It has long been said that from 1973 to 1983, the American automotive industry was stuck in a rut that is now referred to as the Malaise Era. This period of time, marked by some of the most underwhelming, gutless, depressing cars ever to come out of the United States, was bookended on the frontside by the energy crisis and the need for manufacturers who had focused purely on displacement and horsepower to shift their thinking to focus instead on…
A few months ago, before Microsoft announced their new Surface Laptop or Windows 10 S, I had several conversations with reporters and friends about what might be coming. In particular, some early reports had hinted that this might be a revision of Windows, something designed for robustness. Some thought it might be more Chromebook-like. Given the experiences of my daughters with Chromebooks, those last two sentences are oxymorons. But I digress. What arrived, Windows 10 S (AKA “Windows 10 Pro in…
I’m pretty lucky. For now, this is the view from my office window. You see all those boats? I get to look out at the water, and those boats, all the time (sun, rain, or snow). But those boats… honestly, I see most of those boats probably hundreds of days per year more than their owners do. I’d bet there’s a large number of them that haven’t moved in years. The old adage goes “The two happiest days in a…
I hope these rumors are wrong, but for some odd reason, the Web is full of rumors that this year’s CES will bring a glut of bimodal tablets; devices that are designed to run Windows 8.1, but also feature an integrated instance of Android. But why? For years, Microsoft and Intel were seemingly the best of partners. While Microsoft had fleeting dalliances with other processor architectures, they always came back to Intel. There were clear lines in the sand; Intel…
I’ve been pondering the existence of devices like the Asus PadFone and PadFone 2 recently. Not really convertible devices, not really hybrid devices, they’re an electronic centaur. Like an Amphicar or a Taylor Aerocar, the PadFone devices compromise their ability to be one good device by instead being two less than great devices. I haven’t found a good description of devices like the PadFone – I refer to them as “form integrated”. One device is a dumb terminal and relies…
When you start a new job, there’s only one you. You don’t get a new identity just because you started at a new company. You have the same Social Security number, you have the same fingerprints, same birthdate, same home town. You get a collection of credentials that give you access to company resources, but you don’t really get a new “identity”. In fact, pretty much the only time you get a completely new identity is if you enter the…
Over the past six years, as the iPhone, then iPad, and similar devices have caused a ripple within the technology sector, the industry and pundits have struggled to define what these devices are. From the beginning, they were always classified as “content consumption devices”. But this was a misnomer then, and it’s definitely wrong today. Whether we’re talking about Apple’s devices, Android phones or tablets, Blackberry’s new phones, or devices running Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone, calling them content consumption…
Early Aug. 2012 – Short of information about how the Windows Store, the forthcoming home for Windows Store (nee Metro) applications was doing, I began exploring the store, trying to assess how many applications were actually there. I had heard rumblings of 400 or so applications. As I said late in Sept. 2012, my intentions were never malicious. I pondered whether there was any way to query the store programmatically. Here’s how it went down. Aug. 15, 2012 – I had…
The recent statistics Microsoft handed out about regarding the Windows Store made me think a bit. Microsoft noted that some apps on the store have had significant numbers of downloads. The fact that several “parts of Windows 8 and Windows RT” are only available as a download from the Windows Store innately twists what “some apps have had millions of downloads from the Windows Store” can mean. Some third parties have claimed to have statistics on this as well. In general,…
Today while navigating the new Windows Store apps that arrived today, I ran across something that sort of broke my heart. I found dozens of copies of the same app from the same developer. Not identical, mind you. Subtle differences in how input boxes are laid out, as well as different names, colors, and application icons. Take a look at FlourMill here: and then Personal Recipe Book here: The developer, under the name LunaPlena, has submitted 118 apps in the last two…