In this case, you’re excited about something…. that you have no idea what it is! Perhaps on Thursday, they will tell you Apple products are made of people!

I like my Mac as much as the next guy, but I’m concerned that the cult that is beginning to surround the Apple brand will blind people to the shortcomings of their devices. The iPad is nothing compared to some of the other technology out there but it gets more attention than other, more groundbreaking ideas. Apple does some pretty evil things too; a non-replaceable battery means they are pretty much leasing technology to you, you will never fully own it. Not to mention DRM lock-in for the media you buy. First music, then movies and tv, and now books and magazines.

The next Apple is out there, designing, and creating something even more fabulous than you can imagine. My worry is that when it comes, nobody will 1) recognize it because they are indoctrinated into the Apple cult or 2) be able to switch because they are locked into Apple’s DRM and devices.

So before you get too excited about iPhone 4… remember, that it might be people.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

Now, a rising challenger from an unlikely source: The old guard, Microsoft. It’s been awhile since I’ve been impressed with something MS has done, but their new sneak look at “Courier” has me very excited. A cross between an ebook reader, digital collaborator, and handheld netbook, this is definitely a shift in the way we’ve been experiencing eBooks. By incorporating features that interact with a “journal” GUI and web-connection, Microsoft has created a product that has real potential to actually do things, rather than the frivolity that the iPad brings to mind.

At this point, Google’s Chrome OS has the challenge of bringing a new paradigm to handheld computing. While I love Android, and I’ve long thought that Chrome has the possibility to make individual devices irrelevant (your user experience is the same no matter what device you are on), Microsoft’s vision for the future has changed my mind. By making this new generation of technology in handheld devices, Microsoft has tapped into the personalization of device that appeals to so many. Even the concepts they use, such as “Journal” is geared towards making an emotional and personal connection with a device.

If Courier can pull off what it does in the demo videos with the same ease and grace, I will be in line for one. The race for innovation and inspired thinking in the eBook space is on, and in my opinion, while Apple has a product, Microsoft has inspiration.

Read more about the new device and see videos of it in action at Engadget.

Youtube recently announced automatic captions for YouTube videos. While the technology is imperfect, the system will analyze videos and make best guesses about the script. This is beneficial to Google of course, in analyzing the videos to deliver better ads, and eventually, translate videos into a multitude of languages. The core benefit to me is as a hard-of-hearing person.

This is definitely a step in the right direction, and personally, I think it’s long overdue.

While there are regulations in place to ensure equal access to television and like media, regulating such a thing on the internet cannot, and indeed, should not be done. It’s encouraging to see the de-facto standard distributer of video content on the web take this issue seriously and use the advances in technology to improve everyone’s lives, even in areas of lesser importance to a larger audience.

This is one of the many reasons I am a supporter of Google as a company and a brand. There’s still further steps to take, but I am very happy today to see this announcement. Making captioning easier for publishers and accessible to those that need it is an entire ecosystem of solutions for these kinds of problems. I hope Google and other companies continue to develop technology that pushes the limits of what can be done to ensure access for everyone to online channels of communication.

Check out the video from the California School For The Deaf, Fremont (where many people I know and family members have attended)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZdhMyPHsQ

The open-source nature of Chrome does for notebooks the same thing Android has done for smartphones – make them more affordable and easily accessible to the masses.

The Chrome OS is more suited towards quick netbooks, nothing you’d do any long-term or serious production work on, but very possibly a controller for other devices in your home (see: The internet of things), and for now, a way to access your work, and browse the web.

Google doesn’t develop software packages for the desktop, they create web apps for access anywhere. The local storage is just an offline cache (like Google Gears on steroids). They’re offering an OS that suits them perfectly, and encourages others to follow their SAAS (Software-As-A-Service) model. If they can make sure the competition is following this same SAAS path (by making netbooks based on Chrome a widely available and cheap option, as well as free for manufacturers), they can continue to develop their own software with an advantage.

They are insuring the stability and safety of the Web as a platform by offering Chrome OS, and making it a viable alternative to other netbook-type OS products out there.

Of course, it’s tightly integrated into Google’s services and offerings, but you can’t develop OS’s without having a way to make some money off of it in the long run. This is a step in ensuring they stay relevant and homogenous in a future that doesn’t rely on traditional search as much as it has in the past.

Update: I downloaded an early preview and tested it out. I stand by my previous thoughts. I think what I was trying to say in the post is that this will ultimately bring the cost of netbooks down to where they are a commodity. Think $100 netbook you use to control a couple of things around the house and check Gmail and Facebook.

So far, I’ve had it for a few days and so far, I really like it, but it is not without its’ shortcomings.

The physical device itself is sleek and nice to hold. I’ve ordered a custom case that hasn’t come yet, but I really like the style and design and can’t wait to protect it a little better. The standard mini-USB cable works great, although there is no dedicated headphone jack, this really isn’t a problem for me as I rely entirely on bluetooth for audio. There are only a few buttons and no keyboard, but I feel like it could be done with fewer buttons. There is a trackball which is nice, but I rarely use it. It doesn’t get in the way though, and it’s good to have as an input.

The software that comes with the phone is all very good and tends to be snappy and responsive. The on-screen keyboard takes some getting used to but with a vibration-feedback option, I’m getting better – it takes a little bit more pressure to use the screen on this than an iPhone.

The thing I was really dying for was Google integration, and it is great on all sides. It’d be nice if the Gmail app could handle more than one account, but it works pretty well anyway – I have it integrated with my Google Apps for Your Domain account with no problems.

Now for the “killer” apps – many of the bundled apps that T-Mobile provides are in fact, fantastic. However, some of these, such as “Freshface”, a skinning app, make the user experience awful and slow the phone down significantly. I do not recommend it, and uninstalled it myself pretty quickly. This tends to be the par for course for many apps, there is a lack of quality in some stuff currently on the market and a lot of them seem to slow the phone down significantly. I’ve installed a lot of stuff and ended up uninstalling to get back the responsiveness.

There are a few fantastic exceptions, such as the game “Cestos” (online mutliplayer), and “Google Sky” (Not that useful in LA where you can’t SEE the stars, but WOW factor is high)

Battery life has been surprisingly high, and Qik video-streaming live to the internet is an amazing feature! The camera quality isn’t breathtaking, but it’s probably on-par with my own, old “regular” digital camera.

Another letdown is the official Google Voice app doesn’t yet support Google Apps accounts, only accounts with @gmail extensions.

This is a great phone and very fun to use, reliable for the most part, but it does lack some of that iPhone polish. On the flip side, the plan wasn’t too expensive, the phone looks awesome, and I enjoy the relative open-ness of the platform and fully expect the App offerings to improve rapidly with the release of several more Android phones this year.

a long time ago i got a refurbished computer and i was using it normally but one day it turned off and the screen went blue and i think i accidentally restored it when it was starting up again.

all my data was lost cuz i guess i accidentally pressed the wrong button cuz when it came back on, everything was gone…so i kept using it like that and then the sound stopped working so i took it in to the store to get it fixed and they restored it again! but i kept using it like that.

but now i think i got viruses and my brother (I THINK) restored it again to get rid of them… in conclusion, is there ANY way i can get my ORIGINAL stuff back?? i know it’s pretty ridiculous to hope but i just wanted to know…

Rob Says:

Aw, sorry there’s nothing that can really be done at that point. Basically the way data recovery works is, you can get stuff back as long as nothing has been re-written over the space where it used to be.

By 2 or 3 restores, there’s probably nothing left of the original data from before. If something bad happens again, there’s a chance you can recover your data – just don’t restore it! That will probably write over the spots where your information was before.

Of course I have to give the standard advice of “Always Have a Backup”. I love these:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=WD+Passport&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=11207888701682775106&ei=5QPpSba8Np30tAOJ7ZD0AQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&resnum=4&ct=result#ps-sellers

$85 for a 320GB drive that’s pretty small and just one cable is really a great deal, and probably more space than you have on your laptop.

I hope that helps! Sorry about your data

Best,

Rob

PS: To restore data, I am a fan of Prosoft Data Rescue II for Mac and Data Rescue PC for PC. http://www.prosofteng.com/