I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket.
Why haven’t there been any keyboard innovations in decades?
Early Maltron Keyboard
This might seem surprising coming from someone whose first job was for a speech recognition company more than 20 years ago, and whose current company also develops speech recognition software. I'm extremely annoyed at the lack of innovation in keyboards. It's not surprising that attention to keyboard design has lagged in recent years, when production of laptops long ago overtook the production of desktop machines, and tablets will soon overtake the combined production of both laptops and desktops. Take a look at this chart from IDC: If you count cell phones in the mix, the production of desktop computers is a tiny percentage of overall computing devices. Sure, some people use external keyboards with laptops, but overall the need for external keyboards in dwindling. Unfortunately, laptop keyboards have different design goals than external keyboards. While innovation in external keyboards usually has to do with comfort over long periods of typing, reduction in repetitive stress injuries, etc. laptop keyboards are usually focused on simply fitting into a very narrow space. Other considerations are of course secondary. The only real innovation in laptop keyboards that I can remember was IBM's introduction of its butterfly keyboard in the ThinkPad 701 laptop in 1995.…
Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.
IsraCoin, the new Israeli national cryptocurrency
This month a new phase in cryptocurrencies began, with the introduction of a series of national cryptocurrencies, including Auroracoin (Iceland), Spaincoin (Spain), Aphrodite Coin (Cyprus), Gaelcoin (Ireland and Northern Ireland), and Scotcoin (Scotland). Now, to add to that list, is the new Isracoin. The idea of a national cryptocurrency is kind of counter-intuitive. By their very nature, cryptocurrencies should be borderless. National cryptocurrencies have some advantages, however, in that they are more easily understood by the average person on the street, and the average vendor in the marketplace. As they have all been started with the idea of giving out currency to people (and sometimes businesses and non-profits) in those countries, there is the potential for a much larger percentage of people in those countries to have their particular national cryptocurrency, than for any place to have a high percentage of Bitcoin users, for example. What all of these cryptocurrencies have in common is that they're based on giving out small amounts of currency to all residents or citizens (depending on the currency) of their respective countries (called an 'airdrop'). How this is done differs among the different efforts. For example, Gaelcoin is only pre-mining 1% of the 650M total coins to…
Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers.
Who do you trust with your identity?
Who will you trust with your identity?
This is the second in a series of articles, which started with The long goodbye to passwords. You might want to read that first, if you haven't already. Let's start with a few questions: Have you ever had your password exposed by hackers, such as was done with Adobe, Gawker, Cupid Media, Stratfor, Yahoo and Sony users? When you go to a web site to buy something, and they offer to store your credit card information, do you let them? If you answered yes to #2 above, what sites do you say yes to, and why? How many companies have direct access to your bank account, such as PayPal, other payment service, or a stock brokerage? Have you been pwned?* Let's start with question number one. Has a password of yours been revealed by having an account hacked? You might not even know it. Troy Hunt operated a very interesting site called ';--have i been pwned? where he has collected many of the files stolen from web sites by hackers (and subsequently released online) and made an interface where you can search by username or e-mail and see if it shows up in any of the files. Adboe itself had over…
Replacing the battery in my iPhone (10 minutes + 1 month)
My iPhone 4s showing the original battery
I use an iPhone 4s as my main phone. While Apple still sells this model, as someone who has been using it for over two years, it has certainly started to show its age. In pre-iPhone days, when one's battery invariably wore out, you could buy a new battery and swap it easily. In all its wisdom, Apple pretty much squashed that idea. It's a compromise between being able to let consumers replace their own batteries, and having slimmer phones. Apple chose slimmer phones. If you're asking why I still use an iPhone 4s, instead of an iPhone 5, iPhone 5c (just kidding), or iPhone 5s, it's really quite simple. Nothing in the more recent iPhones has been particularly interesting to me. Sure, I want more screen space, but the amount extra in the iPhone 5 is not exactly going to change my world. Sure, I'd love a faster processor, but 90% of the time it's really irrelevant to me. Touch ID is a nice gimmick right now, but not particularly useful. I believe Touch ID will become more useful in the future, but by then there will probably be a new iPhone anyways. That said, it makes it a…
UX Note: Changing the admin of a WhatsApp group
WhatsApp has been in the news a lot for obvious reasons, and it has been praised for its focus and simplicity. Sometimes, however, simplicity is a crutch. Here's one example. Ever use groups on WhatsApp? It's a great feature. You can set up up to 50 groups with up to 50 people in each group. I've used it spontaneously to organize get-togethers with friends, etc. and it is very useful. I am also part of a larger WhatsApp group used for more long-term coordination. I set it up not realizing a major limitation of WhatsApp groups. The problem starts with only the admin being able to add people to groups. In order to add people, I of course had to have them in my address book with the same phone number they associate with their WhatsApp account. Okay, so I collected the phone numbers of the people I didn't have. Not a problem. As the group grew I realized I didn't want to manage it myself, so I figured I would add a second admin to help manage adding all the people. Except, like in Highlander, there can only be one. Then I figured I would switch the admin over…
As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.
Are cell phone photos the 110/disc/APS photos of our day?
Kodak Disc Film and Camera
I've heard it said that the best camera is the one you have with you. Sure, any picture is better than no picture, but with cell phones today many people don't ever bother to bring a better camera, even if it's small and fits in their pocket. Obsolete Film Formats The reasons 110 film, disc film and APS film (known as Kodak Advantix, Fuji Nexia, etc.) were created were all more or less the same – to allow the creation of smaller cameras that used more convenient film cartridges. Cartridges of various kinds allowed consumers to take pictures without worrying about advancing the film, and take the film out of the camera without having to rewind the film back into the film canister. These formats were popular because 35mm film cameras were more complicated to use, and more prone to making mistakes (opening the camera before rewinding the film, for example). The biggest problem with these formats is that in order to make their cameras smaller, the size of the negatives are necessarily smaller than 35mm film. Smaller negatives means lower quality and higher grain. The last format APS, was the highest quality of these formats, yet still lower than…
UX Note: Removing Apps from an iDevice
Designating apps to be removed in iTunes
Apple is great at making things 'just work' which is why when things go wrong with Apple, it's that much worse. This is just a quick note on a user experience (UX) issue that bothers me about how Apple syncs iDevices. I'll preface this by saying that since Apple liberated their iDevices from the tether of iTunes, I think they've put a lot less focus into improving the iTunes experience. This issue, however, I believe long pre-dates Apple eliminating the need for iTunes. If your iDevice is full, you need to remove data from the device to make room for new photos, videos, etc. Sometimes you can just offload your photos and videos to make room for more, but sometimes you want clear out more space, so you need to remove apps. There are a few ways to do this: Hold down an app in the Springboard view (aka the Home Page) until it starts jiggling. Press the ⓧ in the corner of the app icon, and approve it's deletion. Find other apps to delete and continue the process. Upside, can be fairly quick. Downside, no way to know which apps take up the most room. Go to Settings >…
Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.
What ever happened to the Open Handset Alliance?
What ever happened to the Open Handset Alliance (OHA)? Some of you are probably scratching your heads wondering that the OHA is to being with, and that's not so surprising. What you might be shocked to know is that, officially, the OHA is the organization that guides the development of the Android operating system. You can be excused for thinking Android was a product of Google. The OHA hasn't even bothered to update their own web site since 2011. The last phone manufacturer to join the OHA did so in 2009 (Acer). Even when a major breach of the OHA partnership emerged in 2012 (the launch of a phone by OHA member Acer running an 'incompatible' version of Android) it was Google itself which responded, not the OHA. Interestingly, in Google's response, it does mention the OHA and the responsibilities of its members. So what happened? The Mobile World in 2007-2008 Back in 2007 when the OHA was launched, we were living in a very different mobile world. The most popular phones, by a far margin, were made by Nokia (and were 'candybar' shaped). On January 9th, 2007, Steve Jobs got up on the stage in the Moscone Center in…
Don’t forget that if slowness is a bug, then speed is absolutely a feature.
UX Note: I see dead people…on WhatsApp.
How and why WhatsApp grew at the rate it did in the years it has been in existence is a topic of much discussion. Most people attribute it to the fact that WhatsApp got rid of the concept of a 'buddy list' and just used the person's address book in their phone to connect them to other WhatsApp users. I feel like the side-effects of this system haven't been discussed in detail. Multiple SIM Cards One topic I have seen discussed is the problem people run into when they use multiple SIM cards, such as switching cards when traveling. I recall traveling last year and was surprised when I loaded a different SIM that WhatsApp recognized the phone was operating on a new number, and asked if I wanted to switch to the new number. At the time I didn't realize the significance of the switch. When you change numbers, anyone who has your other number in their address book becomes disconnected from you (unless they also have the new number). Why is it that a single WhatsApp account can't be connected to more than one phone number/device? It seems a silly limitation. Changing the number from the WhatsApp perspective…