Headworx

CNET has recently published an interesting comparison of Apple Newton and Samsung Q1 UMPC . Ten years gap between the two devices should potentially result in an absolutely killing victory of the Q1 Windows - based UMPC, but apart from flash and hype, Q1 has very little advantage in terms of day to day productivity. It is very interesting to see what components of a mobile device got the most technological lift. Definitely LCD displays are much better today than before. Apple Newton is a gray scale unit (who can remember gray scale laptops today?). Q1 UMPC shines with active matrix colors. But overall the comparison is very sad... Especially when you look at battery performance. Q1 runs for 2.5 hours, while the Newton scores 30 hours (on a pack of AAs ). You probably remember I predicted the UMPCs would not hit the hall of fame . There was a reason - I have a Newton at home :). It shares the shelf with other vintage machines. I do not use it for just a few reasons: lack o...

USB Cells ( http://www.usbcell.com/ ) are the ultimate confirmation of what the USB standard is being really used for. The design confirmes the power (pun intended) of standards. AA battery: the most popular energy source, and USB plug: the most popular plug in the world. And you thought there was nothing innovative left to be improved in an AA battery.

How much innovation can be unleashed around computer mouse design? For years we have been experiencing various designs, the old faithful rolling ball is gone and replaced by optical sensors with LEDs or even lasers. Cords are gone replaced by proprietary radio protocols or standard Bluetooth. Mice have wheels, multiple buttons, touch pads, but... let me as you a question? First, do you use a notebook? If yes, do you feel absolutely comfortable with its touchpad or pointer stick? Or do you prefer to use a mouse whenever possible? I guess the latter is the case. But do you carry your mouse everywhere where the notebook goes? Why not? Ahh.. it is bulky. OK. Other obstacles? I see... it is a wireless one and its USB transceiver is bulky. Fine, get yourself a Bluetooth mouse, you won't need any external transceiver. Anything else? Still too big to fit in your briefcase? If you are a frequent traveler, you probably face the same dilemmas as I do. Despite usi ng IBM Lenovo Thinkpad (...

The saga continues. HTC, the most successful mobile phone manufacturer in recent years has just introduced another plug - see the picture on the right. To reduce space and BOM (Bill Of Materials), they use the mini USB socket on the phone to drive headphones. This is going crazy... Not only we are (again!) forced to use the headphones supplied with the phone, but it is impossible to charge the device and listening to the music at the same time... Fortunately I don't care anymore... The new HTC TyTN supports Bluetooth A2DP and I am happy to use the SonyEricsson DS970 headphones, both for calls and for music. A2DP feels like freedom...

Yeah, the old topic surfaces again. The best browser?.... I still love Opera . If you had your tabbed browsing done properly once, you don't want to go back. But unfortunately Opera has some incompatibilities, notably with Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server we use at work. So I used to have Internet Explorer 6 for those "special" sites. Then Internet Explorer 7 has come around and I fell in love with its ClearType fonts. That love proved to be short lived, as I found out ClearType can be turned on and fine-tuned by using the ClearType Tuner (BTW I still cannot understand why this feature is hidden so deep in Windows - Steve Jobs would make ClearType alone the key selling point and differentiator of Macs). Unfortunately many web sites are not compatible with IE7. Notably I have had several problems with Blogger itself when run on IE7, so I decided to use FireFox for publishing Headworx posts. This is a shame. HTML used to be so simple. And now we have true browser madness...

I have not been written about Google for some time. They are making progress on many fronts. Recently launched Google Trends service is a significant milestone. Before Trends, Google was indexing external data. They were just an index to information created elsewhere. With the launch of the Trends, suddenly they added a lot of the information to the Internet. While Google does not own nor has any rights to the information they index, Trends is their own data. By using the Google services we all agree to their terms . And among other things be aware that "Google's servers automatically record information when you visit our website or use some of our products, including the URL, IP address, browser type and language, and the date and time of your request.". By doing that they are able to deliver great new product without touching your privacy. Trends is really great and my perception is we are still far away from its full potential. Just give it a try. For example, look h...