Macworld

Just a quick post - I'm away with work and grabbing two minutes. So, Macworld happened. The AppleTV (aka iTV) is pretty sweet, but check out the iPhone! It's super sexy. Sign me up for one... just as soon as they reach the UK. Looks like that might be at the 'end of the year' though.. bah!

Good old Apple. When they do something they do it right.

On OSX and Vista

In my 'tech predictions for 2007' I remarked on how Vista is a poor copy of OSX. This irked several people and I received the expected accusations of being a fanboy. Well, it's not just me - this bias-free article from InformationWeekcompares OSX with Vista. Have a look. Most IT professionals won't argue that OSX isn't technically superior, and it's nice to have an article to point people to.

2007 Tech Predictions

Predicting what may happen in the coming year is one of those entertaining traditions that lots of people like to maintain, so I felt I would join in! The danger of predicting technology trends is obvious of course, but I should be relatively safe with a 12 month timeframe! So, here goes...

1. On its UK launch the PS3 will sell fairly well, but by the end of the year the Nintendo Wii will have the most units shipped. XBox360 will be in second place.


2. The Zune won't sell well and will quietly be dropped. I mean... who owns one? The only one I've ever actually seen 'in the flesh' was owned by a Microsoft employee.


3. Vista will finally ship (what is it... 3 years late?) to generally underwhelmed consumers. The only people who will bother with it are those who will get it bundled with their new PCs, but of course it will become the dominant OS by default. Meanwhile, Apple will release Leopard so that MS will have something new to copy (badly) for their next version of Windows. To be fair, Vista looks better than XP and will probably make my life at work (where I have no choice but to use Windows) easier, but it's very little very late, and hardly 'innovative'


4. Consumer broadband connectivity will be high enough to really start eating into TV viewing. Channel 4 have their on-demand service already of course, and once the BBC service is running I predict that people will start to drop cable and satellite subscriptions. After all, these are mostly held for the convenience of 'something good being on' when you sit down to watch, rather than the number of channels.


5. The fullscreen video iPod will launch, with moderate success. Technogeeks will love it, but most people don't want to watch video on small devices. Much more successful will be the video downloads from the iTunes store though - people can use this and still watch video on their monitors (and TVs, thanks to things like the iTV), and that's what they want. The new video iPod will simply be a channel to enable this.


6. Hardware sales of desktops and laptops will rise, but more slowly than the last few years. Most people who want a computer already own one that is powerful enough for their needs. More gaming will take place on consoles, so the major driver for more powerful computers will be lessened. The MacOS will see a modest increase its overall percentage of OSs in use, as will Linux. Mac hardware will see a good boost since people can now run Windows on it, if they must. If Leopard really does run Windows apps seamlessly then that will help too since people won't have to install Parallels, or any other third-party software.

OK, there are my predictions. Let's see what the year brings!

Wii Greatness

Hello. Sorry about the break - back again now. Hope you missed me.

I've bought a new toy since my last post - a Nintendo Wii. From the day that Nintendo announced what was initially the 'Revolution', I knew they were onto a winner. Yes, the XBox 360 is pretty good, and I'm sure that the PS3 will be - I have a 360 and I'll probably get a PS3 too, but the Wii is the most exciting from a gameplay level.

Initial impressions are very favourable indeed. I was 'lucky' enough (as anyone who is paying over the odds on eBay would be now, if they had any planning skills and reserved one) to get a Wii on the day of release. Currently I have 'Wii Sports' (bundled with the console), 'Wii Play' (bundled with the extra controller), and 'Zelda: Twilight Princess'. Wii Sports and Play are basically short, multi-player orientated games that show-off the Wii Remote. It all works exceptionally well - the controller is excellent and the games are based on 'real' sports which you replicate with the Wii Remote. This means that pretty much anyone can pick-up the remote and play. For example, you hold the remote just like a tennis racket for the tennis game, and golf club for the golf, and so on. The remote is very sensitive and you can chip, spin and hit the ball with an amazing degree of control. You really have to try it for yourself.

I think the next couple of years will be a good time for Nintendo. The DS seems to be doing very well, and they have judged the market very well. I've been wrong before of course (I still think that the GameCube was the best of the last generation of consoles, but sadly sales show that most people didn't agree), but they seem to be doing very well so far. 2007 will be an interesting year for gaming.

National Blog

It has been all over the news this morning but in case you haven't seen it, you're encouraged to blog today for a national archive. You don't have to be doing anything special as they simply want a snapshot of what life in Britain is like. It seems like an interesting and socially useful thing to take part in, so why not give it a go?

Google great - again!

I'm a programmer, for my sins. Those of you who have a similar bent will probably be all too familiar with those times where you know that the code you're trying to write must exist! It happens all the time.... in fact most programming is an implementation of the 'cut and paste wizard'. So with that in mind, check this out. Can Google do no wrong?!

Nabaztag

My Nabaztag wifi cyber bunny continues to impress. It is perhaps the most useful gadget I've bought in some time. The default functionality is very useful, and having had a quick look at the API there it seems easy to write your own services too. Several ideas have already popped into my head. It's a good excuse for my more serious foray into Objective-C on the Mac I think. Programming is much more enjoyable when you actually have a goal that's useful to you (which is where day jobs fall down, in my experience!). Anyway, that all sounds rather techie, but Nabaztag isn't by default. Buy one - I promise that you'll find it useful. Well, as long as you have a wireless network at home. Without that he's just a doorstop (although one with some designer chic). You can send messages to me via bunny from the widget on my web page. Give it a go!