thinglets: All that's wrong about Tech Blogging

Straight out of the gate let me plead guilty - I have a soft spot in my heart for tech blogs and podcasts. I have, however, written several times on the ourobouros-like feeding of such blogs and podcasts on each other and often themselves. This humble blogger and podcaster feels that we've stretched the envelope a bit much when 390 words can be devoted to the headline: 

Deja vu all over again: Apple patent hints at tablet

Now I know that the writers at arstechnica and other like sites are prompted to pick up on even the smallest tidbit of minutae about the most arcane aspects of Apple, Microsoft or Google, but isn't a post where the optimistic highlight is "however, the company has indicated that it's at least contemplating how to best implement the idea, should the opportunity arise one day."

Let's deconstruct. 390 words that concludes, on the basis of a patent filing mind you, that Apple is "indicating that it's contemplating" a product that may be a possibility some day. I'm all for the "if/then" logic construct, but in this conclusion where's the "then"? I'm stuck with so many "ifs" in front of me that I feel like I'm at the "Obscure Films of Malcolm McDowell Festival."

The "news" of this story could be (and probably should be) started and finished with the headline. Everything else is supposition and subjectivity, which is fine, but doesn't inspire return visits. The article's tagline includes "Speculation about a Mac tablet refuses to die." Well of course it refuses to die, you keep bringing it up!

I don't mean to pick on this article or writer specifically because this post is symptomatic of a pattern that is creeping forward as more and more bloggers tend to be fighting for the same content. My thoughts, if you're going to go completely speculative and conditional anyway, knock one out of the park. How about:

"Apple was once again caught filing a patent for technology that could be used in a new tablet computer, but will more likely be used in building a spaceship capable of breaching the theoretical space/time continuum. If such a feat is accomplished, the Cupertino mindtrust could place Steve Jobs into the iStar and blast him backwards in time to the point where his current condition is/was not an issue. They would, however, have to ensure that should he interact with any Sleestacks along the way, his encounter would not result in any repercussion for the possibility of the development of the iPhone Clear which cannot be seen by the naked eye but does have cut/paste and Flash functionality."

mac tablet

thinglets: The Car of the Future Ready in October

I never thought that I'd fear the idea of zipping around like so many characters from 60s sci-fi movies, but does this car look safe to anyone. Don't get me wrong, it's looks ultracool, but will this last five minutes on roads with ice, snow, or in temperatures of -20? Doesn't it look like one could just kick the axles right off this thing?

I certainly admire that the "all-electric three-wheeled two-seater" will apparently be ready in October '09 for a relatively decent price point of $25000-$45000 and "get the equivalent of 200 mpg and go 100 miles on a charge."

I really do admire the effort, but unless I'm driving this thing on the Salt Flats I'm not feeling too confident.

car of the future

lovehate: Web 2.0... whither 2.1?

Now that Web 2.0 has become a redundant term (after all, don't we expect the web to be interactive, feeding, streaming and end-user tweakable these days) when will the terminology move to the next step up the version hierarchy.
 
I have to apologize in advance, because while this lovehate will incorporate many open-ended questions that I invite people to answer for me, the majority of the discussion will not revolve around the real object of my derision: version-branding everything... but I digress 3.5.
 
When the Web 2.0 moniker became de rigeur around aught four, more people clamped onto the fashion of the version upgradability of the name as opposed to knowing what it was all about.
 
Remember the first time you could easily manage your RSS feeds, or the first time you got to move widgets around a page on the fly to create a custom portal experience? Remember the first time you Dugg something by clicking a simple button that updated on the fly, or giving a thumbs-up or down to a comment? Remember seeing your first REALLY cool freaky-styley Flash interface and then getting annoyed by them like so many animated gifs and beveled buttons of the past? Remember finding websites by designers that learned how to use flash for substance instead of style? Remember when social networks opened our eyes from a history of forums and newsgroups or even listservs?
 
Most of us remember all of this as the nascent signs that would be the explosion of Web 2.0 and yet, to me anyway, and I'm guessing many others, that seemed so long ago. Surely we've hit the version change or the upgrade somewhere along the way. We must be at Web 2.4.6 or Web 2.0 SP-1 by now. If we're going to buy into the branding of the Web as a version number, shouldn't we be willing to run with the entire procedure?
 
And here's a BTW 4.6: what ever happened to the Internet? Now, I could be wrong, but didn't the web used to be part of the internet? Wasn't "Internet" the global catchphrase dropped by politicians who wanted to seem too cool for their own good. Has Web 2.0 not only usurped "Web" but also "Internet" as well? Has the term "internet" become nothing more than a series of tubes? Have the words become interchangeable due to the Web's popularity?
 
And just by way of a WTF? 5.1, if Web 3.0 is supposed to be the advancement of server models that are not just storage and retrieval, but of execution as found in already existing web productivity applications like those promoted by Apple, Microsoft and, most prominently, Google, haven't we breached the outer vestiges of Web 3.0 already? Haven't we started to float through the Cloud? Surely we're starting to reach some of the potential if not benchmarks that would constitute a version shift, yet no one is ready to say we're officially at the Web 3.0 stage yet, but how about 2.5, 2.3, 2.1... hell, I'd even take 2.0.1 alpha at this point because it seems no version advancement moves so slow as that which evolves before our eyes.
 
And so if constant evolution is actually preventing a clean division between 2.0 and 3.0, who will ultimately be the voice responsible for leading us from the arbitrary muck and mire to the magic number? Will it be something as simple as a prompt from the social networker with the most followers? A well-placed tweet that gets re-tweeted ad infinitum until, by no fault, wish, cause, or ability of our own, we live in a Web 3.0 world and the first bloggers and eager tech column writers start heralding the advancements that are bound to be present in Web 4.0.
 
Maybe by then it will be called iWeb or MSWeb or GoogleWeb or The People's Web Republic of the United Provinces of China or Skynet.

Web 2.0 Table

DyscultureD Episode Fifteen: "The Quint" is up!

DyscultureD

Click HERE to listen or subscribe to DyscultureD on iTunes!

Full Dysclosure
MacWorld Expo: The Show Before The Show
Phishing for the Fail Whale on Twitter
Facebook Says No Boobs Allowed - Unless You Are One Of Their Policy-Makers
Why Facebook is losing its status as “Treehouse 2.0″ - Parents Welcome!
Spotify: The Torrent Alternative

Tech Segment
The 6 Things That Kinda Shoulda Probably Won’t Happen in 2009

Wheel of Pop
Movies 1990

Websites Of The Week
Mike: www.makezine.com
Anth: www.ponoko.com

Musical Selection
Fembots

thinglets: who says the mundane can't be snazzy

Coolmaterial.com has just released a list they call Ultra-Minimalism: 19 Cool Products That Are Almost Impossible to Use. Included are toilets, tables, mugs, watches and other assorted basic sundry items that have become stylized to the point of the fanciful to the unrecognizable to the plain unusable.

Judge yourself. I personally think the Malevich-inspired Das Keyboard Ultimate is a bit too minimalist for my tastes.

Das Keyboard Ultimate

thinglets: Panasonic Invents Paperless Fax

Why does this strike me like when my dad first said "I bought a cordless screwdriver" and I replied "Haven't they been cordless for centuries". Panasonic now wants you to buy a fax machine to essentially do email. With smartphones and internet messaging devices of all sizes, it make me wonder why someone would want to buy something the size of a fax machine to receive an email on. Can't people finally get behind the scanner/pdf process yet?

You can read about it here if your Japanese is good or here if it's old reliable English you crave. If not, you can take solace in the fact that if you haven't sent a fax in years, and wonder why people still do, you're really not missing out by shaking free of the early adoption on this one.

paperless fax

lovehate: My Shopping Evolution

The world wide web has many positive and negative attributes not the least of which, both positive and negative, is eliminating my need and desire to ever visit brick and mortar stores again.
 
I remember growing up in a time when the Mall was the touchstone of all social and pop cultural advancement. As an early teen I could easily wander from checking out the freaky animals at the pet store to meeting a friend who worked at the record store (they were still called record stores then) to checking out the t-shirt shack, food court, music sections of department stores, book stores and basically wander around aimlessly for hours. This was all, of course, before driving was an option and before I was permitted to hop the bus downtown.
 
Upon gaining the bus permission, my browsing became refined. The downtown core held five record shops worth checking out on a weekly basis with at least two bookstores and two comic book shops. There were also a couple of television stores that carried the latest video game cartridges for Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, and, a couple of years later, Commodore 64 software. This was the first time in my life I could feel ahead of the curve on things. This was the time I was reading magazines on video games, musical instruments, and collectibles. I knew when things were coming out a month in advance and could save up money for something I really wanted because I'd read the advance reviews.
 
The ability to drive and a growing experience at the specialized shops allowed me to winnow down my browsing even further. I knew the best stores to maintain my comic book collection, my sports card collection, my video game addiction and even had "frequent buyer" discounts on all the LPs and cassettes I bought. Each Friday night would be a comic and record run. Each Saturday would be sports cards and video games. I had it down to a system, and the only thing that killed the system was my burgeoning knowledge.
 
You see, I am, by nature, a collector. I have to get parts three and four if I've got parts one and two. I purchased comic book series far after they ever remained good just for the completist in me. I would buy every album a band put out if I liked the first one I bought. I would sometimes avoid a comic book series or novel series altogether if I'd missed the first one or two installments. I liked to get in on the ground floor... it was for this reason I eschewed coming in late to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics and instead turned to the radical underground stylings of the Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters.

ARBH

But knowledge is a costly thing. I soon found I could not keep up with everything I wanted to maintain this completist lifestyle and, as such, started to give up things altogether. I stopped buying comic books. I gave up hockey cards. I radically slowed down book buying. I focused on music and, while trying to keep up with growing PC options, the costs really put them out of my league. Besides, I had already learned how to tape over a notch in a 5.25" floppy in order to copy and recopy to my heart's content.
 
I moved into a time period where the only interest in any mall was books (more as a passing interest than a purchase) and music. And even then, the mp3 scene was bursting out with Napster and Gnutella clients. I had moved my browsing from windows and aisles onto web and ftp sites. I, essentially, forsook the mall.
 
I have the city's only worthwhile mall, by all accounts, a five minute walk from my house and I haven't been there in two years except to meet a friend at a restaurant inside. I remember renewing my license plate stickers two years ago at a kiosk just inside the doorway. I don't know or care to know any of the stores contained therein except for the ones with their illuminated signs emblazoned on the outside. I have been shopping online for over a decade. I remember pooling friends together to buy 500 blank CD-Rs and 1000 CD-R sleeves to get a discount rate. I research, discover, and comparison shop without leaving the comforts of home.

When I walk into the Brick & Mortar store these days, I feel out of place. I see people wandering around aimlessly looking at things and often feel that I should be doing so as well. I'll walk up and down the aisles looking at things I know about, don't want, and wonder why anyone would ever that price for it. When a sales clerk asks if I need help, I'll play the game and say, "No, I'm just looking." I don't want to make the clerks feel bad by letting them in on the fact that their jobs have become meaningless to me unless they have to unlock a display case. I try to make my Brick & Mortar experiences as long as possible to soak in the ritual that accompanies so many of the hoards that still shuffle aimlessly between the shelves.

In reality, but for checkout lines and slow debit machines, I should be out of any store in three minutes or less. I don't want the extended warranty. I don't want to upgrade to the "next" level. I don't want any advice from a clerk who's extent of technological knowledge is capped at chat clients and X-Box Live. CompUSA and Circuit City are victims of me and those like me who now have the tool to do the research, the comparison and often the purchase itself. Gone are the days of trusting a sales clerk to tell you if something is good. I've got a world of reviewers at my disposal and an endless supply of merchants willing to ship worldwide to my door.

Yesterday was Boxing Day in Canada, kind of like Black Friday in the US, and I haven't been there for years to take part. Even the online specials are almost meaningless. Unless I feel like a visceral cattle call in my near future, don't ever expect to see me rubbernecking the Brick & Mortars again. I've evolved.

the madding crowd