And the unveiling of the new statue in Google’s Android garden:
October 15, 2014Google Glass WithdrawalI’m not certain whether this story is bogus or not (I don’t know the British papers), but apparently a man wore his Google Glass gizmo nearly 24 hours every day. He is now suffering from withdrawal symptoms when he doesn’t wear the device. He even dreams about it. Is this for real? Save Me!My advice: Save your documents! Save them right away, as soon as your create something, such as a smidgen of text in a word processor. Then save frequently and often. That’s good advice, but it begs the question of where to save.
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October 14, 2014Gameboy on a SmartwatchSomeone with way too much time on their hands recently ported Windows 95 to a smartwatch. Proving that mankind isn’t short on people with too much time on their hands, some wag has done a smartwatch Gameboy emulator. Any ideas on what’s next?
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October 13, 2014Adios, Dial-Up ModemThe sun is about to set on the dial-up modem, once the most common way to access the Internet. According to Pew Research, fewer than 3 percent of Internet users have a dial-up modem. An era has passed. October 11, 2014Amazon to Open Brick-and-Mortar StoreThis development is just too weird: The world’s largest online retailer suddenly believes it’s necessary to open a physical store? I’m just baffled beyond words.
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October 10, 2014Silicon SplitsvilleAdd Symantec to the growing list of Silicon Valley companies bifurcating themselves into separate units. First came Hewlett-Packard, which is spinning off its computer/printer business from other core activities. No, the new companies won’t be Hewlett and then Packard. Next came eBay, which is ejecting PayPal. Today the announcement comes that Symantec is ejecting the Norton branch of their operations from their archiving, backup and other activities. Who’s next?
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Sooner Than You ThinkIt’s not a matter of if they destroy us, it’s a matter of when.
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Windows Phone? Nope!I’m often asked which phone to buy. Brands and model numbers mean little to me. What’s important is the operating system, in which case you have several choices. Among them, I prefer Android (of course). Apple’s iOS is also good, but I strongly recommend against buying a Windows phone. October 9, 2014The End of OutsourcingThe tech industry has a terrible reputation for taking local jobs and sending them overseas. After all, labor is cheaper in some other country. Labor was cheaper in some other country. As the world educates itself and raises its standard of living, the cost of exporting jobs is catching up. Don’t believe for a second that this change means that those jobs are returning. They aren’t. Instead, they’re being replaced by automation. This change shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. The big corporations are always looking for cheaper labor, which helps pad their bottom lines and keeps the stockholders happy. That’s sad because it’s the customer who gets shafted; automated anything — especially support — isn’t better than having a person involved. True, some tasks can be automated effectively without any loss of quality. That situation has been inevitable since the industrial revolution. However, quality isn’t the issue here; it’s making money. I also see an impact with regards to the minimum wage in the US. While I support indexing the wage to inflation, raising it too much prompts business owners to replace low-wage workers with automation. This trend may snowball in the coming years as consumers tolerate more automation and the corporations condition us to accepting crummy service.
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