inside track: John c. dvorak

Inside

Nokia and Netbook Mania Dept.: When I first heard about Nokia considering getting into the netbook game, I made an offhand joke that it would be interesting unless the company ran Symbian as the OS. I figured that, like every other netbook, it would be running Windows or Linux. So you can imagine my shock when I was reading an article in which the Nokia folks seem to be indicating their netbook will indeed be running Symbian. What?!? Is the device just going to be a huge phone? It’s ridiculous. Stop now, guys, before it’s too late! Meanwhile, there’s more and more talk on the streets about Google porting its Android OS—actually a specialized distro of Linux—to its own netbook. This makes a lot more sense than using Symbian, that’s for sure. If Google puts its resources behind Linux on the desktop, I think we could actually see a platform shift. This would be the time to do it since Microsoft seems to be distracted by both cloud computing and making money selling advertisements. The cash cows are what should be getting the attention, but many companies neglect them. Poor cows. As the netbook scene heats up, you have to wonder: Exactly where is the Sony netbook? The company has released a few smallish machines they say are netbooks, but one, for example, with a Blu-ray drive is $2,700. This misses the point of a netbook, which is the low cost. It should cost about $299. Expect to see some major changes at Sony now that its European boss, Howard Stringer, will be running the whole show, as he got rid of one more top executive. It will be a magic act if Sony can somehow get back into a position of influence. The entire netbook genre had Sony written all over it, but the company could not execute. Kind of like with the iPod and the iPhone. These would have been Sony products in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the term “netbook” itself is under legal attack by Psion Teklogix, a company that actually coined and trademarked the word in the 1990s. It is sending out cease-anddesist letters, and Dell, Intel, and others have decided to attack back. The thinking is that because Psion Teklogix abandoned the name more than five years ago, it cannot now reclaim it. We’ll see. The industry might just change the name to mininotebook or something else. Who cares?

How long will a DVD last? This always worries me, so I back up most of my writings and photos on both DVDs and two hard disks. I’m paranoid owing to bad experiences with machines crashing, drives blowing up, and old CD-ROMS becoming unreadable. I ran into a cache of 5.25-inch floppies recently and only half were readable. I’m not sure what was on the other disks and what I might have lost. These disks are from the mid1980s, so they are 20 to 25 years old and failing. Most of the old 1X CD-Rs that I burned in the 1990s are failing. Back then we were told that these discs would last 40 years with no problem. By my calculations we were told wrong. Now when I have critical data, I turn to the expensive, specially formulated DVD-R and CD-R Archival Grade discs from Verbatim. They cost about $1 each! And apparently there are special materials inside, including a gold reflective layer to prevent corrosion and a hard-coat plastic. These are nice discs and are supposed to last 100-plus years. What you have to also note nowadays is that most of the normal 25-cent-or-cheaper media is now manufactured all over the place, and all the brands are jobbing out too much. The exact same brand of disc could be made in China, India, or Japan. It’s a mess with inconsistent quality. Most people agree, though, that the two highest-quality brands are Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden. Taiyo Yuden has an interesting product with its unusual “Watershield” printable DVD; inkjet printing on the label seems to be impervious to water and won’t smudge if gotten wet. You pay for the quality, though, at about 60 cents per disc. Is the economic downturn over? The semiconductor folks always have a pretty good handle on this and they almost all think that this economic event is ending with the first quarter, and many are talking about a “U”-shaped recovery beginning in the second quarter. If that happens things could really rock, since there is a huge pent-up demand for tech gear that keeps building and building. Let’s hope they are correct.

The Smallest Projector Coming to a Cell Phone Near You

Dept.: Have you been following the story behind those little pico/pocket projectors? They’re minuscule and can typically project a 480-by-320 image at various sizes, usually up to 60 inches. If you’re thinking of dropping the $300 to $400 for one of these things, you may want to wait, as the second generation pico DLP is being developed by Texas Instruments. The new display is 854 by 480.

Speed Demon Dept.: If you’ve been following the progress insofar as SOHO and networking speed are concerned, you’re probably waiting for 10-gigabit-per-second Ethernet. Now it looks as if we’re beginning to see development on the generation after that—40 Gbps. Sounds good to me! Meanwhile Juniper Networks has developed a new network processor that looks as if it can crank along at 604 Gbps. This would mean downloading an entire Blu-ray HD movie in less than a second. This development will be fun to watch unfold. 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.