The web, my own dependency and a new birth right

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:01:53 GMT

A week ago my web connection went dead for two and a half days and being used to always having information on tap it was like entering a different world. And as with any crisis (even as miniscule as this) I couldn’t stop thinking how we take things for granted till we lose them. But then was losing access to the web such a horrible thing?

Well YES!
It totally throws the Web 2.0 world we live in out of the window, my media server can not fetch video and audio from the web, my Playstation 3 can not go online to download demos and other content, my computer can not access any online data…it is like being totally excluded from a society we think we have a place. Ten years ago I barely used to check my email three times a week. Nowadays I am always wired to my Gmail account through Wi-Fi. It is crazy!

But then the other day we had a conversation about simnel cake (a great banal subject) and its origins and it really helped getting instantly to Wikipedia and finding the answer on my handheld device. Sure it is possibly diminishing the need to remember any intricate details about most not day to day items but it is immensely fun having so much information on our fingertips. The novelty never really wears off. A recent Guardian article put it in more old fashioned terms…Wi-Fi is the nearest we can get in our everyday life to magic.

And I will have to second. Being able to stream video and data over the air to any room we choose is a freedom I never imagined of. But it just feels both luxurious and mystical. Maybe that is the reason that it makes it feel like a birth right it’s the fact that data access is no more something that a dull black cable brings to you, but part of the air we breathe.

Long live IEEE 802.11n

iPhone hysteria here we go!

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:09:10 GMT

The general hysteria that accompanies a major, and rather delayed, Apple Corp launch has started.

O2 is the "lucky" network to pick it up in the UK. The iPhone will be launching on 9 November, rather handy for the critical Christmas sales.There's a rather buzzy photographic coverage on Engadget of the press launch:
Launch event report on Engadget.It pretty much illustrates the kind of excitement an Apple launch can create even though it is essentially an already launched product in the US (and widely reported in the media and blogosphere)

Especially when the iPhone is a rather crippled device that is locked down (impossible to run non apple aproved applications) and non expandable (no memory card reader). Hopefully the European mobile users will be more savvy and realise that it is a device firmly rooted to past of mobile telecommunications...pretty much the area occupied by the US.

The US users are used to paying for their mobiles as they are used to paying for receiving text messages. Both are totally inconceivable in Europe, where the phones are heavily subsidised and the texts are free to receive.

Also there has been an advertising campaign by NOKIA around the US pointing out that their Symbian based mobiles are open to new applications and customisations by the users...reminding all those iPhone users that are locked down to an 18month contract and paid for a device that they cannot customise without putting more money in Apple's pockets (e.g. ringtones through iTunes)

(picture from gadgetell.com)

A strange place to be...George's page: Technology

The web, my own dependency and a new birth right

iPhone hysteria here we go!