Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Pablo Picasso. "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." [Quotes of the Day] 7:19:36 AM    comment []

Thomas Jefferson. "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it." [Quotes of the Day] 7:19:11 AM    comment []

Leaderless Resistance. I was reading this quote from an article called Leaderless Resistance Today: "The new communications technologies make it possible for a movement to exist solely as an ideology, with no membership lists, no financial records, no direct communication between the operatives and no "off" switch. There is no way to negotiate with such an ideology, no way to compromise....Because there is no formal "group" with assets, interpersonal relationships, or other stabilizing factors, individuals who moderate simply leave the milieu; their writings and actions remain behind, recruiting new members." ..and I was thinking "Yeah, that's fabulous, that's the kind of stuff we need!!", when I actually looked at the article and realized it was about terrorist groups and dangerous elements in society, and how movements might continue, simply based on an ideology, a book, a website, an event, even without any organizing network, without an organization, without any leaders. And the article talks about how that is a very bad thing, and how we might stop that. But I'm looking for how we might start that. Oh, not focused on hate and violence as the article is talking about. Focused on truth, freedom, beauty, love, the common good. Imagine that there were nothing any frantic monopoly could do to stop people from spontaneous making things work better and being more fun, and from exposing the truth at every turn. No organizational leadership to buy off, no accounts to bankrupt, nobody to put in jail, no communication channels to cut. Just millions of people who freely and voluntarily operated as cells of a bigger body, without even having to talk about it. Heheh. [Ming the Mechanic] There is something very powerful here.  Does the Internet need some pruning and cleanup?  Is that even possible? 6:58:00 AM    comment []

Nokia Mediamaster Makes Phone-TV Connection. With consumers clamoring for mobile phones that double as digital cameras, letting users capture and share snapshots of their latest trip to the mountains or send photos of their darling little sons and daughters, Nokia has come up with a way to offer photo-phone "slide shows" on TV. [osOpinion] 6:52:18 AM    comment []

Frank Scully. "Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?" [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 6:51:02 AM    comment []

Who Needs a 100 Million-Pixel Cell Phone Camera?. I don't think I need one, but apparently Mitsubishi Electric Corp. built one and demonstrated it at CeBIT 2003. The company showed a prototype mobile phone handset with a digital camera having a resolution of about 100 million pixels and wireless LAN capability. The new mobile phone model comes with a small digital camera attachable to the hinge of the folding handset. The digital camera has a MPEG4 encoding capability to take photos of animation. It is also capable of transmitting images taken to any access points nearby via wireless LAN. The model will have a compatibility with UMTS, the third-generation mobile communications protocol adopted in Europe. Here is what this prototype looks like. The built-in wireless LAN is in compliance with IEEE802.1b at 2.4GHz. Mitsubishi Electric assumes that users can use either wireless LAN or UMTS, depending on the intended purpose. For example, they can use UMTS for larger areas, and wireless LAN for particular areas for faster downloading, the spokesperson explained. And what about prices and availability? The maker does not have a concrete plan to commercialize the mobile phone yet. "We have developed this model to prove a multi-functional, operable mobile phone handset is technically feasible although it is still a concept model," a spokesperson at the lab said. OK, the technology permits to build this handset, but it's almost absurd. How long will it take to send an image of 100 million pixels to someone? And what's the purpose of having that many pixels on such a small display? This reminds me of an article about how designers are creating minuscule gadgets, with buttons too small for our fingers, and screens so tiny that nobody over 40 can read them easily. If you haven't seen yet, please read "Hello, tech designers? This stuff is too small." Here is a short quote about how ridicule the situation is today. Jeff Parrish, the manager of user experience at Palmsource, the software arm of Palm Computing, points out, anyone who squints at Palm screens can call on many tools to make it easier. An $11 program called Teal Magnify enlarges the type; a $30 magnifying glass available in stores from Officeonthego clips onto Palm units. So, you first buy a gizmo with a small screen, then you have to add a magnifying glass!! Amazing!! Source: Hiroki Yomogita, Nikkei Electronics, March 17, 2003; Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY, March 3, 2003 [Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends] Well, I would really like one even if it is small! 6:50:13 AM    comment []