The Future of the Internet

I read this article at Slate.com over lunch today. I agree with the author's view that our devices will soon become so connected to the cloud that we'll cease to worry about their onboard processing power or storage capacity and I bloggged about this last year and the side effect it would have on reducing piracy. Farhad Manjoo is of course quite correct though to point out that this future is totally dependent on the network and mobile broadband speeds. He complains about the poor speeds in the US, he should try NZ, we dream about the sort of connectivity they have in the US. There's not much point in having everything in the cloud if you can't access it everywhere.

Power cut

Bugger, no power this morning. No toast, no coffee, but more importantly, no computers no internet and therefore no work!
   But I found a solution, I turned on the wireless hotspot feature on my iPhone (that's a new feature in iOS 4.3) and connected my iPad to the WiFi network the iPhone is generating. Ok, 3G isn't as fast as my home broadband, but I could check my email and read the newspaper online no problem. I then remembered I could tether my Apple wireless keyboard to the iPad and Pages on the iPad is excellent for writing. So I was able to do a good mornings work  after all, without any electricity. Missed the coffee though.

Both the iPad and iPhone were fully charged over night and judging by the battery consumption this morning I could easily have put in a full days work. The keyboard runs off a couple of AA batteries and last for weeks.

Moore's Law

I came across this photo yesterday which really puts Moore's Law into perspective.

Moore's Law states that: "the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years". The picture compares the spec of the iMac from 2000 to the iPhone in 2010 showing that iPhone is more powerful, much smaller and cheaper.

Personalised iPad magazine

I've been away, fishing, and literally off the grid for a while in the far north of New Zealand. No cell phone coverage so definitely no internet. Sadly the fishing wasn't that great but as they say "a bad days fishing is better than a good day at work."
   I Came across an interesting app for my iPad called Zite. It's a personalisable magazine app a bit like Flipboard. But whereas Flipboard provides you with articles derived from the people you follow on Twitter, your Facebook friends and a range of web publications you select Zite provides content via subjects like: World News, Culture, Technology. You can also ask for articles on specific topics like "Apple" or "trout fishing". The big point of difference though is that Zite lets you say if you like an article or not and will learn your preferences with time.
  The interface is quite as slick as Flipboards but the ability to learn preferences is very interesting. As I've said before, why would I buy a magazine for my iPad when these apps provide a magazine experience for free.

Not completely right

Ok so my predictions for the iPad 2 were not spot on, but I still expect iOS 5 to function as I predicted. Honestly I'm surprised that Apple has changed the design of the iPad 2 so much. The front facing camera and faster processor were easy to see coming, but I really didn't expect a camera on the back and really I don't expect many people to use it as a camera. Lighter doesn't surprise but thinner does. Apple must really want to dominate this market and now before most competitors have even brought their first tablets to market Apple have leaped ahead again.