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No For Kno, Finally. It Was DOA Anyway.

Boomtown reports Kno, makers of the flip-open dual tablet designed for the education market is planning to sell off the hardware business, and focus on software only. Says Kara Swisher:

That’s because marketing a new and complex product like the Kno takes a lot of effort and cash, especially since it is an increasingly competitive market for mobile and portable computing products that includes Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Amazon, Dell and many others.

Oh, really?  I think not.  It’s not about marketing.. it’s about recognizing the product was Dead On Arrival… a ridiculously impossible design.  And no, I’m not just discovering it now, I declared in DOA when it was announced:

The Kno is Not a Tablet. It’s a Workout Device

At 5 and a half pounds it’s not exactly a lightweight tablet you would want to hold for hours…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

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ON that Personal Computing Nirvana Again

This will be a fairly short post – because all I do is refer to this piece I wrote recently:

Motorola Takes Us a Step Closer to Personal Computing Nirvana–and it’s Not Even a Computer

Why bring it up again?  Because Walt Mossberg just validated the concept:

Today’s best smartphones are really hand-held computers. They run a vast variety of applications, from productivity programs to games, that mimic what laptops do. Their biggest limitations for serious work, gaming, Web surfing and multimedia are their small screens, cramped keyboards and tinny speakers.
So, what if you could use the brains and connectivity of such a hand-held computer to drive a laptop-size screen, keyboard and speakers, thus overcoming these limitations? Well, Motorola Mobility has devised a new phone and accessory that aim to do just that: to make the phone the only computer you need.

Read his full post here.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

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Motorola Takes Us a Step Closer to Personal Computing Nirvana–and it’s Not Even a Computer

Motorola Atrix 4GIt took five years, but the personal computing nirvana vision I first heard from Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu is becoming reality. The concept that I discussed in The Cell-Phone Aware PC May Be a PC-less PC, and other posts is simple.  Instead of a plethora of situational devices with redundant computing capacity, carry around just one powerful mobile device, which:

  • brings connectivity, the browser and personalization, with
  • data and apps in the cloud, while
  • the actual devices we interact with are inexpensive displays and keyboards (and other peripherals) that come in various shapes and sizes, truly focusing on usability, ergonomics and convenience.

The first product that gets quite close to the vision is the Motorola Atrix 4G

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

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Cloud Computing Through the Eyes of 10-year-olds

Oh, the typewriter.  Is it:

  1. A business machine?
  2. A museum artifact?

If you are my generation, there was a time when you called it a business machine.  You typed letters (OK, perhaps your assistant did),  folded them, stuck them in envelopes, mailed them and waited a few weeks for the response.

Yes, it was possible to conduct business – it was just slow.   Email changed our world – perhaps that’s why we’re sticking to it:-)   But our kids have moved on – to them email is what the typewriter was for us…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

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Internal Email on Why a Software Company Migrates Away from MySQL

Twitter is abuzz this morning with MySQL news:

mysql witter

What these messages refer to is that Oracle dropped InnoDB from the free Classic Edition, it is now only available starting with the $2,000 Standard Edition.  A few days ago we heard support prices were increased – none of this should come as a surprise, the writing had been on the wall ever since Sun’s acquisition by Oracle.  And of course it’s not only MySQL, all Open Source products are on uncertain grounds – there’s a reason why many of the OpenOffice folks split off and are now supporting the new fork, LibreOffice.

I don’t pretend to be the Open Source expert, thankfully we have one, Krish, who recently chimed in on the issue.  What I want to do this morning is to take this opportunity to publish an internal email from a smart software CEO who instructed his teams to migrate away from MySQL several months ago.  While he wishes to remain anonymous, this is not a leak, I am publishing it with his permission.  (Yeah, I know, a leak would have made this story a lot juicier…).  Here’s the email:

I posted this internally to an employee question why I am asking our company to move away from MySQL towards  Postgres (instead of Ingres).


I would answer the “Why not Ingres” with one word: GPL.

Let’s step back and think about the  “People are angry with what Oracle is doing with MySQL” statement. Actually why could Oracle do this with MySQL? How was it possible for Oracle to do this? After all MySQL is “open source” and could be “forked” right?

To be honest, I had long anticipated this move on the part of Oracle…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

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HP Slate 500–Big Yawn.

I love my iPad.  I hate my iPad.  Was preparing to dump it for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, until it turned out to be a 7”-er now.  Size matters, after all (or is it just my eyes?).

So I got momentarily excited reading about the HP Slate 500 but that was a short moment. The new business-focused device is based on Windows 7.  Now, as a former victim of Vista I’ll be the first one to admit that Windows 7 is a stable, good operating system.  For the PC. It’s just not meant for a tablet.  Even if you call it a slate. The proof comes at the 27th second of this engadget video (the best part of which is the leading commercial. The kids are cuteSmile)

Yes, you have to touch items from …

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

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kno

Seriously.  At 5 and a half pounds it’s not exactly a lightweight tablet you would want to hold for hours. I have a very simple test for you: if you have an average 14”-15” laptop around, flip it open, hold it vertically, just like this:

… and tell me how long you could comfortably hold it like that.  My guess is it will be just a few minutes.

Osman Rashid, co-founder of Kno says :

Rather than build a generic consumer device and ram it down the throat of educators, we looked closely and figured out what it is a student needs.

OK, that’s a good principle.  I’m a big advocate of situational devices , as long as they are affordable. What I just “don’t get” is Kno’s conclusion: students need a device that faithfully reproduces a full-size textbook.

Really?

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

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Skype Blocks Fring – Or Not? Fingerpointing… But Where is Skype for Android?

Image courtesy of FringJust two days ago I reported how mobile video call app Fring enabled making video calls on 3G, even to other platforms, say Skype.  That was a huge improvement for iPhone users, since their native Facetime only allows iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 calls, and only over wi-fi.  But the new option proved to be too popular, overwhelming Fring’s servers, so hours after the announcement they had to suspend support for Skype.

Today the story changes again, now it’s no longer up to Fring.  Skype decided to block Fring calls.  Forget openness.. competition is tough, I guess Skype wants to fully “own” video callers. Except they can’t.  Get access to Skype, that is.

Like I said in the earlier post, the real losers are in the Android camp, where Skype made an exclusive deal with Verizon to be the only carrier who can offer the Skype app.  Yes, that’s correct: Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile..etc are all coming out with high-end Android superphones, but their owners won’t find Skype on the Android App Marketplace. For them, Fring has been the obvious solution – until now.

Update: TechCrunch reports that “Skype also claims the decision to no longer offer Skype
interconnectivity was entirely made by Fring and that they had nothing
to do with it
.”

Update:  Skype responds on their blog:

there is no truth to Fring’s claims that Skype has blocked it. Fring made the decision to remove Skype functionality on its own.

Update:  Now I really want Fring, if it hooks me up with Samantha 🙂

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

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IPhone’s Cryptic Bars vs. Real Signal on Android

iphone 4 signal bars At one point in the iPhone antenna blunder Apple tried to hide behind smoke-screen, claiming they discovered an error in how they calculated signal strength to be translated to those ever-important bars the iPhone (and all phones) uses.  They would issue a software update, that would fix the problem – or not, as we now know, the culprit being the antenna design, not just the graphical representation.

Now there’s an entire article @ the Wall Street Journal lamenting just how meaningless these bars are, since all handset manufacturers have their own arbitrary interpretation of what is 1 bar or two .. three .. four.  In fact signal indicators vary between different models of the same manufacturer.

But why are we kept in the dark?  Why can’t we get real, standardized, comparable numbers?  Turns out we can.  Just not on the iPhone.   When I recently compared two Android phones the HTC Incredible and EVO, and two carriers, Verizon and Sprint, I did not have to resort to subjective bar settings.  That would have been comparing apples (not Apple!) and oranges.

realsignal All I had to do was download the free Real Signal app from the Android Apps Market.  This app displays the real signal in dBM, and also provides two independent bar displays  – similar to the “stock” bars on your phone, except this one can be calibrated.  For example given the poor reception in my area by any carrier, I only ever see 1-2 bars on the stock display – might as well re-calibrate the display to between –85dBM to –110dBM, which is all I can get. This way I get to compare any phones and all carriers – no more BS, no more dumb bars.

Related posts:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

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Are You Still Using Your Real Credit Card Online? You Shouldn’t.

So iTunes got hacked and some users saw unauthorized purchases up to $600 in their accounts.

itunes hacked

I’m shocked.  Not at the fact that iTunes got hacked, but that users exposed their credit accounts to such extent.  Websites do get hacked, it’s a fact of life.  Users need to change their passwords, consider what other sites may get compromised, and generally think of getting more secure password management schemes – but it’s all too late.  Why not protect your credit card in the first place?

You don’t ever have to submit  your credit card number online.

No, I’m not saying give up the convenience of online purchases – just don’t use your real credit card number.  I haven’t, for at least a decade.  Instead I’ve always used Citbank’s Virtual Credit Card Numbers.  It allows me to generate an ad-hoc credit card number for a specific vendor, either for one-time use or for a period of time with a dollar limit.

There are many other use cases, not just theft / hacking: think of all those subscriptions you just can’t cancel… they keep on billing, and you can’t just shut down the offending vendor, your only choice is canceling the credit card itself.  A major pain.  With a virtual number you go online and remove the particular vendor’s instance.

I’ve been living in the secure world of virtual credit cards for a long time, and simply took it for granted it’s the norm by now – I’m really shocked to see now how few providers offer it.  All I could find (at least in the US) was Citi, Bank of America, Discover, and there was a half-cooked attempt by PayPal, first called virtual debit card, then secure card, but I believe it is now discontinued.

Shame on the Financial Services industry, throw-away credit cards should be the online standard in 2010.  I’m not advocating any particular service (Citi’s implementation – the software side – is outright shabby, but the safety is worth it) but it might be worth signing up for one of these services just for the sake of safe online purchases.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)