email me: chris@chris-karath.com
January 2011
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Tech things on my mind.
Tablets
I'm interested in seeing what Apple's iPad 2 is going to be like, I'm more interested in what it will cost. I think Google's Honeycomb Android presentation will be interesting next week, but I don't think Honeycomb will be as refined overall as iPad 1. I expect iPad 2 to be even more refined than iPad 1. I think it will be at least fall before the Honeycomb tablets make any serious inroads into the consumer space, and then, only if they significantly undercut iPad's price point. It looks like Apple is going to get at least another year of reigning supreme with Tablets.
If there is one tech phrase that is going to continue to be prominent over the next year, it's: “I have an App for that.” Apple's got the apps, and it looks like iPhone and iPad are their markets to hold onto at least for one more year.
Thoughts on blogging.
You may have noticed I've been blogging a lot more this month. In late December I made additional changes to my homerolled blogging platform that really sped up the ease in which I can blog, couple that with the winter weather keeping us indoors, and the end result is a much fuller blog of links and what not. What I have noticed over the last year though is that I get almost no views on my blog at all, and this month's extra blogging hasn't changed that fact.
Two/Three years ago when twitter was really getting going, I noticed I could post a link on twitter and almost instantly all my followers would click on it and check it out. Now I post post a link on twitter and maybe 5 or 6 take a look. Either I've gotten less interesting, or people's Twitter streams have gotten busier and more interesting. I'm guessing the latter, with more and more people, and institutions that people are following there is a higher bar that now has to be reached to get someone to make a click that causes them to leave their stream. I also think more people are “doing twitter” on their phones and therefore clicking over to a website is a little less desirable as well. Follow enough people and your stream updates often enough that you don't need to leave it.
Kinect
After playing with the Kinect this past week, I removed my coffee table from the living room just to open up more space in front of the TV for it's use. To be honest, Jenn has been playing it more than I but I'm fascinated with the concept of it. It's amazing to interact with technology just by having it watch and listen to you. I'm very very interested to see what happens when Microsoft releases it's official SDK for Kinect for PC. No one develops applications for Xbox, but ther PC is very easy to develop for, and as these devices become cheaper and more accessible, I'm very interested in how this space progresses.
Check-ins
Is the check-in fad over yet? Maybe if someone comes along and makes it very easy and passive to participate in, it will creep it's way back into public view again, but of all the big new innovations for the social space of last year, this one seems to be losing the most steam for me.
NFC, RFID, spontaneous Wi-Fi Face recognition or License plate recognition etc. These sort of passive technologies might bring the Check-in back into vogue later in the year, but right now, I'm not seeing much that compels a person to actively participate.
Shutting down the Internet
Egypt shut theirs down, Lieberman wants a kill switch for ours. Every major corporation that deals in intellectual property wants a way to prohibit any non-sanctioned non-commerce participating content. Certainly computers are here to stay out. There are also great Open OS's out there and when it comes to wi-fi, it's hard to stop anyone within 350 feet or so from sharing with anyone else. But is there truly an open source network when so many of the lines are controlled by so few telcos? I saw talk both on blogs and my twitter of stock piling dial-up modems etc, and I admit that a couple days ago I did a mental check of “Where do I have my modem? Just in case?” And then I remembered I no longer have a landline. If the internet gets shut down, I guess I'm only going to be sharing files with the 2 or 3 other apartment buildings in my immediate vicinity. Or perhaps we'll all do some war driving through the neighborhood.
That's what's on my mind with tech today. What's on yours?
I want to hear your 
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My and Jenn's Champions Online Character's we created last night.
Aqua Marine (Ice Powers - Son of Alien Climatologists - Uses advanced
technology to fight the forces of evil.) and Glenin (Mysterious Avenging
Archer - history Unknown)
Mis-mash of build a figure parts
Things I've learned playing Microsoft Xbox Kinect for 45 minutes.
1. I thought I had a decent sized living room, but apparently according to microsoft it's probably only half the size it needs to be.
2. Kinect Sports in Party mode - who really cares about the game, its fun just to rock out and dance to their poppy soundtracks.
3. You can select a Cardboard robot with legs as your team character. Cool.
4. Talking to your game console is fun. Saying "Xbox Kinect Open Tray" and having the disk tray slide open is cool.
5. Video playback hightlight real at end is very cool, but feeling like I have to shower, comb my hair and change out of my PJs before playing a video game, because I'm being recorded, not so cool.
Rockford Ice Festival
Jennifer and I went to the 2nd Annual Rockford Ice Festival. It was a Cold but Sunny day. And for the most part, the Ice Sculptures we're pretty small and mostly the sort of thing you'd see at a wedding or a business conference centerpiece. Lots of people though. Some video I shot below:
Jenn's blog post on the day below:
Some videos that I forgot to include on my blog last week.
They were tweeted though.
It's very DOS like but Image Worker does let you resize, do sepia, black and white, crop and do some rudimentary bluring and edge detection on Palm Pre.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre
Haven't been getting full sets, so I have alot of Build a figure pieces that are incomplete. Imperiex body and arm, Valdus arm, Brimstone and Kilowog legs, Darkseid head and lower body.
Silver Banshee, Jemm, Robotman, Beast Boy
Jennifer and I had Chips Ahoy Smores and Watched Season 4 of The Guild tonight. The Guild, starring Felicia Day, is a great show. I recommend any geek see it. It centers around a World of Warcraft guild and there is alot of gamer humor, but any geek who spends alot of time on the internet would appreciate it. I've read that the show is on Netflix, so if so, add it to your queue!
