http://www.robinontech.com Technology Commentary & Analysis Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:28:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en For sheer exasperation, it is usually hard to beat the experience of teaching an older relative how to use a PC. We've all done it. Concepts as (supposedly) simple as cut-and-paste or browser back-buttons can become fiendish puzzles in the hands and eyes of someone whose earliest experience of ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/07/18/the-hidden-rules/ The Register is one of the best-read and best-written IT sites. It carries plenty of news and analysis, and doesn't bother hiding its opinions behind a rhetorical smokescreen of 'balance'. A recently published rant entitled How the Mobile Phone Biz Lost the Plot is worth reading in full. The gist ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/06/03/the-best-selling-gadget-youve-probably-never-seen/ Giants always make for bigger targets. So it's no surprise that Microsoft wears the biggest bullseye in the technology industry. From government regulators to competitors to website reviewers to ordinary end-users, it seems that everyone wants to legislate against, sue, criticise or just yell at the Beast of Redmond. And ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/04/20/in-defence-of-microsoft-product-activation/ A geeky prospect it may be, but it’s often fun to imagine the product development meetings which occurred to produce some of the services and solutions we're most reliant on. Not necessarily the most common solution. Rather, the products which, through sheer innovation, defined, or redefined a whole product area. ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/03/25/emails-best-kept-secret/ In a previous post, I wrote that Apple's iPhone is significant because it is the first truly data-centric phone to be aimed at consumers rather than business. The crucial thing about Apple's strategy is their perception of the network operator - Cingular - as nothing more than a 'pipe' for ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/03/10/mobile-operators-as-dumb-pipes/ Regular readers of this blog will know that debunking faddish technologies is a frequent activity around here. Continuing in that vein, the recently launched Nokia N77 showcases another example of clever but ultimately useless mobile functionality. The N77's 'killer feature' is the integration of a DVB-H mobile TV tuner. In addition ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/02/26/a-poor-reception-for-mobile-tv/ It's a fairly banal truism that when Apple launches a new gadget, a lot of people get very excited. Most of the news coverage of Apple's iPhone dealt with the somewhat underwhelming technical specs and the innovative interface. However, the really interesting part was barely covered until a few weeks later: ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/02/12/the-iphones-real-significance/ The codenames assigned to products under development are usually meaningless. As a case-in-point, AMD went through a phase of naming its CPUs after horses, and Intel has traditionally favoured rivers. So, Microsoft's choice - about a year ago - of Origami as a development codename name for the Ultra Mobile PC ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/01/29/origami-pretty-but-not-very-useful/ Everyone loves a prize fight. And many commentators love analogies: the sillier the better. So the ‘war’ between the two next generation DVD formats – Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - has had many commentators falling over themselves in breathless anticipation of the ‘battle’ as the two ‘competitors’ slug it out for ... http://www.robinontech.com/2007/01/24/the-phony-war-over-next-gen-dvd/