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Harry McCracken Rounds Up the Year In Tech
Velcroman1 writes "Windows got less annoying. Smartphones became smarter. The Internet continued to change entertainment for the better. All in all, it was a good year for technology and the folks who use it. Harry McCracken, the brains behind Technologizer and the former editor-in-chief of PC World, reveals his picks and pans for the most interesting tech stories of the year."
The thing about Palm is they might not have Apple-like cult status, but there are still a lot of Palm fans out there. Plus, compared to the Centro, and the old Palm OS, Web OS is nice, new and shiny. About the biggest problems with WebOS is, its tied to one carrier that isn't a big one. Sprint, while a large company, is nothing when compared to AT&T and Verizon. When the Pre branches out to all major networks, I can see it being a small success, and really taking Palm further more than any other phone previous to it. Just look at Apple when it switched to OS X, it was a rough transition, but once it got going, it turned into a really nice OS.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They have hardened fans in the smartphone development industry. A whole lot of the most experienced smartphone developers cut our teeth by developing on PalmOS, and they've been waiting for this platform's release for so long that these C coders taught themselves javascript and css and became web devs just to build apps for the platform. In part, a lot of us built close development relationships with Palm as their support and engineers were extremely cool and supportive back in the day, and a lot of us haven't forgotten that.
..., but there are still a lot of Palm fans out there.
Well, I was once one of them. Palm made crappy hardware, like screens that were scratched beyond use in just three weeks by normal use, but PalmOS was way better than WinCE. Then they made the most stupid move ever: to combine the most crappy OS (Windows Mobile) with their own most crappy hardware. They may have learned from their mistake, but I did too.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Hits
Microsoft Windows 7 doesn't suck. It is a good update to XP and runs well on most PC that chocked on Vista. Vista took all the heat for missing drivers and such so Vista didn't have too.
Android looks like ti will be the Windows of smartphones. It is everywhere and soon will be available on on carriers.
Twitter has become the darling of the year. Now if they just figure out how to make money with it.
Google Chrome. It is fast and it works well. Yet another browser steps up and shows that choice is good.
Motorola is back. Motorola when from hero to zero and now back to hero thanks to the Droid. Keep pushing big M we need you
EBook readers. This is the dawning of the year of the EBook or not but they are everywhere.
The ZuneHD. Wow it is pretty and has a nice interface. It is a great media player and ZunePass makes it so tempting.
NetFlix streaming. It is on the XBox, Roku, PS3, and now showing up on BluRay players. Just too cool and too handy.
3D movies. I think they are here to stay
The Kodak Zi8. It is a better HD camcorder than the Flip and at under $200 is a bargain. Now anybody can shoot HD at 1080p. And you thought slid shows where bad! I will not get into the terror of amature HD pron that I suspect will soon be flooding the Internet. Still a win but one that should scare us all.
Misses
MindowsMobile. It has no mind share and looks like it will be the dull also ran of the smartphone world. Unless Microsoft does something mind blowing soon it should just walk away.
Nokia what are you doing? No really what are you doing? We have no idea and wonder if you do. Is the future S60 or Linux for you? Wait you came out with a netbook... Running WINDOWS?.
PSP Go or as many people call it PSP Go Away... Really it is more expensive than the PSP, you have no way to play your UMD games on it and games are showing first in UMD form and only latter
in the online store! Sony are you nuts?
The ZuneHD, wait that was a hit? Yes it was from a tech and design standpoint the problem is that nobody cares. It lacks an open app store like the iPod Touch does and frankly nobody really cares about it. The ZuneHD is a miss because it is just invisible. Microsoft if you had made it a phone with an open app store you would have knocked it out of the ball park.
Linux. I love Linux but it is still not doing it on the Desktop. Linux could have made huge inroads because Vista sucked and wouldn't run on netbooks. The first netbooks ran Linux but they sucked. They had a strange flavor of Linux. Had the Linux community gotten it's act together it could have really made headway. The number one problem is that it is hard to sell software for Linux. I still have hope. Folks this is what we need. A pretty and fast version of Linux. Might I suggest that it use QT embedded and ditch X or run X on top of QT embedded for programs that must use X. Next get an app store so people can buy and sell apps. Next It has to support Flash. Finally make a Smartbook that will run for hours on a battery charge supports HD video in hardware, looks good, and is under $350. It also must have an HDMI and and a ir port for a remote. Now make a deal with NetFlix, Blockbluster, and Amazon to sell download and streaming media on it. Yes I love Linux.
AT&T your ads suck. No really that you can surf the web while talking on your cell phone just isn't that big of a deal to most people. To the none techies they are going why would you ever do that? The techies all know it only works on your small 3G network and will not work on the much bigger edge network. It is a sad reply to the Verizon ads.
Comcast and AT&T. We are paying you to access the internet! WE THE CUSTOMERS THAT ARE PAYING WILL DECIDED WHAT SITES WE WANT TO GO TO! WE DO NOT WANT YOU SELL BETTER ACCESS TO ONE SITE BECAUSE WE ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND WE WANT EVERY SITE WE USE AND EVERY SERVICE WE USE TO BE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!!!! WE AS A NATION HAVE GIVEN YOU BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR BROADBAND AND WE HAVE
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.