Smalltalk with James Robertson

Spotted in Engadget

The new bundles of course don't skimp on the goodies, particularly with the 35Mbps up / 35Mbps down symmetrical service that should be a boon to HD video chats, big torrents and medium-sized torrents.

Looks like I have a phone call to make :)

The video linked here is making the rounds, and being used to promote the idea that "HP must be racist" - because the face tracking software on the unit in question doesn't seem to track a black guy in front of it.

I rather suspect that HP just did all of their testing with lighter skinned people, or in much better lighted rooms, or both. So blame them for incomplete testing and sloppiness, sure. But racism? Be serious.

James Governor notes that Google's latest announcement, allowing you to shove any kind of file into Google Docs for storage, isn't solving a useful problem. There is a problem worth solving, just not the one they are on about:

Tools for automatic file migration and syncing between multiple folders and devices? Now *that* is a use case. See DropBox, Evernote, Mozy, SugarSync etc. I want Google to offer me the Synchronised Web, not a USB stick replacement.

Exactly. While I've seen some sales people who run around without laptops (and then have their email auto-respond that they are traveling and "away from email"), that's a shrinking population - and, to be honest, not the most clueful one - the sort of person who does that isn't a great candidate for Google's use case, IMHO...

Technorati Tags: cloud, google docs

While I agree with Scoble's latest post about tablet computers - I do think that they'll go pretty mainstream if Apple releases one (whether Apple does so is still up in the air, regardless of how "solid" the rumors seem to be).

However - coming from Scoble, who's been hailing the coming tablet computing era for years, this has the sound of "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" about it. See this post from back in 2007, for instance :)

Having said that, I have to agree that Joe Wilcox's world weary "we don't need a tablet" post is just small minded:

Apple's rumored tablet computer cannot live up to the hype, which has reached almost ridiculous levels of rumor, speculation and anticipation. The rumored tablet will fall short of expectations, because they are simply too unrealistic. What surprises me most about the excitement and early analyst sales projections: No one is talking about addressable market.

I think all of that was being said about the iPhone before it appeared as well, and it pretty much reset the entire smart phone space. If Apple does bring out a tablet, I expect to see a full repeat of that play out.

Technorati Tags: apple, tablet