Riddle Me This, Jishman

So, I have a quick thought about Verizon Wireless getting an iPhone soon. It does kind of make sense to try to get an iPhone on the VZW network (if you are VZW’s CEO). People replace their phone every 2-or so years. Commonly held thought was that Apple should wait until LTE (4G) networks were rolled out, so Apple would only have to produce one handset regardless of the network. I say, forget that.

AT&T and Verizon will be lucky to get 13 markets up on LTE by the end of this calendar year. They might - MIGHT - get 20 markets up next year too. They won’t have the whole country blanketed in LTE coverage, and so your phone will drop calls almost as badly as when networks were FIRST being rolled out (or worse, if you have AT&T now, and live in DC, SF or NYC). For a company that has made it’s living on claiming it has the best network, why would Verizon take that risk?

On the other hand, getting a CDMA iPhone will be short term expensive, but will open up the phone to another potential 78 million customers. That’s a lot of people. And yes, I know there are payment issues (will VZW give Apple the same deal AT&T does per handset), but I say the above reasons make a lot of sense to make a CDMA phone if you are Apple for right now.

Thoughts?

A few weeks ago, when the iPad came out, I was saying to a friend of mine that I could very easily see it as being the easiest computer to teach people how to use. No longer do you need to know how to type with 8 fingers. No longer do you need to know how to hunt and peck (right, Slugfest?) to find what you need. It’s all right there at the touch of your finger. And for 80 year olds (or older) who’ve never owned computers before, the iPad could be the easiest way for them to get on the net without really needing to do too much. Can’t see small type on a screen? No big deal, just pump the volume (dance dance!)…ahem, font size.

Now, I haven’t posted yet about my true feelings on the whole iPad-device-thing, but the video below shows an example of how it could be used, especially by a 100 year old(!!!!).

Talk about the readership we’d get if we got this!

Now, I’m not sure I’d say the domain is too “hot” to be sold….wait, they’re talking about the other hot. Now I get it.

Dear Riddle Me This, Jishman Readers and NFL football fans everywhere,

I have been asked by many people over the past few weeks, “when are you putting out your first NFL Mock draft?” I am not. I won’t mock draft the NFL draft this year. And I won’t watch the NFL draft this year and I am asking all of you to join me in a grassroots movement throughout the Blogosphere; I am asking all of you to join me in boycotting the 2010 NFL Draft!

Why?!

Simple. As an avid NFL fan, I was not happy last summer when the NFL announced the dumbest idea to date! Roger Goodell “notified teams Thursday that the draft will be spread over three days in 2010, running Thursday, April 22, through Saturday, April 24.”

The NFL has no idea what draft day means to true NFL fans! It is an all day, non-game day, tailgate party! We see friends, we renew rivalries and we BBQ, laugh, have a few cold ones and enjoy the day watching every single selection of the first and second rounds. But the new NFL Draft Schedule will alter those NFL Draft day celebrations because Goodell and company are pitting the potential for advertising dollars in prime time against the NFL Fans. Money over loyalty.

But we can stop it! And it is as simple as turning off the television. Do Not Watch the NFL Draft in 2010!

If the ratings tank, advertising dollars will be lost and the NFL will be forced to revisit their idea!

I am asking for your support. One person will not make a difference, I need your help as well as the support of your friends and family. We have three months to mobilize an effort to do one thing; turn off the NFL Draft in 2010!

Send this message to everyone you know who loves the NFL and NFL draft day:

“Boycott the 2010 NFL Draft!”

1.) A look inside the birth of the iPod - I like that there were conscious thoughts about what it should be from the beginning and not just a “hey look, we’ve got this thing that’s cool!”

2.) iPhone changing education - In a post last year, I talked about the changes in education if every student was given a tablet. Think about the radical changes across the board that would take place with an iPhone, laptop, netbook, tablet PC, etc. in every classroom. My grad school professors encouraged us to bring our laptops to class so we could be looking - real time - at the world around us and its changes. School shouldn’t be just about memorizing names and dates - yes, those things are important at times - but it should also be about teaching people how to think and react to the world around them. I wasn’t an especially good student in high school - and probably not in college either - I got by with a solid B to B+ average, but the difference was that I learned how to think. I understood what was being taught to me and its practical applications (except for economics - a subject I am still not sure should be taught in high school) well before many of my peers. Parents focus on the SAT and ACT scores but how much of what we learn in class prepares students for them? Math and Science classes are useful, to be sure, but I always found the classes where I was forced to think, not memorize, but think about the effects of what I was learning much more interesting.

3.) Because no holiday season is complete without the requisite Chanukkah song. This one is brought to us by Orrin Hatch and the Mormons of Utah. It’s a very Mormon Chanukkah!

I like the idea of a MacTablet. I think my record is fairly clear on this one, but I’m concerned that the expectations are too high for this one. It needs to have 3 crucial features in my mind:
1.) A differentiating app - a guiding purpose besides “check me out, I’m a freaking awesome touch screen computer! booyah, baby!” A media tablet wouldn’t be out of line, but it would have to more than iTunes. There are rumors about Conde Nast having “tablet-ized” their content for such a device and that’s great, but I think there needs to be more. A scaled down version of iMovie and iPhoto would be good; ensuring it works for the ARM/Atom processors. I’d say there probably needs to be more too, but if it was just that - perhaps with a webcam - some people would be fine with it.
2.) Networking - while I am fundamentally opposed to a mandated 3G card to make the device work, I would not be opposed to a subsidized model and a non-3G model. Either way, though, it should have WiFi. Ethernet port optional and, frankly, unnecessary on a computer of this kind.
3.) Price - It can not, can not, can NOT cost too much money. Learn from the lessons of the past. The cube failed for a variety of reasons but most of all it was too much cost for too little computer. I know this is not a “netbook” competitor - Apple keeps reminding us of that - but perception is a problem. If there is a computer that costs $999 with a full processor and DVD drive, why would someone twice as much for neither? My belief is it should be an $800 price point for maximum sales.

Now, according to the article above, it has been delayed. OLED touch screen? $2000 price? Nothing more than additional rumor mongering.

“Dear Apple, we need more information to get us excited! BRING THIS TO ME! Sincerely, Techie McHates-You”

…New Jersey ranks No. 1 in the U.S. in total solar installations per capita and No. 2 for electricity-drawn solar power, in large part because of an innovative system used to subsidize expansion. The state began subsidizing solar in 2002 by allowing utilities to raise rates a small amount in order to pay for solar installations, but now the program runs on a system of renewable-energy credits that allows homeowners to sell their excess power back to the grid. Solar power installations in the state increased from six installations in 2002 to 4,340 in 2009.

At work the last few days, we’ve been talking about how the buzzwords and confluence of Smartphones, Netbooks, Notebooks, Desktops, Cloud Computing and a swath of other concepts have both the ability to make us more AND less productive, and also the ability to change our perspective on our digital worlds.
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I am tired of swapping emails with Yahoo! I want service and not of the lip/email variety, I want results. I am therefore resorting to an open plea:

Dear Yahoo!

In 1999, I signed up for an email account with your company! It has worked nicely for most of the past decade. BUT over the past six months to a year, you have been trying to compete with other companies and much to my dismay, my satisfaction with your product is suffering greatly!

I get error codes. I send messages to you and you tell me nothing is wrong. I get another error code and I follow your directions to take a screen shot of the page but nothing ever changes. I am unable to access my email multiple times a day and it is frustrating to have to hit the refresh button ten times in a row before I can log into my email because your servers cannot support your new changes. I would love to blame IE but it happens when I log in at home on Firefox as well. It’s not them and it’s not me! Sooner or later, the problem can’t be everyone else.

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“Greetings and good morning, all of my loyal readers. This is JT the Brick, head of tech support, here at Bad/JISH Productions bringing you another ‘Tech Crap I want’ report.

“As many people know, I am quite the devotee, but nothing gets me more excited than to see Apple truly and genuinely innovating. Innovation is at the heart and the core of who they are, which is why, when they said netbooks make no sense, I - like all Lemmings - repeated dutifully ‘Netbooks make no sense’.

“When Apple said it did have some ideas for the space, immediately, I sat at the end of my bed praying like all good Christian boys at Steve Jobs’ alter for an Apple tablet. Now, I wait no longer:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/apple-tablet/

This is what I want. No kidding This looks awesome. I don’t know a mac fan who wouldn’t want a ginormous touch screen tablet.

“If I had a complaint, and it would be a small one, it would be the estimated $800 price tag. For a mere 200 dollars or so more, I could get a whole computer! Why $800? Well, I think I understand it. It’s in between the $1000 computer price and the $400 iPod touch price. It sort of makes sense…sort of.

“Well, this has been a short review by JT the Brick, Tech Support Guru and head of Bad/JISH Productions bringing you another ‘Tech Crap I want’ report.”

This is awesome. I read an article about it happening in Ghana and thought to myself, there is no reason this shouldn’t work over here. The most telling line of this article, “Everyone knows their cellphone number. Not everyone knows their credit card number…”

This has highly dangerous implications for parents of kids with cell phones, but then again, so too do KIDS HAVING CELL PHONES with unlimited minutes. I don’t have kids and I don’t know what it takes to keep them in check, but as a concept, this doesn’t need to be turned on by default for everyone, and it probably won’t be ready soon. I just love the idea. Credit cards…without the cards.

So, I was reading Twitter, when I came across this note:

IncMagazineHow do you think the Kindle-manufacturer’s purchase of E Ink will effect the e-reader industry?

Now, loyal readers of this blog know I have been a fan of E-Ink’s technology for quite some time. In fact, when the first Kindle came out (they are now on versions 2 and 3 respectively), I was very interested in how it would change my reading habits. In fact, I was convinced publishers were going to show up by the boatload to get in on this action. Sure, it would cut into their profits, but it also would even more substantially cut their costs.
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Many of you may have seen this in the past few weeks. If you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan in the tri-state area, you especially may have been annoyed at this when Ticketbastard “ran out of tickets” and shuttled people over to their scalping site for the Boss’s upcoming concerts. Well, the CEOs of the largest ticket seller in the nation (Ticketmaster) and the largest concert promoter (Live Nation) were in Washington yesterday attempting to explain their intentions (to create a monopoly) in merging and how it will create LOWER prices.

Now, I’m no economist and I don’t disagree that we need a better method for doing these tasks, especially when Ticketbastard fees come out to be over 1/4 of the overall cost of the tickets you buy through them…unfortunately, I don’t see that changing under a merged company. No, this is a failure waiting to happen - plain and simple. I hope it doesn’t happen, and I hope we see actual protection of the consumer - which will be the ultimate test.

Thank god for the RMTJ staff.