Paul Jacobson

I have been resisting the urge to speculate about the iPad since it was announced. I have a history of seizing upon the latest Apple/Nokia gear and proclaiming it to be the next best thing since the printed word (or the last Apple/Nokia gear). I have generally been wrong about just how awesome the device initially appeared to be and so I have decided to avoid the repetitive speculation about the iPad (except for the speculation below) until I have had a chance to actually fondle one.

The one topic I can’t resist writing about is the iPad as an eReader. My interest in such a device would be largely as an eReader as well as a general tablet Internet device. eReaders seem to be pretty special beasts. The biggest issue seems to be the screen which needs to be as close to paper while remaining versatile enough to handle a variety of publications. We have all had eReaders in front of us for years now, we call them laptops and desktops, but they haven’t been convenient eReaders for a variety of reasons including size, portability, orientation and, well, the screens themselves. I haven’t done a lot of ebook reading on my MacBook but the little reading I have done isn’t really as comfortable as a paper book.

One of the apps on the iPad is the iBooks application which is only available in the United States. Apple has signed up a couple publishers and the iBooks demo showed me a beautiful user interface, typical of just about anything Apple does. Steve showed us how turning the page is an experience in itself and the swish looking bookshelf. I don’t think I was the only person who cringed a little when I saw the Kindle on that big screen behind Steve right before it transitioned to the gorgeous looking iPad. There was obviously some clever psychology behind that Kindle portrayal and, having spent a good portion of the Stevenote looking at this gorgeous new device, listening to Steve’s superlatives, the Kindle does look a little dated and clunky.

Having said that, I wonder just how effective the iPad would be as an eReader. I haven’t heard anyone say that an LCD screen is as good as or better than the e-ink displays you find on modern eReaders when it comes to visibility in varying lighting conditions, general comfort or even power consumption (10 hours is still pretty respectable on the iPad and you can recharge the device). I came across a conversation thread on gdgt about LCDs compared to e-ink displays as an illustration of the general consensus. So the iPad may present a better looking interface for ebooks but will it be a good experience if you are going to use the device as your primary paper book replacement? The Kindle, for example, is often touted as pretty close to paper and so readable in every lighting condition a paper book works in, you probably won’t look back at your paper library again. That sort of thing makes a difference. On the topic of paper books, also remember that they tend to be pretty simple in terms of visual aesthetics and our reading experience need not be all that different. Of course our expectations will change when publications become more dynamic and start incorporating multimedia elements which e-ink devices currently don’t support all that much.

One big factor pretty much takes the iPad out of the equation as an eReader for anyone outside the United States. The iBooks application looks like it will only be available in the USA and, as yet, unspecified countries. If the iBooks’ availability is limited to those countries that support the iTunes Store then those people with illicit US iTunes Store accounts will probably be able to benefit from the application nonetheless. That still leaves those people with the question whether the iPad gives bibliophiles the sort of experience they would have on a Kindle?

Just to add to the debate, also consider Amazon’s Whispernet (free data wherever the Kindle is supported which is almost everywhere there is a GSM connection) and its catalogue (I am sure Apple will also boast a substantial catalogue soon enough).

I have had my eyes on a Kindle DX since they were first announced and I’ve been that much more excited about it since the global wireless version was announced last month. It is pretty big compared to the Kindle 2 (based on size comparisons) but my line of work makes it more useful to me. I really haven’t made my mind up about the iPad and probably won’t till I get to play with one. At the same time I am still pretty keen on the Kindle DX, even with its monochromatic screen and clunky form factor.

If you are going to buy yourself a Kindle, please consider doing so through the banner at the top of this blog. Any purchases will be tied to my Amazon affiliate code and will help support this blog and my own Kindle fund!

I realised that my camera, a Canon Powershot SX100 IS which I bought in Japan in July/August 2008, has a lot more functionality that I realised. I’ve started learning how to use it better and that largely includes playing around with many of the manual or semi-automated settings which I have pretty much skipped over since I first got the camera. Granted the camera isn’t exactly a digital SLR camera but I have seen a lot of really great photos taken with this camera and compared to what I have been taking lately, I have a lot of room for improvement with this camera alone.

Aside from re-introducing myself to f-stops, shutter speeds, ISOs and other technical aspects of photography, I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about the software I use to process my photos. I’ve been using iPhoto ‘09 as my primary photo management and editing software for a while now and recently started playing around with Picasa 3 which is pretty good at a lot of things iPhoto still struggles with (including face recognition, aspects of photo editing and how it presents images and their metadata). I have seriously considered ditching iPhoto in favour of Picasa (I still am) but I’ve decided on iPhoto as my primary application and Picasa for ancillary stuff for now mainly because I have a tendency to act on software choices impulsively and regret it later.

I thought I’d also try out some of the more specialised applications available so I’ve just downloaded trial versions of both Lightroom 2 and Aperture 2 to test out. I haven’t a clue which one is best and I am sure it will be a pretty spirited debate to boot.

I’d love to have a digital SLR but I reckon that until I am using my compact camera about as well as it can be used, a DSLR will largely be wasted on me. I am pretty excited to be getting back into photography. I was really passionate about it when I was a teenager and I’ve always enjoyed taking photos. I just haven’t paid much attention to the technical aspects for over a decade and I’d like to change that. A couple people have started their own Project 365 which involves taking a photo a day for a year (one photographer doing this is Jeanette Verster who apparently really worked on her technique the first time she did this and she takes awesome photos).

I am not even going to compare myself to photographers like Jeanette but I do want to learn to take even better photos with what I have. I do love taking photos, even if that gets me into a bit of trouble at times, and maybe doing my own version of Project 365, together with learning more of the technical stuff, will help me get better.

I just think about how envious I feel when someone whips out a DSLR at an event or social function … that inspires me to take better photos and maybe even get myself a DSLR when I am all grown up.

If you are looking for a technical post about the intricacies of HTML 5 video and the coding that goes with it, this is really not the post for you. If that is what you want, take a look at the video category page on Mozilla Hacks as well as your favourite HTML 5 resource.

Both YouTube and Vimeo have announced support for HTML 5 video on their sites. This is great news for people who are not Flash fans, especially when it comes to videos online. It is also good news for HTML 5 adoption overall. Hopefully we will start to see more and more services begin to support other HTML 5 aspects like the offline capability (would make Gears unnecessary and enable offline capability for Gmail, GCal and other similar services). My wish for 2010 is to have offline support for my Google Apps. Gears is probably the only thing I miss in Firefox 3.6 and Mac OS 10.6 generally.

I was a little disappointed when I read that YouTube and Vimeo only support Chrome and Safari in their HTML 5 roll-out. My first question was why Firefox isn’t supported. Firefox 3.6 has just been released and it supports HTML 5 video, so why isn’t it on the list. After posting a silly question in the comments to the Vimeo post that sounded like it came from a wounded Firefox user, I read the post and comments properly and linked to this page which talks about HTML 5 video in more detail.

It turns out that HTML 5 video support has a lot to do with the underlying video codecs (the HTML 5 specification seems to be agnostic when it comes to video codec support). Safari and Chrome both support the .mp4 video codec which is what YouTube and Vimeo use on their sites. Firefox only supports (I’m going to mangle this, so apologies in advance) Ogg Theora video codecs which are open source codecs, along with Chrome. This means that Firefox won’t support the HTML 5 capability on YouTube or Vimeo as long as those sites don’t support Ogg Theora video codecs. Chrome is a winner in this area because it supports both codecs. Update: Interesting discussion about video codecs/formats at the bottom of this post.

It struck me that Firefox’s lack of support for the .mp4 video format is pretty limiting considering that .mp4 is practically a standard on video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo. It would relegate Firefox to 2nd place, if that, for people who watch a lot of video and may transition across to HTML 5 based video as their medium of choice. I’m not too keen on this lack of support either. I am a big Firefox fan and after a while in the browser wilderness, I returned to Firefox as my default browser in a big way. Chrome is my second choice and I often have both browsers running because Chrome seems to handle Google sites a little better sometimes. Safari is around for the odd time I want to use it.

I did a little research (for a change) and discovered that there are royalties attached to the .mp4 video format. These royalties apply to video creators and distributors. Google and Apple license the technology (H.264, I believe) and can support the formats in Chrome and Safari (respectively). Firefox presumably doesn’t license the codec and therefore doesn’t support the format. Ogg Theora, on the other hand, is open source and no royalties are involved. I don’t know if this is because the royalties are prohibitive (it appears that royalties are going to increase in 2011 when what seems to be a royalty relaxation goes away) or for philosophical reasons (although I am sure that supporting an open source codec is a real motivation, just not sure whether it is the overriding motivation). It would obviously be ideal to see broader support for Ogg Theora from an accessibility perspective but I have read that H.264 offers more flexibility.

Whatever the motivation, video codec support will be one of the factors influencing browser adoption and more and more online services support HTML 5 video. It also either be a catalyst for further decline in Firefox adoption in favour of Chrome (on this front, Chrome seems to be ahead of practically all the other browsers) or we may yet see the Mozilla Foundation vindicated if more and more services adopt Ogg Theora as their preferred format in the face of increasing H.264 royalties and growing numbers of users viewing video online.

Nokia has dropped a bombshell and will be offering free turn-by-turn navigation on its smartphones. This is according to a Reuters report which I found via Engadget. The report is apparently based on a release of some kind from Nokia which I haven’t been able to locate yet Update: This news seems to be part of a broader Ovi Maps announcement. There is some great coverage on GigaOm.

As the Reuters report pointed out, this is bound to have an impact on more traditional GPS device producers like Garmin and TomTom. I’ve been using Ovi Maps on my N97 for navigation and it is excellent, when it works properly. The maps are more appealing, visually, although it can be a little difficult to search for and find places. That being said, Ovi Maps just keeps getting better with each release and I have seen an update that is still being tested internally which will make Ovi Maps an even better navigation option.

Nokia has been promising some pretty interesting location-based stuff using Ovi Maps as the core application for those services. It could make a huge difference to how we use location in our day to day activities so I hope it can pull it off and execute well. Nokia is facing increasing competition from Google and Apple, both companies have arguably more compelling devices based on more dynamic and appealing user experiences. Upcoming Symbian updates could change perceptions about Nokia’s products, though.

I am curious to see what happens next. Ovi Maps look better than Google Maps but I find that I can locate places a lot easier on Google Maps on my N97. Google Maps doesn’t look as good and we don’t have turn by turn navigation here in South Africa just yet but I think that will change. When it does, South Africans will have yet another option. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google roll out turn-by-turn in time for the World Cup either.

I popped into Melrose Arch yesterday to pick up my post. I had my camera with me and took a chance mainly because I wanted to point out something we mostly overlook until we need it – reserved parking bays for certain people.

We see this one (or something like it) practically everywhere:

We even see this one fairly often:

But what we don’t see very often is this sort of reserved parking bay:

Being a toddler’s dad, I remember the days when we had to get the pram out, set it up and contend with ordinary parking bays (which suddenly felt really narrow). This sort of consideration means a lot to parents struggling with prams and shopping!

I just received a press release from Emerging Media about an exciting product G-Connect has announced and which is getting a lot of attention on Twitter so far. The interesting bits from the press release (Update: check out background and some more information after the break below):

Sub-Saharan Africans will soon be able to connect to the Internet pretty-much anywhere they are – even while on a domestic or long-haul flight – thanks to a new technology announcement from WirelessG, the company behind SA’s first converged, pre-paid Internet product, G-Connect.

While the technology that will enable in-flight Internet services is depending on Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, it will be provided through an exclusive agreement with US-based Row 44 who is already successfully offering in-flight Wi-Fi Internet to Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and in 2010, through Norwegian Air Shuttle. After extensive testing in the US, the first complete set of hardware will arrive in South Africa shortly. This will be used to setup a ground-based proof of concept (POC) here in South Africa to test the complete solution including the Satellites that will be used for the commercial product.

…

Carel van der Merwe, CEO of WirelessG, says the company is already in negotiations with local airlines, and while the solution is already in POC phase, no information is being released as to which carrier will launch the service first.

Because Row 44’s in-flight broadband system is satellite-based and leverages the extensive Hughes satelllite network, WirelessG and Row 44 will be able to provide African airlines’ passengers with uninterrupted high-speed connectivity in-flight, no matter where they fly—including flights across multiple countries and over water.

WirelessG has successfully integrated its converged billing platform to this new technological environment. This platform, which has undergone extensive testing against the WirelessG converged billing service, will connect via satellite to provide a full range of Internet services such as web browsing, email access, VPN connectivity and web-based SMS.
Van der Merwe says the new solution will dovetail perfectly into G-Connect’s current converged Internet solution and extend the ADSL, Wi-Fi hotspot and 3G Internet access currently on offer from the service into the cloud.

The in-flight Internet service will be available to all passengers on participating flights for a fee, while G-Connect users can benefit from the service as they will be able to use their current G-Connect accounts onboard the aircraft.

“With the G-Connect sign-up process being free of cost and contracts, we are expecting many travelers to utilise the advantage of our in-flight offering,” says van der Merwe.

I don’t have any bandwidth figures (apparently pretty close to hotspot speeds) yet or even prices (update: take a look here for an indication of pricing) for the airborne service (they should be comparable to international inflight broadband prices – Virgin America charges between $6 and $13 depending on flight duration and device type). While this is certainly an exciting development and it bridges the connectivity gap for travellers, I wonder if it is such a great idea for some people, people like me.

I am online practically all the time and getting onto a plane forces me to disconnect and take a break from the flurry of information I expose my poor, under-equipped brain to each day. A flight, as comparatively boring as it can be, is also a forced break and an opportunity to take a break, listen to some music, read a book or magazine (or lots of both using an Amazon Kindle, perhaps) or even get through a full email inbox before the next email avalanche hits. Now that we will have inflight broadband, we are faced with the temptation to stay connected. Having this capability also creates an expectation that we will use it and stay connected to our work, clients and the connected world at large.

I don’t know about you but I’m not so sure that this is such a great idea. At least not for me. You can bet your bottom Zim dollar that I will use give it a go and run a speed test every time, just to see how fast I can do stuff in the air. Beyond that I can see myself turning off the wifi most of the time unless I am on a longer trip and can’t afford to lose the time.

On the other hand, this offering does make G-Connect an even more compelling option for me when I am travelling. I already use it almost all the time when I am out (I still use an IS wifi hotspot account when a hotspot is available) and this will make it even easier for me to connect and remain connected. I may be somewhat of an old fart when it comes to my forced disconnect time but you can be darn sure I will be bitching if I can’t connect when I absolutely have to get something done online!

As Mike Stopforth pointed out (and as you can see from the title of my post), the hashtag on Twitter for the discussion is #gconnectinflight.
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