Over the last days, recents news have being popping out everywhere, about the new versions of Apple's iphone/ipod and the Microsoft's Zune, bring new features and new content into their platforms. A part from being a very interesting case study for marketing blogs, for a blog like opennetworks, the important thing is that Microsoft is now also bringing wifi in its basic configuration, a step that Apple already took with the iphone. Wifi personal media device is a very important feature as it gives you a freedom of cables, initially promised by the bluetooth without success, that allows you to synchronize your files with your devices, or to browse the internet. More things could be added, but I think that it will have to wait for the community of users to start bringing homebrew applications into both platforms, before really interesting applications can be found. Who is the winner? I think that as always, Microsoft is playing hard force, putting a lot of money in make the device successfull, just they have done with the xbox, sophisticated approach, is not their way, they prefer the Elephant in crystal shop one. Apple on the other side, prefers a more clever and cool approach, bringing this exclusive touch that makes people want to use their products. Now that they seems to have match perfectly what they want to do, with what consummers want, they might have a long way in front of them. From a Wifi point of view, I think that they both are loosers, as they could have introduced a lot of new concepts into their devices, more in line with the fact that in a near future, almost all personal devices will have 3G, Wifi and bluetooth connectivity. So that means that the potential to create real cool feature to interconnect all those people is really high, but they are not thinking about it for the moment. Maybe too worry about piracy? From a commercial point of view, the winner is Apple, as, as today, it is impossible to actually by a zune outside of the States. What is keeping Microsoft locked in its home market? Probably only them will know, but for the rest of people wishing to buy one, until now, Internet is the only possible way to try to have one through non-official channels.
De esta vez estoy ponderando Cádiz, porque muchos de mis amigos han estado de vacaciones por esta zona, y me han convencido de que la historia de la ciudad, la frescura del clima por las noches, y las playas todavÃa sin masificar, son un muy buen argumento para hacer las vacaciones en esa Zona.
Tal como la ultima vez voy a utilizar los servicios del buscador de hoteles, que tan buenos resultados me ha dado, y buscar Hoteles en Cadiz, el grado de parametrización y la flexibilidad de uso es realmente impresionante, por lo que insertando las caracterÃsticas deseadas de un hotel, asà como su disponibilidad, el servicio, el sistema te devuelve los hoteles que se acercan a tus criterios.
Following some news on the internet about the iphone, it has been confirmed that Telefonica Movistar has signed the deal to release the device, and the target price will be around 100 Euros. How accurate can be this news? It is very difficult to say at this moment if this is only vaporware or if there is a real marketing plan behind it to boost sales in the first months and to retain users. The difference in price to the other countries where the gadget has already been launch is quite high and will be costly for the company. This is the kind of news that will have to be followed along the next weeks.
While browsing for hot news on WIFI, I have discovered this video on youtube that makes reference to a special tool called easy wifi radar from makayma, that is supposed to detect and configure instantly your laptop or pocketpc to connect to any wifi detected by the software. Apparently it should be able to connect even to private connections, but with the tests that I have done I have not been able to do so, only connections to public hotspots were possible, in a much more easy way. Has anyone tried this software and wants to comment about it?
At this pace, I will have to switch my logo, as the last homebrew antennas are not anymore being made with Pringles Cans. While searching for antennas with google, I have come to a pictorial at instructables.com about building a high performance antenna with very simple and cheap elements. The simplicity of the construction is really incredible, and it seems that even the less hand skilled people will be able to build with almost no problem. A part from this, the comments posted to the pictorial are also very interesting and gives plenty of advices to be taken in account when trying to build the antenna. Since I haven't tried myself the process, I don´t know how good are the results of the Antenna, but from the overall understanding of the article and user comments, they should be quite interesting. Antena For less than 10 $
This is almost the title of the song that was a kind of the hymn of hippie movements in the sixties, but in this case, it is not about about hippy but more about geeky .
As read on YAHOO the San Francisco Underground train is testing a new innovative service that will allow its users to actually use WIFI while travelling on their trains.
The connection is not yet in production but rather in tests, and the users will have to manually pick the connections, but I think that it will be a question of time, before everything starts to evolve in more confortable service for the user.
:-0, when I first read the news, two things jumped immediatly to my mind, I don´t know if correct or no, as I have never used the San Franscisco undergound, but that can be created by my previous experience in other ones around Europe.
When you go in the Underground, you are usually at rush time, that means that everyone goes as fast as they can, to actually jump into the train before you, in order to find the last available free spot, in the wagons. Once inside, you don´t have, barely, enough space to shake your ears, so to actually think in using a Laptop or a Wifi-enabled phone, seems to me a rather interesting challenge.
The second aspect, is that the distances are rather short/medium, so, do you really need a connection while travelling for a couple of minutes? Are you getting to the point of addiction where you can avoid being without an online connection?
At this point, more than one will already start to think that I am mixing news :) but, there is a rather interesting news as well, from the Canadian Government (Yahoo), suggesting to its employees to actually shutdown their blackberries after 18:00 until 9:00 in the next morning, and during the meetings, to actually decrease the level of stress.
Where are we heading? Do we really need all those connections? Do we really need to be able to connect to internet, from the train, the bed, the WC, ... our dreams? Is this going to far?
One thing is to be able to have a good and regular connection, from our work, our home, but do actually need to be everywhere, everytime connected?
This remembers me, that when I first started to work, I actually was very happy when my employers gave me my first cellphone, I felt so important, just to discover, how much you can be emprisonned by the technology that makes you available without limitations...
Where does the freedom ends and the prison starts?
So as the hippies where looking for freedom when going to San Francisco, are we doing the inverse path when revisiting San Francisco?
I have already talked in the past about how unsecure bluetooth can be, if not secured correctly, with bluesnarfing, a lot of your information could be in danger. When I first talk about this, the number of bluetooth devices were still very small, and it didn't represent a real danger. Meanwhile, the adoption of bluetooth has been growing quite fast amd almost all phones have now incorporated the bluetooth turn on by default, and everyone, not just the the businessmens, have discovered the joys of wireless world, with bluetooth headsets.
What is happening? Well that not only your contacts are in danger anymore, but aswell your voice conversations, as it seems that it is rather easy to actually snoop in voice communication over bluetooth, and even change it.
Take a look at the video that I am attaching to this post, and you actually be surprised, not only the voice communication can be spied and modified, it can be done from a couple of meters more than the theorical ten meters range of the bluetooth.
Does this represent a problem? Well it depends on the subject of your conversations, but from what you can see in the streets lately from people with their phones, if that privacy doesn´t seems to matter any more
With the rise of cheap and affordable printers, in the last years, the printing business of the major hardware manufacturers, has been responsible for a big portion of their results, due to the fact, that although the printer prices have been falling, the ink cartdridges and laser toners, has been rising. The margin in the pinter ink/toner can be as high as 70% and there are a lot business models based on this oversized margins.
If you are running a large company, then the costs (Printer running costs I, Printer running costs II ) for running large amounts of printing can be affordable, but if you are a small entrepreneur, then you could have a problem, as even if you try to cut on printing, you still have to send proposals, to document legal matters, to fill public templates, and a lot of other information, that even in the case you don't want to, you are forced to print.
A couple of years ago, finding compatible replacements was a difficult mission, as the retail usually is locked by the big providers and will avoid to sell other products that could create a conflict with their major provider. Now with the internet, finding those cardtridges and toners, is much more easy, and the cost of search has fallen radically, you just need to take a browser, point it to a search engine, and here you go.
CartridgeSave is one of these online services that will help you save some money when each dollar/euro/pound counts, they have a large stock of products, printer ink, toner cartridges , fully compatible with the official printers with top quality and very reasonable prices, for the main hardware manufacturer. For now, they are only serving the UK market, but who knows, if in the near future the rest of Europe, could not be served.
The range of products is quite remarkable, you can found from just about any technology and brand, from ink cartridges to laser toner cartridges, Solid Ink, Paper. All the main brands are available for all the the major models of printers, even the ones of older models, so HP, Epson, Canon and lexmark toners/inks are there available without any problems at all, and quickly delivered to your location in the UK.
Either you use them, or another online provider, take the prices as example and make some basic business case for the usual amount of printer ink that you are spending annually and will easily found that at least a 30% of printing costs can be cut down just by doing some online search.
In one of the last posts, I was refering a news about the television manufacturers were finally awaking to the rise of new technologies at home, and were already implementing some new features in their TV products, like WIFI. Now it is the turn of a external disk manufacturer like FREECOM to launch media players with WIFI enabled, which frees you from having to buy the storage and the WIFI mediaplayer. Now in one single box you can have up to 500 Gb storage capaticy, codecs and TV output together with WIFI conectivity. With this, you will be now able to have the media player near the TV set, and by WIFI, manage remotely the content of you disk, without having to plug and unplug it. At the same time, you will be able to the share the device by more than just one device, which is also very good. What next? Well probably to include TDT receivers, and to open web interface for the configuration. It is ridiculous that in todays connected world, if you leave your house and forgot to program a recording, you are lost, and you will have to go fetch the missed content in the P2P networks. Or, still more ridiculous, that you have to use a remote control, that is a very aged technology, to actually try to program the recording. Yea, they say that you have the EPG(Electronic Programming Guide), but have anyone actually been able to correctly save anything?
![Open in new window](javascript:CaricaFoto("http://www.open-networks.org/uploads/img48ca4af6ab3df.jpg");)
, y estoy lo hago con bastante placer.
.
![Open in new window](javascript:CaricaFoto("http://www.open-networks.org/images/freecom_wifi.jpg");)