Headworx

The title says it... I am disappointed with the iPad. Well, actually it has been only four days since it arrived (I wanted it earlier but the volcano messed my plans). The bar of expectations has probably been raised too high. So what is up with the device? First it is very cool. Probably the coolest gadget on Earth. A little heavier than expected, but feels great in hand. Feels even better in the original case. The case itself is one of the smartest designs I have ever seen. It covers the screen. It folds back 180 degrees. It can be folded to raise the angle of the device sitting on your laps. Or it can be used as a table stand when you want the Pad to act as a photo frame. Cool :). The on-screen keyboard works better than expected. I am writing this column sitting on a train with the iPad on my lap. It is the best virtual touch keyboard I have ever used. The screen is very good. The touch interface works brilliantly. The battery life is awesome - full day on full brightness. So could...

I planned to attend the Emerging Communications eComm 2010 conference in San Francisco, starting tomorrow. Unfortunately I will not be there due to the #ashtag . All planes are grounded and flights canceled. Truly disappointing, as I was really looking forward to the eComm sessions loaded with unprecedentedly fresh ideas. Initially my flight was scheduled for Friday, April 16th. Initial connection from KRK to FRA departing at 11AM, then an hour and a half in FRA and the second leg to SFO. The day before I was returning home by car, late in the evening. Got a message about the volcano and the mess it produced... (BTW: Iceland should pay a huge pollution tax now...). But my flight was still showing green. Then the events started to flow: April 16th, 00:10:00Z. I get an SMS from Lufthansa staqting my flight had been canceled and suggesting contacting the Lufthansa Service Center in Germany by phone. I was asleep at that time. April 16th, 03:35:00Z. I wake up and check the clock on my Bla...

Days like today bring some more general reflections. Yesterday's tragic crash of presidential plane killed 96 people, among them the President of Poland. But the World never goes to a stand still. As time goes by, the human nature is to learn from mistakes and improve the collective knowledge, wisdom and experience to avoid such catastrophes in future. Punishments (as Jeffrey Satinover points out in The Quantum Brain ), together with rewards, are essential base-forming ingredients of the learning curve of our civilization. Speaking of the learning curve - the rate of air crash related fatalities has dropped tenfold over the last thirty years. This by itself is a proof we learn and draw conclusions. In the recent years there has been a far and wide reaching trend of implementing various computer systems aimed to improve flight safety. And the wisdom of the crowd is they are usually doing the opposite. Every now and then we read media reports of aviation accidents where computers ar...

The Web is abuzz on what iPad will be, will change or not... The early reviews are very positive. In my opinion there is one long reaching aspect we have not paid enough attention to... yet... Magazines. We have already had paperback books finding their new electronic homes in e-Readers around the world. Kindle was a great product. Was. Because its time has just passed. A typical "generation 1" e-Reader, represented by Kindle and other less successful platforms, was an almost 1:1 electronic equivalent of the black-and-white paper version. They were very good for static, monochrome text. Books were followed by newspapers, delivered daily in their electronic versions to Kindles. Amazon of course was trying to do the same with magazines, that, by definition, have much richer content, with glossy paper, color fonts and especially color pictures. And here is where the "generation 1" of e-Readers has come short. I tried a trial subscription to Time on my Kindle, but cance...