Fiona's Ramblings

Protecting the Place of the CPU

fiona@tkarena.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:19:08 GMT

Business decisions in the PC/IT world often impact on innovation. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has labelled Intel’s new law suit against Nvidia as having just such a goal: "This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business."

Yes, Intel have launched a law suit against Nvidia, claiming that their current licence doesn’t give Nvidia the right to develop new chipsets to support some of Intel’s current CPUs and their future CPUs.

When I first saw a news headline about this my immediate thoughts turned to Atom. Atom and the Ion platform specifically. When Ion was first launched, the possibility of netbooks with Atom and superior NVIDIA graphics was something to be relished. The CPU power of low power consumption processors in netbooks is often not the biggest problem with a netbook’s overall performance, it’s the graphics that’s the problem. If you have a graphics solution in their capable of rendering HD video, for example, it opens up the possibilities of what you can do with the netbook considerably. NVIDIA’s CEO also said of the law suit “At the heart of this issue is that the CPU has run its course and the soul of the PC is shifting quickly to the GPU.” And he has a point. But the Atom is safe from this kafuffle in any case.

I was reading only yesterday about the fantastic possibilities of an Intel Atom + GeForce 9400M and I was mentally planning content about tweaking such a netbook for mild gaming. But as I looked around for more info about this new law suit this morning I came across the news that Intel put the kybosh on the idea around Christmas time. I must have been snoozing on the couch after a big meal.

“Intel told Digitimes that it has no plans to validate the Nvidia MCP79 chipset on Atom-based nettop or netbook platforms and also said it isn't looking to form a partnership with Nvidia to support nettop or netbook platforms based on the Intel Atom CPU.”

Such a platform is what the consumer wants, there’s no doubt, but Intel protects its business so much that at times, what could drive the evolution of something special is sacrificed. Not that they’re the only ones who do it. NVIDIA did it by closing off SLi and let’s not even get started with Microsoft!

Yes, it’s true, the world of IT business is cut-throat and self protection is the name of the game. Now if we could only hack an Ion Platform netbook together ourselves …

Just Don't Ask me to Print

fiona@tkarena.com — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:09:00 GMT

All the kids are home sick today. They’re all complaining of sore throats and headaches. I think it’s from the smoke in the air around here from the bush fires (I’m in Melbourne, Australia). Today it is the thickest it has been in our area and I have to admit that my eyes were stinging earlier this morning in the office. The office is a converted garage so I guess it doesn’t keep the air out as much as an actual office or house does.

Not having to get three school dresses ironed, nor oversee lunch preparation and homework book reminders, I went out to the office earlier than usual.

About two years ago one of the kids had bought John a photo frame in the shape of a nut, with nuts and bolts around the edge. Along the top it says “My Nutty Dad”. With the extra time up my sleeve I grabbed it and started looking for a good photo to put in it. I found one of John with the girls.

Long ago I learned that trying to get Painshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop to print in the size you want is down right frustrating. So I used Windows XP’s built in print function. I needed the 3.5” size. But no matter what I did this morning, half of one of the kids faces was cut off. Something that should have been so simple turned into a frustration in no time.

I tried Paint – no joy there. There’s no proper way to adjust the print size. So I bravely opened Jasc Paint Shop Pro. Under Image > Resize, I adjusted the actual Print Size. I changed the width to 90mm, the width of the widest part of the frame and then let the program automatically adjust the height for me. So why, oh why, when I go to print does it insist on making the damned thing fill the whole A4 page? That’s not what I set it to do!! Grrrr! Resizing for the web – no problems. Resizing for printing – I know nothing. See, I took a photo of the frame and re-sized it. No problem. Just don’t ask me to print the damn thing to fit the frame!

What do you use for printing photos when you need to specify an odd size?

In other annoyance news, check out this letter written to Richard Branson by a disgruntled passenger on a Virgin flight from Mumbai to Heathrow – complete with pictures. Any traveller would love it.

“It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.”

HD PAL and NTSC

fiona@tkarena.com — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:08:38 GMT

We come across all sorts of technical gripes and compatibility issues when it comes to our videos on tkArena. Sure, there are fabulous products and services out there for consumer and prosumer video wannabees but the list of little tricks and tib-bits of knowledge that pop up out of the blue is just endless. So I’d thought I’d start sharing.

I was hoarding it all so that I could become the all-time font of knowledge of the digital video online world but now I realize that I’d have to live, eat and breath it for that to happen. So here’s lesson number one from a digital video grunt with a bit of experience up her sleeve.

I didn’t know but apparently PAL and NTSC are still relevant to HD content. I would have thought they would go the way of the dodo, but apparently not. Digital video cameras are manufactured to record in a video signal which is either NTSC or PAL.

NTSC is 480 lines, a lesser quality than PAL which is 576 lines. You would think that the industry would have just standardized on the better quality and for the life of me, I don’t know why they didn’t, nor why the distinction is even still there. HD TVs are no longer either PAL or NTSC and neither are Blu-ray players. So all in all I am confused as hell!

But apparently if you record in PAL and then edit in NTSC you screw up the video quality. Since these settings are buried in the back of camera manuals and video editing software configurations, it’s easy to get caught out.

Mmm … didn’t I promise knowledge? Looks like I just delivered more questions. Chime in with comments if you have any feedback …

THE NEWS - New News in New World Order

fiona@tkarena.com — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:28:18 GMT

Last week I was listening to the news on the radio and was shocked to hear that The New York Times had to be bailed out by some South American billionaire. With so many huge companies, that are institutions more than businesses, getting themselves to the verge of closure, I have to wonder what they’re doing wrong to get themselves there. The New York Times crash was due to a sudden drop in advertising revenue, something of a roll-on effect from the global financial crisis. Too many of their advertisers had to cut spending and in the end the whole newspaper was under threat.

But there’s another theme running through the news right now: change. Gordon Brown has said that “that the current financial crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to create a "new global order" [TheNews.com]. So far that certainly hasn’t happened. Leaders like Brown might talk about it but so far all they’ve done is save big old companies in order to keep the status quo.

Making a change is all about taking action when there is an opportunity to do so. So here’s an interesting story about an old tech media war horse grasping onto a new world order with the hopes of creating fresh new journalism. Mike Magee, founder of the – you either love it or hate it – tabloid style tech news site, The Inquirer, has just launched THE NEWS, a website with an editorial team in India reporting on world, society, lifestyle, business, scitech and sports news, in English. The titles to the news items are reminiscent of the quick-wit you find on The Inquirer: “How to put the planet in your knickers” and “Bofins want to dig up Galileo for eye test”, for example.

The Inquirer posted a few quotes from the man himself where he elaborated on his cunning plans: “At a time when multinational and national newspaper groups are cutting staff, closing offices and facing the overhead of print production, distribution costs and declining readership, we feel we've a good chance of taking on the giants by concentrating on sound journalism and challenging the state of journalism now.”

And he goes on: "A recent article on forbes.com told a stark truth. Print advertising, the piece said, is evaporating, meaning that in the UK, at least, Northcliffe Media and Trinity are still tied to classified ad revenues and can't scale their operations to take advantage of the low-cost model in the online world."

So, no print, just online, a pithy honest journalistic style, using a low-cost editorial team in Bangalore, which copes with the hard to come by revenue. Low cost East meets low revenue West to make sustainable business. But it’s not just the economic new world order THE NEWS is targeting:

"Journalists these days are frightened little rabbits told to print or pixellate press releases and taught not to challenge power and vested interests. We will prove that journalism is not dead and that readers want strong journalism and not wishy-washy pap dictated to them by multiple vested interests."

This got me thinking, if a site like THE NEWS ends up with a huge readership, because it fills a need out there for fresh journalism, then even Google ads would make it a good cash-cow. But the real money is in direct advertisers and if you’re not careful, don’t they always end up as companies with vested interests? I wondered, who advertises on current “alternative” news websites, so I checked out Huffington Post. Ironically, the first ad I noticed said “Transfer your money to India” with a list of reasons why this is a sound financial decision! Perhaps this is a good omen for THE NEWS. In any case, with a new administration in the US and the financial crisis shaking things up, it couldn’t have launched at a better time. Check it out.

Finding “it” on the Plane

fiona@tkarena.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:22:01 GMT

Yesterday I blogged on the flight from Melbourne to LA, wondering if I'd get a glimpse of the next “it” product for 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. Maybe it's just the lack of sleep, or the fact that the 16 hour flight was enough for me to read the whole novel I bought along with me and now I'm bored, but I've been thiking about what that must be.

An “it” item must have a real practical value for most people. As I streteched my legs and waited for the lavatory sign to blink back over to a luminescant green I looked around at how other passengers were passing the hours. The flight had very poor inflight entertainment. There was a large pull down screen in the centre and tiny TFT screens that glarred an over-saturated red hue at the top f each aisle. It didn't make for compelling viewing, especially if you're under 6 foot and the guy in front of you was over 6 foot. So gadget-wise, what was the solution?

Notebooks, portable DVD payers, PSPs, iPhones and MP3 players. John had an iPod classic with him and had it on, playing an audio book or music for almost the entire flight. At the end he commented that it only used up about 1/3 of the battery. Pretty impressive. And although he didn't, he could have used it to watch TV shows or movies as well. It's a small screen but in a small space, it's amazing how immersed you can get with a hand held device.

Sadly, the iPhone remained in his bag under the seat in front, turned off and unused since although it could have been used as an MP3 player, it's battery life sucks too much.

Portable DVD players offer great battery life and screen size and quality, but they have no other function.

Even the best notebooks and netbooks don't offer enough battery life to last a cross-Atlantic flight.

The battery life of PSPs are awesome and back-up and boost batteries are small and easy to carry. As a long-haul entertainment unit they are fantastic. But beyond entertainment value, they lack a lot of other functions and so they become an extra gadget.

It's the potential of devices like the iPhone that have so much to offer. Imagine an iPhone with a 24 hour (or more) battery life, under load. That's what we all need. Imagine in the future if hotels routinely had keyboards and monitors at the ready for you to just plug in your smartphone and use it like a PC. But then I couldn'tbe typing like I am now on a netbook. There is still a strong argument that even when smartphone battery life has matured, we'll still need both a smartphone and a netbook/MID/UMPC, in short a phone that you can do everything on but also a small portable computer that you can actually really work on. You can't do any serious typing with something the size of a smartphone. It's not about the technology being able to downscale into a small package it's about human fingers being able to input to type quickly and properly.

So maybe that “it” item in 2009 is just something that a lot of us alredy use, only better. Battery life seriously holds things back. I \'ll be keeping my eye out at CES for companies who are working on new battery technology.

Finding the it Factor at CES

fiona@tkarena.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:17:09 GMT

I am writing this blog on the flight to attend the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Of course the blog won't actually be posted for another 24 hours probably. It's a 16 hour direct flight from Melbourne to LA and then there are another two flights from there to reach the show's home town of Vegas via Phoenix.

I must have inadvertantly booked us on a cheap-ass flight. It's a United Airlines boeing 747-400 with no in-flight entertainment and all drinks cost US$6 each! But I'm in good spirits regardless since I've brought along a great book (which I'm already half way through after the first 4 hours of the flight) and the leg room is pretty fantastic – it almost makes up for there being no LCDs on the back of the seats – almost :)

This will be the first time that I attend CES. John's been twice before. He's pretty excited about being able to show Las Vegas to me although I remain dubious about how much I'll like it. He's told me abouthow each hotel has a theme and they're almost like stepping into a different world. One is like a Parisian street on the inside apparently, but my gut-feeling remains that I'd prefer to go to the real Paris rather than a fake one. But hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised and impressed.

The show itself by all accounts should also be very impressive. It was very clear from the huge amount of videos that John pumped out during last year's coverage that CES is well attended by a very broad spectrum of IT and consumer electronics manufacturers, from big brand names like Sony and Microsoft to smaller gadget start-ups.

When you sign up as a Press attendee to CES your inbox becomes bombarded with emails from companies who will be displaying product at CES, especially in the last couple of weeks leading up the show. Netbooks are one type of product being heavily promoted. I'm getting sick of hearing about them to be honest. I'm using one right now to type this out, an HP 2133 Mini-Note. I've been following their story since before the Asus Eee PC came out and so whilst I'll certainly report on anything that's actually truly new and revolutionary in the field, I'm hoping t find something that will pique my interest that hasn't already been marketed to death. Well, not to death, that's definitely the wrong pgrase for netbooks – they are responsible for the notebook segment finally out-selling desktop PCs last year – but I'm getting tired of them dominating the news.

CES always has manufacturers who make things that are really specific to particular audiences. Things like goggles for deep sea diving that have a built in HD camera. Or gloves that still allow you to operate a touch screen (like an iPhone). Some of those inventions are really pretty cool.

But I also noticed in the email barrarge that there will be a lot of “service” companies on the show floor this year. One of them is GigaTribe an Internet service that allows you to share a hard drive or folders on a hard drive with other people on your GigaTribe network. It's a bit like perr to peer accept that you choose your peers. Great idea. We got a free trial of the full version so we'll not only get a video interview with someone at the company, we'll publish an article about it as well.

At my first visit to CES I hope to see, even if it's just a powerpoint presentation, the next big thing. Netbooks were the it thing - “it” not “IT” - in 2008. In 2009, as prices continue to drop and the designs are refined from the first full year of mass-sales, they'll become a must-have middle-income item and by the end of the year any household that doesn't have one will pick one up for a steal at Chistmas sales. They're a shoe-in and a known factor. What I want to find is the “it” thing for 2009. What is it that will capture the attention of us all and develop into an everyday IT/electronics item in the years ahead? It could be something brand-specific or it could be a new category of device. Or maybe it's a new level of service. That's what I'd like to catch a glimpse of.

We'll be pumping out at least four videos each day during CES, plus written content. We'll cover fun toy items right up to major product announcements. Stay tuned!

2008 Tech Standouts

fiona@tkarena.com — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:57:32 GMT

I sat down to write this blog – a somehow appropriate Christmas or end of year type blog and I wondered, what has been the stand out technical item of the year for me? In my personal life, talkie non-tech for a moment, getting two cats has been the absolute highlight of the year. Seriously, if you don’t own a cat your home is not complete. But back to tech. My answer to the question about what is the most useful, couldn’t do without it, tech item of the year is still the Internet. Boring I know, but there you have it. Without it I wouldn’t earn a living. Simple as that.

But what’s the Internet without a PC? It’s very telling that, even though I do have access to new hardware, my PC is about three years old and I’ve found no need at all this year to uproot everything for a day while I upgrade. It’s fast and despite my huge workload, my hard drive space is no where near full after another year. That’s quite ominous for the PC industry when someone who earns their keep in that industry can’t even be bothered upgrading for free! PCs are now bought for the long haul – four or five years of life in them. So it’s peripherals and second PCs that the PC industry need to make their money off.

The third most important tech item in the year has to be my iPhone. I can live without it but it sure has been fun living with it. On a productivity side, I’ve been able to handle email on the road with such convenience –it’s wonderful to be able to get pesky emails out of the inbox while I am waiting to pick the kids up from school or those types of times that I’d otherwise just be sitting around.

The fourth most useful tech item was the acquisition of a GPS unit for the car. I used to hate looking up a destination on a map and looking out for street signs. It made new routes a bit stressful but the GPS have given me new freedom on the road. Although I do get a bit frustrated occasionally with the GPS lady so calmly telling me to “perform a u-turn when possible”, it is better than John “You missed it! Go back that way!” alternative!

It’s hard to know where to rank it but the PS3 is a tech item we have got a lot of use out of this year. We got it for John’s birthday in July. The playback of the thing is just awesome. Not only is Blu-ray superb, DVD playback is also just so much better than the media PC or the old DVD player. Sure, I know that the Wii has some cool kid’s games and games titles are generally cheaper, but as an overall games console and media player, the PS3 is just unbeatable.

Merry Christmas everyone – and thanks for your support of tkArena this year.

Blu-ray vs Cinema

fiona@tkarena.com — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:11:36 GMT

It was John and my 13th wedding anniversary yesterday. A friend looked after the kids so we could go out to dinner. We thought about going to a movie but 1) it’s nice to be able to just talk away without kids around – and with a no work talk rule and 2) it’s almost cheaper to see the movie together at home on Blu-ray than it is to go the cinema. In fact in some ways it may even be better quality.

It costs $14 each for entry to see a movie. That’s $28. Most Blu-ray movies cost about $34. If you watch a movie at home after buying a Blu-ray copy:

You can watch it again without paying again
You can make your own popcorn – popcorn and a drink costs more than the ticket at most cinemas!
You can cuddle up to someone
You can pause it for a toilet break
You can comment out loud
You can cry (if it’s that type of movie) and not worry about looking like a tosser in the cinema foyer afterwards
You can have a cat on your lap

Now that’s all the human comfort sort of niceties, but what about the technicalities? Cinema is currently being played at a resolution of 2485×2970 or 1420×3390. My 1080p Blu-ray playback is a mere 1920×1080 by comparison. But that’s a huge improvement on DVD which is just 720×480. The clarity of my LCD TV playing Blu-ray is, however, outstanding. I would say that I can see a slight graininess at the cinemas, compared with my setup at home. This is no doubt due to the screen size and because the screens at the cinema are not digital.

It is great to be immersed in the big screen at a movie theatre from time to time but with the cost and quality of Blu-ray, I do find myself opting for the in-house option more and more.

Who Changed My Inbox?

fiona@tkarena.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:18:48 GMT

I logged in to gmail this morning to find a thick blue border around the sections and the spacing was a little different to what it was yesterday. At first I thought one of my cats had sat on the keyboard again and changed some settings in Firefox, until I noticed a message at the top from Google about new colors and themes. Google have added a Themes tab to gmail settings, a mass roll-out on all gmail accounts. So that you notice the new feature your inbox will now be blue-themed, although you can go back to the classic look if you can’t handle change.

All in all there are 26 themes to choose from. Most of them are color shades but there’s also a few cutie ones that would appeal to kids and teenagers and anyone who’s young at heart. Plus there are three touchy-feely environmental ones: a tree, ocean and an underwater peace scene. There’s also an absolutely shocking one that has a black background and fluorescent green writing. It’s atrocious and reminds me of the text I used to work with on an Apple IIGS machines in the 1980s!

I pretty much clicked on them all and ended up choosing the Summer Ocean theme. It looks good and it is a relaxing theme with the waves at the top, but most of all, the color scheme makes it easy to read the menus and mail and the bright yellow stars mean I won’t be able to miss emails I have starred as important.

It’s disappointing to note that Google don’t seem to have gmail themes open for independent developers to make more. They note that three themes were not made by Google but I can’t find a link to where a developer can grab a kit to have a go. Still, I am appreciative as a non-paying happy user of gmail for the added feature.

First Load of Holiday Kit Arrives

fiona@tkarena.com — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:52:46 GMT

I know it’s not terribly original but we’re planning a video series to be released around the weeks of Christmas and New Year, to show off potential gifts for people or potential ways to spend your holiday gift vouchers and money. Audio in Australia have sent us two large boxes of stuff—a variety of goodies with something there to appeal to just about everyone. There is:

AKAI 7” digital photo frame (I’m tipping they’ll be big sellers this year)

Razer Salmosa gaming mouse (I’m already using it to try it out)

Cyber Acoustics noise cancelling headphones (with mic)

Razer Goliathus mouse mat (comes all rolled up – looks extra large)

AV Labs 1.5 inch digital photo frame (for hand bags and key rings)

AKAI turntable with USB connection (for converting records to MP3!!!)

AV labs TUBE TV iPod dock with LCD screen

That’s a great start for a holiday buyer’s guide round up.