Something that I would like to see in Google maps or in a mobile application is something for parking spots.
Sure I understand that we do not have the feasible tech to develop real-time free parking spot locater but what would still be useful is knowing where to park. For example, I would like to know where the unlimited parking spots are, 1 hour parking, 2 hour parking and the time ranges, meter parking and the max allowed time with the prices of the metere. These are relatively fixed positions and street and doesn't change often, something that would be nice to know when planning a trip.
Definitely I'm sure Google or Microsoft can make this happen and probably really quickly too with large cities. I'm from San Francisco and parking is hell there.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Laptop Battery Life
We see many many technical achievements and advances in the laptop market. We have a variety of choices of power, size, portability, cost etc. One thing remains relatively the same, and that's the number of hours you can run a typical laptop on a single battery charge.
Intel, AMD, etc make announcements about how their newest CPU designs are smaller, faster, consumes XX% less power (XX meaning it's a double digit usually in the 30-60% range), and is more power efficient with better power management. Laptop manufactures are using LED backlit for less power consumption with brighter screens, or using OLED screens. So shouldn't we expect a longer run time for the same battery on one charge?
With netbooks, the goal is portability right? That should translate to a number of things, small size, wireless connnectivity of all sorts, and one of the important things that most mobile device lacks is how long you can go on a single charge. This is where the netbook really stinks. My full size laptop can run 2-3 hour of mild usuage, web surfing, youtube, video clips, etc., but my laptop is not as portable. It's big, heavy, and everytime I move it while it's running I'm scared my harddrive will crash and burn. So netbooks sounds like a good idea, small, light, (claims to consume less power, probably does), etc, but WHY still the 2-3 hour battery life? I mean and heavier usage and I might as well be stuck to the power outlet, one of the reason I would get a netbook is so that I can STAY AWAY from that power outlet. Netbooks are suppose to consume less power, using CPUs with good power management and low power consumption and using SSD drive for less power, more speed, and no more head crashing threats on the harddrive.
WHY do they shrink the damn battery too? If I buy a net book I hoping to be able to used the net book all day long constantly without see the poweroutlet, because that's part of being mobile, away from the juicy holes in the wall.
What lowend small laptop companies should focus heavily on is runtime on single battery charge. I would find a laptop able to run 10 hr on a mild usuage on a single charge more useful, than a laptop with more features but can only run for 2-3 hours.
This is where I think the iPhone or iPod touch have a good chance of making a dent in the market. The stripped down OS X kernel is great and consumes less power than a full blow OS. Microsoft has a mobile OS too but it's not as stable, appealing, or as easy to use, though it does provide everything and more than the iphone can offer. WM phones tend to have better camera, bluetooth connectivity, etc. But smart phones are still after all phones but closer to personal computers than the traditional phone, and of course there is the issue of the screen being too small.
If this ipod touch platform was just extended to say using a 5-7 inch screen keeping witht he same design. Even with the same CPU and chipset design we'll be using a larger screen and best of all we'll have PLENTY more room just to INCREASE the battery size. wow now image a 5-7 inch ipod touch, that can run for about 50 hours of music 15 hours of movie and like 8hr + of websurfing, wouldn't that be a swt device. Sure it's still mobile, works and feels like an ipod touch, can run the same apps, essentially it will be gold. if the ipod touch can sell 300 for 16GB ipod touch on a 3.5 in screen, I can see the same device selling for 400 but with a 5-7 inch screen with a bigger battery (keep the same thickness). And that's what I hope to see this coming up Apple conference in June. It would be a big bonus if it was running on the actual OS X OS instead of the iphone OS. I would pick one up in a heartbeat. My laptop would fall back to the role of the "at home" computer.
Sigh, but one can only drool about it. I just don't understand how companies can come out with half ass designed products and expect it to sell. Most net book looks ugly cramped and unfriendly to use. Why, you might ask? Because they are trying to SHRINK the laptop, instead they should be expanding the mobile platform. You can't shrink a tiger to the size of a cat and expect it to still look scary and powerful, but you can enlarge a house cat to make it frightening.
Hmm bad analogy, I guess I need coffee.
Intel, AMD, etc make announcements about how their newest CPU designs are smaller, faster, consumes XX% less power (XX meaning it's a double digit usually in the 30-60% range), and is more power efficient with better power management. Laptop manufactures are using LED backlit for less power consumption with brighter screens, or using OLED screens. So shouldn't we expect a longer run time for the same battery on one charge?
With netbooks, the goal is portability right? That should translate to a number of things, small size, wireless connnectivity of all sorts, and one of the important things that most mobile device lacks is how long you can go on a single charge. This is where the netbook really stinks. My full size laptop can run 2-3 hour of mild usuage, web surfing, youtube, video clips, etc., but my laptop is not as portable. It's big, heavy, and everytime I move it while it's running I'm scared my harddrive will crash and burn. So netbooks sounds like a good idea, small, light, (claims to consume less power, probably does), etc, but WHY still the 2-3 hour battery life? I mean and heavier usage and I might as well be stuck to the power outlet, one of the reason I would get a netbook is so that I can STAY AWAY from that power outlet. Netbooks are suppose to consume less power, using CPUs with good power management and low power consumption and using SSD drive for less power, more speed, and no more head crashing threats on the harddrive.
WHY do they shrink the damn battery too? If I buy a net book I hoping to be able to used the net book all day long constantly without see the poweroutlet, because that's part of being mobile, away from the juicy holes in the wall.
What lowend small laptop companies should focus heavily on is runtime on single battery charge. I would find a laptop able to run 10 hr on a mild usuage on a single charge more useful, than a laptop with more features but can only run for 2-3 hours.
This is where I think the iPhone or iPod touch have a good chance of making a dent in the market. The stripped down OS X kernel is great and consumes less power than a full blow OS. Microsoft has a mobile OS too but it's not as stable, appealing, or as easy to use, though it does provide everything and more than the iphone can offer. WM phones tend to have better camera, bluetooth connectivity, etc. But smart phones are still after all phones but closer to personal computers than the traditional phone, and of course there is the issue of the screen being too small.
If this ipod touch platform was just extended to say using a 5-7 inch screen keeping witht he same design. Even with the same CPU and chipset design we'll be using a larger screen and best of all we'll have PLENTY more room just to INCREASE the battery size. wow now image a 5-7 inch ipod touch, that can run for about 50 hours of music 15 hours of movie and like 8hr + of websurfing, wouldn't that be a swt device. Sure it's still mobile, works and feels like an ipod touch, can run the same apps, essentially it will be gold. if the ipod touch can sell 300 for 16GB ipod touch on a 3.5 in screen, I can see the same device selling for 400 but with a 5-7 inch screen with a bigger battery (keep the same thickness). And that's what I hope to see this coming up Apple conference in June. It would be a big bonus if it was running on the actual OS X OS instead of the iphone OS. I would pick one up in a heartbeat. My laptop would fall back to the role of the "at home" computer.
Sigh, but one can only drool about it. I just don't understand how companies can come out with half ass designed products and expect it to sell. Most net book looks ugly cramped and unfriendly to use. Why, you might ask? Because they are trying to SHRINK the laptop, instead they should be expanding the mobile platform. You can't shrink a tiger to the size of a cat and expect it to still look scary and powerful, but you can enlarge a house cat to make it frightening.
Hmm bad analogy, I guess I need coffee.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Programming Visually, beyond the code.
So today I was about doing my work, and well as a person being on the computer all day, my hands where getting tired and my palms were starting to get sore. (Bad sign, I know).
Anyways I was thinking, with all the IDE that we have for software development are there any out there that has a touch interface and provide a more graphical way of developing.
Many programming languages are Object Oriented Programming languages, and my questions is then why do we still have to do so much coding by hand? Why can't we have an interface for programming objects be more object oriented?
Let's say that if you could represent each object created as a graphical representation of an object, we'll use normal geometric shapes to represent objects. Let's say a class in java is a rectagular block, methods as a cyclinder, instance variables as spheres, different colors can mean public, private and different saturation of that color can mean static, final, etc., nothing too complicated. Now with these representation we can start to map out our code in a 3D or pictorial format. Simple enough right? No, extra code added, language is still the same only there is a graphical representation for it. We have something like this and it's called a flowchart.
So my question is why can't we program the same way? Graphically build, link, design our programs in the same manner? As a program gets bigger then larger encapsulation will represent a section or feature of the whole program. Easily be able to look at the larger picture and dive into it "INTERACTIVELY' and manipulate the code, using maybe a touch interface.
I would love to learn and program this way, easy to always picture in your head and makes sense in an "object" oriented sense. With the touch screen capabilities that are available today, we could easily incorporate these things together. Designing a program would be easily done and understood. We give presentation of technology and code design in diagrams, so why do we have to move away from that? Clearly it's easy to explain and understand through diagrams, so why not just program right into the diagram and let it be ONE thing all together.
That's my thought today, and if this is out there and available, drop a comment or link here and I will be sure to take a look.
Anyways I was thinking, with all the IDE that we have for software development are there any out there that has a touch interface and provide a more graphical way of developing.
Many programming languages are Object Oriented Programming languages, and my questions is then why do we still have to do so much coding by hand? Why can't we have an interface for programming objects be more object oriented?
Let's say that if you could represent each object created as a graphical representation of an object, we'll use normal geometric shapes to represent objects. Let's say a class in java is a rectagular block, methods as a cyclinder, instance variables as spheres, different colors can mean public, private and different saturation of that color can mean static, final, etc., nothing too complicated. Now with these representation we can start to map out our code in a 3D or pictorial format. Simple enough right? No, extra code added, language is still the same only there is a graphical representation for it. We have something like this and it's called a flowchart.
So my question is why can't we program the same way? Graphically build, link, design our programs in the same manner? As a program gets bigger then larger encapsulation will represent a section or feature of the whole program. Easily be able to look at the larger picture and dive into it "INTERACTIVELY' and manipulate the code, using maybe a touch interface.
I would love to learn and program this way, easy to always picture in your head and makes sense in an "object" oriented sense. With the touch screen capabilities that are available today, we could easily incorporate these things together. Designing a program would be easily done and understood. We give presentation of technology and code design in diagrams, so why do we have to move away from that? Clearly it's easy to explain and understand through diagrams, so why not just program right into the diagram and let it be ONE thing all together.
That's my thought today, and if this is out there and available, drop a comment or link here and I will be sure to take a look.
My First Post!
Hi to everyone out there that stumbled upon my blog! I'm very new to this and I hope to be able to update regularly. I plan to basically put ideas out here because it's better to have ideas written down than to think up of one and then forget all about it and let the idea slip and disappear. Most of what I will blog about are things I hope to see and things that I wish were possible but helpless to do it on my own. Hopefully my ideas would be influencial to other people that CAN make it happen. I will warn you that most of what I think about is centered around technologies of today and where we can head to.
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