Apple iPhone 4S

The 'new', or rather 'updated' iPhone "4S" was announced yesterday. It boasts increased processor speed (equal to the iPad 2), an upgraded camera (8MP) with 1080p HD video with stabilization to parallel most rivals (eg HTC) as well as some basic photo/video editing options, enhanced voice recognition 'Siri', and better battery life...oh and something about better reception and a new operating system.

Personally I have never had an iPhone. Sure I know plenty of people that do, the number of people I know that own them seems to increase more and more every month - With a special mention of my brother who I'd never have picked as ever having one.

With a swag of Twitter tweets about the disappointment in how un-revolutionary (my way of putting it) this new device is...I must say I believe this might get more people than me and the usual Apple cynics questioning in what direction the device is going, what additional features can be crammed into the device and how many features users truly want and need and how easily/readily people will integrate them into their life.

Already technology writers are focusing on the iPod range. When Apple appears to be trying to get everyone to use an iPhone by making it more affordable and having all the features social network users could want and more...it makes one wonder if people are carrying a phone that has the function of an iPod built into, why would they buy an standalone portable music/video player? It's just another thing to carry around, keep an eye on, make sure its battery is charged, etc.

I never understood why someone would want a 160gig iPod classic anyhow, how many people have that much music (or want to watch videos on its screen) as well as needing it in their pocket?

One other thing I got thinking was about Tim Cook selling this product. Steve Jobs could arguably sell anything to Apple loyalists...with the new guy pitching them, has the flair disappeared? Are people seeing past the hype of "OMG Steve Jobs like's it so much he is promoting it personally!" and seeing these things as what they really are?

One speculated change to the then rumored 'iPhone 5' was the removal of the "Home" button, a button that many people questioned the use/need of. Curiously double clicking (I thought that was a Windows thing?) the home button now on the iPhone 4S activates the camera.

I do give Apple credit, even if their 'revolutionary' products may not be exactly that per se, I think that it's undeniable that they have driven changes in technology and how people interact with those changes, all I am wondering now is whether technology has run out of steam. Besides 3D, increasing specs of components that already exist (processors, memory, storage, camera capabilities), and software that takes advantage of and finds new uses for the hardware...I just don't see what other avenues exist for expansion in the consumer handheld technology sector.

Time spent on Facebook

Hi all, I was looking at a few old text files I authored just now and came across 'Facebook Timewaster.txt' - In the past I used to write about things and post them on forums online, or on Facebook as notes...sometimes I used to just write them out and send them to people I knew because I thought they might be interested to read what I had created.

This file was created on April 29th 2011 and gives a source...which is now out of date, as it no longer gives the figure - But I assure you at the time of creation it was given, and I recorded it accurately.

Anyhow the information is about how much time is spent on Facebook in a month, I did some calculations (if you notice an error I'm happy to have it pointed out).

Enjoy.

"People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook"

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

**********************

60 minutes * 24 hours of a day

= 1,440 minutes

1,440 minutes (one day)

**********************

700,000,000,000 minutes (Spent on Facebook) / 31 days (longest month used)

= 22,580,645,161 minutes (spent every day on Facebook)

/

1,440 minutes of a day

= 15,681,003 days spent a day on Facebook

/

36,600 days (100 Earth leap years)

= 428 (100 year lifespans where every year was a 366 day leap year)

**********************

I still think that although that much time is spent logged into Facebook, it doesn't represent the reality, as their is no indication of things like how much of that time users are logged in represents idle time...or any suggestion as to how many 'real' accounts exist (i.e. One could be logged into multiple accounts at the same time).

TODAY, October 4, 2011 Facebook's statistics page boasts that there are "More than 800 million active users" and that "More than 50% of our active users log into Facebook in any given day".

I want to crunch some more numbers (I have a problem :P)

Using a figure of 50% of the active users logging in for say, today...and using a flat figure of 800 million users we could assume 400 million users will log in. There ARE 31 days in this month so we'll use the (dated) figure of daily minutes spent calculated above of 22,580,645,161 minutes and we'll average it out across those 400 million users; giving us the result of each of the 400mil users spending ~56.5 minutes on Facebook.

I don't know about you but the thought of 400 million people (big assumption) spending just under 1/24 (4.16%) of their day on Facebook boggles my mind...

Names on Coke Bottles

Hi everyone,

I'm unsure whether this is just an Australian thing or if it's happening in other places but a new marketing campaign of Coca Cola is to put peoples names (150 different boys and girls names) on the bottles (just 600ml I think) and suggesting that you share a coke with them.

Now I've got a bit of research behind me in regards to Coca Cola and how it promotes the brand, especially their signature cola product. This one seems fairly straightforward...put popular names on the label of the bottles - people with those names will want one; people will wonder why names are on the bottles and look it up on the internet - BOOM the company peddling the stuff get their attention.

One other thing they may or may not have predicted (I'd imagine they'd have expected it) is people are taking photos of the bottles, and tagging Friends on Facebook in the photo because it has their name on it. Coca Cola really are, even if in a very small way, integrating themselves into another element of modern culture.

Personally I just wish Coca Cola would reduce their prices, I mean last time I checked a 2L bottle from the Coca Cola soft drink range (Colas, Lift, Fanta, Sprite) they were $3.45 a unit...more than the price of fuel for the car. Sure most of the year there are multi-buy deals they aren't really good if you only really want one bottle and don't want to hoard a bunch of bottles around your place until a time you might want them. Though reducing the price wouldn't be a gimmick I suppose, and wouldn't make the company as much money...so why would they?

Below is a picture of these new bottles that I am describing in this post. One final thing I'll say is my name is never on the trinket ranges you see in gift and souvenir places. I always used to check, often I still will...but these days I'm glad that my name doesn't appear on things. It's like I fall outside the marketing campaign, that I am free and liberated from being a target audience...the joy of not being sold anything!

My brother did visit Hawaii last year and my name must be more common over there as I finally have a key-ring that bears my name on it :P Also, before I show you the picture, have you ever known anyone with the name Aarav? I sure have haven't. No disrespect to the name or anyone named Aarav but I put this in the same classification as 'BORT' license plates on The Simpsons. Perhaps those that were informing Coca Cola the 150 most popular names decided to troll them a bit and threw that little gem in?

IBM 120 Petabyte 'Drive'

This is file #2 of what I'll label as being the lost blog entries. A file created on August 31st 2011, published for the first time...right now, October 2nd 2011. I hope you enjoy it.


A project being undertaken by IBM being discussed on an online message board the other night got my attention - A 120 Petabyte Hard Disk Drive run by using 200,000 regular computer hard drives. I ran a search of the topic on an online search engine and there were news stories about it claiming it to be the biggest of its kind.

Frankly, I was underwhelmed. Compare me to the likes of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, but when you break it down, those 200,000 HDD's are packing on average just under 630GB (from memory of my earlier calculations), which for hard drives selling on the market today is talking the lower end of storage capacity. For about 5c per GB that 2 Terabyte HDD's retail for, this project is (not factoring in labor for installation and setup, nor electricity requirements) is the range of about $6 million dollars - A lot of money for everyday people but spare change to, I would imagine, the product that this storage system is making available.

In the news story, it is speculated that in the near future cloud computer infrastructure will incorporate storage systems like this project as an industry standard. I wonder when the 1TB 'thumb' drive will be available. I am still fascinated about the storage capacity of not only SD cards but MicroSD cards. I am amazed that movies that were once in massive film canisters and in VHS cassettes now fit on the size of a fingernail (no piracy).

The largest HDD I have now is 2TB (less formatted) as well as a portable 640GB HDD powered by USB alone. Master the possibilities!

Steve Jobs - Thanks for the memories

Hi everyone, this is obviously an older blog post...I typed it up on my netbook which I must have intended to use as my system of choice for blogging...but it never worked out. Here it is, the lost entry on the stepping down of Steve Jobs from his baby, Apple Inc.

Well the news broke last week, Co-Founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs has stood down from his position of head of Apple Inc. due to inability to fulfill the requirements of the position.

I have watched 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' as well as 'Triumph of the Nerds' and 'Nerds 2.01'. The first computer I ever recall using was an Apple of some sort, I first saw what the internet was on an Apple computer, I loved the colorful iMacs and I've seen the popularity of iPods, iPhones and iPads first hand. The Mac Mini's...boy if people knew the power and ease of a home entertainment system based on this system was!

Although I primarily use Microsoft Windows and dabble with a few different distributions of Linux (representin' holla) I do see the importance of and influential prowess of the brand that is Apple.
Time will tell if Apple the brand and continued success, growth and innovation can exist without the great leader of the past.

My thoughts are with Steve Jobs, his family, his friends and everyone that this man's presence has had an impact on.

Peace.

Christmas Decorations

Hey everyone,

The weekend just past I went shopping (more browsing than anything else). I was hoping for a little bit of retail therapy, but as usual I didn’t see anything that I wanted or needed, not even gifts for other people. Ah well.

One thing that I did look at was Christmas decorations. No your calendar isn’t wrong, it is in fact still September. I have a really soft spot for Christmas, as I have gotten older I appreciate the time off work and being around family more than anything else…although the presents I do get are nice too :)

Every year I go out of town to a bigger city to do Christmas shopping, and most years I can remember I’ve always looked at the new decorations. This year it seemed to be bigger is better, with massive plastic trees and ornaments to suit. My family has always had a small tinsel tree that fits on a wooden chest we have in one of the living rooms near the door. It’s easy to set up and when it’s not Christmas it takes up minimal space. These days I have my own place with a tree that is the same size.

I was thinking that the reason the Christmas stuff is already out on shop floors taking up room is because to buy one of the things most people would have to save up the money to afford the things, it’s crazy!

When I got home I was in the Christmas mood (not a good sign) and so I watched Mr Hankey’s Christmas Classics on DVD. Oh man I love that episode of South Park.

I wonder when supermarkets will replace their same old song catalogue with Christmas Carols, I remember when I worked in a Supermarket that around Christmas was almost torture with bad carols, and people that go crazy buying up a month’s worth of supplies because the supermarket will be closed for a whole one day on Christmas. I really despise over consumption but as I said I have a weak spot for Christmas. Now all there’s to do is to consider what to buy my family for Christmas and what I want so I can start to drop hints… 

Gambling Reform in Australia

Hey everyone,

One of the "Government's" new policies is implementing pre-commitment technology into electronic poker (pokie) machines here in Australia. Personally I very rarely ever play the things, I know the odds of winning or even breaking even, I know how hard I work for my money...I'm just not willing to throw my earnings away in the things. I used to play more often when I was younger but I never gambled anything too significant. I think I gambled enough to get burnt and I never had the determination in me to try to win back what I lost. Some people do.

The new proposed legislation would require gamblers to set a figure (a dollar amount) that they are willing (and able?) to lose. The venues that have these pokie machines are upset because I suppose they'll potentially lose income, or perhaps they're upset because the gamblers are upset that they are being treated like children despite it being law that you can't play them unless you are of age (18).

When the Federal Election occurred last year neither of the primary parties said anything about this law, it become a hot topic because it was a condition of the Labor Government to bring it in, if they were to get the necessary vote from a independent member of Parliament - Labor didn't get into Government by winning enough votes, they had to garner support from other representatives. Basically, as I see it, corruption of power was put in place..."You want to form Government, I want my pokie reform pushed through - I scratch your back, you scratch mine"

Anyhow the two big 'football' codes here in Australia (National Rugby League and Australian Rules Football) are bagging out the new policy, all the teams in the competitions are afterall, clubs and those clubs have venues, lined with...you guessed it revenue making poker machines.

Naturally the Government has the hair on their neck bristled up and over educated academics that research gambling behavior are 'condemning' the sporting institutes speaking their mind on the topic.

The thing is that both sporting codes are using the finals season to really speak their mind to massive audiences watching on television at home.

A few months back, sport was being criticized for offering the odds on the games, and progressive odds at times like during half time saying it was giving the wrong message.

I think gambling addiction is as bad as any other addiction, it really sucks...it consumes time and money and alters what I'd consider a healthy mental state...it's an addiction after all. However Australia didn't vote for this, they had no idea someone would be pushing it and I think that's wrong. It's just another freedom that's being taken away. I also feel that demonstrates just how heavy the government acts to issues that they perceive to be problems. Really...they can't control problematic gamblers in any other way than manipulating the way in which they go about it? To me that's underhanded and a truly slimy way of dealing with things.

I'm not sure the best way to deal with people that have obvious gambling problems which negatively impact on other aspects of that persons life, but I know I am not convinced that the Government's approach is the best way of dealing with the matter.

Anyone out there have any alternative solutions that might work better?