China: no source code, no sales

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

China is apparently considering demanding source code from hardware manufacturers, and banning the sale of products from companies that don’t comply. It’s being called an “obligatory accreditation system for IT security products,” but to me it sounds more like a worrying ultimatum.

This would be a drastic move for any Government, but manufacturers are extremely worried about giving such information to China in particular because of its, shall we say, lax attitude to copyright and patent law. In fact, MI5 has even gone so far as to warn UK companies in the past about the threat of Chinese hackers going after trade secrets.

Many products available for sale in the country bear a striking resemblance to Western products, and lawsuits have been filed in the past with varying levels of success, so tight security seems to be a better method of protecting IP than litigation. Under the new rules this strategy could be impossible.

The implications of this are bigger than you may think. On my recent trip to Korea to visit Samsung I was surprised to find out that a lot of consumer devices are physically identical. Samsung makes the same panels for its own televisions as it does under licence for Sony, for example, but the software that controls it is proprietary, and accounts for a lot of the picture quality. The code is far more sensitive than the hardware.

The future’s here, and it’s quite retro

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

I just got back after a couple of days off work to find two mobile phone watches have landed on my desk. That’s right – mobile phones, in a watch. Watches that are mobile phones. It’s official, the future is here, and it’s come in the form of a chunky plastic wrist accessory.

What next for Pro? Jet-packs? Flying cars? Meals in a pill? Who knows. All I can tell you is that I was running up and down Tottenham Court road at lunch pretending I was the Hoff in Knight Rider.

This particular one that I’m testing today, which strangely came with no product or manufacturer’s name but can be bought here, has Bluetooth, quad-band operation, video recording and an MP3 player, all controlled by a tiny, tiny touchscreen. Keep an eye out in PC Pro for the full reviews.

First look: Hands on with Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

The Inspiron Mini 9 is Dell’s long-awaited contender to the Netbook throne. With Asus’ ever-expanding range of Eees; MSI’s Wind and its several clones – take a bow Advent and Medion – and seemingly every manufacturer under the sun trying to get a piece of the Netbook action, Dell is the one name that has been conspicuous by its absence.

Now, finally, in the luxurious splendour of Monte-Carlo’s Fairmont Hotel, we’ve managed to get our grubby mitts on the Mini 9 itself.

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Does London even need free Wi-Fi?

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Boris Johnson made headlines today after appearing on BBC London radio saying that he hopes to roll-out WiFi coverage to the entire city. What a noble aim, considering the importance of the internet today and the fact that not everyone can afford the cost of home connections. It’s precisely the sort of thing that can win support in the short term, but it’s never going to happen.

“They’ve done it in other parts of the world; why on earth can’t we do it?” he asked.

Because it will cost a fortune, Boris, that’s why. An investment in infrastructure that big would cost millions, hundreds of millions. There’s little point in it, either, as 3G mobile broadband continues to fall in price. Londoners won’t be happy paying for a costly organised network in extra taxes when £10 per month per person could solve the problem instantly. Just look at the animosity towards the ever-increasing Olympic budget if you need proof.

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First look: the Android G1

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

After months of hype, we’ve finally laid hands and eyes on the most hotly-anticipated mobile phone launch since the first iPhone came out.

As you’ll probably know by now, unless you’ve been living in a particularly dark and damp cave over the past few months and weeks, the T-Mobile G1 is the first handset to sport Google’s Android mobile operating system. And, after a brief tete-a-tete with the phone this morning, we’re ready to report our first impressions. So how does it stack up?

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Privacy, mobiles and my nan

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

My nan hated mobile phones. Just taking one into her living room was enough to invite her rambling wrath, invetiably finished off with being called love in a tone that was more hand grenade than full stop.

 In my nan’s mind a mobile phone was basically a cancer wand, the merest waft of which could kill a man stone dead. If she was feeling particularly vitriolic on the subject, she would then claim Doris next-door (which I genuinely believed was her full name until I was twelve or so) knew somebody who’d gone deaf using one, before delivering the coup de grace – a stunning exposition on how my mobile phone was pretty much everything that was wrong with the modern world, bar Genocide and Carrot and Coriander soup.

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First look: Toshiba Qosmio F50-10Z

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

While we have seen a trickle of Centrino 2 laptops arriving in the PC Pro Labs of late – the Sony VAIO FGN-FW11ZU and Advent 5511 are two of the more recent examples – the new Toshiba Qosmio F50-10Z has to be one of the most exciting, at least based on first impressions.

The keyboard, for instance, is surrounded by a chrome border which extends to the pair of unusually-shaped mouse buttons, and the panel of touch-sensitive controls above the keyboard glow white, rather than the more reserved blue we’ve seen from Dell’s XPS laptops.

Audio is provided by a pair of harmon/kardon speakers – similar to those in the Toshiba Satellite P300 – and volume is altered by a circular control just below the keyboard. Predictably, it’s chrome-covered and bordered with bright white light. There’s also a huge Qosmio logo that arches its way across the lid, as if you didn’t know that this extroverted notebook had been designed, from the ground up, to entertain.

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What type of person are you?

Friday, September 19th, 2008

There’s a continual attempt from political parties and big companies alike to define the population, and Acer is the latest to unveil its thoughts. So the question is, do you recognise yourself in any of the below?

Techno Leader
Is very advaned in technical matters. He knows what he wants: “The best and up-to-date”. He wants best performance and he is not price-sensitive. And – he can afford it. He is affluent and young.

Techno Rational
Shares the same positive attitude towards technology as Techno Leader, but his comparatively lower income makes him less ready to pay a premium for brands. (more…)

Microsoft blows ad campaign

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Absolutely, utterly, flaming typical. 

Let’s examine the content of my last post, praising Microsoft for the bravery of its Seinfeld-led ads.

“Ifind myself thoroughly engrossed by the antics of television’s latest odd couple,”  Said I. “Even Jerry Seinfeld, who I’ve never “got” is acutally making me chuckle, and ten years too late I find I’m no longer a social pariah.”

Microsoft’s response: to immediately drop the surreal comedy and Seinfeld in its latest ad. And this.

“It would have been so easy, and so futile, to have engaged in a tit-for-tat campaign against Apple’s incredibly smug, if succesful, Mac vs PC ads. And Microsoft would have lost, badly.”

Microsoft’s response: to clone John Hodgeman and engage in a tit-for-tat campaign against Apple, going on to tell us what we already knew. That not every PC user is a socially, inept geek and Windows is used by lots of very different folk. 

And finally, “It’s always awkward watching a celebrity flog something they know nothing about”

 Well one out of three isn’t bad. There’s still no mention of Vista though.

 MIcrosoft claims it was always heading this way. Which if we break it down means it was always going to pay Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to appear in two adverts. That it was always going to abruptly change the focus of the campaign after carefully building the foundations for something else entirely. That if the web had thrown a massive love-in for the early adverts, they would have been dropped just the same. 

Yeah, that sounds about right. For the record, the last advert bored me to tears and became exactly the thing I was praising Microsoft for avoiding. To that end, from now on, unless the ads return to something interesting I’m going to do the one thing Microsoft doesn’t want any of us to do – I’m going to stop talking about it. 

This line means nothing

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Ever since my trip to Google’s Developer Day earlier this week, I can’t get enough of playing with APIs. When I read Tim’s post this morning about charts in Excel I realised that it was the perfect excuse to bang on about one I find particularly useful. (more…)