Category Archives: Tech Trends & Mobile Computing

Computing 2010

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pc.jpgToday, I came across an interesting article in the Forbes Magazine entitled “Computing 2010″. The interesting part is that this article was written ten years ago. The author, Kip Crosby, imagined what computers would look like in 2010: optical circuits instead of silicon, with a CPU running at 100 GHz, holographic mass storage offering several TB capacity, 256 GB optoelectronic RAM, biometric authentication, voice control, completely wireless and shaped like a frisbee. Whew! Looks like Kip was just a tad too optimistic. Optoelectronics hasn’t caught on and most computers are still boxy rather than frisbee-ish. In fact, todays’s PC looks pretty much like that of 2000, except that its capacity has increased roughly following Moore’s law. The only accurate prediction is about mass storage capacity, although that didn’t require optical technology.

Personally, I’ve begun the new computing year with a major upgrade, though still far away from Kip’s 2010 vision. I have replaced my 32-bit Windows OS with a 64-bit Linux OS, doubled RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB and added another external USB hard drive for backups. The Ubuntu installation turned out a little difficult, because Linux did not want to cooperate with the BIOS RAID-1 configuration, so I had to switch to SATA mode and wipe out the Windows installation. The rest was easy, however. I used to worry about not being able to make my 3G USB modem work with Linux, but our maid has solved this problem for me. She obliterated the device by putting it into the washing machine. Can’t really blame her for that. I probably shouldn’t have carried the modem in the pockets of my shorts.

Back to the topic. What are the computing trends in 2010? Just off the top of my head: cloud computing is becoming a mainstream technology (or perhaps a mainstream buzz; time will tell). Along with that, virtualisation is now widely used. Supercomputers have broken the petaflop mark and now operate in the range of large clouds (> 1 PFlop). CRT monitors are quickly becoming relics of a past epoch. Single-core CPUs are headed the same way. Functional programming languages are beginning to catch on. 64-bit hardware and software are overtaking 32-bit systems in mainstream IT. Java 7 is announced for 2010. It surely looks like an interesting year.

Pocket PCs Suck!

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Pocket PCs suck! Well, they do at least suck when they don’t work as they are supposed to. …which is pretty often in my experience. To be fair, I must say that Pocket PCs are great as long as they do work. Since a Pocket PC is like a miniature computer, it offers a functional range and programmability that surpasses almost any other mobile device. Unfortunately, this leads to complexity, and complexity leads to bugs which in turn leads to malfunctioning devices. I’ve been using Pocket PCs for two years now and have developed sort of a love-hate relationship. Probably the culprit is the Windows Mobile operating system. Windows Mobile, although already in version 6, evokes bad memories of the buggy Microsoft operating systems of the nineties. Only that this isn’t the nineties. After ten or fifteen years of consumer mobile phones, we have come to expect mobile devices to work flawlessly. In fact, I am relying on my Pocket PC for many day-today tasks. I use it as a phone, alarm clock, notepad, camera, phone book, and mp3 player and more. My HP iPaq Business Navigator also has an assisted GPS, but I came to see the latter as a toy function. Due to usability issues I hardly bother to fiddle with it.

However, the question I am asking myself now is – isn’t this device just an expensive toy? Where is the robustness that should come with a “business” device . I have put in a good deal of time just to keep my pocket PC working. My HP PPC has seen the service shop twice, once because of a faulty memory chip, and another time because it didn’t boot anymore until the shop installed a firmware upgrade. In addition to that, I have spent a fair number of hours with configuration and trouble-shooting because one or another function was broken. Once I get a working configuration with all the software installed, I use Spb Backup to create a complete backup of the system. Spb Backup is a real life-saver. It backs up all configuration data, user data, applications and system data. Should the device give up its ghost or display odd behaviour (believe me, every Pocket PC will do that at some point), I can perform a factory reset and restore the backup to recreate the former status of the device easily. But even with this tool, the amount of maintenance required seems a little excessive. A gadget that carries the name “Business Navigator” should be expected to work like a business device, namely reliably. Unfortunately, I can’t say that for the HP iPaq and neither for the other Pocket PCs I’ve owned and used. As previously mentioned, I am not blaming the hardware manufacturers. The OS seems to be the crux.

Real business users would probably be better off with a smartphone that requires less messing around. A Pocket PC is more suited to -shall I put it this way- the technically inclined person.

GPS Usability

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This is an addendum to the previous blog entry. The GPS functionality is less useful than I expected. Today, I went with my wife to pick up our daughter from school. After leaving the school, we encountered a detour and promptly got lost in the maze of Chiang Mai’s rural roads. “No problem,” I thought, booting up the GPS navigation software on my pocket PC. But there was a problem. In order to calculate the position, the GPS requires several satellite signals. I think the minimum is four. The process usually takes 30-60 seconds. Today, the device appeared to have problems getting multiple satellite signals. When it had acquired two it lost one, then it acquired another, lost another, then all signals were lost at once, then it acquired a new one, and so the game went on, until I gave up after a few minutes. We were back on track even before the GPS could locate us. I suppose, I will put the old low-tech magnetic compass back into the car. It served me well in the past.

HP iPaq 612c – Toys For Boys

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According to a recent survey conducted by Spb Software House, 93% of Windows Mobile handheld device users are male. – I found this quite surprising. – It sounds a bit like the demographics in the physics department of my university. There must be something that women don’t like about these gadgets.Granted, the design of HP iPaq 612c Business Navigator probably appeals more to male clientele, but I am quite certain that the functionality of this feature-packed PDA-phone would be useful to both sexes. For example, the word “navigator” stands for Assisted GPS navigation system which is integrated in the device. Who wouldn’t love to have one? Never get lost again, always know where you are…, or could it be that women prefer to ask for directions rather than to fiddle with a GPS? If the GPS doesn’t take the biscuit, then how about the built-in 3 megapixel camera, ladies? (The “c” in 612c stands for “camera”)

HP iPaq 612c Business NavigatorI bought this PDA just a week ago and I have already found multiple uses for it. It wakes me up in the morning; I read the news on it; I am using it as a mobile phone, address book, notepad, MP3 player, and occasionally for a game. I imagine the GPS function would be useful on field trips and holidays, but I have yet to go on one.

The vendor threw in a free 4 GB micro SD memory chip and a Bluetooth headphone (which he promised to deliver next week). 4 GB is probably generous enough to carry around a decent music collection along with the GPS data, photos, backups, etc., etc. – what can I say? You can never have enough memory, but 4 GB seems fair. That’s 1024 times the memory of my first computer which -less than 20 years ago- took up half of my desk space.

The HP iPaq 612c has a bright 2.8 inch QVGA display that performs well even in the brightest midday sun, as I found out today. It’s most distinctive feature is a touch-sensitive “smart wheel” that replaces the typical directional pad on Pocket PCs. It can be used for navigation, similar to the centre wheel on iPods. Unfortunately, the manufacturer forgot to put an “Enter” button in the centre of the wheel, which makes some thumb acrobatics necessary in order to execute complex functions. Instead of the centre, the “Enter” key is located on the right edge of the pad. These ergonomics probably need some rethinking. Otherwise the keypad is great. It’s easy to handle for people who are used to a standard mobile phone pad. I prefer to use a stylus, anyway.

With a 520 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM / 256 MB ROM, the device performs nicely under Windows Mobile 6.0. I haven’t encountered any problems with applications, not even with computation- and memory-intensive games. Connectivity is simply fantastic. The phone is a GSM quadband with GPRS. In addition to GSM and GPS, the device offers 3G, EDGE, HSDPA, Bluetooth, and WPE/WPA-enabled WiFi connectivity, and of course a USB port. Especially the WiFi comes is opportune, since it’s a low cost connection that allows me to go online anywhere at home and at public hotspots. HP provides a neat proprietary connectivity manager application for all of this. All radio connections can be switched on and off with a single tap, which is handy on the plane.

The only thing found fault with is the speaker which is on the back of the device. Why is that bad? Because the sound is absorbed when you put it with its back on a smooth surface. You can hardly hear the phone ringing. However, I have solved this problem simply by leaving the PDA in its leather case, so it’s not really a big issue. In summary, this is a neat device with lots of features and an attractive design that continues the iPaq tradition. Now, if only more women would buy it to balance the statistics.

Moore’s law in full swing

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Replacing my old desktop computer with a new Intel Quad2Core machine this Christmas caused me to muse about the recent developments in PC technology. Almost everything in my new computer is now at least twice as powerful. The screen resolution increased from 1024×768 to 1680×1050, memory from 1.5 GB to 4 GB, hard disk capacity from 150 to 650 GB and processor speed from 1.8 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Moore’s law is still in full swing it seems. This new machine has a 64-bit processor instead of a 32-bit processor. It also has 2 (or 4) processors instead of just one. Unlike doubling memory or hard disk space, the latter is a significant update, because doubling the number of processors or their bit width doesn’t happen that often. It’s sort of a meta-Moore cycle.

16-bit computing was predominant at the beginning of my career. My first computer was an Atari ST 1040 with a 32-bit chip which was somewhat ahead of its time. However, it still had a 16-bit bus system. A few years later I purchased a true 32-bit system which was based on an early generation 386 chip. Processor speed was still measured in double-digit MHz rather than in GHz. It took a few years for operating systems and software to catch up and produce 32-bit versions of application and system software. The transition occurred during the early nineties which means the latest shift from 32-bit to 64-bit computing took at least 15 years, as we are now in a period where 64-bit computing emerges. Currently most PCs are still 32-bit systems, however.

What are consumers going to do with all that processing power? Well, playing games, rendering 3D images, and encoding audio and image data, I suppose. But probably most of the CPU cycles on any personal computer -not only on mine- go to waste in an idle loop. The situation is a bit like having an army that spends most of its time marching around the barracks.