Cell Phone "Services"

Cell phone "services" are getting out of hand. You can download new ring tones, download games, send text messages, and take and send pictures. And these things aren't free. They can cost any where from 10 cents to a few dollars. It may not seem like a lot, but it can add up if its done in any regularity. And the point is not how much, but that it costs money at all. And most of what you download expires after a certain amount of time. It's just amazing how the cell phone companies get away with what they're doing. It just doesn't seem right, and I am officially offended.

Ah ring tones. Don't you just have to have them? Snipits of the most annoying pop songs, of varying quality. I'll tell you a short story. There was a software publisher that released a program that would convert your regular MP3's to something usable on a cell phone as a ring tone. But the cell phone companies didn't like the idea that people could get their ring tones for free, so they got the software taken off the market (I believe they sued the software publisher). So apparently we can't make our own ring tones, or at least the cell phone companies don't want us to.

And there are games. Cheezey remakes of both old and new games. All on a tiny screen with clumsy controls. There are also applications that fall under this category. Many cell phones use BREW, which is some software environment designed for cell phones. The great thing about BREW is that for anyone to write games/applications for it, they must pay an outrageous licensing fee. This does two things; it gives them supreme control on anything BREW, and essentially keeps any independent developers from using it. So, unless you are financially backed by some corporation, usually to promote their product, you are not going to be writing software for BREW. Even if you had the money to license BREW, you don't have a choice in how your software is distributed. Software is distributed through their subscription service, again giving them another level of control.

The point is that all things cell phones are very much closed to individual innovation. The cell phone companies are out there to make money, and they are strangling their technology. There are no freedoms involved. And I don't know about you, but I enjoy my freedoms with technology, and am offended when technology is stifled by corporate greed.

The Future of the Browser

I heard recently that in the future, all applications will be run through the browser. This I found mildly amusing. Not because I suddenly remembered a joke, but because of the lack of foresight on part of those making the claim. You see, its just not going to happen, at least not as described.

The way I see it, the browser is only the beginning. It is very basic. And it is far from the end of web-based information and applications. It is interesting how almost all the innovation in browsing has been behind the browser. There are a bunch of scripting languages and technologies that output ever-more complex HTML to the browser. But there has been very little innovation in the browser itself (with the exception of Mozilla).

What I think will actually happen is that the browser will no longer exist. Not because the World Wide Web will disappear, but because the World Wide Web will outgrow the browser. Right now the browser is a window to the world, but the world's getting more complex. There may however be a browser-like application for accessing certain types of information, but it is unlikely to resemble the browser of today.

We are already trying to cram too much through the browser. There must be a better way to design, transfer, and interact with web-based applications.

Eventually there will be no discernible difference between a web-based application and a local application (if there are any more local applications), they will essentially become one in the same.

Something I see today that I really like is how applications are handled in various flavors of Linux. Things like portage, apt, and yum are paving the way to a new methodology for accessing applications. You can basically browse around some interface to find new applications. And when you want to try one you just run a command or click a button and bam!, its all yours. This is a case where local applications are moving closer to the browser.

It is almost like how it was back in the day with dumb terminals. Simple machines that accessed a central, more powerful, computer. Eventually the dumb terminals got smart enough to handle the needed information on their own. But now information is growing like mad, and our machines are not able to hold all this information, so it is slowly reverting back. I believe however that this trend will continue, rather than seesaw back and forth. And our desktops will be a blend of local and remote information with no real differentiation between the two.

Florida Trip

I made it back from florida alive, and here are the pictures. Most if them are from the Pirate Cruise which involved drinking lots of cheep beer and being made to look like a pirate ... so you can't say I didn't warn you. The whole trip was a lot of fun! Thanks Scott, Donna, and Beth!

You can also download zip files with all the edited (1M) and raw (38M) images.

Free Hardware or Free Software?

There seems to be a theory that in 10-20 years either hardware will be free and software will cost money, or software will be free and hardware will cost money. The idea is not whether software or hardware will be worthless, but that the progression of business will have their eggs in one basket.

Now the idea that hardware will be free and software will cost money may seem outrageous. I mean, how could something that costs money to reproduce (hardware) be free while something that is relatively free to reproduce (software), not to mention that thousands of people are willing to create it for free, would cost money? But if Microsoft and Sun Microsystems had their way this would be the case. They would be willing to give away free hardware if it would mean that they could charge regular subscription fees for software.

That is not the way I see it progressing. I believe that all software will eventually be free, and hardware will (still) cost money. The free software / open source community is continually gaining momentum, ant it is just a matter of time that all software will evolve to be free. The future I see is one in which software and improvements on software is distributed as freely as speech.

However, I still see corporations like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems putting their effort into pulling the pendulum in their direction. It is up to us to keep this from happening.

Driver-less Hardware

Drivers, those little pieces of software that know how to work your hardware, are a necessary part of computing today. Whether you're in Windows or Linux (not sure about OSX, but they're probably ahead of the game if I had to guess), you have to deal with drivers for your hardware. In the Windows world you can usually just pop in the disk that came with your hardware, but its not always that easy. And if you're in the Linux world you know all too well the challenges of finding drivers and making them work.

Well, what if there were no need for drivers? What if you could just plug in your new webcam to your Linux and it would just work? Not by chance if your computer had the right driver, but the webcam would tell your computer how it works and how to use it. And not only that, but if you plugged the same webcam into a Windows machine, it would work just the same.

Believe it or not, this is completely possible today, and is not too difficult. The concept, at its core would be centered around a common driver language. This language would be the building blocks from which a driver is made. And the code, or a byte-code compiled version of which, would be stored on the hardware device. A driver manager on the PC would then be able to download this information and offer it to user applications.

This is made possible by the fact that devices are becoming more sophisticated, and computers are getting faster. Both of which are required for this idea to work effectively.

DISCLAIMER: Don't try to patent this idea! This is my proof of prior art. It can be a much more effective technology as an open standard.