Summary of this week:

Ray Bradbury dies at 91
Computex is this week and we have several Windows 8 tablets introduced
Reviews say the product, Windows 8, is lousy
Commerical airliner crashes in Lagos, Nigeria
Everyone is waiting for the big Apple event next week

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday June 4, 2012

(Gruesome photos) An airliner crashed into a populated area of Lagos, Nigeria. I lived there 1994-1995. There was an airliner crash in Nigeria in 1995 that killed some acquiantances. Flying in much of the world is dangerous.

Computex 2012 is this week in Taiwan. Look for product announcements.

Here we go, ViewSonic has a 22" "tablet" computer for the desktop. Turn this into a tele-viewer and my grandson will be thrilled. He is used to the touch screen on the iPad and doesn't understand why all the screens in the world don't work the same way.

802.11ac WiFi is here. More models every day from manufacturers bringing 1.75GigaBitsPerSecond.

Announcing the ASUS Windows 8 tablet.

Not to be outdone, Acer shows their new Windows 8 tablet.

HP updates their portable computers with the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors.

First the newspapers, now maybe good old television is headed down.

It seems that Amelia Earhart survived a while on an atoll in the Pacific.

Another hands-on review of the Raspberry Pi. I wish I could get a couple of these.

Not a good development, it seems that it is easy to cheat on online courses. This could set us back a decade.

MBAN - Medical Body Area Network - now we have some standards for these devices. These will help hospitals and, more importantly, allow people to remain at home longer.

Sony has a new all-in-one computer for the desktop. 24" screen. Nice.

And look at the new Dell all-in-one with a 27" screen. Extra nice.

A look at the new Texas Instruments OMAP5430 GPU. Love open market competition.

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Tuesday June 5, 2012

Intel shows a concept for an all-in-one computer with a 29" display. The key feature is an easy-to-change computing board. A few years down the road you swap out the board and keep the other components running.

A discussion of the term and concept of "digital divide." As usual, the media have been lazy in defining terms and using cliches.

As opposed to campaign promises (seems to be a common theme among elected officials), the Obama Administration has prosecuted whistleblowers instead of protecting them.

Apple is to bring the Siri voice command to the iPad. Now how about to all the Apple products?

Microsoft rules the living room thanks to XBox and, more importantly, the Kinect.

This is smart - very smart. Remove all the weight and bulk of in-flight entertainment systems on airliners and hand out iPads to the passengers instead.

"A big part of doing your work is defending your time and your attention so you can do your work." - Godin.

Starbucks just bought the bakery chain La Boulange for $100M. Not tech news? Are you kidding? The techies in northern California are in revolt over their beloved bakery going away or being ruined by Starbucks or some other aspect of the change.

Perhaps the reason that Google drove those photograph-taking cars all over America was NOT for Google Street View but to gather training data for driverless cars.

The world's worst password requirements list. When I was in college - a long time ago - the computing center assigned passwords to us and we couldn't change them. Life wasn't easier, but it was less complicated.

Intel shows a wireless keyboard with a rechargeable battery. The trick is that is charges without wires.

Qualcomm is moving its processors into new markets.

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Wednesday June 6, 2012

No viewing today as we were travelling to Germany to visit our son.

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Thursday June 7, 2012

In Ludwigshafen, Germany with my wife visiting our youngest son. Tough time zone change - six hours.

Ray Bradbury dies at 91.

This must be nice for Google as 2% of their income will come from Apple's iOS.

oooops, online dating site eHarmony admits that user passwords were available online (to non-users). Is everyone ready for national electronic health records?

Stealing its name from Microsfot, SoftKinect is a new motion sensor from a new company.

The Google Street View Trekker. This looks funny, but puts the data capture capability of the Street View cars into a backpack. There are many possible applications. I would love for a few people to wear these in and about the Grand Canyon for a start. There are many other places to follow.

And by the way, the Google Street View cars have logged five million miles.

I have never understood the "science" behind the study of dinosaurs. Now we believe that these creatures weighed far less than we used to believe.

That solar-powered plane completed its first intercontinental flight.

Ah yes, government run education trying to teach science. What a failure. Stop taking standard tests; start building rockets.

Sigh, more government flops in science education - the DHS STEM visa extension program flops.

Mozilla releases Firefox 13.

Success continues to be redefined - Angry Birds Space has been downloaded over 100 million times.

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Friday June 8, 2012

ASUS may have beaten Apple in the movement towards a thinner MacBook Pro.

Acer launches a new line of thinner, lighter, and still low-price portable computers.

I continue to have troubles with my Twitter account. I feel like dropping the whole thing.

Neat, these guys are selling refurbished Polaroid S-70 cameras. Where do you buy the film?

Success redefined - I've never heard of Camera+, but the have sold eight million copies of their app in the last two years.

Has the really small computer that costs about $50 made a return? I hope so. AMD shows off their LiveBox computer. No price yet.

And a closer look at the Android mini PC at $75. But does it run Microsoft Office?

Samsung is moving rom 22nm to 14nm chip production. I keep hearing that Moore's Law is dead, but I keep seeing people put ever more transistors on chips. Believe the terrain, not the map.

Newspapers may be dead, but reading the news isn't. This coffee chain is printing a little news on its cup holders.

Here is something else that I hope works - eye glasses that you can adjust with the turn of a knob. If they are inexpensive, they are a tremendous gift to the elderly and to the developing world.

Early reviews of Windows 8 say the product is bad - another Vista. This time, however, the results of a bad product will be much worse for Microsoft.

The generation in the 20s is supposed to be tech savy, but once again someone finds a tech test that they fail. Once again, someone creates a test that is irrelevant.

Now this one is funny (it would be really funny if it weren't about yet another waste of taxpayers' money): the Department of Homeland Security is going to build a cybersecurity workforce.

The life of a "booth babe." The money is alright, the work is alright, but that is about it.

Now you can buy your own StreetView camera kit.

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Saturday June 9, 2012

George Will has an excellent piece on the College Bubble. "The government decided that too few people owned homes/went to college, so government money was poured into subsidized and sometimes subprime mortgages/student loans, with the predictable result that housing prices/college tuitions soared and many borrowers went bust." Oh well, your tax dollars at waste. A bad part of the story is that much of the rise in the price of college is that administrators now outnumber teachers. Hmmmmm.

Google's co-founders will be questioned by the Federal Trade Commision in an anti-trust probe. Hmmmm. Let me put this story together with the one above. Government pours money into colleges who hire more administrators than teachers and that is good. Google's founders create a company that hires lots of people and that is bad. I'll have to consider all this for a while. I am sure it will make sense eventually. Enough commentary on the wisdom of government for one day.

But wait, we can't be finished. A U.N. proposal would tax U.S. web sites.

Logitech will cut 450 jobs (13% of its labor force).

Young males are fading as the most important tech demographic.

Apple has been awarded a patent on "wedge-shaped" laptop computers. This means the MacBook Air shape is patented. Those Ultrabook copies? Yikes, this could be a big deal.

Print your instagram photos on drink coasters - real ones, not just cheap paper ones.

Something a little different for those who build their own PCs - an open mesh PC case.

A look at the actual Ultrabook computers that appeared at this week's Computex.

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Sunday June 10, 2012

Some thoughts on life and death from Ray Bradbury.

I like this history - the observation post tree from world war one.

Practice doesn't make perfect, but practice is practice, and writers need practice.

Some thoughts on why engineers work alone. Much of the reasons are that engineering students have misconceptions about what engineers do. I know I certainly did.

A roundabout look at the value of revisions in writing.

A look at tech and business innovation in East Africa. There is hope in that part of the continent.

Some writers and freelancers are plagued by relatives who disrespect their lives. That is sad.

A really bad mood can improve your writing. I guess any mood can improve your writing if you let it.

This writer set her book aside for a year between edits. One of the great things about computers and files and all this electronic stuff is that it is easy to put away things. You don't have to throw them away. And you can always say, "I am finished with this - for now."

And how do you know when your novel is done? This is pretty good advice, but in the day of ePublishing where, I believe, the goal is to write three or four novels a year, the advice may be outdated.

Everyone (of your characters) has a right to a story.

A list of the jobs that are going “remote” the fastest.

Considerations for writing a non-fiction book.I have written four or five.

And now we go the other way - what writing a fiction book can do for your non-fiction career.

Don’t buy an Apple computer this week!The strong rumors are that Apple will update ALL of its computers next week.

Using some of George Orwell’s writing advice on your blog.

Ten mistakes on writer made with her first eBook(and how to try to avoid them).

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