Headworx

The Mimo 710 USB monitor (see http://www.mimomonitors.com/ ) arrived a couple of days ago. I have to confess I was somehow skeptical on how it would actually work. Plenty of well advertised gadgets these days, but not all of them working as expected. The Mimo is different. Works flawlessly. Of course the main selling point was the single USB cable it uses for power and video signal. Using USB to carry video has been news to me... But it looks like a USB interface is quite capable of carrying video, at least with lower resolutions, like the 800x480. At the moment I am not sure of the final application for the Mimo in my environment. So far I have been using it to display a number of side tasks. I configured it to extend my Windows desktop, so I can basically grab any window and drag it over to the Mimo. It can play Media Player videos. It can be used to display real time performance of selected stocks (I have been using Google Finance in full screen browser for that). I can drag progres...

I have been playing recently with several satellite TV set top boxes. They have their own race... started probably some time ago by TiVo. Play / pause live programming / replay / watch one while recording another... Yes, television, even in its classic form, has changed... Many service providers already offer movies on demand... But to be honest, despite virtually thousands of satellite channels, I watch TV quite seldom.... And it is not so easy for me to find something I really like... I like movies, not necessarily of American origin, but French or Italian... With some eminent characters like Jean Reno for example ;) But EPG (Electronic Program Guide) services offered by TV service / platform providers do not stand the test. They are organized in structured directories and usually do not allow search based on various attributes. Tonight I would like to find a channel playing a movie of particular genre or with an actor of my choice... It ain't possible - what I have is just title...

So everybody is talking now about Google's announcement of the Chrome OS. How it will collide with Microsoft and Apple etc... Thinking of the Google's move from a perspective of a few days now, I do not see it as a major thing... at least for a few years from now... There are number of reasons, and many of them sit on our very own PCs running Windows. Generally speaking is the client software compatibility. There is ever increasing base of electronic gadgets that come with PC applications to configure and run them. Start with a wireless modem - a USB dongle provided by a mobile network operator. It gives us the connectivity on the go. But there is no generic interface to configure these things. Every single one comes with a piece of software (aka connection manager) that runs on Windows. Most of them are Windows only. Then there are printers. Be it HP or Canon, each requires a driver talking to the printer. Drivers are for Windows and Macs, with very few supporting Linux and no...

I continue traveling across the USA. Have been on the road for more than two weeks now. Armed with many mobile weapons, many interesting observations come to my mind. The truth is I have mostly been to remote areas - mountains and national parks of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and now California. The most often used form of connection has been WiFi at various hotels. There has been just one lodge (Cliff Dwellings, AZ) that did not offer complimentary wireless Internet. And having a morning coffee in front of my room with a computer on my laps, other guests approached me asking "have you found a wifi here?". WiFi becomes as expected in a hotel room as a hair dryer or a coffee maker. Still there is a rule of thumb - budget hotels give WiFi for free, while the expensive ones prefer to charge for this "luxury". UMA on my Orange Blackberry works very well. Most of the time (but not always - I suspect some firewalled ports) the phone logs on to the home...

I continue to enjoy my holidays, traveling across the United States. I remember twenty years ago when I went to Australia, the only piece of electronic gear was the Sony Walkman, with six audio cassettes and a pair of alkaline AA batteries. And then I bought a small AM radio to stay in touch with the world. No cell phones, no Internet at that time. I also remember a GPS leaflet by Magellan, stating prices "starting" at $19k for a device capable of displaying coordinates on two line character display. Times have changed a lot since 1989. Actually today I have just realized I carry four GPS devices with me: The Garmin Nuvi 250, with City Navigator North America map on a SD card, sticked to the windscreen. Very simple, reliable and faithful gadget. I rely on the CNNT map everyday and use it to help finding various points of interest along the way, including gas stations, grocery shops and lodging. Then there is the Garmin Colorado 400t. It has a very detailed US Topo map built i...

So I am back to the USA now... and believe it or not, this time it ain't business trip - just vacations. But interestingly this trip has put even more pressure on me to prepare mobile computing environment for the family to use on the go. I know this may sound weird, but among various pieces of equipment (such as a tent and sleeping bags), we are bringing not less than two laptops, two mobile phones, two digital cameras and everybody expects we will be on line as usual. For that reason I've brought with me the Apple Airport Express wireless router to be used in places where a wired Ethernet port will be available. But honestly I do not expect WiFi to cover camp sites in national parks :). So we also have to rely on cellular data. In Poland where I live, we have quite a price war between the four MNOs, that results in quite interesting offers. For about $15 a month we can have virtually unlimited mobile data delivered over EDGE (rural) / HSPA (urban) networks. With 24 months con...

Some of you may wonder what the title means... Well... these are the names of three rising giants of the next generation electronic gaming battlefield. I laughed last week when I read somewhere the current game consoles will stay for next three years... Really? In the ever accelerating world full of innovation and with its event horizon shrinking, how anyone dares to predict something developed three years ago will stay for the next three unchallenged? Well... May be they are right, may be neither Sony nor Microsoft is able to reinvent gaming platforms... Actually this is quite likely, as progress very often comes from small challengers who bet everything on one card and have nothing but venture money :) to lose... So... Faithful readers should at least be familiar with Otoy, as I mentioned it and it's father, Jules Urbach, a number of times. Actually it was Otoy - related news last week that prompted me to touch base on the new developments in gaming. With rendering algorithms mi...