Chromecast is Fun

Chromecast is a thumb-sized media player that you plug into an HDMI connector on the TV. 

You also need to connect power to it, either from a power outlet or from a USB-port on the TV. That's because the HDMI-port can't feed enough power to it.

Chromecast's wow-factor is that it can show the same content on the TV-screen as what you have on your iPad or iPhone. That doesn't mean you have to keep the iPad's screen on while watching. In fact you can press the home button or even turn the iPad off. I'm saying this so you get a feeling for how it works. You might say it turns your iPad/iPhone into a remote control. Needless to say I hope, Chromecast being Google's baby, you can use Android pads and phones too.

I use it to watch YouTube. With Chromecast you have exactly the same user interface as you have when watching YouTube videos on your iPad, including pause/play! That's the key feature of the device.  A TV that offers a YouTube-button comes nowhere near the user friendliness of Chromecast. 

You need a Chromecast enabled app running on the iPad/iPhone to use Chromecast. Video services and TV-companies all over the world are working hard to become Chromecast enabled. Netflix already has an app and so have these services HBO Go, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Google Play TV & Movies, Google Play Music, Avia, Plex, and many more.

The YouTube app enables you to create a play queue. All you have to do is decide whether you want to play a clip immediately or later. In the first case you press the play button, else you press the queue button.

If there's more than one iPad connected to the Chromecast you can take turns in selecting clips, but you can also enjoy fighting over who is the Chromecast master :-) We tried it here and had a great time.

Ubuntu + XBMC = Great viewing

As I said in the previous post I've been experimenting with the Linux-distribution Ubuntu on the family PC, the one with the family photos and videos. Using XBMC for viewing photos and videos is absolutely great, because it works so well and is so visually attractive.

One thing that adds quite a lot of wow is that XBMC has its own http interface. Assuming you have a wireless network at home and an iPad or iPhone say, you can use that device as a remote control when viewing pictures and videos with XBMC. All you have to do is enter the address http://192.168.1.67:8080 (and bookmark it) in the browser of your iPhone and you'll see this:

That's a remote control with arrow buttons, enter/ok, back and home button. There are volume control buttons, play/pause/stop and some more.

Ubuntu + XBMC is very attractive visually and works perfectly!

Linux for your home PC?

There are two very good operating systems (OS) for the desktop or laptop people use at home: Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac. They are both very good; they don't require you to be a computer expert to get something done, they look good, they present your photos and videos in the best possible way, you can connect them to your TV, they have easy Internet access, they don't crash on you, they don't destroy your data. So why look for an alternative? I do because I'm interested in computers and some other reasons, like keeping old PCs alive. Installing a new Windows version on an old PC means you usually have to install more RAM and a bigger hard disk. One major reason to look for alternatives was that WinXP is no longer updated, and my homePC runs WinXP.

There are alternatives to the above mentioned big favorites: the different Linux distributions. They all look a bit different and they're made for different uses. I think Ubuntu and Debian are the most popular and easiest to use for the home PC. I've been looking at Ubuntu for a few weeks now and I think it may be good enough and easy enough to use for non-experts. Well almost. Finding the best applications will take some time for Linux beginners. Installing them is very simple now, but used to be a major problem until quite recently.
Peripherals used to be a major problem for Linux users. There were no drivers for the devices you had or they were difficult to find or to install. That problem seems to have been addressed by Linux distributions lately and it gave me no problems, although I must stress that I haven't tried many devices. One problem I ran into was when connecting the PC via HDMI to my TV. I had an overscan problem, which means all edges of the desktop were off screen. Very irritating and unusable. However I googled and found a utility that magically solved it. My desktop is quite pretty even on the TV.

I'm jumping ahead a little, because I actually installed Ubuntu first on my EeePC-900. It had its own Linux called Xandros. In a totally static world it would have been fine, but new things keep being invented and existing products improved. The EeePC had Safari browser version 2. That is not acceptable. With such an old browser there are things you just can't do, like banking. Banks want safe browsers and an old browser isn't safe. I therefore decided to get rid of Xandros completely and chose Ubuntu. I browsed some other Linux distros, like Debian, but in the end I chose Ubuntu. I think its simple and attractive user interface won me over. It runs very well on both my PCs.

Finding a replacement for Picasa, the photo/video management program I knew from Windows took some time. The replacement is called XBMC and originates from Xbox. It really looks beautiful on my TV. What I miss in XBMC is simple photo enhancement, like red-eye removal, rotation and cropping. XBMC has an enormous number of add ons, like streaming services. I'd be happy if it had simple photo enhancements too. There are other applications that you can use as a compliment to XBMC, like the Shotwell photo manager, the gThumb or F-Spot.

If you decide to try a Linux, be sure to create a double-boot, so at start-up you can choose either Windows or Linux. That way you still have Windows to go back to.

CarPlay

CarPlay is a new system that makes it easier to use your iPhone in the car. An iPhone is thus required to make it work, iPhone 5 that is.

CarPlay will make some of your app-icons visible on the car's infotainment screen and when you touch the infotainment's screen, the iPhone will be informed, and react. Some obvious apps for CarPlay will be the usual infotainment apps like navigation, handsfree phone use and media player. There will also be email, sms and twitter apps. I would expect driver's journals to be a killer app for CarPlay use, because the driving data will be so much more reliable thanks to CarPlay.

Since it's for cars where hands will usually be on the steering wheel, Siri will play a big part in CarPlay. You'll catch Siri's attention through the voice command button on your steering wheel. Perhaps they'll call it the Siri-button.

CarPlay is likely to give Apple a bigger part in their users' lives. That means a lot more user data to collect, which will further improve Apple's products, particularly maps I guess. At any rate it will increase the iOS eco-system.

The first lucky car brands to get CarPlay will be Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo, closely followed by Honda, Hyundai and Jaguar.

Apple isn't alone of course in entering the cars. There is the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA) headed by Google and the operating system is indeed Android. The founding members of the Open Automotive Alliance are Audi, General Motors, Google, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia.

Put the pieces together i.e. CarPlay and self-driving cars, and you'll soon visualize the future of driving: lay back, enjoy the scenery and listen to some nice music. Like flying first class.

A Vision of iPhone

I found a beautiful picture a few days ago here. It's a "photoshopped" iPhone without any buttons (but to be overly stringent, I notice the Home-button still seems to be there). You can see the side buttons are virtual (on-screen) buttons.

Fig1: Buttonless iPhone

This creation isn't possible with today's screen and touch technology. The screen seems folded, but folding isn't possible now for a reasonable price. The virtual buttons aren't possible either. The problem is that the phone has to be able to distinguish between an intended touch and an un-intended. Ok it can to a certain extent already, but it has to do it much better for this wonderful thing to work.

As I've said earlier, when it comes to smartphones, we ain't seen nothing yet. This is a field of constant innovation and occasional technological breakthroughs. So why aren't batteries improving? They are, but we don't get more time between charging, because the electronics get more powerful and constantly tax away the improvements in battery capacity. To get out of this loop we need a substantial step in technology. Don't worry, it'll come.

I'm a pad-slinger

There may be times when you feel a bit like James Bond. At such times you should consider wearing some Bondy gadgets from your drawer, or perhaps buy a new one. Here's a new candidate gadget: 

Fig. 1: Techslinger

It's called Techslinger and it will keep your pad and phone and some other nice gadgets safe, hidden behind your smart Bond suit. Depending on size, it'll cost you US$40-70. 

Hadoro are a luxury brand that specialize in gold plating for custom iPhones, iPods and iPads. For people with costly tastes they have the golden iPhone 5S. 

Fig 2: 18K Gold iPhone5S

Yes, it's real 18K gold, about 125 grams = 4.409 oz. However, to enjoy this piece of luxury you'll have to fork out 55,000 € = 74,000 US$. But you're worth it! 

It's available in plain yellow gold, but also in red gold in the Collette Store in Paris. Buy it quickly, because they'll only make 50 pieces! 200 hours were spent polishing it to make it that extra bit attractive.

Reference: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com

Open Document Formats

Proprietary document formats have earned Microsoft and other companies lots of money for a long time, and still do. Open document formats could be called the opposites of those formats.

An open document format is well defined, non-secret and for anyone to use. That means any company can get the specification of the format and write an application that can read the format and save documents in that format. It doesn't necessarily mean the format may be used without license payments, but sometimes it does.

Proprietary formats are an effective way of locking-in customers. Let's say you have used a very nice application to create lots of documents in a certain format owned by company A. Now you hear of an application from company B, which allows you to create even nicer documents and is so much easier to handle. It also costs much less. You consider buying the new application, but there's a big problem. All those documents you created with the application from company A can't be used by the application from company B. Company A have also updated their application, but it's not quite what you want and they want you to pay for an upgrade. This is a lock-in example.

Open document formats prevent lock-in. They make it possible for the user to choose the application that's best suited for his needs and share the output with others who may be using other applications. The OpenDocument format (ODF) was accepted as a standard by OASIS in May 2005, and by ISO in November 2006, as standard ISO/IEC 26300:2006. OASIS is an organization of companies, i.e. a consortium. ISO is a standardization organization. 

Governments and companies who now spend fortunes on applications with lock-in are the greatest beneficiaries of open document formats. The EU has for several years recommended the use of open document formats and the idea is spreading. ODF is mandatory standard for all documents created within NATO.

There are great benefits for everyone in standardized formats. Just think of the JPEG picture format, which is used almost everywhere. You can take pictures with any camera or you can make pictures in Photoshop and save them as JPEGs and view them on any computer or smartphone. 

There are winners and losers when things are standardized. The losers are companies who own the formats. Everyone else is the winner. Losers don't have to lose everything though, because often they can still charge others for the use of their formats.


Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption