Category Archives: In the News

Tech news and opinions

What’s all the fuss about the iPad?

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It’s just a giant iPhone, isn’t it?

Ever since Apple announced the iPad, everyone’s been going on about it. Everyone seems to think it’s an amazing gadget that which has never been thought of.

But if you think about it – the technology that is in the iPad has been around for years. We’ve had touch screen computers for ages – and tablet PCs for even longer.

And on the topic of technology – what’s so amazing about it? For what will be the best part of £500 for a decent model, you get a 1Ghz processor for a start. 1Ghz? I’m sorry but we’ve been seeing 1Ghz processors since 2000 and you expect me to pay £500 for a device like that? OK, point taken – 1Ghz for a mobile device is pretty good – but its a pretty big thing so can’t Apple squeeze in any more power?

There are also many other factors that really put me off it. One of my biggest problems with it is that it can’t multitask. What the hell? Hasn’t Apple heard any of our prayers?!! iPhone users have, for months, been wanting the capability for Apple mobile devices to multitask and Apple still hasn’t solved the problem. I find it so annoying that I can’t do anything else when I’m listening to Spotify music on my iPod Touch.

In addition, I don’t understand the design of it. It supposedly has GPS, but I’m not going to carry a huge device round on my travels when I’m going on a hiking trip. In the same respect, I don’t think that UK road laws would allow me to have a huge device sitting on my windscreen mount (if I had a car).

So without going into too much detail – you won’t ever see me with an iPad. I just can’t make sense of it. I thought that in this day and age,  portability and size were key factors – but maybe I’m wrong.

I’ll be interested to know the UK prices, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be available until launch – which is due around March.

With 2TB memory cards on the way in the next 2 years, hard drives may become superseded!

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Just browsing through the various tech news going round at the moment – with CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) dominating posts, I noticed that companies are aiming to have 2TB memory cards on the shelves in the next 2 years.

Now when you think that the most common hard disk size at this moment in time is 250-500GB, it makes you realise how quickly memory cards are growing in size and how quickly they could take over hard drives.

At the moment the biggest memory card you’ll find on the shelves is about 32GB – at most 64GB – but recent technology has enabled companies to rapidly expand the amount of storage on one memory card.

Obviously there are some factors will slow down the use of these bigger cards – cost being the biggest. It’s unclear how much these supersize cards will cost and therefore hard drives will probably continue to dominate the market for the next 24 months, at least.

However, with the larger cards now available, it opens up opportunity for Linux builders to start optimizing their operating system for memory cards  – so computers without hard drives can boot and run their operating systems with ease.

In addition, it will hopefully expand the netbook even further as the small memory cards will help to free up space for better batteries that last longer. It also solves the annoying problem of the lack of memory space in some netbooks.

So overall, the new memory cards coming in the next 12-24 months will hopefully bring new hope to computer users as they are much more convenient than big, bulky hard drives.

Music industry still suffering from P2P – is there still light at the end of the tunnel?

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The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) recently released the 2009 music statistics for sales across the UK. In the report, it mentions how our music industry has coped with the rush of illegal downloads.

From what they say, sales of albums have declined slightly through 2009, but this has been the trend since 2005 when sales of albums started to fall. I suspect this is due to the fact that people can now save money if they only pick the tracks that they want online – they no longer need to purchase the whole album. In any case, it now stands that 128.9 million album sales were made in 2009 compared to 133.6 million in 2008.

Sales of singles have rapidly increased in 2009. The total number of singles sold in 2009 stands at 152.7 million, compared to 2008’s 115.1 million. The increase in sales of singles started in 2003, but 2009’s increase is the biggest seen so far.

Bear in mind that that only mentions sales and it is unclear how many pirated downloads were made – but it is still believed that the proportion of illegal downloads is much bigger than the proportion of legal purchases.

I believe that 2010 will be the year for music streaming rather than downloading (or purchasing in a shop). With more and more of us gaining access to the internet, it is becoming easier for us to legally stream music from the internet. I think services such as Spotify will rapidly grow in 2010 as it primarily free – the company makes money from an advert being played after every fifth or sixth track.

Spotify (as far as I’m aware) hasn’t revealed how many streams were made in 2009, but it would be interesting to know. I believe that free music streaming is the only way to get people of P2P.

Credit for information to the BPI and the Official UK Charts Company.

Browser market share outlook: December 2009

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Here’s a quick outlook at the browser market share, thanks to HitsLink.

It looks like this month there’s been some interesting changes that may surprise. Internet Explorer has continued to loose out on its usual trend (falling by 0.93%), but Firefox has also lost out! Firefox has only lost out by 0.11% but that has left other browsers to grow. Firefox’s loss is the first of its kind in 6 months which means that maybe people are finally beginning to see the other browsers available.

Google Chrome, Safari and Opera have all gained market share this month, with Chrome gaining the most noticeable increase at 0.70%. Safari has a small but ever-important increase of 0.10%, with Opera gaining just 0.09%.

It goes to show how the variety of browsers is causing the most popular browsers to loose out. I’m very pleased that Google Chrome is getting lots of attention as I still firmly believe its one of the best browsers available as it is lightweight, super quick and easy to use. This months increase now means that Chrome is the 3rd most popular web browser.

Skype launching Skype Access

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Skype has recently made Skype Access available in its new Skype beta 4.2. With the new beta there are a few bugfixes (apparently), a new call transfer mode (which was apparently in previous versions of Skype but non existent since 4.0), and a new feature called Skype Access.

Skype Access allows anyone with Skype credit to be able to pay for public wi-fi access via Skype. You simply connect to a hotspot that is supported by Skype and then use Skype Access to pay, per minute, for the service. As far as I know, the service currently costs about 15p per minute.

There’s no contract or anything like that, and it is available whenever you need it as long as you are connected to a supported hotspot.

I think this is a really good idea – very handy if you’re in somewhere like an airport and you need to quickly check your email or your Facebook page. I’m guessing people with netbooks are more likely to use the service since netbooks are much easier to carry around.

Skype reports that the service can now be used at over 100,000 wi-fi hotspots (in the UK, I think).

For me I will enjoy it most when it becomes available on devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch – which I’m sure it will do eventually – as that means I will be able to instantly get wi-fi in a number of public places.

Ah well, nice work Skype. This might actually pay off.