Showing posts with label Smartphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smartphone. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Don't Push Me, I Am On The Edge


Agricultural Drones Relatively cheap drones with advanced sensors and imaging capabilities are giving farmers new ways to increase yields and reduce crop damage.
Ultraprivate Smartphones New models built with security and privacy in mind reflect the Zeitgeist of the Snowden era.
Brain Mapping A new map, a decade in the works, shows structures of the brain in far greater detail than ever before, providing neuroscientists with a guide to its immense complexity.
Neuromorphic Chips Microprocessors configured more like brains than traditional chips could soon make computers far more astute about what’s going on around them.
Genome Editing The ability to create primates with intentional mutations could provide powerful new ways to study complex and genetically baffling brain disorders.
Microscale 3-D Printing Inks made from different types of materials, precisely applied, are greatly expanding the kinds of things that can be printed.
Mobile Collaboration The smartphone era is finally getting the productivity software it needs.
Oculus Rift Thirty years after virtual-reality goggles and immersive virtual worlds made their debut, the technology finally seems poised for widespread use.
Agile Robots Computer scientists have created machines that have the balance and agility to walk and run across rough and uneven terrain, making them far more useful in navigating human environments.
Smart Wind and Solar Power Big data and artificial intelligence are producing ultra-accurate forecasts that will make it feasible to integrate much more renewable energy into the grid.

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Through Nokia Microsoft Should Go Down The Food Chain

Image representing Nokia as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase
With Google Loon attempting free internet access in the remotest corners, the other piece of the puzzle is the smartphone. How cheap can you make it? There Nokia has an edge.

There is argument that the Windows mobile platform does not have a million apps like the iOS and Android do. Most people I know use less than 10 apps, and all the hit apps do exist on Windows Mobile. Windows is decent in mobile. It is workable.

The only way it could become a contender is if it were to go down the food chain with ridiculously cheap smartphones in the emerging markets. That might be the top benefit Microsoft could hope for from the Nokia acquisition, I think.

How cheap is cheap? Under 50 dollars. So, a super cheap smartphone that most people can save up and buy, free internet access from the skies, a Skype phone number that works just fine over the internet, and you get 80% of the world connected. I can't imagine a better boon for democracy, gender justice, and microfinance.
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Friday, July 19, 2013

41 Megapixels Are Really About Zoom

Vintage cameras, not for sale
Vintage cameras, not for sale (Photo credit: Soumyadeep Paul)
A smartphone is a wonderful thing, except it has a lousy battery. A smartphone camera is a wonderful thing - I don't use a real camera anymore - but the zoom on it is ridiculously poor. The photo quality is fine with eight megapixels. Enter 41 megapixels. Are photos now going to be five times sharper? Maybe, maybe not. But I think what is more likely is photos of objects five times as far are going to be just as good. And I like that idea.
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