Author: Dr. Bill

A lot of you may not know this, but I wasn’t always just a computer geek. I actually started out in technology as a photographer. I shot high school newspaper and yearbook photographs as a “staff” photographer for the school that I attended, Central Davidson Senior High. So, it made sense that I would go to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting, Printmaking, and Photography. After I got out of college I opened my own photography business called Bailey Photographic Arts. As you might expect, I had my own fully equipped darkroom, and I had a series of Nikon professional cameras. And, I thoroughly enjoyed photography. However, I discovered that while photography was a great hobby, it really wasn’t what I wanted to do in terms of a career. So, over time I ended up getting into computers, at a time when personal computers were in their infancy, the late 70’s and early 80’s, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Why tell you all this? Well, I read many articles recently online that are predicting the death of the DSLR that is, the Digital Single Lens Reflex camera. Now you might say, “But wait, Dr. Bill, DSLR’s are fairly recent technologies!” That’s true, but this article from NBC News says it pretty well; dedicated cameras seem to be on their way out! Why? Because so many people are using their smartphones as cameras! As you know, there are a lot of photographs being posted to Facebook, Twitter, and lots of other web sites! It’s certainly not that photography is dead! It’s a matter of convenience. And the fact that smartphones have gotten better and better at taking pictures, resolutions are higher, tools are easier to use, and they’re getting better all the time! For instance. The Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone has the ability, within the phone, to shoot pictures and eliminate elements within the image, like the commercial that they have showing someone graduating from school and some knucklehead stepping in front of the people in the photo that the parents are taking, and then allowing you to eliminate that person from the shot! That’s pretty cool for camera in a smartphone, you have to admit!

So what does this mean for the future of Nikon and Canon the two best-known, high end, camera makers? As this NBC News article reports the president of Nikon, Makoto Kimura, said in an interview with Bloomberg recently that the company might have to “change the concept of cameras” in order to survive! That could be very interesting!

Here’s a link to the NBC News article: We’re taking more pictures than ever … so why are cameras dying off?

And, speaking of Apple, they are apparently guilty, at least according to a judge, of conspiring to “fix” e-book prices!

Judge: Apple conspired to raise e-book prices

USA Today reported: “SAN FRANCISCO — Apple conspired with five major publishers to illegally raise consumer prices for electronic books in 2010 and will next face a trial to decide how much it owes in damages, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The decision was a blow to Apple, which had refused to settle the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit even after all five publishers negotiated settlements with the government and state attorneys general.

The company said it would appeal the decision. While states are seeking money damages from Apple, the Justice Department wants the court to bar Apple for two years from entering into any similar agreements that let publishers rather than retailers set prices or discriminating against competing e-reader apps.

‘This result is a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically,’ Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said in a statement.

Apple shares fell $1.62 to $420.73 in regular trading Wednesday.

The Justice Department claimed Apple forged agreements with the publishers that permitted higher pricing on best sellers and new releases, effectively nudging e-books and best sellers to $12.99 and $14.99, respectively. That helped publishers who were unhappy with Amazon selling e-books for $9.99, a price they thought was too low.

Apple conspired to create an environment that enabled the company and publishers to eliminate all retail price competition for their e-books, Cote said.

Apple denied any wrongdoing.

‘Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing, and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,’ Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said in a statement. ‘When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much-needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong, and we will appeal the judge’s decision.’

Cote’s ruling followed a three-week trial that ended June 20. Witnesses included executives from Amazon, the publishers and Apple, including Eddy Cue, a longtime digital-rights dealmaker and a lieutenant of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011.

Apple backed what’s known as an agency model. That positioned publishers, rather than retailers, to set prices when Apple entered the e-books market in 2010 with its iPad and iBookstore. The deal allowed Apple to grab its 30% commission on books and the publishers had to match lower prices of any other retailers, such as Amazon.

Legal experts remained mixed on whether Apple’s actions were defensible or ran afoul of antitrust concerns.

‘The most explosive thing that may come out of this is the court’s imposing … restrictions on the way Apple operates its e-book and App Store platform. Apple may be forced to open up access,’ says Bob Kohn, a technology and media attorney.

‘Apple has good arguments to raise on appeal. But the new problem Apple faces is that the judge’s massive opinion relies so heavily on facts and inferences that an appellate court is unlikely to have room to modify the decision substantially,’ says Keith Hylton, a professor at Boston University School of Law.

Last year, Apple settled with the European Commission on an antitrust case over e-book pricing without admitting wrongdoing.”

Yes, yesterday (July 12th) was the 5th anniversary of the Apple App Store. We now use the term “app” among the general populace, and (for the most part) they know what we geeks are talking about! Pretty neat actually! We now have the “Google Play” App Store for Android, and even business oriented products like Citrix XenApp, and VMware Horizon Suite have “App Store”-like paradigm’s to relate to those of us that expect to find applications in an “app store.” Pretty decent adoption of a concept in five short years!

We expect it by 2015! I totally want one!

Open Source Back To The Future II – Like Hoverboard in the Making for… 2015

“We’re pretty sure that nobody could argue against the cool factor of ‘hoverboards,’ the magically powered skateboards from the future, which have been blessed with a self-explanatory name, requiring no additional clarification. The idea stems from the 1989 movie ‘Back to the Future II,’ which has main character Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, go back and forth in time, from 2015 to the year 1955.

The former year brings us neatly to a very optimistic project from the realm of crowd-funding, because waiting stacked among the many ideas of varying feasibility on Indiegogo, is a page created for a planned hoverboard project, which incidentally is also due in 2015.

The company behind it, Haltek Industries, promises a working, fully usable board, which will transport its user in complete security, in a Health&Safety-inspected package you will be able to place under the Christmas tree for your kids to jump on straight away, as well as control using a mobile app.

Haltek Industries says they are going to give the boards the very latest batteries (either lithium-air tech, or paper dipped ‘into ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires,’ which turns each sheet into a supercapacitor). The juice will go on to power two fans, which in turn will create lift. No Area 51 anti-gravity business going on here (yet), it seems, as we are greeted by familiar, old fashioned engineering, when we look at some of the more stripped out rendered representations, which show the actual moving parts.

They are asking for a cool $1 million (€0.8 million) to begin with, because quote ‘What did you think that was going to cost?’ and they say the money is going into setting up an online development center first, then they ‘need to come up with a few designs that are cost-feasible,’ before finally starting construction of prototypes. All of this while developing the necessary technology along the way, incorporating the very latest of technical innovations deemed relevant.

It sounds like a plan, which we hope will work out in the end. However, there are a few inconsistencies that cannot be overlooked, even once you’ve grown accustomed to and accepted the idea that such a thing can be done by 2015. Furthermore, they say the project is ‘open-sourced,’ but I thought that meant the source was open, whereas here it sounds like they are funneling in ideas, sending people a nice ‘thank you!’ email and then using the ideas to found a hoverboard-building industrial empire.

They need to keep things out in the open, if they are going down this road, and there will be benefits to that, and even a possible community movement may take shape. The tradeoff is that, if they do accidentally stumble upon cheap anti-gravity or anything relevant in the way of ‘future tech’, rest assured it won’t be Haltek Industries that will be making the boards in the end, as they will have been gobbled up by an already established industrial empire.

Finally, regarding contributions, you can give them up to ten thousand of your dollars, and be one of the first 100 people to be flown to the launch party, planned for the summer of 2015. Once there, you will be presented with a unique board, as well as gain access to restricted development information and probably a more behind the scenes experience of the whole deal.

In addition, after you’ve given Haltek Industries your money, do make sure to also pick up an original pair of Nike shoes, exactly like the ones worn in the movie that started it all. They’re not cheap though, and will also cost you a few more thousands of dollars…or you can wait for Nike to come out with the second run of Air Mag shoes for the masses, at around the same time, in 2015.”

“I can’t open the jar,” she said.
“Install JDK and try again,” he said.

There’s a band called 1023MB. They haven’t had any gigs yet.

Why do engineers confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because OCT 31 = DEC25.

Entropy isn’t what it used to be.

Two scientists walk into a bar. The first one says, “I’ll have some H2O.” The second says, “I’ll have some H2O too.” The second scientist dies.

Did you hear about the man that got cooled to absolute zero? He’s 0K now.

Can you tell the difference between a chemist and a plummer? Ask them each to pronounce “unionized.”

So Schrodinger and Heisenberg were driving in a car. Eventually, a cop pulled them over and ask Heisenberg, “Sir, do you know how fast you were going?” Heisenberg replied, “No, but I can tell you exactly where I was.” Thinking this was a weird response, the cop decided to check the vehicle. He come back up to Schrodinger and asks, “Sir, did you know you had a dead cat in your trunk?” Schrodinger replied, “I do now.”

There are 10 kinds of people who get the above jokes; those who do and those that don’t.