Martin Gordon's Blog

I was wow'ed twice this week: First with Google Maps Street View, then with Microsoft Surface.

Street View is a fun little tool. It's got the fun factor that Google Earth did when it was released, where you could get lost for hours discovering little things all around the world. It also has some utility, where you could find the name of that restaurant you drove by today but can't seem to remember the name, and who knows what other things Google will be able to do with it.

I think Surface could have a huge impact on the way we compute. Then again, it could be another Origami. Either way, the videos of it floating around the web are impressive, but we'll have to see how often we'll come across one in our daily lives (especially when they're $5-10k and for businesses only). Once we can get one for the same price as a separate PC and coffee table, that's when it'll make an impact. At the very least, Surface looks cool and could be useful.

In contrast to those two is Palm's Foleo, which was announced today. The Foleo is a thin, 2 pound sub-notebook with a 10 inch screen. It runs a custom OS based on Linux and syncs to your Treo seamlessly. This is supposedly the answer to all those complaints that smartphone keyboards and screens are two small. What complaints? I haven't heard anything from the roughly 50 million smartphones shipped year to date. The reason why the Handheld PCs of the 90s failed and why UMPCs were slow to take off is the same reason why Foleo will fail: If it doesn't fit in your pocket, then "it" might as well be a full-featured notebook.

As Ars Technica put it, the Foleo is a 90s device that took a design note from 90s Apple notebooks (the logo on the lid is upside down when opened). What the hell is wjad?

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Maps, Street View, Microsoft, Surface, surface computing, Palm, Foleo, smartphone

This CrunchGear post on a fake iPhone that popped up on eBay reminded me of something that happened to me yesterday: I dropped my Treo. It broke into three pieces (battery, phone and battery cover), and the phone suffered no damage, but it could have been much worse.

Had it been an iPhone that I dropped, I would have not been out a phone, but also (as Steve has pointed out) an iPod and an "internet communicator." Knowing Apple's stance on accidental damage, I would also have been out $600. Also considering the many other ways the phone could find its way apart from you, and the idea of diversifying risk becomes more and more appealing.

Now that the effects of the RDF (reality distortion field) have subsided, I've become less and less interested in the iPhone. I think Apple made a big mistake by not even taking pre-orders immediately after the announcement.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, FCC, eBay, iPod, fake, convergence, gravity, Treo, damage, warranty

GooSync, a new service currently in beta (surprise, surprise!), offers the ability to sync Google Calendar with handheld devices.

Setup
The setup process is straightforward, although registration left a bad taste in my mouth since it required my address and date of birth (for what?). The next step consists of the actual device setup, which they break down into three categories:

- Your device supports over-the-air configuration:
We will send you a configuration message by sms, just open and save the received message to auto configure your device.

- Your device requires manual configuration:
We will display generic manual instructions, follow these to manually configure your device.

- Your device is a Palm or Windows device:
We will display the download and install instructions, follow these to manually setup your device.

Since I have a Treo 650, I fall into the last category. I downloaded the .prc file, installed it and entered my GooSync credentials. No issues with this step, except that the password dialog is in plaintext, so make sure to not type it in around anyone you don't want knowing your password.

The Sync
Syncing happens in about a minute, but there is no automatic syncing, so I don't know how useful this service is really going to be. All the events on my Treo showed up in my default calendar in GCal and an event in my default calendar in GCal showed up on my Treo. I'm not sure if it'll sync other personal calendars, but shared calendars I'm subscribed to aren't synchronized.

I'm glad that there is finally a way for me to get my Google Calendar onto my Treo and more importantly, a way to get my Palm Calendar (which syncs to Outlook/Exchange automagically) onto Google Calendar. It's a really simple process, but I do have two main concerns:

1. The unnecessary information required at signup. What does my home address or DOB have to do with syncing my Google Calendar? I put in a fake address and I can see them needing DOB for COPPA purposes (although how many 11 year olds really have a need for this service?), but even just them asking for this info made me a bit uneasy about it.
2. There's no automatic syncing. To be honest, unless there's something I really need from one calendar on the other, I'm probably not gonna use this. I have my Treo with me all the time and my GCal usage has dropped to almost zero. I prefer to enter events in GCal, but until I can have those events show up automatically on my Treo without having to run the GooSync app, I'll probably just stick to entering them on the phone itself.

It's mostly the second issue that'll keep this at the "proof of concept" level for me. Granted, it is still in beta, so I do expect them to add this feature in a future release.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Calendar, GCal, GooSync, sync, synchronization, HotSync, Palm, Palm OS, smartphone, handheld, PDA, Treo 650, phones, mobile

It's been 10 days since I posted. Last weekend was fall break so me and my roommate, Adam, drove up to Boston for the weekend. Boston is a pain to navigate, and the recently released Google Maps for Palm OS was a real time saver — when I got cell phone service. It's astonishing how such Cingular doesn't provide adequate service in such a large metropolitan area. I get great service anywhere else I've been but Boston seems to be a black hole of Cingular coverage.

A bunch of things just bunched up on this short week, including a reaction paper to Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month (which coincided almost perfectly with 37signals' release of a free online version of their software development book, Getting Real). and a bunch of group meetings. I've been re-inspired by Marc Canter's post on "the amount of automation, modernization and catch-up that the health and medical professions require," as it relates to one of my group projects related to his conclusion (which I won't disclose publicly in case we decide to take it further than just a pedagogical exercise).

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Maps, Palm OS, Treo 650, Cingular, Boston, Fred Brooks, Mythical Man-Month, 37signals, Getting Real, software development, Marc Canter, health care, medical, modernization

I attended the DigitalLife show this past Saturday. I got a chance to see some interesting little toys, get some hands-on time with the PS3 and got a chance to hang with Robert Heron, Patrick Norton and Jim Lauderback of dl.tv/PCMag. Here are some of my impressions:

• The new Treo 680 is a nice (but incremental) improvement over the 650. It definitely does not reflect the two year gap between the 650 and the 680. It loses the antenna, but keeps the awful VGA camera and same processor.
• Dell was everywhere. I didn't see many non-Dell/Alienware machine on the floor.
• The 20" Dell notebook is a hoss. I can't imagine anyone buying it and actually taking it anywhere. If it would actually fit on an airplane tray table, I can see the table just snapping off under the sheer weight of this machine. Even for LAN parties, I think a Shuttle box and separate display might be easier to manage, and would be a whole lot more upgradeable.
• While I didn't get to hold the controller, I did see the Wii on display. The system is about the size I expected, but the controller looks a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Elebits was the game on display, and while it didn't look particularly fun, it did do a good job of showing off the Wiimote.
• The PS3 controller is a nice incremental improvement over the PS2 controller. I like the way R2/L2 were converted to semi-trigger buttons and the slightlly smaller grip felt a bit better.
• Sonic on the PS3, although 70% complete, was pretty buggy. Lots of clipping issues were apparent and the 360 version (85% complete) felt a lot faster. The graphics on the PS3 were great, although they didn't seem that much better than the 360.

Technorati Tags: DigitalLife, New York City, Javits Center, dl.tv, Robert Heron, Patrick Norton, Jim Lauderback, Palm, Treo 680, Dell, Alienware, games, Nintendo, Wii, Wiimote, PS3, Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog