2011 has ended, so where will the Technology go in 2012

127 days, 19 hours, 16 mins and 02 seconds
till my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth 

2011 has been the launch of many different tablets. Apple has the iPad 2 and I would suspect that iPad 3 is close around the corner. There are roamers that something will be announced at iWorld. Samsung has let a cat out of the bag with the announcement of a new System-On-Chip (SOC) Exynos 5250. They have indicated the capabilities and specs and some believe it is the strongest indication of where iPad 3 may be heading.

Apple has been in the courts battling with Samsung over the Galaxy Tab 10.1 over IP, but all they have done is highlighted that this may be something to checkout. And boy have you seen the ads, and when they come on everyone is aware of Samsung and the Galaxy Tab. Well done Apple great advertising campaign for Samsung. Are Apple afraid that it is too good and could take market share from the iPad, why don't they just let the market decide. Apple user will stick with Apple but the undecided will now wait because Apple has made such a point maybe there is more to the Samsung offering to consider. This may or may not be true but you would have to ask why a company with such innovate products would try so hard to stop someone from getting their product to market, there has to be more than just being a look alike.

I believe that tablets will now start to come out with more power, features and function and the price will also drop. We are seeing it happen already with Sony just in the last couple of days reduced the cost of theirs table S by $100.

The Operating Systems are all starting to level out, take a look at iOS, Android 4 (ICS) and Windows 8. These OS's are all now taking into consideration the touch experience on large format tablets. I still say there is an issue with data input and that the devices that will win in the end will have a pen device which recognise hand writing, and utilise Wacom technology. The important part is that you can search your hand writing. There is no point in having the hand writing capabilities and not being able to search that writing. You are then reduced to searching visually, with a couple of documents that is fine but if you are serious this is totally impractical.

The other areas which is starting to really pick-up is the Ultra-books. These are starting to become serious desktop replacement material. Currently I am researching more into finding the ultra that has the power and capabilities of a desktop. Connecting to a screen and keyboard for when you are working from a fixed position then detaching easily to become totally mobile.

Over 2011 the table market has hit the Desktop PC market the greatest. I believe that end of the market will start to change in a big way to end up with very small foot print devices. So as I indicated last year the old desktop as we know it will become smaller and smaller mobility with the growth area. Especially with the tablets and Ultrabooks, what will add to the Ultrabooks and which is starting to show with the tablets is having an imbeded phone sim capability. A big area for improvement is the screen technology. Its fine having all the mobility but if you can not read the screen while you are mobile then where is the value of the mobility. We started to see the Pixel Chi screen coming out with their liquid paper technology making the screen readable in full sun light. I suspect this screen technology as seen in the Kindle will get even better and full colour. 

Another screen technology is the transparent screens, if you saw the move Avatar you will understand the concept. Recently some people at MIT have developed transparent battery technology so this will add more to the possibilities.


The next area we will see some big steps I believe with be in the bluetooth arena. Providing the connection to your mobile device and having all the functions of your phone. The audio area with better bluetooth ear pieces, bluetooth storage devices and you are already seeing digital camera's with wireless capability to transmit their photos to you computer or onto the net directly. 

The place to see what we will be getting is at the International Consumers Electronics Show (CES) Jan 10-13th in Las Vegas. Follow it online unless you are lucky enough to get there in person.

So where do I see it going this year: 

1. Tablets will keep dominating the market. ICS, Win8 and iOS are all out there these devices will really take off

2. I hope Apple gets back to it game of innovation and leaps ahead of the game and gets out of the courts. Its harder to copy if you are leagues in front. But once the competition gets in front then the challenge becomes harder. Has Apple lost its way? have they reached their pinical of innovation? We will see this year hopefully

3. There will not be any major updates to the range of Netbooks and they will disappear if not this year by 2013.

4. Ultrabooks will become even more powerful with better battery technology they will start to have a major impact on the desktop and they will become cheaper.

5. There will become more technology integration with the phone and other technology, storage, internet, cameras the lines will start to blur.

6. Finally I believe and hope there will be the appearance of more surface technology. Microsoft is one of the leaders in this space. They demonstrated their version 2 surface last year at CES 2011 what will come this year? This is becoming more cost effective and there will be some of this technology demonstrated at CES this year. The Minority Report, have a look at the real thing and Avatar were great examples of the real direction this technology is starting to move. To see some great examples take a look at 'A Day Made of Glass'

i.e. an example of some of the types of integration can be seen with ASUS Padphone.

ASUS Padphone

I am really looking forward to what comes next.

Tablet Computers, Surface and the future

192 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes and 28 seconds
until my Churchill Trip - 11th May - 13th July 2012
Perth>SF>Seattle>Austin>NY>Boston>London> Heidelberg >Salzburg>Vienna>Singapore>Perth

Well the tablets are coming think and thin. Its hard to imagine that the iPad was only launched back on the 27th Jan 2010 and since then we had the iPad 2 March this year. The iPad brought a lot of innovation since the tablets of old, but where is it going now? At the moment people would have to be wondering if the innovation has stopped and all we are going to see is the law suites over who had what first and owns the rights. :(

Well some companies are not just sitting around and to see some of the work that has come out in the area of Ultra-Notebooks, ie ASUS Ultra-notebook and Dell's Ultra with Optical Drive and Samsung Launches a Series 7 Chronos Notebook. These are quite exciting and quite powerfull devices. But the question is how much longer will these types of devices be around?

Samsung Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook

ASUS Ultrabook UX21

Mac Air

Dell XPS 14z Notebook

The other day I came across some more interesting video's produced by Microsoft in the area of surface technology. In many ways all these new tablet and smart phone devices are becoming thinner and more intergrated into our everyday lives. The video from Microsoft shows some of the direction where this is going and that the phone will be come more and more an everyday device with respect to communications, ticket, wallet and media communications device.

What is shows is that the technology will become more transparent. Yes physically as well as the product itself with respect to what it is to what does it do. More and more we are seeing people and their interactions with the technology become more intuitive. The technology is starting to fad and the functionality is all that is important. For our generation we will talk about the bits and bytes and what the underpinning technolgy is. But for our children and their children it will be a topic of the past.

My best example is with my own daughter. She has Down Syndrome but that does not stop her from engaging in the use of technology. Her school issued all the kids in her class for the last three years with MAC notebooks. Being a longtime PC user it has been foreign to me. But I see my daughter doing thing with that laptop that I have know idea how she has done it. She obiously learnt things at school, but she customises the user interface and how she works with it from her own knowledge to the extent that her school IT department are struggling to manage the device. :) (Smart Girl)

Our Smart Kids

More and more our exposure and experience with technology will be form an experiece perspective and the underlying technology will be a minor concern. People are more interested in what experience they can have with the technology. It either performs and is purchase or not, bring on the future

The Future is Here!