill the mouse’s drive to procreate to a large extent. Or rather, his ability to find a method by which to procreate. An inability to find a suitable partner would render him a social eunuch.
Now, consider that as applied to a human. If you take away a person’s ability to take in the stimuli that cause specific reactions. The sound and smell and sight connection that cause fear, and lust, and anger, and greed. To be clear, I don’t mean their ability to see, smell, and hear altogether, simply the sensors that connect one with the other. Briefly, the person could still see, smell, taste, and hear, they simply wouldn’t have the built in reactions to certain things that we all come hard-wired with.
I think it’s obvious that it wouldn’t be the same person. But, what does that say about the solidity of “self?” What exactly does that imply about what we are made up of?
I think science and medicine is finally at the point to start solving some of these millennium old philosophical questions. And, I think we discover, more and more each day, that we are, in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “machines.”
The idea is that all of human existence is based on our emotions. From faith and love to prejudice and war all of our history is based on our built-in reactions to stimulus. Truly, to be “human” is to react a certain way to certain things. If those reactions were slightly tweaked, through science or evolution, would we be a completely different creature?
Would our history have been completely different?
I think so.
What do you think?
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About
Justin Flowers
Mad Scientist
Zombie Expert
Fort Worth, TX -
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