Headworx

The 2014 Summer holiday season is over. I have not traveled too much this time, but still there were many occasions to play an amateur / enthusiast photographer. I am now entirely on Foveon gear, with three Sigmas ( DP-1M, DP-2M, DP-3M in my arsenal). And after two years the Sigmas continue to surprise me with what they deliver ( download the attached photo to see a full resolution version and zoom in...). My typical setup is the DP-2M, small enough to carry almost every day and I do not hesitate to take it with me on every occasion. This is a big plus of a small camera. If I had a DSLR, it would probably be staying at home. If I need more flexibility, to shot both wide and tele angles, I take the DP-1M and DP-3M. The DP-1M is used rather rarely, mostly in mountains. I was even considering selling it, but eventually decided it would stay. Despite all the progress in digital photography, there still is really no substitute. The Sony A7R may be close , but the body + a decent lens wo...

For Google, Nest is the second YouTube. Many are still raising their eyebrows learning the amount Google paid for Nest. Bit it is not much different to the purchase of YouTube for $1.65B back in 2006 . Today YouTube remains one of the reasons Apple cannot force Google out of their platform. Just think about iPhone or iPad NOT being able to access YouTube. And with the accumulated content and audience it is probably not possible today to launch a service that would take the traffic away from YouTube. And YouTube is far from a funny cat videos site anymore. It is an extremely powerful educational platform. The most popular site from rural Vietnam to Manhattan to learn how to cook pancakes or replace a hard drive or make manicure. And now it is about to introduce a premium subscription service that will probably kill dozen of existing music streaming sites. Back in 2006 Google envisioned the role of Internet video in the next decade. In 2014 they envisioned the role IoT ecosystem will p...

As promised, some more food for thoughts on Bluetooth vs WiFi (as they still seem to be the most discussed IoT protocols today). Today the post is about the first encounters, or the setup process. So you've just bought a new connected device. It is in a so called factory state. You want to connect to it. What does it take with WiFi? The goal is to connect it as a client to your WiFi network. To do this, you have tell the device your WiFi password. Of course this can weaken your WiFi security, but let's skip this issue for a moment. So how do you tell a lamp your WiFi password? You could if you connected, but you cannot connect until you tell the password... Chicken and egg. There are several techniques to do this, all of them problematic. The most common today (used by Belkin WeMo among others) is a device in a factory state creates it's own network. So you navigate to your WiFi settings, search for new networks, select the right one form the usually long list and your ...

This has surprised me. I thought mobile roaming would not go away before the end of the decade. It did. I am happy to report I changed my mobile service provider to Truphone . It is amazing. Actually it does what a mobile phone service should do in 21st century. Gives freedom. Globally. By - as they claim - redefining local. From technical point of view Truphone is a mobile service provider. You can simply get a Truphone SIM. Here is where the nice things start. The SIM is multi-IMSI, meaning there can be many phone numbers attached to it. Up to eight. And each can be in a different country. I picked three: USA, Poland and Hong Kong. Then it has a smart CLI function, meaning when calling out, it presents itself with the number most appropriate to the called party. When I call a US-based number, my own US number is presented. When I call a number in Poland, my Polish is presented. Same with Hong Kong. So the called person can always call me back locally, while I can be on an entire ...

So what was the rationale behind Google's acquisition of Nest? Getting into the smart home business? Not really. Displaying AdSense ads on thermostats? I don't think so... Google is not really a search company. It’s a machine-learning company. Big data machine-learning company. Actually I posted on this nine years ago . Describing how various services are feeding the monster with information. But all the information Google could get was coming mostly from humans. Google has been hungry for more. With the proliferation of low power networks and tiny inexpensive radios the entire new universe of information has become available: the things. The Internet of Things. But the beast needed to access that universe. So they bought Nest. Now it makes even more sense with the Thread Group : let's interlink all the devices to Nest. And a Nest Thermostat, acting as a gateway, will forward all this data to Google. IoT simply becomes yet another nozzle connected to the big data vac...