Headworx

I was posting on privacy many times here . Of all security aspects this one seems to be the most difficult to grasp, understand and address. Yet the general awareness of privacy has been constantly growing, and I believe this will become one of the key differentiators of products and services, looking forward. It is still striking how many people and organizations just do not get it. Last year I was attending a conference where a product manager from a tier-1 multimedia company was presenting his vision of contextual future. I will leave the company name anonymous, but most of you know that brand very well. And they are a premium consumer brand. So the presenter started his story with a scene at a private apartment where a couple were watching a movie. Then she had to leave for an airport. In a taxi the multimedia system offered to continue playing the movie and a multimedia armchair in an airport lounge did the same. So did the seat on the flight. The presenter smiled being re...

Google is in many ways a love-hate relationship. It is hard not to be loved for what it brings. But the hate ingredient pops up every now and then and most commonly when Google takes away what it was offering to its users for a long time. After so many years Inbox is now going away. I would not cry for it as Gmail will still be around,  but I will be crying over one feature of Inbox that I was using the most: Trips. I agree I travel more than an average person, but can imagine I have not been the only one using Trips. My entire life of preparing for a trip (booking flights and stays), going for a trip (figuring out my next flight or hotel) and reporting expenses (I was categorizing each receipt like Uber with a particular trip tag) made my life-0in-transit well organized. But that was the past. And now I am back to manually bucketing all trip-related emails from United, Expedia, Uber, AirBnB and others. Google even went and deleted the February trips I already had. My last ...

Not many here remember the world before USB. Bulky connectors for "serial" and "parallel" cables. External power supplies for just about everything. USB changed all that, bringing together high speed data AND power. While HDMI failed to recognize this opportunity (there is no power on HDMI sockets, which limits heavily the usability of HDMI accessories), USB-PD (Power Delivery) over the Type-C connector has taken the cable unification to a new level. I praised the potential of this new standard a number of times , at the same time highlighting the potential issues we have with it. The issues come down to the fact than not all USB-C ports nor cables are equal. Ironically, Apple, who is considered a company promoting its own closed ecosystem is the best implementer and promoter of the standard connectivity technologies. Take the AirPods, which use Bluetooth and work with any phone (not just iPhones). Same with USB-C. They moved there first in MacBooks and now fo...

U.S. Air Force photo/Maj. David Kurle Self driving cars attract attention. Equipped with technology marvels (smartphones) in their hands, cruising at 30000 feet in reclining armchairs at 500mph while sipping champagne, people think (or really believe) that everything's possible. And, as an example, cars will drive themselves without human assistance on public roads pretty soon. As British would put it "I hear what they are saying..." and "that is very interesting". In short: I doubt this will happen anytime soon. I made my opinion clear back in 2011 , and nothing has materially changed since then. Fully autonomous cars in an uncontrolled environment (read: public roads) are insanely difficult thing to achieve. Yes, they can navigate Palo Alto, CA or Phoenix, AZ, at crawling speeds. Or they can ride down a lane on a highway. But any time an unexpected obstacle appears in front of them, they will slam head-on into that, killing the passengers. None of ...