Firstly, there was a time many years ago that I scorned the idea of a mobile phone. I didn't need one and I felt that nobody should. I was a Luddite. Now, I feel that mobile phones are not only very useful as a tool and way to stay connected, they are becoming the single most important piece of information technology that we carry or even use on a regular basis. They've all but made the PDA a thing of the past and they are marching steadily towards doing much the same with the PC.
It won't be long before many people, particularly those who use PCs casually, for things like email, internet browsing and such, will just use a mobile phone. It makes sense, we carry the phone everywhere we go, the computing power available is beginning to match the requirements for most common computing tasks and they are relatively inexpensive. All that is really needed is to conquer the limitations in terms of interface. Many things don't suit their relatively tiny screens and touch screen keyboards, while improving hugely over time, are still fiddly at best to use. Of course, certain interface improvements will reduce the reliance on keyboards and such, but the mobile phone's single biggest drawback is going to be size. How do you make something small enough to fit in a pocket and yet still provide an interface that suits human requirements? There are many solutions, some involving eye-wear, and such, but an interesting possibility is the Mozilla Seabird:
I've no real expectation that this technology will come to the main stream in the near future, but the concept is interesting. It shows that the designers have thought about the issue of how to make a phone that can take advantage of the situation that the user finds themselves in and doesn't require the user to carry around extraneous equipment. Unfortunately, I'm sure that we don't yet have the technology to build this phone, especially not with the probable power requirements that it would have. It's still a cool possibility for the future.
Now, lets get our head back down to Earth and I'll tell you about another piece of cool technology. It's a bit of free software (in both meanings of the term) and it has some cool results. It's called Swinger.py and it makes your music swing. I haven't had a chance to try it out myself, but the results on this page speak for themselves. I've never heard Guns 'n Roses sound quite so swinging. It's not likely to be to everyone's taste, but I think it's a little cool. Here's one of the tunes for those who don't want to click (Guns 'n Roses, Sweet Child 'O Mine):
Okay, moving on from trivialities and on to something a little more suited to actually doing something productive today. I'm a little paranoid. Not without reason, but that's another discussion for another day. Let's just say that I like a certain degree of security and sometimes that means that I want some files on my computer to be encrypted so that a thief won't be able to access sensitive information. This information is not just mine, but customers too. Anyone who stores such data should be taking at least some precautions. Anyone who stores sensitive data should really already have precautions in place to guarantee that physical access to the storage does not result in having the ability to access all of the information stored on it. To that end, I strongly suggest looking at a short article in Lifehacker:
http://lifehacker.com/5677725/five-best-file-encryption-tools
It's not even remotely comprehensive, but if you're not applying one of these technologies, or similar, and you store sensitive data, please let me know so I can make sure to not do business with you until you do ;) Okay, in all seriousness, this is up there with backups and the like. Most SMEs have gotten the message about needing to do backups (though most don't yet know to make sure they do off-site ones, but that's another day's work), so if you have them working, now please look at the above and virtual private networks (if remote access is needed). Sorry for being a little preachy, but I've seen far too many small businesses who just seem to play fast and loose with their customers' data.
Finally, it seems that Hitachi have found a way to make capacitative screens work with styli, which is good news for the future of mobile phones. Here's the link. This should allow more ways of using your mobile phone without having to touch the screen with your bare hands (a bit of a pain at -20C) and should help with the problem of fat-fingers, which we all suffer from from time to time.
Anyway, that's my first technology round-up. I'm sure there will be more in future. I leave you with a quote from one of my favourite authors, Isaac Asimov
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be ...Until next time, good luck,
Neil
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