Reflecting Back to 2011

  It's that time of year again. While many journalists in the technology industry tend to make some ridiculous predictions for the coming year, I have cautiously avoided that route. Since the problem with making predictions is that timing is key, and many times, journalists' predictions tend to be off on timing. At any rate, I have decided to reflect back and review the big technology news and products of 2011.

3DTV (failure!) - Back at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas at the beginning of 2011, the big push of the television manufacturers' was on 3D television displays and 3D content. There are so many things wrong with 3D that I don't even know where to start. There was very little 3D content to begin with, and very few (high quality) movies were produced in 3D. Also, the need for glasses on many of the traditional, non-passive 3D displays, tended to make 3D very much a gimmick, and the fact that the glasses were expensive didn't help it much. Even with the non-passive 3D televisions, in which you didn't need to wear glasses to achieve the effect, didn't perform very well (in terms of 3D playback). The fact that 3D televisions only shipped with one pair of glasses, and the fact that the glasses were expensive didn't entice consumers, and as a result, didn't sell very well.

The invasion of Android tablets - One product we will see more of at CES in 2012 is tablets. In 2011, manufacturers started ramping up production of what they thought of as "iPad alternatives", when in fact, they weren't very much alternatives at all. The user interface on these tablets were terrible, and they didn't have very much applications or content to play with, and the overall hardware experience was poor. But in the later half of 2011, with the launch of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, some newer tablets will actually carry promise. Amazon launched the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is a two hundred dollar tablet running Android, but from the appearance, no one would be able to tell it was running Android. It has a skinned version of Android that grants you access to Amazon's wide variety of e-books, movies, TV shows, music, and applications that you can download for it. With the launch of the Kindle Fire, Amazon has set the standard for what Android tablets need to have. A low price point, and a great content eco-system in which you can acquire great movies, music, e-books, and apps, from one source. And while the Kindle Fire doesn't really compare to the iPad (you shouldn't really compare it to the iPad), it is an attractive offering for those who have a strict budget and want some of the capabilities of an iPad.

The Internet is the place to start real-world revolutions - Throughout the year, we have seen numerous real world revolutions start thanks to the Internet and social media. Egyptians started the concept by starting their revolution on Twitter, and rapidly gaining supporters through means of social media like Twitter and Facebook. Will Google Plus have the same opportunity to ignite a revolution? I can't really answer that, but is sure is possible based on what I've seen so far. The idea has spread far and fast, since other Middle Eastern countries have tried to gain liberty through the start of a revolution, thanks to the many possibilities of the Internet.

Apple's iOS ecosystem gets overhaul with iCloud and Siri - Apple has rapidly pushed their iOS ecosystem forward. The iOS platform consisting of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. With the announcement of iCloud earlier this year, and the launch just a couple months ago, Apple is pushing all their users towards the cloud. This isn't exactly a quick transition, but some of the offerings of iCloud will compel their users to trust Apple with their data. This makes Apple more of a center point for many iOS users, with the trust of Apple for music and movies, as well as apps and now, online storage of their data. However, iCloud really is mostly useful for iOS users who have been sucked completely into the platform. Those who don't hold much of a love for Apple won't find iCloud necessarily compelling.
The release of the iPhone 4S also delivered a very interesting feature, known as Siri, which is a digital voice powered assistant. Siri, which is exclusively available on the latest iPhone, (although I'm sure they will bring it to other Apple devices eventually) can respond to various voice commands. You could ask Siri to call your spouse, send a text message, send an email, give you directions to the nearest cafe or library, provide you with weather information, and more. Oh, and Siri isn't just a plain old boring artificial intelligence system, it also provides you with hilariously stupid remarks to silly phrases you say to Siri. It is an incredible feature, and while it is in beta, you can look forward to major improvements in the future. This is just the beginning of a future in which we interact with the device less, and interact with people more. Siri is clearly a move by Apple in the steps of Steve Job's vision, which was that technology gets out of the way for the user to achieve what he or she wants.

The Passing of Steve Jobs - One of the saddest days of the year, was the day of Steve Jobs's passing. Within a mere minute of Apple announcing Jobs's death, all mainstream media started reporting it and the Internet was devastated. Twitter activity was very close to reaching an all-time high. People, even the non-enthusiasts, started mourning for the loss of an incredible genius. I, too, was mourning for the loss of Steve Jobs. At that moment, it was extremely difficult for me to imagine a world without Steve. The creator of one of the most iconic and recognizable brands in the world, passed away. Jobs was suffering with a rare form of pancreatic cancer for almost 7 years. At times he appeared in better condition than other times. In the last couple of years, his health had been draining at a faster rate, and at the last Apple event he spoke at, he appeared thin and fragile, and we all tried not to speculate too much into his health, but we all knew it was inevitable.
Steve Jobs had an extraordinary vision of simplicity, design, and overall good taste, that very few had. His, sometimes extreme desire of simplicity and elegance, led to remarkable products from the first Macintosh computer, to the iPhone and iPad. And I think we will continue to see his legacy at Apple for some years down the road. The concern that I share with other technology enthusiasts is, when will the legacy come to an end. Steve left Apple in very good hands, with some of the brightest talent working very hard to build great products, but at some point, without the leadership of such a visionary, the legacy will end. I'm not trying to predict the end of Apple here, but the legacy will die off eventually. When that happens, people will start to panic.
I don't want to spoil too much about Steve's life, so if you have a greater interest in knowing the whole story of Steve Jobs, I recommend you read the authorized biography of Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson. 

HP Will Not Sell WebOS, and Will Continually Support It

   After more than a year of misdirection under the reign of former HP CEO Leo Apotheker, the successor to Apotheker, Meg Whitman, has formally announced on Friday that they will not sell off the WebOS division. This all comes after Leo Apotheker announced his intentions to sell off, not only the WebOS team, but the PC division as well. After being fired from HP in September, Meg Whitman took control and promptly cancelled their plans to sell the PC division, while continuing to say that they were not sure what their plans were for the WebOS division yet. Now, HP has reached the conclusion that they should not, and will not sell the WebOS division.

  WebOS was Palm's attempt at competing with in the smartphone industry, but only to be acquired by HP, and be misguided under the poor management of Leo Apotheker. WebOS was an operating system that ran on Palm's smartphones, including the Palm Pre series of devices. As it turns out, the Palm Pre was a costly nightmare for Palm, since it was plagued with bad reviews by almost every single tech media outlet. The Palm Pre hardware specifications were low, and was quite sluggish. Then HP comes out of nowhere and buys out Palm completely. But despite new management, the Pre line up of devices were still bashed by technology journalists and as a consequence, did not perform well.

  The final decision from HP to not sell WebOS is actually a bigger deal than what is first surmised.  Meg Whitman, CEO, and Mark Andreessen, board member of the company, spoke out in an interview with The Verge. Over the course of several questions, Whitman and Andreessen have announced that they will completely open source WebOS. And that translates into HP releasing the source code for the mobile operating system to the public, allowing anyone to write applications, with less hassle, for WebOS, or for modifications to be easily developed. While the average consumer probably wouldn't be excited by such news, technology enthusiasts have been excited by the new possibilities of the open sourced platform.

    While HP has decided not to sell the WebOS division, it is important to note that they will not continue selling the Pre line of smartphones, but instead, they see a future with WebOS running on future HP tablets that, hopefully, will be a little more stream lined and faster than the Touchpad, which was HP's first effort at a WebOS tablet, which was not as successful as one would have hoped.

   The situation with WebOS just got a lot clearer, but will not be completely clear, since we won't see HP's full vision for WebOS until sometime next year. I really do like what Palm did with WebOS's interface and design, and seeing that it will have a better future is one that I might appreciate someday. I look forward to seeing another competent competitor in the mobile space, both tablets, and smartphones from other vendors. And despite WebOS's past, it has a clear(er) future and one in which I could see it surviving as a competent mobile platform.

Carrier IQ Analyzed; Unclear Whether Consumers Should Worry

Privacy advocates all over the United States have been upset over some reports that have surfaced over the past couple weeks. Various stories were published that reported that the U.S wireless carriers install hidden spyware known as Carrier IQ that tracks users. The question up to this point is what is Carrier IQ tracking. Unfortunately, the answer is not clear. According to all accounts, Carrier IQ does track non identifiable information, anonymous usage data of users’ smartphones that helps the telecoms improve network performance. But that is not the only thing Carrier IQ appears to be tracking. The spyware is also capable of sending text message and user input to the carriers as well. And while Sprint and AT&T have both come out of their shells to say that they are not gathering user inputted data, but only gathering anonymous usage data to improve network performance. But as you are aware, big corporations are very capable of lying, even unintentionally, so while it is possible that what they say is true, it is even more possible that the PR spokesmen/women could be mistaken. And to be technically correct, Carrier IQ can be labeled as spyware, since it is installed secretly and not made known to the user, nor given permission by the user to be installed. Those who play the role of devil’s advocate have said that the intentions of the wireless carriers are not malicious, but my point to be made is that nobody is sure of the intentions of AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile, all of which are suspects of installing the spyware on their smartphones. Verizon made clear that they did not put Carrier IQ on their devices, but some skeptics suspected that Verizon had their own mechanism of tracking users.

[Thanks to Joyoftech.com for the great visual!]

The company that has designed the Carrier IQ software for the wireless carriers is now facing legal issues, as they are being sued for breaking certain wiretap laws with Carrier IQ. These suits are just the beginning of more trouble, not just for the manufacturer of Carrier IQ, but also for the wireless carriers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see if the FCC started probing the telecoms for information regarding their use of the software. The whole story of Carrier IQ may not be complete, since I’m expecting a spokesman of T-Mobile to publish an official comment on the behalf of T-Mobile. So while the story hasn’t completely developed yet, this is what we have discovered so far. Expect much more to be made known in the near future.

Protect IP Aims to Censor the Internet; Protect Big Corporations

  In October, Congress proposed a new law known as Protect Intellectual Property (Protect IP) Act.
The proposed bill, also known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House, suggests that
"copyright infringement" is a felony, and thus anyone who "infringes" on copyright shall be accused of a felony. The possible charges for copyright offenders is up to 5 years of prison.

  The ethical problems with this proposed bill may not be immediately obvious. What supporters of the bill won't tell you is that even a normal user online could be accused of copyright infringement and could face felony charges. The part that I get very upset about is that Protect IP even labels non-commercial use of content as copyright infringement.

  But normal users and internet citizens aren't the only ones who can be punished through this act. Websites that are "suspicious" of hosting files that violate copyright can be censored, which is the nice way of saying that they can be blocked at anytime.

  There are more than political problems with this bill. If Protect IP went into effect, this would prevent technically sophisticated internet users from using their own DNS system with reliability. It is not the fact that DNS wouldn't work, it just wouldn't be reliable or secure since the government would hold the right to peer in on any connection, even ones routed through private DNS systems.

  While the Business Software Alliance, an organization made up of Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and other major corporations have supported the law, some well known organizations have opposed the law as well. Such organizations include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla (makers of the popular browser, Firefox), Creative Commons, and Wikimedia (the corporate parent of Wikipedia).

 Individual citizens can also make a difference by calling your Congressperson and let them know that they think Protect IP is a bad idea. And I encourage you to do so. Also, any website or blog owner can put a banner on their website that reads "site censored" which basically displays the possible risk that the government could censor any website. You may notice that I have put that black banner on my blog as well. If you would like more information on why Protect IP is a dangerous threat to American freedom, you can visit American Censorship Day's website. 

 

Adobe Announces the Discontinuation of Flash for Mobile Devices

Steve Jobs must have been dancing in his grave this week, when the news broke officially from Adobe that they will be discontinuing Adobe Flash for mobile platforms. While Blackberry and Android users will still be able to receive security updates for the flash player, any users who did not already download Flash for Android or Blackberry, will no longer be able to do so.

If you weren’t paying attention, Steve Jobs famously started an anti-Flash rant with the launch of their iPhone in 2007, stating that Flash will not be permitted to run on any iPhone, and later, the iPad. He went on to bash Adobe, saying that Flash is a performance sucking power hog that depletes the battery life of devices, all too quickly. To this day, those accusations are very technically accurate. Adobe’s Flash Player, even on the most powerful computer, will not run well. It drains performance out of any device and consumes way too much power. Not to exclude the fact that Adobe Flash is also very out-of-date in terms of security. Hackers have found various ways to infect people’s machines through the Flash media player.

Adobe’s Flash for mobile will not be missed by anyone. Much to consumers’ dismay, Flash media player is considered a necessary evil. Since Flash media player is widely used as a plug-in for video on many websites, such as YouTube, although they are transitioning to an HTML5 based web video player, but is still in beta. Adobe’s Flash player is also known to be the plug-in of choice for many web based applications, such as online games.

Despite the fact that majority of the world’s interactive content has been using Flash up to this point, there are websites and content producers that are switching to HTML5, which is the new open standard for the internet, that won’t require consumers of such content to download any bloated plug-ins at all. The most notable push to HTML5 has been from Apple, and Steve Jobs, with the major push to open web standards that are not bloated as Flash is known to be. The transition to HTML5 is occurring, and while it is not exactly happening in a heart beat, it can be said that the transition is moving along just fine.

While it is to the perception of consumers that Adobe is not happy about discontinuing Flash, that is not the case, or at least Adobe does not want consumers to think that way. Adobe released a statement that goes like this. “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” Danny Winokur, Adobe’s vice president of interactive development. Mr. Winokur also tried to convey the public into thinking that Adobe didn’t lose to Apple, but rather “was listening to its customers.” Whether or not this is the case is up for debate, but the point is that HTML5 is the future of web content and Adobe has finally come out of its shell to admit just that.

Keep in mind that only the mobile versions of Flash player have been discontinued. Existing users of Flash for Android or Blackberry can use it and will continue to receive security updates and patches. The desktop versions of Flash for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux will still be supported and continually developed, but I have to think at some point that Adobe will completely give up on Flash and will show its support for HTML5.

Hewlett-Packard Decides Not to Sell Off Their PC Business After All

Meg Whitman, new chief executive at Hewlett-Packard (HP), has confirmed on Thursday that the company has cancelled their plans to sell off their personal systems unit, formally known as the division responsible for HP’s personal computer business. You may remember that back in August, HP, which was then under the reign of Leo Apotheker, announced that they will stop manufacturing webOS based devices such as the Palm Pre. At the same time, they also declared plans to sell off their PC business. Leo Apotheker failed to mention any company who was interested in buying their PC business. Up to this point, no company announced their interest in acquiring the personal systems division of HP. If any company was interested, they haven’t made any formal announcement, but unfortunately, it would be too late to do so.
Now before I go into why HP would not want to sell their PC business after all, let me give you a review of what has occurred over the past year. Mark Hurd, resigned from Hewlett-Packard due to certain allegations against him (harassment?). Leo Apotheker was then named the new chief executive officer. Under his, what some might call poor, leadership, he announced their intentions to sell the personal systems group to another company, or spin it off into a separate company. In September of this year, the HP board of directors decide to fire Leo Apotheker in favor of Meg Whitman, as the new chief, due to harsh criticism by HP investors and the media.

Meanwhile, HP has not changed their decision to stop manufacturing webOS based devices such as the Palm Pre and the Touchpad.

But what immediately comes to mind, for most people is, “Why did HP pull back on their plans?” The answer is not glaringly obvious, but makes sense when you think about it. Any company the size of HP would have great difficulty spinning off the personal systems division as a separate company. It would be very costly for them to do so and would not be time efficient in the least. While HP does have other strengths in other areas, such as making printers, personal computers are still a large revenue stream. Eliminating personal computers from their product line up would almost completely pull them out from the consumer market, leaving them with business customers, which would severely hurt their client base. Some have argued that personal computers are very expensive to manufacture and bring in little total revenue after overhead. That is a common misconception, but Hewlett-Packard does in fact get a good source of income from personal computers because of the extra product support and software services they sell and bundle with their products. HP simply can’t do that with business products such as printers.

The final solution for HP’s problems is really unclear now. It may not be clear for a while what HP’s strategy is. But I can tell you that it might’ve been, from a purely financial standpoint, a smart move for them not to spin off or sell their PC business. Long term, I’m not sure what HP can do to succeed. All we can do is hope that Whitman can’t do any worse than what Leo Apotheker has done to the company.

Android 4.0 Announced, but Don't Get Too Excited!

Last Tuesday, Google and Samsung executives got up on stage in Hong Kong to announce Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich and to announce the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone, formally called the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The hardware of the Galaxy Nexus integrates very well with some new features of Ice Cream Sandwich, including NFC. Near Field Communication is a protocol that is now integrated into Android 4.0 that allows users to transfer data between devices by “beaming” the two devices, or bumping them together to transfer data. Almost any type of data can be transferred including contact information, maps, applications, website addresses, and more. Although this seems like a revolution in sharing information, you must consider the prerequisites for this to work. For one, both devices must have an NFC chip inside, and both devices have to be running Ice Cream Sandwich. While this is a cool idea and works well in theory, I have to really think hard about a solid use case for this feature.


Google also announced that with Ice Cream Sandwich, the “home” and “back” physical buttons that you commonly see with Android devices today, will become virtual, and on screen, in any application. Also, the “menu” and “search” buttons will cease to exist at all. Web and phone search will now work through the search bar at the top of the screen, by tapping on the microphone icon to dictate your searches, or typing it out through the keyboard. And anyone who likes the menu button will be disappointed, since there is no virtual menu button, but instead, Google is relying on developers to build similar functionality right into their applications. These rules may or may not apply to all devices, but are applied to the Galaxy Nexus, the first Android 4.0 phone. This way of interacting with devices has been before with Android 3.0 tablets, but has never been seen on an Android phone up until now. The buttons will work just as they do in Honeycomb. If you decide to rotate the device, the buttons will rotate as well. As expected, Google will be dealing with a lot of scrutiny for changing the way people will, going forward, interact with their phones. I, like most people, don’t favor these changes very well because I did like the physical buttons that most Android phones today ship with.



The core Google applications that ship with most Android devices today, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, have been updated as well to work with Ice Cream Sandwich, and at the same time, have been improved overall, and have added some major new features, such as offline Gmail, which will allow you to see all emails in the past 30 days, offline, or without using carrier data. This will address some of the issues and concerns that customers have had including the fact that the GMail and Calendar apps were lacking in various ways. Unfortunately, most of the features unveiled in the core Google applications, are suspiciously similar to what Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform has had for a while, and you can tell from the start, just by observing the interface, that Google has been influenced by the success of the Windows Phone “Metro” style UI. Now it is fair to say that Google didn’t completely clone Windows Phone’s “People” application, and to be fair, Windows Phone’s implementation of the same features is much better, not only in the contacts application.









Microsoft’s Windows Phone contacts application left, and Ice Cream Sandwich’s contacts app on right, demonstrates [suspiciously] close similarities between the two contact apps.


The largest concern I have with Ice Cream Sandwich is that older devices, such as the one year old, original HTC Evo, will not receive the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. Inevitably, but unfortunately, the manufacturers and wireless carriers are not likely to support their customers with older phones, as the manufacturers push them to buy new devices. That fact clearly foreshadows the inevitable, which is that the Android platform will only become more fragmented.

Largely, Ice Cream Sandwich is a very big upgrade and a much needed one, and overall, the interface changes are for the better, but things like making the home and back buttons virtual, will just leave customers who have come to know and love physical buttons, upset. I clearly didn’t mention all the features of this major release, but you can get a much clearer sense of what features Android 4.0 brings at the Android website (http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-4.0-highlights.html#UserFeatures). Moreover, Google is lacking innovative ideas, and decided that cloning Windows Phone features was the way to go. I will leave it up to you to determine whether that’s acceptable or, not.

Ice Cream Sandwich will start shipping with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which is set to ship sometime in November, since Samsung hasn’t confirmed any more specific details about pricing and availability. However, it has been confirmed that Verizon Wireless will receive the Galaxy Nexus. It is up to manufacturers to upgrade their existing smartphone and tablet devices, but hopefully, even the older devices will eventually receive the upgrade.