mip's scan

Linux & Robotics

Thanks to Dave (aka Bub) for this interesting piece on robotics and linux. I'd written before about how over the coming years we will see robots within the home and industry continue to increase. I hadn't considered a possible trend that could occur along with this rise in robotics.

Linux is poised to play a central role in an emerging industry that many expect to overtake the PC industry in size: robotics.

This makes sense since robotics work is very much in its infancy and requires tools that are flexible, don't lock you into proprietary systems and can be changed at the source level. So it would seem natural that open source, and specifically, Linux will play a key role in this.

To read the entire article click here.

Thanks Dave for the great tip!

Sony PSP - Finally We Get Some Details

I know there have been all kinds of tech details swirling around the upcoming Sony portalable gaming device and a flood of pics of the unit from gmaing conferences, but I wasn't really interested in those. What I wanted was three pieces of info: how much, when do we get it and how about the battery life?

Well, today those have all been answered. And wow! am I excited about this.

New iPod

I didn't bother to put a post yesterday announcing the new iPod. Why? Well, because in my opinion, its still just an MP3 player. Yes, yes, I know, it can now also sync your photos so you can carry 25,000 pictures around in your shirt pocket but I'm not sure what the market demand is for that. Of course Apple has done it right by including an easy way for you to output the pics/slideshow to a TV and you can have the photos displaying with your favourite playlist accompanying. I guess I'm disappointed that for price of the unit that they didn't have it so you could actually watch video rather than simply look at pictures. You see when I'm on a flight for instance an mp3 player is very useful - I can kick back and listen to my favourites. If the new iPod could play video as well, I could listen to music or watch something. But really, are you going to sit there and look at your photos? I guess if the fellow next to you starts to chat with you and asks, "Got any kids." you can whip out your iPod and show him. From my perspective, listening to music and watching video are similar private experiences that the iPod would best serve. Photo viewing is more of a public experience - you share photos with people. That's just my two cents on the matter - I still think now that Apple has introduced this colour iPod that a video capable unit isn't too far behind.

For all the details of the latest unit check out Apple's site.

Robots on the Rise

No I'm talking about some scenario where we see the "rise of the machines" the likes of The Terminator. Rather I'm talking about the useful application of robots in our society. I've reviewed robots here in the past like the
Roomba (my much loved robot that cleans my lab) and have often wondered, "how many of these are out there?" I've always felt that over the next 5-8 years, robots in the household will become as widespread as PC's are today. That's why this article from Wired struck my interest. It's got some great stats.

Google Desktop Search

Another move in the developing "search wars" Google has launched their desktop search tool.

What's it do?
# Find your email, files, web history and chats instantly
# View web pages you've seen, even when you're not online
# Search as easily as you do on Google

Click here to go and check it out.

OQO Goes On Sale

Well the OQO handtop that we've writen about before has finally begun to take orders via its web site.
You can get details here..
I never did get a response from the company about testing a unit; stay tuned however I may be testing a FlipStart in the near future.

UPDATE: PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE PRODUCT IS ONLY SHIPPING IN THE US FROM WHAT I SAW ON THEIR ONLINE SHOPPING AREA.

Internet Telephone

I was just reading an article that was talking about how Internet Telephone has been a hard sell to businesses.

Internet-based phone calls may be the future of telecommunications, but it's proving a challenge to convince businesses to adopt the new service, analysts say.

I use a program called Skype to make calls and while it is a great program allowing me to make free PC to PC calls as well as PC to telephone calls for 2 cents / minutes it does have it problems. The issues of course are with the reliability of the PC and the Internet connection itself. I run Skye on all my machines (Linux, Mac OSX and Windows XP). I was having a conversation one day when my Windows XP machines crashed. Of course I was disconnected. So I ran over to my Mac and redialed. Another time I was talking to a friend of mine in Toronto and my Internet connection seemed to drop out only momentarily, but again, the call was lost.

Open Source, Linux and the Small Business

It's becoming clearer that small businesses will become the area where open source technology, and more specifically Linux, will make its moves into becoming mainstream, and dare I say, the leading technology platform in the coming years. I'd written recently about a success story in a small business client of mine with regards to OpenOffice. We continue to hear about large companies and/or governments who are exploring using Linux as an alternative to Microsoft, the most recent being AT&T looking for an alternate for 7000 PCs.

Mouse Alternatives

A friend of mine telephoned the other day to ask me a question about mouse alternatives. He's got an elderly family member who has Parkinson's which is making using the mouse on her computer difficult. He was hoping for some suggestions that might allow her to continue to use the computer more comfortably, so I set out to see what I could come up with.

Gmail - Contacts Update

Is this an example of listening to its users? Probably somewhat (although I doubt they saw my post from yesterday already :-)) Its also more of an example of how Gmail's final release will probably have all the items I mentioned in yesterday's post that I felt needed to added. This morning when I logged into Gmail I saw a new Contacts button in the side panel. Clicking on it brings up a screen with my contacts and two tabs: All Contacts and Frequently Mailed Contacts. Clicking on a contact will show you the contacts email address up top and in a pane below, all the emails that involve that contact are listed for you. Excellent. You can now edit a contact and add information easily to it.

Let's wait and see how long before I see a Calender button in my sidebar....