Headworx

Last week I was trying to run a fairly simple task, using the iPad. Our patent attorney sent me three PDF files asking to sign them. I wanted to sign them on the iPad and return signed, as attachments to the same email thread. Despite having the latest iOS on the latest Apple device (that includes the "Files"), and having a whole suite of leading edge apps (including Google Inbox and Adobe Fill&Sign), completing this task was just not possible. From the Inbox I can (using the system sharing options) save the attached PDFs to Files. I mean, almost, as it is not possible to create a folder in files. Luckily another app (LiquidText) has already created one, so I could save to the \OnMyiPad\LiquidText. From the Files I could share the PDF to "Copy to Adobe Fill & Sign" In the Adobe app I could add the signature and "share" the document again to Files. So far so good. But then I realized Inbox just did not have an option to add an attachment from ...

The Smart Building conference in Amsterdam was worth attending. Essentially every speaker was reconfirming the smart buildings trends we've been aligned with and pushing at Silvair. Ger Baron (the CTO at the City of Amsterdam) nicely illustrated the evolution of networked systems: from centralized to decentralized and ultimately to distributed peer-to-peer mesh. Bruce Schneier was quoted saying "a luminaire is a connected computer that emits light" (I remember people laughing at me when I was telling them we had 70 developers writing software for light bulbs...). Larry Heisler noted the IoT had not taken off because things lacked interoperability. Music to my ears. One disappointing theme was, unfortunately, The Edge . The world's most famous, most intelligent, most sustainable (the list continues) building. Wonderful. But I herd the same stories back in 2016. So is The Edge still the only one? Why don't we have more smart buildings we could present, study,...

Recently a patent application filed by Canon has surfaced. It describes how a fingerprint reader would work on a DSLR camera. The industry seems to be excited by the fact it moves now into adopting security technologies. Unfortunately this patent does not solve much of the problem. Fingerprint reader is always an icing on a cake. But to put the icing you need the cake baked, which is not the case here. What is missing is the whole standard of how digital signatures and encryption are applied to photo image files. How the security keys are handled. Both in cameras and in associated software applications, including digital post-processing and web sharing. The new digital technologies have poised a big problem for the traditional camera manufacturers. They could grasp the imaging part, by integrating digtal sensors in camera bodies. But they have fallen short on integrating the whole experience around sharing, using smart/connected devices as camera accessories etc. When I see prod...

I'm back home for a short weekend after a very fruitful tour across  California and British Columbia. Among Vancouver meetings was UPF - the UnPlug Fest, a very successful serial event which gathers all sorts of companies implementing Bluetooth products, cross-testing them for interoperability before they hit the market. UPFs are the reason why Bluetooth products can claim real interoperability. It is also a place where many interesting discussions happen. Automotive head units are significant part of Bluetooth interoperability tests today, as are mobile phones. After all each vendor wants to make sure any phone connects to any car without any problems. Which usually is the case now. There is one aspect of the traditional electronic gear makers (e.g., autos and cameras - more on the latter next week) that bothers me. They are so behind the curve catching up with the latest digital developments, security and privacy included. Privacy (or lack of it) is one area where this lagg...

I dropped my Blackberry on the floor and it died. Bad luck - it happens. As it was just days before leaving for a complex business trip (KRK-ZRH-SFO-LAX-SFO-YVR-LHR-FRA-KRK-AMS-FRA-BKK-SYD-LAX-ZRH-KRK), I decided to buy a new one while sending the broken for a repair. Despite running fairly recent Android (7.1.1) it took me almost a day to restore the new phone to the state where I left the old one. It failed to install some widgets due to some race conditions around authentication. It failed to restore the account links between the apps (both Pocket and Feedly "forgot" I used the Google account to log in. Feedly forgot the linked Pocket too. Banking apps required re-running the process of authorizing the fingerprint sensor. All Bluetooth pairings were lost. And the Google Music offline collection reported finishing the sync process after around 85GB (previously it was 93GB). So somewhere I lost about 8GB of music, but not really sure where and what. In short: device mi...

Two nice additions since the original post on USB converters. The Type-C male to A-female will likely be more and more in use, as host ports migrate from A to C. There will be tons of accessories with male A plugs and this one makes them all compatible. The second one is the Type-C female to B-micro male: yes it converts a Type-C cable into and old micro-B variant. Anyway with this set a single C-C cable is capable of connecting anything to anything. Micro-B-female to mini-B male. There are still devices using mini-B female sockets... Male-A to female C. Makes an old laptop compatible with new Type-C devices. Male-C to female A. Does the opposite: new laptops (or phones) and an old accessory. Micro-B to lightning. Makes i-devices compatible with USB. Micro-B to Apple 30-pin. Makes old i-devices compatible with USB.  Apple pencil. This is the weirdest one, but yes it is useful when you want to use a cable to charge the pencil. Female Type-C to micro-B. Use a Type-C cable t...

Every now and then when I'm on stage pitching Bluetooth mesh, I hear people commenting this is yet another standard. And that we have too many standards already. Which is true, but only to some extent. Multiple ways of doing things is a completely natural evolution step. In every category. Take airliners: it took the industry almost 100 years to figure out and get to the point when the standard design of a jetliner is a 2-engine turbofan: it is hard to get down to a single engine (redundancy, thrust symmetry) and anything more than two brings efficiency down. B747s and A380s are the designs of the past. Widebody models will be narrowed down to A350s, B777s, B787s and narrow body to A320 and B737 families. The signs of convergence are seen everywhere. One of the most recent developments has been Qi - the wireless charging. A longtime favorite of many, positioned to win when Apple finally decided to use it rather than develop its own standard . And just recently Powermat droppe...