inside track: John c. dvorak

Inside

This should be the last year of the economic downturn, which has resulted in nothing good for the computer user except for machines that are cheaper than ever, lots of free programs, and the blossoming of a new platform: the smartphone computer.

So I got my G-phone, G1, Android, whatever you want to call it. And I have to say that it has a few flaws here and there, but nothing that is a deal killer. And one of the cooler features is that it can actually read bar codes and call up a central location, and, bingo, you now can look up prices or details for an item on the fly. A friend of mine used this feature at a wedding; he determined the prices of all the gifts. Pretty funny. These phones are still a little weak for word processing and full docking capability. By that I mean the phone should be dockable, but not into another computer—into a simple dock that attaches a keyboard and screen. The smartphone should have enough power to run the software it has as full-blown application software. Combined with some nifty cloud applications and remote storage, these phones should give people enough to get by. In fact, the newer processor chips coming out for the smartphone will deliver a lot of computing power. The smartphone computer also needs a good PowerPoint-type program and the ability to drive a digital projector. While there is some chatter about pico projectors being built into smartphones, this is just a cute gimmick. What you want is an XGA or better I/O to drive a projector, even if you have to plug the phone into a wall to keep the batteries from draining. The Android phone and the iPhone should be the two final winners in the game. While I’ve never been a strong believer in the notion that most of the Internet action is going to be done on mobile devices like this, it is obvious that a lot of Internet activity will be done on these things. More and more people pull out these devices in normally circumspect places like restaurants and surf the Net together in search of some factoid about something or other.

Genuinely Interesting Hardware Dept.: CES was a bit disappointing for many showgoers this year, mainly because there was a downbeat note to the event. And a lot of excellent products were completely overlooked, as usual. The most impressive idea I saw at the show (and what should have won Best of Show) are some children’s earbuds and headphones from a company called iHearSafe. Details are found at iHearSafe.com. These are devices that will not allow a child, or an adult for that matter, to generate more than 85 dB from the headphones. Anything above that and you risk long-term hearing damage. Someday the earbud and the iPod are going to be recognized for creating a generation of deaf people. The classaction suits will be flying. Do not let this happen to your children—or you. These headsets cost only $19.95! And they come in cool colors and iPod white, so there is none of the teen humiliation you’d get from, heaven forbid, black earbuds.

Whither the OLPC? The fabled $100 laptop that never was $100 from the OLPC team has got be to be hit hard by the announcement by Tata of India of a $20 laptop. First of all, the $100 laptop never got below $150 from what I can tell. And it had to compete with an Intel design that was adopted all over the world. I was in Portugal recently, where I played with a statesponsored version of the Intel machine sold to students there. I found it to be quite usable and very rugged. On top of all this are the netbooks coming out with a lot of power for prices around $250. Now this $20 clunker. I’m told the displays are now costing a buck or two. Memory is dirt cheap, and small hard drives are being sold as surplus. So I suppose $20 is possible. I’m now waiting for the $1.99 laptop. Everything Is a Fractal Dept.: Do we have to endure yet another Microsoft Windows campaign? Personally, I’m tired of it. It follows the exact same pattern time after time. Let’s deconstruct the entire process: Microsoft preannounces a new version of Windows and gives it some weird name that initiates discussion as people try to decipher its deeper meaning or what it references. Chicago, Longhorn, Blackcomb, 7. The specification is revealed, with the goal being to “fix the problems with...the previous version.”

Beta code always leaks out, and people get a good look. A buzz ensues. Microsoft decides to ship the beta and let the public chime in, so the company opens the servers and lets everyone play with it. The product has no legacy hooks or real security, so it just rocks on a computer and people comment on how much better it is. The word is that it’s a winner. Naysayers and critics are shouted down. There are then a series of mixed messages regarding the ship date. The company claims it will be early, but it’s late. The release comes, and people are shown on the local news lined up at some store camping out overnight to buy the thing. The final product, it turns out, gets crammed with security fixes, stability code and built-in drivers, and soon becomes as slow as the products that came before. Critical reviews appear, and the complaining begins. The company then reports it’s working on the next “better than ever, made from scratch” OS, which will go through the same process. WanT mOrE DvOrak? John writes a weekly column for our Web site, too. Log on to go.pcmag.com/dvorak. You can also e-mail him at john_dvorak@pcmag.com.