Future of the Laptop

The definition of the laptop is getting a bit murky. Before, the type of factors that people had to consider were size, graphics, and the processor. These days computers are products that can be either a tablet or a laptop based on their configurations. There are over a couple of dozen to choose from now, but at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January, there will be at least 50 products introduced under this branding campaign. Some will be as low as $299, but most quality two-in-ones will start at around $499 and go up to as high as $1299 depending on the configuration. These laptops will also be greatly integrated with communication services such as internet phones and social media. If you are thinking of buying a new Windows laptop this holiday, I suggest you consider one of these two-in-ones or convertibles. If you are buying a traditional laptop and, like most, expect to use it for at least three to four years, products like these give you perhaps a more future-proofed design. With add-ons, they can actually stay more up-to-date over this time frame. Are you thinking of getting a new laptop this season? As far as operating systems go, if you are getting a new computer, Windows 8 is better for touch screens than the traditional laptops.

Ticket for Driving in Google Glass

In California last week, a woman received a ticket for speeding and then an additional citation for wearing her Google Glass. And the debate still rages on over whether it was valid. The officer considered the head-mounted display a monitor that was visible to the driver. Traffic laws vary state by state, but many now have broad distracted-driving laws or bans on certain monitors that could easily apply to Google Glass. The turn-by-turn directions on Glass can be turned on with a voice command. The display will show a map view, but for extra safety the screen can be turned off while driving so there's only voice navigation. These laws create a very thin line that officers have to walk because on one hand, the device can be used as a navigation device but on the other hand, it have phone service capabilities built in. What do you think?

Computers Doing the Driving

In some ways, computers make ideal drivers: They don't drink and then climb behind the wheel. They don't do drugs, get distracted, fall asleep, run red lights or tailgate. And their reaction times are quicker. Currently, with all the added software development that is added to the car's cost, the price of these self driving cars is a bit over $100K. In several years though, large scale production will greatly decrease the costs. Nevertheless, the advantages of self-driving cars are such that if only 10 percent of cars and trucks on the road were self-driving, they could reduce traffic deaths by 1,000 per year and produce nearly $38 billion in economic and other savings, said the study by the Eno Center for Transportation, a foundation dedicated to improving transportation. Some of the things to consider before jumping up and down at the idea of self driving cars is that since there will be a computer on-board, it means that there will be an ability to hack it. Also, there would need to be major regulation as far as manufacturing these computers go to ensure that there are no computer errors being made and the code is good.

Criticism of Google Glass

There has been quite a lot of skepticism about Google Glass, from privacy and safety issues, to the aesthetics of its design. The criticism has even reached the core of the product, that is to say that it provides no compelling benefit to the user. This concern about the lack of a compelling benefit is the one that is most frequently expressed, across a range of industries and demographics. At its root, this criticism is based on a comparison to existing products, mainly smartphones that can provide potential users with the same functionalities and mobile applications. As a consequence of this comparison, potential users do not perceive the existing functionalities of Google Glass as being innovative and valuable. The interface might be the only thing that is new and innovative to the glasses but I do not think that it solves any problems and adds to the tech of today. What are your thoughts on it?

Broadband at Home

For many of us, we grew up knowing that beeping and wailing sound of the computer connecting to the internet. No, I do not miss it and if I ever hear it again, that computer is going out the window. Many people actually do not have internet at home so the internet from their phone services is the next go to, thanks in part to affordable pay-as-you-go packages with data plans. Pew found that 10% of Americans have a smartphone but not a home broadband connection, meaning their phone is their primary means of accessing the Internet. When you look at young people versus older people and you add smartphones in, it actually makes that gap worse because so many 18-to-29-year-olds have a smartphone and so few people 65 and older have them that when you include them in the calculation, the gap between young people and old people actually gets bigger than when you didn’t have smartphones in the equation at all.

What is Your Name?

"According to several studies, the number of women who keep their names after marriage peaked in the 1990s, falling from 23 percent to roughly 18 percent a decade later. Women are marrying, at older ages, on average five years into their postcollegiate careers. They’ve already established professional reputations and networks of contacts who know them by their given names. Setting aside the shoulds and the whys behind which name to pick, the obvious answer for the ambivalent is to use both."

This is definitely an interesting issue that women are encountering. Technically, the official documents have to match in order to not run into problems with taxes and traveling. Other problems that come up are not so much legal but can still cause an unnecessary headache. Questions such as when building security guards often usher people in to work appointments with a married name emblazoned on a temporary-ID card, or calls up and leaves a voicemail to whomever I’m meeting asking if they’re expecting a person they’ve never heard of. What are your thoughts?

Mobile Gaming

New PC games often require fairly high-end graphics cards in order to play at high settings, and every year the envelope gets pushed further and further. You simply can't play many games at acceptable settings with integrated graphics or low-end cards, forcing serious gamers to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to an extremely powerful high-margin GPU. But right now the mobile gaming world is different. Basically any game downloaded on an Android device can be played, regardless of the underlying hardware. The best part about mobile gaming is that mobile applications lead the market instead of the hardware that is usually associated with PC gaming. More people are able to play, no matter the level. Also with mobile gaming, the people are not tethered in a certain place. This is of course not to say that PC gaming is going anywhere anytime soon. The bottom line is that it comes down to the actual game and if it is good, there will be players.

Cable Going Down

How often are you frustrated with you cable? How about your cable bundle that include the phone service as well as internet? The cable companies will single handedly bring more business to the heart doctors and increase stress levels. They are charging astronomical prices for packages where most of the channels are not watched. The worst part of it is that the bill is always changing so you never know what you are going to get charged next month. Well consumers are finally taking a stand and cutting the cord. Many people do not have home phone services or landlines anymore. Most of them have cell phones and use internet phones to talk long distance. Even with Netflix and Roku, there are more competition coming to the market. Aereo is accelerating the expansion of its $8-a-month service providing broadcast television over the Internet. The service started in New York last year and expanded to Boston and Atlanta this spring. It has announced plans to expand to Utah on Aug. 19 and Chicago on Sept. 13. On Thursday, Aereo announced plans for three additional markets – Miami on Sept. 2, Houston on Sept. 16 and Dallas on Sept. 23.

Adding Value to Your Business

If you are just starting out or have been in the game for a long time, you will at one point need to look into getting internet phone services or some sort of VoIP. Other than the fact that this great service can save you a lot of time and make your business more efficient, it can also add tremendous value to it. You will be able to grow and expand your business. VoIP is a data application, and doesn’t require a physical telecom network to support your business. As Vonage learned in the consumer world, this is practically impossible, and short of inheriting a customer base via acquisition, your most important competency is developing a viable route to market. Developing and providing VoIP service is actually the easy part – the real trick is getting customers without going broke, and providing a quality service to keep those customers.

Will the Internet Fix Everything?

I hope that you know the answer to that question even before you started reading this post. With the spread of the internet and communication services, it is hard to miss the direct effect it has had on our lives and held the answers to many of problems and issues. It is a dangerous road to keep going down because we cannot rely on the internet and digital solutions for every single problem in our lives. The internet and technology is designed so that it is efficient and the user does not get distracted by the technology that they are using. This idea leads to the current reality of personal information being used by browsers and other websites. It this a good thing? My fear is that many institutions will eventually alter how they treat people who refuse to self-track. There are all sorts of political and moral implications here, and I'm not sure that we have grappled with any of them. What are your opinions on it?

Future Paper

If you are worried about using too much paper, well fear not because we might soon be using flexible sheets of digital ink instead. At the Consumer Electronics Show, U.K.-based Plastic Logic demonstrated an E-Ink “tablet” dubbed the PaperTab, which was little more than a thick, floppy sheet of plastic, connected to a high-end Core processor from Intel. Each of these sheets can accept touch input, and can share data when in contact with one another. There are some pretty cool things that you can do with this paper if it can be connected to a processor. Throw in VoIP services and you will be able to get pictures and videos on the thin piece of plastic. As far as prototypes go, these were in a very early stage. The processors and power supplies for the sheets were actually stashed under a table and connected by wire. To communicate, the sheets used a centralized computer, which mapped each of their physical coordinates over Wi-Fi. It’ll take a lot of work to embed all the necessary components into the actual sheets.

Your Smartphone Knows You

Did you ever wonder just how much your smartphone knows about you? Thanks to the mobile application development and many other sensors, it knows more about you than your think. Although it might make some people that are concerned about privacy slightly nervous, the data that the phone collects could be put to good use. Take the tri-axial accelerometer, which senses how the phone is positioned in space and could be used to track the type of movement which can then be used in any number of health apps. Another way that sensors can be used is through the accelerometer to determine a person's gait, such a distinguishing feature that it can be used for identification purposes. Taking the gait idea further, it can be used to identify gait problems which are related to other health issues and the app can alert the user of potential hidden issues. The sensors offer a whole new field of mobile application development.

What is a Good CMS?

There are several things that go into great CMS development. First of all the user part has to be very easy to use and intuitive. In other words, things that the typical users expects to happen when something is clicked and another actions is done, should happen. It should also be functional and flexible, meaning it can change without too much hassles at a moments notice. Markets are changing all the time and the CMS needs to be able to keep up. It should not be overbearing, confusing, or inundated with functions and buttons that may not be used. AB Soft has perfected the CMS development when it comes to be the most flexible and customizable software development company. The customer has the ability to have the AB Soft team create the type of web site they want so that it fits their needs perfectly.

Outlook to 2013 in CMS

Today technology is improving at an exponential rate and that means that consumer expectations are changing as well. Business are looking at certain issues and asking, "How can technology help me solve it?" One of the trends that business need to realize is the idea that information is like water. What it does is more important than what it actually is. Information can offer insight into who the consumer is as well as the probability of what they are going to like. You can use that information to be able to better reach them. This is where web development and CMS development comes in. It is important to keep the web design simple and user friendly. The idea of simplicity can also be applied to other parts of the business, such as the model and communication systems. When you have a clear goal in mind, you will be able to tackle it with more efficiency.

Uses of VoIP

During Hurricane Sandy and in its aftermath, many areas were without traditional phone line service. A San Jose Company, 8x8 Inc., was able to bring service back using redundant data centers on both coasts that provided VoIP Virtual Office cloud communications. The Department of Defense even recognizes the security the VoIP Mobile Communications Infrastructure offers. Apriva, an Arizona-based VoIP provider, recently announced a DOD contract they were awarded to enhance their mobility gateway enabling “the Department of Defense to deliver classified voice and data communications to commercially available smartphones.” This system can be quickly deployed, using off-the-shelf devices like Android phones, combined with the latest encryption software to provide gateway communications between national leaders and war fighters, and just like in the private sector, a VoIP solution also saves the military money.

Infinities

Interesting concept, isn't it? The popular idea of infinity is of one totality that pretty much crushes everything in its path, no matter the dimension. Yet in the ever-evolving view of scientists, philosophers and other scholars, there really is no single, implacable entity called infinity. Instead, there are infinities, multiplicities of the limit-free that come in a vast variety of shapes, sizes, purposes and and of course, charms. Be warned though, worthy friends can come in prickly packages, and mathematicians have learned to handle infinity with care. “Mathematicians find the concept of infinity so useful, but it can be quite subtle and quite dangerous,” said Ian Stewart, a mathematics researcher at the University of Warwick in England and the author of “Visions of Infinity,” the latest of many books. “If you treat infinity like a normal number, you can come up with all sorts of nonsense, like saying, infinity plus one is equal to infinity, and now we subtract infinity from each side and suddenly naught equals one. You can’t be freewheeling in your use of infinity.” The cloud services are nearing it in the amount of data that traverses the plains of those clouds. With developing technology, the surface area of clouds is becoming monolithic.