No Free Formats? I'm Leaving Posterous

I had some email exchanges with the founders of Posterous.com, which I think is a great project with a lot of potential, made it clear that there is no love for free formats there. That's why I decidedd to leave Posterous.

 

Please update your bookmarks. The new address is:

http://ryocentral.info

 

If you subscribed to the feed, the new RSS-Feed is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ryocentral

 

Thank you. I really would like to see you there.

Posted via web from Ryo@posterous

Why Apple Already Lost The War On Android

Photo © by Harold Edgerton

There was a time, where people tend to think, that there was a "different" company. One that represents alternative computing, without being evil, making products for polish up our lives. And then reality came as success came to show it's like any other company with only one interest: Making money. No problem, screw that idealists, that's fine. But then there are companies which are even more evil than all others. In my opinion Apple is one of those.

We know from the recent past, Apple is not very friendly, when it thinks something is violating their patents. Patent-trolling seems normal. But the patent lawsuit against HTC is clearly aimed to destroy the Android OS, like Engadet said.
This shows one thing clearly, Apple has recognized Android and it just scared Apple to the bones. With about 100 Android phones around by end of 2010, there will be big losses in sale for iPhone, that's for sure. And now Apple just woke up out of it's world leader dream. More than that it shoots out like a wounded animal on the competitors, not by being innovative and superior, but by trying to push others out of business. That's the only choice the have left, because they now that Android is the superior mobile OS now. So they called for war. Let's see who is involed.

HTC - They produced most of the different Android mobiles up until now. Now HTC will not surrender by paying ransom. They showed this before, and they will possibly sue Apple for patent-infringement, too. They also have some patents and it might be interesting to see if Apple infringes their patents somehow.

Google - Not equal Android, but they are the driving force behind it, so war against Android is war against Google. Let's put it this way: If Google decides to strikes back on Apple, this might be a huge hit for Cupertino. They could pull services from the iPhone, like maps from this day to another, leaving basic functions of the iPhone unusable. They could stop using H.264 for YouTube and switching to Ogg Theora or, more likely, to their own new video codec VP8. They bought On2 for this codec already. It's only a matter of how hard Google will punish Apple for this desperate action. It would only be self-defense. And Google already reacts to this: "We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it."

Userbase - Just like iPhone-users have a strong binding to their product, so does Android-users. Thinking to leave those watching the best mobile platform system attacked by Apple is ridiculous and will lead to boycotts of all Apple products, which I practice for some time, because of the stance on other patent-free stuff like Ogg codecs, which is another frontline of the war.

Reputation - The biggest downturn. How to dismantle a good PR completely by using such methods. Forums and comments are already full of hate and anger against Apple for this, even from Apple fans. You can read how people already switching to Android now quite a few times. It destroys the picture of a friendly company.

So the war is already lost for Apple with the beginning of it. It doesn't even matter if they win the patent-lawsuit or not. They already lost reputation, and the shine of an almighty iPhone. And Android will keep on rising. They may stop HTC (after many years), but they can't stop Google, the Android-fans and they certainly can't save their reputation.

And now all together: "Who is afraid of Android?" - "Apple!"

Buzz makes some buzz

Not even a week ago, Google released Buzz. It made a huge impact on the net, and is still one of the most important topics. From nothing to full speed, but with some discussion about privacy going on. Google reacted very fast, and made some serious improvements. But still there is something that Google needs to do, to tell people what Buzz exactly is, or this will happen more often in the future:

But what is the big thing about Buzz? Sure it's got more characters than Twitter, better Karma than Friendfeed after the Facebook buyout, and is so much the opposite of facebook. But that isn't the real point. I think, it's the integration.
It's in Gmail. That means almost any user is a potential "Buzzer". You can send buzzes via mail directly from the interface.
It's in your phone. On Android even in the maps application. You can see buzzes directly on the map, and you can buzz from there with your location, including photos.
It's in Google Reader.  It adds posts to "Your following" in reader, when the other uses reader, too.
And it's so pushed. No other social networks had so many users in 2 days than this.
Where does Buzz go?
It depends on what users are gonna do with it. It can be everything. There is no 140 char limitation, you can add photos, you can add links and add pictures and summaries from the site with a click. So basically, you could publish whole blog posts with it. It integrates Google Reader in the feed, so you can easily making a newsfeed. It integrates Twitter, plus you can Buzz like you tweet, so it makes a microblogging-feed. You can just send photos via mail ( buzz@gmail.com ) and make it a photostream. All photos will be saved in PicasaWeb. You can improve you business communication with it by using it for specific groups of people you can build.
What's the main use after a while, I don't dare to predict. But one thing is for sure. Buzz is here to stay and get improved week after week from Google.
You can follow me on Buzz, too: http://www.google.com/profiles/ryo3000#buzz

The iPad Fail - Nothing done right

Well, the over-hyped product of the year was finally explained on stage. After that, the hypnotized journalists may took on the device itself. And you know there is one good sign for the product to be failed, when they wake-up from this hypnosis and begin to ask, for what the heck this thing should be?
But first let's see how what it should do, and got demonstrated on stage: Browsing the web, mail, photos, music, video, ebooks and gaming. The nice demonstrations on the stage made the eyes of the devotees glare. And instantly I knew, this thing does nothing of this right. So, I thought about what the iPad is not.
It's not a Laptop. Browsing the web without even Flash is ridiculous, but without a proper keyboard it's even worse (forget about the dock, carry a real notebook then). The power is simply not enough. 1 GHZ even with the new super-duper messiah Apple-Chip is not enough. But wait, why not? You can't install proper software, it's all something like apps for the iPhone. There is iWork from Apple, but honestly business with this? There is no Word, no Excel, no Lotus, there is no free, no independent downloads like on a proper computer. It's just not a laptop.
It's not a MP3-Player. And no iPod either. Sure you can play Music with it, but try this to take with you when jogging. You really want this for listening while you walk or sit in the car?
It's not a Phone. Nope, no voice. But hey wait, you could eventually with apps doing VoIP. Umm... However with a bluetooth headset, you could hold the record for the biggest phone in town.
It's not a Gaming device. EA tried hard to show us a glimpse of "Need for Speed" on the iPad. But it turns out, that it's just not as good as a proper game console like the Wii, and certainly not like XBox360  or PS3, which btw. are all much cheaper. And the DS and PSP? Well, at last you can put them in your pocket. The graphics are not really exciting, and the problems with the button-less designs still remains. There is no better control than buttons and sticks for games. Even the Wii has plenty of them in addition to the accelerators in the controller. And that is for a reason.
It's not an eBook reader. Definitely not. The iBooks might be another nice app, but it comes to this when talking about books: Reading. The screen is terrible for that. Anyone notices that the screen glares horrible? Yeah, it's more like a mirror outside. You never will read an ebook at the beach on this device. In addition, eInk is the only way to reduce eye-strains. For doing work, LCD has been proofed to be good. But reading a novel and staring 6 hours and more on such a display is horrible. That's why eInk was invented, which gives you almost the feeling you look on paper. There is no refreshing rate and no flickering. But this is like surfing the web, not reading a book. And the battery, okay 10 hours is not bad...for a computer. But for an eBook reader it's disappointing. But I really fear that, if this thing is going to be successful, there will be less publications for real and good ebook readers.
The screen is a big problem. It not only makes this thing unusable for eBooks, but even gaming or doing everything else outside a dimmed room, is very hard on the eyes, because of heavy reflections. The price start from $499 (16GB) for WIFI-only and $629 For WIFI/3G. For $449 you'll get a nice notebook with 2.1GHZ Dual-Core, 14" Screen with 720P, 2GB RAM, 160 GB(10 times more) HDD, but without a bitten fruit on it.
Conclusion: This thing is for the Apple Fanboys and possibly used as a status symbol. There is no point for practical using over a notebook, eReader or any other device. But that never stopped the Apple Church from buying. So let's see. I don't see any market for it at the moment, but Apple is known to make markets out of thin air. Meanwhile, I lean back, will buy a Nook as soon as it goes international, or a txtr reader, and eventually a new notebook at the end of the year together with the Nexus One Android phone or the successor. No need for such an tablet in any case.
Photo © Adrian van Leen for openphoto.net  / CC:PublicDomain

Vimeo experiments with h.264/HTML5 too, kicking free minded users asses

Another shame.
After Youtube.com, Vimeo.com comes on my blacklist. According to Heise-News (German), Vimeo is experimenting with the use of h.264/HTML5 leaving all Firefox users in the rain, and kicking free minded users in the stomach. Firefox made the right step, and supports HTML% with Ogg Theora only. I can only hope, Firefox stands against the pressure now, keeping the Ogg Theora only policy, and puts some pressure to the patent-crap h.264 on their own.
That what I wrote to the people at Vimeo:

Hello,
I just heard the news that you are going to set on h.264/HTML5 instead of the standard OGG Theora/HTML5.
I can not believe that you count on an unfree and patented codec, when there is the big chance for saving money for yourself, free the web from patents, and giving the user a good experience. This infuriates me, and surely will keep me from using your service as an alternative to YouTube.
This is the darkest hour of your platform, and even if Firefox will support h.264/HTML5 ever (which is not at this time), I would never go to a video portal which decides against free formats and turns big chances for the industry down. Ogg Theora is the right way! Get rid of Flash and using h.264 is from bad to worse.

If you want to encourage Vimeo to stop using h.264 and choose Ogg Theora/HTML5, the standard, please write them at info@vimeo.com.

Just received my Google Docs File Storage

Yes, finally I got the new Google Docs File Storage.

And the best of all, what I hoped, but never expected, came true: You can use your Picasa/Mail Storage for Docs. That means for only $5/Year you get 20GB of storage for files on Google Docs. This is like a little dream.
I wanted to buy more space for Picasa anyway, now I can use this for other files. And that's not the end. You can upgrade to a max. of 16TB! Here is what Google writes about upgrading storage:

Google storage is shared between Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, and Google Docs. You get extra space in all these services, in addition to your current free quota.

Wow. It's my new friend :).

Android 2.1 is no problem on G1

The speculations of Android 2.1 being officially ported to the G1 are growing. For me there is only one question left, will Google do it or not? No doubt that they can do it. I hear you say "But there isn't enough mem available..". But it's absolutely no problem.
First of all, it's said that Google already have a optimized and squeezed version of Android 2.0 in the labs. And I can imagine, that it's a real challenge to optimize the code, like in C64 and Amiga times where you said every month "I can't believe they did it on this computer". I wished the app programmers would do that, too. But there is a completely other possible solution from this, I'm sure the master brains at Google have thought on it and maybe they will do it.
Google is forcing web-apps to be the next big thing. So why don't get rid of the integrated apps? It could be done for Mail, GTalk, Maps, Calendar, Market, and even for Contacts. The web-apps, except for Contacts and Market, already exists in mobile version. The engineers at Mountain View just need to make a interface for the notifying-system to interact with the web. Boom, the space for Android 2.1 would go down dramatically. Maps and Mail alone would be enough, I guess. And for those who prefer native apps, there could be a downloadable app on the marketplace, again leaving the space for the firmware untouched.
You see, it's totally possible. The question though still remain is Google doing it or not? While in the US, the phone is quite some time on the market, in Europe it's not even a year available (started 22th February 2009). So the European buyers would be quite annoyed, not getting the new firmware after 1 year, when their contracts, like usual, runs 2 years.
Photo: JaZZy JunGgle - License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0