One of Call of Duty: Black Ops' lead developers is Irishman Martin Donlon.

‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ is the biggest computer game in history. So far, 68,000 years have been spent playing it. And the lead programmer is from Galway.

Selling an estimated seven million copies worldwide in the 24 hours following its launch and generating revenues in excess of $1 billion to date, Call of Duty: Black Ops is unquestionably the biggest game ever released.

According to publisher Activision, 20 million users have also logged on to play the game’s multiplayer version since launch, clocking up over 68,000 years of game time in the process. This kind of online experience has become critical to the success of any game released today, as it offers potential replay value far beyond the single-player plot. In the case of Call of Duty: Black Ops , the role of overseeing this work fell to Galway native Martin Donlon, who was lead programmer for online on the title.

To him such a role presents some unique challenges: “With single-player games you’re trying to add a lot of different features to keep it interesting along the way,” he said.

“With multiplayer, you’re just trying to refine a core mechanic and ensure it is continually interesting as it’s repeated over and over again.”

Coming from Dunmore in Co Galway, Donlon began working with Activision subsidiary Treyarch nearly 10 years ago while on a J1 Visa to the US.

A self-taught programmer and computer systems student at University of Limerick he was already quite experienced with the demands of coding and was rewarded with a high-profile task from the outset.

“I worked as an intern at Treyarch for four months and, while I was there, worked on the Spiderman movie game,” he said. “I returned to Ireland in the winter but, in December of that year, they asked me to come back to finish the game.

“They figured it would be better to get somebody back into the country who already had experience on the team rather than try to hire someone over there.”

Donlon spent a further eight months in California working on the game and then returned to Ireland to finish his final year of university. After graduation, he travelled back to California to take up a full-time job at Treyarch and has remained there ever since.

In the decade since his internship, Donlon has climbed the food chain within the company to become a lead programmer, which he said represents a move away from development and more towards management.

During that time, he has worked on more Spiderman games, The World at War series and, most recently, Call of Duty: Black Ops.

“It’s pretty bizarre but it’s definitely exciting,” he said, though he pointed out that his work continues despite the game itself being finished and on the shelves.

“On launch day, we celebrated and then it was pretty much straight back to work,” he said. “We’ve had several update releases since then and we’re constantly tweaking game modes and gameplay settings to try to find what works in the wild.”

These regular changes are done, among other things, to try to solve any unforeseen imbalances which may be drawing ire from loyal and fanatical players.

It would be expected that each type of weapon can be bested by at least one other, for example, and gamers will not be shy in letting others know if that is not the case. He said this work would continue well into this year and will keep going as long as it proves viable – in other words as long as enough people are playing it.

Working alongside him in the company are a number of other Irish developers, though he said that, beyond that, he does not know of many others.

“In terms of actual developers, I’m not aware of all that many Irish,” he said. “We have five, maybe six at Treyarch but I’m not aware of any large group outside of that.”

He points to Demonware, the middleware tool developed by Dylan Collins and subsequently acquired by Activision, as an example of an Irish gaming success, however. He goes so far as to say that Call of Duty would not exist without it and others like Havok have also had a major impact on the industry.

With panellists at last year’s Dublin Web Summit suggesting that Ireland follow the lead of Canada’s Montreal in attracting big game development, he is equally supportive.

“We’re always shifting away from that structure of one team, one big office, working on a title and then releasing it,” he said.

“There are a lot more satellite offices and things being outsourced, so there’s no reason why the Atlantic ocean or any kind of distance limits what you can do right now.

“It really depends on whether you can bring the talent to you; you need to find some smart people and keep them in or bring them to Ireland.”

When asked if he might be one of those talented people who would return to Ireland to help it build expertise in the industry, Donlon said he was at least willing to consider it.

“I could be enticed back. I’m married, I just have a new family so there would definitely be a lot of reasons to go back,” he said. “Games are what I do, so as long as theres the opportunity to do that I’m happy to live anywhere.”

Originally published in The Irish Times on 21st January 2011.

John O'Shea, CEO of Zamano

For a company that made its name from ringtones and SMS subscriptions the age of the iPhone has been a hard one to come to terms with. However according to its CEO Zamano is now in a position to reap the rewards of a very mobile future.

It is only a few years ago that the extent of downloadable content for a mobile phone was a customisable ringtone. Back then phones, and the business models for companies looking to profit from them, were much more straight-forward.

Today things are much more media-rich, with devices doubling as pocket computers capable of accessing almost anything within the reach of a traditional PC. For Zamano, an Irish company built on ringtones subscription services, this is a very difficult circle to square.

“The transition has been painful for us,” said John O’Shea, CEO of Zamano. “Everything changed, for example we used to spend £1m a month on print advertising in Ireland, UK and Australia three years ago; now it’s less than £50,000.”

The company’s customers were moving online and to more online-capable smartphones and as a result the most obvious route for the company to move to was mobile apps. The company did have an initial foray in the area too, which included becoming victim to Apple’s first major cull of apps deemed to feature unsuitable content for its store.

More recently the idea of being an app developer has been dropped altogether, with a handful of apps left in Apple’s App Store as the only proof that they ever tried at all.

“One of the mistakes we made was that we started developing apps; the content of the stuff we were developing just wasn’t good enough to sell,” said O’Shea. “To be honest I can’t see how anyone can make money in an app store bar the odd unusual case where someone sells a million.”

Such scepticism about making profit from apps is not unfounded. At present there are hundreds of thousands of apps available for the iPhone alone, many of which are free to download. As if this huge amount of competition was not enough paid-for apps make up the minority of those downloaded and Apple – much like other app store operators – take a 30% cut straight off the top.

However with this move by consumers to new mobile buying habits and the company’s inability to get an immediate handle on it Zamano has endured a bit of a rocky patch.

In 2008 the company, which is listed on the AIM exchange in London, posted a €3.8m loss. In 2009 the company suffered a further 39% drop in revenue, though it did return to profitability during this time.

This is the transition that O’Shea said Zamano was going through. The company was moving away from the very fickle world of ringtones and into something more high-margin, low-volume.

According to O’Shea the company is now focusing in on three specific areas; digital marketing, presentation and sign-up and billing. In short Zamano now aims to present and promote unique content to customers and bill them once they sign up – the content itself, however, is outsourced.

Its latest deal is a clear example of this shift. The company is now working with Setanta Sports to offer videos of English Premiership goals directly to people’s phones within minutes of them happening. It comes on a subscription-basis and can be tailored to the needs of the individual user.

“That’s a very rich service compared to the ringtone service that would have been there years ago,” said O’Shea. “Handsets are getting much more powerful and bandwidth availability is so much greater be it through 3G or Wireless so these things can and must be more media rich.”

The beauty of using a browser-based solution, according to O’Shea, is that it allows them to push content through to any type of phone. In order to do that via the app route they would need to develop and support upwards of five separate applications, one for each of the main platforms in use today.

Taking the SMS and browser route also gives the company more flexibility in terms of how it monetises the content, as the likes of Apple’s iPhone does not yet allow the rolling subscription services that Zamano currently use.

Part of the reason for this may be because of the bad reputation mobile subscription services have gotten over the years, something O’Shea is all too aware of.

In its early days SMS marketing and subscriptions were a bit of a no-man’s land in terms of regulation but as Governments began to understand the issue they have begun to legislate. However O’Shea said his company has been ahead of the curve in this area, enforcing its own code of practice and dropping clients who continued to do things the ‘old fashioned’ way.

“Regulations became a lot more prescriptive as time passed and people began to understand the services more but we have our own code of practice in place too,” he said. “I can stand over everything we do in terms of complete compliance.”

This has not made things any easier as the company sought to move to a new area of a very new market reality, however O’Shea is confident it is paying off. He is equally confident that the moves Zamano are making now are enough to future-proof it against any further shifts in the years ahead.

“People’s perceptions of what they can do with their handsets is dramatically changing and that’s of benefit to people who can provide them with what they want,” he said. “There’s lots of potential but at the same time the key thing is that people’s web usage on their handsets will go through the roof; we’ve got to offer a better customer experience matched with what their needs are and it’s a hard one.”

Medal of Honour aims to be a game for the gamer

The much-anticipated reboot of Medal of Honour aims to take the first-person shooter genre back to its roots with the focus firmly on the hardcore gamer, according to the lead producer of its multiplayer element. Adam Maguire spoke to him to find out just what that means.

“If you look at the competition or even DICE’s own games we added more and more features for every title released and at a certain point it becomes bloated and very difficult to balance the game,” says Patrick Lius. “We sort of leaned back and asked just what it was that makes games addictive and it’s basically a balanced game that requires a lot of skill.”

“That’s what gets people addicted and you can see that in some of the classic games that people are still playing today.”

Whether the average gamer realises it or not a good balance is critical to their enjoyment of a game, particularly in the age of the online multiplayer. If a developer allows a game out into the wild with, for example, an over-powered weapon in the mix it will be a definite source of frustration for any player looking for something more than easy stat-boosts.

The same applies when too much is left to chance.

“We leave as little as possible to chance as we can, for example if you throw a grenade over a wall and you just accidentaly hit someone,” he says. “It’s much more about your gun and your aim.”

However while the focus on eliminating this imbalance might be music to the ears of many gamers for some – namely the so-called ‘newbies’ – it will make things all the more difficult. In short with no easy way to break onto the score-sheet those unfamiliar with first-person shooters may find the learning curve to be quite steep.

Lius is unapologetic about this fact:

“It could be hard to get into if you’re a complete noob but everyone should play on the same terms. In those terms it’s kind of a hardcore game, it really is for hardcore gamers.

“It is a difficult balance to strike – to be accessible while also presenting a challenge for the players that are used to it but I think we’re geared towards the core gamer.”

It is a risky strategy and one that bucks the trend of an industry seeking to embrace the casual gamer. It is all the more of a risk when you consider just how much the competition has changed (and increased) in the three years since the Medal of Honour series last had a major release.

The Call of Duty series – or more specifically its Modern Warfare variant – has become a blockbuster title with a huge following. Battlefield’s Bad Company 2 – also an EA-made game – has followed close behind and done equally well.

There is a trend across all these titles, of course, and that is the move from historic to modern combat scenarios. For its own part Medal of Honour, a franchise which began life as a World War II shooter, is now set just eight years ago at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.

So why the shift?

“It was really a natural choice of telling the story of a modern warrior because that’s what people are interested in,” says Lius. “This is a new venue for the franchise but it just felt natural.”

Such a decision is not without its complications.

Basing a game in the modern world requires a certain level of realism that a historical or futuristic title would be able to fudge to a certain degree. To respond to that DICE brought in advisers from the US military to ensure they had combat details correct; they also undertook detailed studies of Afghanistan’s terrain which helped provide a wide range of maps for the multiplayer missions.

Of course realism is about more than getting the location right; in order to be truly realistic both sides of the conflict must be represented honestly. This is especially difficult when you are dealing with a war that in many ways has no easily characterised divisions.

This focus on an on-going conflict also creates significant political dynamics and sensitivities and it goes without saying that this is difficult to avoid causing offence.

In the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 much offence was caused by the now infamous terrorism level, which allowed the player to attack innocent people in an airport terminal. For Medal of Honour the realism is captured in a far less dramatic way; namely by making Taliban forces playable – and comparable to US forces – in the multiplayer game.

“It’s a feature that’s always been in multiplayer and there’s always an opposing force, whether it’s Nazis or cowboys and Indians, this is just another step,” Lius says. “In multiplayer we have portrayed both teams as equals with respect to everyone after all the Taliban are resourceful and skilful warriors and we shouldn’t take that away from them.

“The key is it is always armed combat – there are no civilians involved.”

While not on the level seen in reaction to the Modern Warfare 2 controversy it is perhaps unsurprising that this move has still been given a poor reception in certain quarters. British defence secretary has called it is shocking that anyone would want to play a game where they could kill British troops, while Canadian and Danish ministers have also come out against the feature.

In order to soften the blow somewhat the term ‘Taliban’ has been removed from the multiplayer game, replaced with ‘Opposing Force’, but in reality this is just window dressing.

In truth, however, the decision is unlikely to upset many gamers and the mainstream media in the way that that Modern Warfare 2 level did. If it can at least match that title in every other way – not least sales – then EA will be very happy indeed.

Medal of Honour is available on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

All three devices have a lot in common – not least because of Microsoft’s strict rules about minimum specifications. For example all three run on a 1GHz processor, have a 5mp camera with 720p HD video recording capabilities, have at least 8GB of internal storage (Some have 16GB) with no expandable memory slot present.

They all have unique selling points too, however. Here’s a quick round-up of what Windows Phone 7 devices will be available here before Christmas, what they have to offer and when you can get them:

The HTC HD7

HTC HD7

The intro
HTC’s follow on to the HD2, this is the Taiwanese company’s flagship handset for the Microsoft platform.

Unique selling points
Its 4.3″ screen, a kick-stand at the back for propping the handset up to watch videos and the HTC Hub app, which has unique content as well as some things that may be familiar to users of HTC’s Android phones.

Availability
The HTC HD7 will be available exclusively on the O2 network in Ireland from the 21st October.

Detailed spec
1GHz processor, 4.3-inch touchscreen display, 576MB RAM, 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video, 8 & 16GB models, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1.

The LG Optimus 7

LG Optimus 7

The intro
Sporting a 3.8″ WVGA screen the LG Optimus 7 is the smallest of the three WinPh7 devices to hit Irish shores this side of Christmas – something that may be appealing to many users.

Unique selling points
An augmented reality app that shows you nearby points of interest, a 360 panoramic photo app and DNLA support (meaning you can stream content from the phone to a compatible TV etc.).

Availability
The LG Optimus 7 will be available exclusively on the Vodafone network in Ireland from 21st October.

Detailed spec
3.8-inch WVGA display, a 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera with 720P recording, 16GB internal storage, GPS with digital compass, accelerometer, light and proximity sensors, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi and DNLA support.

The Samsung Omnia 7

Samsung Omnia 7

The intro
The Samsung Omnia 7 sits in the middle in terms of size, sporting a 4″ SuperAMOLED screen and is the latest in the company’s Windows-based Omnia range, which tends to be business-focused.

Unique selling points
The 4″ SuperAMOLED screen is a sight to be seen and easily one of the best screen-types out there. The phone also supports the slightly faster ‘n’ WiFi standard; which coupled with what Samsung say is a physical design made with gamers in mind, will make the device more ‘gaming friendly’.

Availability
The Samsung Omnia 7 will be available from the Three, Meteor and eMobile networks in late November.

Detailed spec
1GHz Qualcomm processor, 4″ SuperAMOLED WVGA display, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi 802.11n, 5MP camera with 720p HD video recording, 8GB internal memory, FM Radio with RDS, A-GPS and 1500mAh battery.

Samsung's Bada is nearly a year old but seems to be going nowhere

With Samsung committing to an Android future what is the point of keeping its own open source OS alive?, asks Adam Maguire.

Just less than a year ago Samsung announced Bada OS, its own open source operating system that would challenge the growing dominance of Android and iOS. It made a lot of noise about the new software at the time, offering developers cash prizes for unique apps as recently as May, and generally played up its intuitive and ground-breaking nature.

As we draw closer to the OS’s first birthday, however, there is just one Bada-based phone on the market (the quite successful Wave S8500) with no sign of a follow-up at present.

At the recent IFA conference in Berlin the head of marketing at Samsung Mobile also said the manufacturer was “prioritising our Android platform” in response to customer demand. This was in response to a question about the company’s commitment to Windows Phone 7 but clearly shows where the company’s sights are set in general.

As if that was not enough the company’s latest Android device – the Samsung Galaxy S – carries the exact same user interface as the Wave, even hosting a limited version of the Samsung Apps shop alongside Android’s own Market. This is enough to undermine any unique selling point Bada may have had left going for it, making it as obvious as ever that Android is as adaptable, flexible and feature-rich as anything Samsung could hope to do on its own.

So what is the point of Bada and have Samsung already given up on it?

Going by the Bada blog they have not, with a recent post detailing the first phase of their developer competition. However the lack of a second Bada device – or even plans for one this side of Christmas – suggest that they are not exactly devoted to pushing the software out there.

Then there is the question of where they could push it even if they wanted to. The above quote on prioritising Android shows where they see consumer demand going while the same executive suggested some “professional, specialised demand” for a Windows Phone 7 device. That leaves very little of the market for poor old Bada.

Perhaps, then, Samsung sees its future in their lower-end or cheaper devices, where a proprietry OS might have been used in the past. As other manufacturers have already shown, however, Android ports just as well to mid and lower-featured phones as it does to more powerful devices. Think the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 mini as an example. In other words there is no real reason for a “third way” when targeting that end of the market.

Clearly Samsung, like any manufacturer, does not want to tie itself too tightly to one OS for fear or it dragging them down should market demand shift in the future. However with so many other alternatives already out there – like Windows Phone 7 and Nokia/Intel’s MeeGo – it is unclear how an OS the company itself is not too bothered about would be much use to them should that happen.

The Asus EeePC 700. The original, not the best.

Having shown potential to be the next step in mobile computing the netbook now appears to have been a mere stop-gap. Adam Maguire wonders where does the device-type go from here or whether it is destined to decline.

When the Asus EeePC first appeared it was a revelation. The idea of having a functional laptop with the footprint of a small book – and the price-tag of a mid-market phone – was appealing for so many reasons.

Of course the original EeePC; with its 7″ screen, minuscule keyboard and 2GB hard drive, was less than perfect. It was, however, ideal for a number of niches and soon developed in a far more practical piece of hardware.

Pretty quickly the netbook grew into a device with appeal far wider than Asus and other manufacturers anticipated. Not only was it good for brief bursts of browsing or as a starter PC for a child, it also suited travelling businessmen as a secondary device and students as a college computer.

Within a year the market segment reached maturity and – thanks to the simultaneous growth of the 3G broadband market – it became far more than the almost throw-away device Asus originally designed.

It was at this time, however, that the netbook began to lose the run of itself.

Originally intended to be small, light and cheap netbook makers began on a path of escalation as they tried to out-do each other. Hard drives were suddenly as big as 250GB, screen sizes began to creep above the 10″ sweet-spot and RAM size began to grow too. All of this put more demand on the battery – which needed to offer at least 3 hours to keep the ‘portable’ selling point in tact. Pretty quickly netbooks were far less light and compact than they once were.

Most importantly, however, their price tags crept up from sub-€200 to over €400. In some cases netbooks became more expensive than more powerful – although far bulkier – laptops.

Then came the iPad.

Much like the netbook this device is light, portable and offers (near) full internet connectivity. It is also far more stylish – and expensive – but it is the mark of what trend is to come next in the world of portable computing. While the netbook began life as a toy and developed into something more serious the iPad has come out of the traps as an item of desire, one that people will pay a premium to own.

It is only a matter of time before there is a quality office suite for the iPad and it becomes a logical secondary device for business users and students. It is only a matter of time before rivals become available too, offering more functions at a lower cost.

Can the netbook compete? Not really, especially not against a far more stylish and functional device that can do everything it can. At present the only thing the netbook really has over the iPad is its USB inputs, an advantage that will end sooner or later.

So is this the end of the road for the netbook? If so, it should hold its head high.

For a device with such a short life span it has had a huge impact on computing. All manufacturers – with the exception of Apple – rushed to try to compete on the new battlefield and companies like Asus and Samsung made a fortune from it.

It also extended the lifespan of Windows XP at a time when Microsoft were desperately trying to migrate users over to Vista. In the end Microsoft gave up trying, instead developing a netbook iteration of its latest OS (Windows 7 Starter Edition) to try to kill XP with kindness.

Besides that it also introduced a lot of normal users to Linux and other open source software for the first time, something that all the fanboys in the world had failed to do.

Perhaps most importantly, however, it has accelerated the move away from optical media, forcing companies to offer digital downloads and USB-based versions of software. This arguably has made it easier for netbook haters like Apple to push forward disc-less products of its own, namely the Macbook Air and even the iPad.

However the netbook may still escape death, but only if manufacturers are willing to take it back to its roots.

As regular laptops continue to get cheaper and tablet devices take over the portable professional niche there will still be a need for that simple, almost throw-away device.

It will have to be cheap, small and have plenty of battery life but it will also have to be stream-lined and simple to use. What the netbook needs to do is almost embrace its ‘toy’ image and be proud of being a machine for the young and computer illiterate.

This type of netbook may also still be of appeal to students, but it needs to forget about the professional user once and for all. They are going and will soon be gone.

If it does that it might have a fighting chance. If it continues to be an amorphous segment that tries to be everything for everyone it will soon be crushed by tablets and the resurgent laptop.

The Nintendo Wii has helped make gaming more acceptable but it still has a long way to go.

Much has been made of gaming’s move to the mainstream but in reality the hobby is as frowned upon as ever, says Adam Maguire.

Roger Ebert has admitted he was wrong to say gaming could never be art; but not because he has changed his mind. Instead the legendary film critic has said it is an opinion he still holds, albeit one he should have kept to himself. He admits ignorance to the industry but makes clear he has no mind to remedy that.

There has been a lot of disbelief and hand-wringing about this online – a place where you will always find plenty of gaming’s defenders. However Ebert’s views are not unique, in reality they are part of a wider view on the hobby that is still held to this day, despite the recent encroachment of gaming into the mainstream.

For example, how many people feel uneasy at the thought of a child sitting playing games on their own for a few hours a day? How does that compare to their thoughts toward the same child spending the same amount of time in front of the TV?

How many parents categorise games as violent or aggressive enterprises? How many of them actually pay attention to the games their children buy and, most importantly, the ratings warnings displayed on them?

In reality gaming is going through the same thing that film and television endured upon their infancy. The older generation shows a general mistrust and the artistic community a certain amount of distain.

Of course some producers in the games industry should take some blame too. Many seek out notoriety in order to generate sales – think Postal as the perfect example. When it comes to artistic chops many more are still too keen to mimic blockbuster films rather than do something unique, not that they should be trying to be “artistic” either, whatever that means.

However gaming is slowly becoming more respected – or even just trusted – and that is in large part thanks to the likes of the Wii. The problem here is that many non-traditional gamers probably do not see the Wii and its cute games as real gaming, an ignorant piece of logic that is also felt by many ‘hardcore’ gamers.

There is a shift happening here but it is taking some time. The main reason for this is because gaming has failed to offer users any apparent benefit beyond recreational enjoyment.

Gaming – for the most part – does not educate or inspire. It just entertains. It does not allow people to see anything new like pictures or video did, nor does it enlighten us to anything tangible.

Whether it ever will – or should – is a whole other argument. However critics will always have an easy time criticising a medium that just entertains and proponents will always have a hard time defending it. So for the time being at least gaming will still be seen as a most anti-social pastime than post, even if in reality the opposite is increasingly becoming the case.

Symbian is just one of Nokia's two OSs

Microsoft’s attempt to juggle two mobile platforms – the Kin and Windows Mobile – failed this week with the merging of the former into the latter. The sooner Nokia realises it needs to do the same the better says Adam Maguire.

When Microsoft unveiled the Kin in April of this year a lot of people asked how it fit into the upcoming launch of Windows Mobile 7, the company’s flag-ship mobile operating system. It did not, said Microsoft, it stood alone as a new platform with a social media focus.

The folly of this was apparent from the get-go.

In an increasingly competitive space it is never wise to dilute the market further by competing with yourself. As apps become more central to a phone’s appeal creating two sets of standards and two separate platforms also damages any attempt at a company gaining a foothold in the space.

Finally, and most obviously, having two competing platforms makes it very hard for you to be truly supportive of one or the other; be it in resources, support or even marketing.

Sure enough, Microsoft’s bizarre experiment failed and yesterday we found that the Kin was to be killed, or rolled into the Windows Mobile brand at the very least. However Microsoft are not the only company that had the idea of a dual-OS strategy; Nokia is trying similar.

Symbian is the best-known Nokia OS. It has been used in one form or another on Nokia phones for many years now and was bought by the company in 2008, only to be spun into an open source, not-for-profit foundation.

It is fair to say that when you look at Symbian you see an uninspiring OS. Even in its latest iteration Symbian fails completely when compared to its main rivals of Android, iOS and even the so-far-under-used WebOS. It is clear that in the last 3-4 years – particularly since Nokia took ownership of the brand – the OS has fallen way behind the pack.

Even its most devoted supporters agree, as highlighted by the closure of fan site Symbian-Guru which has done so because of “Nokia’s consistently piss-poor hardware choices and Symbian’s lack of ability to even remotely compete in terms of features”.

Nokia’s other OS – and one that is far less known – is MeeGo. MeeGo has its origins in Maemo, the OS used most notably in the Nokia N900, which has since merged with Intel’s mobile platform attempts to create a totally new system.

According to the website MeeGo is more than just a mobile phone OS – it is also supposed to be for netbooks, in-car entertainment systems and other portable devices. Much like Apple has done with iOS and Google is doing with Android, this will be a cross-device system.

So far, it looks like it could be a good one too.

Yesterday, just as Microsoft were quietly smothering Kin with a pillow, MeeGo released a preview of its handset iteration. It is likely to appear on a commercially-released phone before the year is out.

On first impressions it seems to take a lot of what is available on Android and put its own spin on things, combining the Nokia Ovi Store for good measure. In other words, it is an operating system designed for smartphones and touchscreens, unlike Symbian.

Of course once it goes commercial Nokia are going to have a very hard time explaining why MeeGo is great without bashing Symbian and vice versa. The idea that each OS is suited to different uses is instantly dismiss-able too, due to MeeGo’s flexibility and the similiarities of the two (from their open source nature to the execution of their functionality, albeit somewhat differing.)

What Nokia will soon realise, just as Microsoft has, is that there is no logic in the dual OS approach – one will always find more favour with users and prove to be the one worth backing. The longer Nokia sits back and hopes both might succeed against the odds, the more money it wastes and handsets it cripples with under-achieving software.

If it has any sense Nokia will begin to sunset its support for Symbian very rapidly after MeeGo becomes a viable piece of phone software. Bar in the business market Symbian should cease to exist on new devices almost immediately, with even that market segment being transferred across fairly rapidly.

It may be hard to turn for Nokia to turn its back on the money already invested and there is sure to be a fear that such a change will alienate users. But when no-one else – not even the software’s biggest fans – can support what you are already doing any more it is clearly time for a dramatic change.

If Nokia is not bold enough to kill Symbian, Symbian will very likely kill Nokia.

Zuckerberg took a lot of flack for changes to Facebook but they all have their reasons

Facebook’s success is purely psychological according to an Irish academic and it may be its undoing too. Adam Maguire finds out more.

Changes to its privacy policy has led some Facebook users to threaten to quit the site for fear of having their personal information made public without their permission. However many other users seem relatively comfortable with the idea of sharing their details online, or at the very least ignorant to the fact that they are doing so quite openly.

Research being conducted by Dr Ciarán McMahon, lecturer in cyberpsychology, is trying to establish what type of person uses Facebook and how open they are about private matters in doing so. Information that could help map the impact of social media on people’s lives and predict what the next big shift in online activity will be.

“What we’re trying to do with Facebook and social media from the outset is to try to get a handle on what’s actually happening and it’s very tricky to do,” says Dr McMahon, who lectures in the subject of cyberpsychology at the School of Creative Technologies in Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technologies (IADT).

“In any other aspect of psychology if you have a paper that was published in 2007 that’s fantastic because it’s pretty new and it’s current; something on Facebook published in 2007 is by now out of date as it’s changing so quickly.”

Dr McMahon says one of the biggest questions hanging around social media – and the internet in general – is whether people will eventually get used to it as a part of their every day lives or whether its transience will stop that from happening. He believes people are coming to terms with the technology but many do not yet realise just how permanent and public their accounts are.

The research is also hoping to establish what kinds of people are drawn to social media sites and what way they interact with it, with different personality traits being responsible for different usage patterns online.

“Some of the research that has been done in IADT already suggests that conscientiousness is a negative predictor of usage; the less conscientious users are the ones more likely to use it which is very strange,” he says. “One of the biggest predictors of Facebook usage is narcissism; I’m quietly confident that that is going to have a big correlation.”

Dr McMahon goes on to point out, however, that narcissism can be seen as a positive as much as a negative as it could also be used to describe someone with a certain amount of self-belief and drive.

While not an obvious match Facebook already benefits from trusted psychological principles. For example the changes it made to its ‘News Feed’ some time ago were unpopular at first but have since proved a hit because of the addictive hit it provides, which Dr McMahon characterises as “variable reinforcement”.

In the case of Facebook this is where users get a reinforcing reward – such as an interesting message in their news feed – but at a variable rate. In order to get the reward they must keep returning until they happen upon one once more.

However Dr McMahon also believes psychology could be the undoing of Facebook, especially as its membership expands more and more.

As he sees it human brain’s ability to interact properly with a limited amount of people means that a list of ‘friends’ beyond a certain number becomes pointless. As the noise level increases people begin to share and communicate less – and what they say gets noticed less by others – and so the rewards of being on the site decrease.

Mix this in with a growing unease over privacy and you may have a potent combination for a mass exodus from the site.

“Facebook doesn’t recognise that people’s lives are compartmentalised and what I want to share with one group of friends I may not want to share with another,” says Dr McMahon. “If a site can come along that can offer that in a very user-friendly way as well as strong privacy options I think it could do very well.”

Dr McMahon reckons that understanding the motivation of the average Facebook user will help him to predict when this is going to happen, although he says he is beginning to believe that Facebook is here to stay even if it does become less popular in time. He also points out that it could be a lucrative thing to know what the ‘early adopters’ – those who tend to use services or devices before they become mass-market – want as it will make it easier to see where they are going next.

So is there a challenger to Facebook’s crown?

Well MySpace is still trying hard to regain its lead but the site was never a strong player in Europe and has a lot of ground to make up even in the USA. A new start-up called Diaspora is creating some buzz, however, as it promises to have privacy at its heart and will be open sourced allowing a greater degree of transparency than anything Facebook offers.

Diaspora is being run by four New York University students and recently raised $100k in funding to get the project started. They hope to have an early version of the site up and running by September of this year.

However while privacy is expected to be a divisive issue for Facebook users as time goes by – and possibly something that draws many people away – Dr McMahon says he sees the next big thing as being build around geo-location technology similar to what 4Square currently does. This is where people log their location via mobile, letting followers know where they are and what they are doing.

“If someone can figure out how to put that on a basic phone and create a way to give people real rewards for using a service like that I think it could really work,” he says.

Whether the average user would feel as comfortable with everyone knowing their exact location remains to be seen, however.

The desktop is in trouble but it may not be facing death just yet.

Desktop computers are being squeezed out of homes and workplaces by laptops – but they can survive as a niche player, writes Adam Maguire.

As an increasingly rare sight on retailers’ shelves, in people’s homes and even around the office, it is clear that the desktop computer is dying. So what is driving the demise of this once ever-present machine and does it have any hope of survival?

Once expensive and unwieldy, the laptop is now the dominant player in the computer landscape.

According to both manufacturers and retailers this is because of two distinct trends which, between them, are working to squeeze out the desktop – ever-improving miniaturised technology and changing customer behaviour.

“The price points [on notebooks] have come way down and the market has caught up a lot with desktops in terms of performance,” said Aaron McKenna, country manager for online retailer Komplett.ie.

Just a few years ago, money spent on a laptop would give users far less power than the same amount spent on a desktop. However, cheaper and smaller components mean this gulf has all but disappeared at consumer levels.

Lisa Holmes, client field product manager for Dell’s commercial division, echoes this, saying the price gap that used to exist between laptops and desktops is now all but gone.

“You can definitely get a fairly mainstream laptop that would be quite close to the desktop in terms of spec and performance now. They’re fairly comparable.”

As a result, laptops have become an obvious fit, particularly for college students and professionals, especially as battery capacity and mobile broadband access continues to improve.

However, for the standard household the creep of the computer into the living room has also modified what users are looking for. A desktop, which requires the computer itself, a monitor, keyboard, mouse, desk and chair in order to be functional, is less appealing and more obtrusive than a simple laptop.

“When people buy something now, they go for a laptop so they can sit on the couch and use it,” said Holmes. “This is especially true for those living in an apartment as space is an issue and desktop requires a lot of that.”

All of this has combined to create a market hugely skewed in favour of laptops. HP, the biggest computer manufacturer in the world, currently sees 79 per cent of its sales going on notebooks in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) region. Ireland trumps that average with 86 per cent of HP machines sold here being portables.

Things are more balanced on the commercial side, however, where HP records a near-50/50 split in EMEA. Interestingly, Ireland is lagging behind here, with a 58-42 per cent split in favour of desktops.

“We’re slower to move on the commercial side and faster on the consumer side,” says Stephen McDonald, head of corporate, enterprise and public sectors at HP.

“Commercial would be more conservative for a number of reasons and no organisations within the public sector have moved whole-scale to mobile computing yet which has a huge effect in the island of Ireland.”

However, while desktops lack mobility, they do retain one crucial selling point over notebooks – their ability to be easily tweaked and upgraded. This has kept desktops as the tool of choice for so-called “power users”, be they hardcore gamers or professional designers.

“Power users is where the desktop still thrives and this is where the laptop still has not caught up,” McKenna says. “Notebooks are not as customisable; with a desktop you can change your graphics card or upgrade the processor and so on. With a laptop, you can change your memory and hard drive but that is about it.”

Not only are they less customisable, gaming laptops also suffer still from the large price differential against desktops that has been all but eliminated at the lower end.

The other deficiency in this market is that the main benefit of the laptop over a desktop – its mobility – is also wiped out.

“You can buy gaming laptops from Dell and so on, but they’re bulky and they’re heavy to carry around,” said Mr McKenna.

So what is the desktop’s fate? McDonald feels it does have a future, although as a far more niche machine than it was before.

“The likes of engineers, designers, broadcasters and so on – they will all stick with desktops for what they do,” he said. “In the consumer space, I cannot see the tower machines surviving though. What is happening now is a move towards the all-in-one devices that effectively look like a monitor with a keyboard and mouse attached.”

These types of machines – perhaps the most notable example of which is the Apple iMac – fit into the idea of an aesthetically pleasing and space-saving device that the traditional desktop is not.

There is also a growing market of media centre desktop machines – minuscule devices that are intended to act more as components for a HD television than as standalone computers. What these all have in common is that they are secondary computers, built and used for very specific tasks and not general browsing or working.

“These devices become more a media play rather than a desktop and that seems to be the direction the consumer desktop is going to,” said Mr McDonald. “Besides that, if you’re not looking for a pure ‘media play’ it’s very hard to see why you would buy a desktop over a notebook.”

This article originally appeared in The Irish Times.

Apple's Face Time software is not good enough to overcome video calling's inherent issues.

Steve Jobs suggested Apple was pioneering video call technology when introducing Face Time but all they did was perfect the pointless, says Adam Maguire.

It was by far the biggest stretch of Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field yet when he likened Apple’s Face Time software to technology from Star Trek and The Jetsons, saying he had spent years dreaming about video calling “and it’s real now!”.

This was far from a slip of the tongue or a mis-phrased statement. Jobs was genuinely trying to imply that Apple is breaking new ground with its video calling software. The distortion continues on the section of the Apple site dedicated to Face Time, which states that “People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality.”

Not only is this an over-exaggeration of the capability of the technology itself, it is also a purposefully misleading comment that suggests Apple has created something new.

Of course it had not.

The videophone has been a commercial reality since the early 1960s when it was pioneered by AT&T in the USA; the technology behind it was theoretically possible long before then with one-way video calls taking place as early as the 1920s.

More specifically mobile video phones have been a reality since the 1993 prototype ‘Intellect‘ phone, with front-facing cameras a standard feature on a majority of mid and high-end phones today.

Of course not introducing a technology does not mean you won’t revolutionise with it; a hit with video calling would not be the first time Apple have come late to the market but led in it regardless.

The touchscreen phone concept itself is the perfect example of this, with touch-based devices being available commercially for years before Apple made it popular in 2007.

The app store is another great example of Apple perfecting existing concepts. Downloadable apps for phones had been knocking around in various forms from the mid-1990s onwards, selling javascript games and tools to an array of devices. All Apple did was create a centralised outlet that was designed for a specific platform and it created a billion dollar industry overnight as a result.

However there is little hope of Apple revolutionising video call technology for a number of reasons. Firstly, its own deployment is hopelessly limited to the point of pointlessness.

For example; in order to place a video call a user will not only need an iPhone 4 but need to be sure the receiver has one too. After that both users will need to be sitting in a reliable WiFi network for the duration of the call, which is unlikely to happy purely by chance all that often.

In reality what iPhone 4 users will need to do is ring, e-mail or text ahead to ensure all the pieces are in place before they dial in – hardly the simplicity Apple and its fans love so much.

Put on top of that the issues that surround video calls in general and you have a serious problem. People traditionally dislike video calls because they are more work than voice-only (read this article – courtesy of Eoin O’Mahony at fiftythreedegrees.net) for examples of this very point). Video calls are also decidedly awkward to make on a mobile phone, as they require the user to hold their arm out in front of their face for the length of the call, ensuring to point the lens at them at all times.

The only thing that might save Apple’s Face Time from irrelevance is the allusion Jobs made during his keynote to potential growth for the software. He specifically said that the company would ship millions of Face Time “devices” in 2010, not citing the iPhone 4 alone.

Now this may be reading too much into things and perhaps he meant the phone alone. However knowing Apple’s strategy in the past there is every chance that the company plans to merge its new Face Time platform with iChat, or even release new products that allow for such functionality. The iPod Touch and iPad are both obvious fits, for example, though the latter is unlikely to happen until 2011 at least.

Even then, however, it is hard to see how Apple can overcome the inherent problems that exist with video calls. At most people will use them every once in a while, perhaps to show their child to their grandparents as Apple suggests. Overall, however, however the company may have just perfected the pointless.

Microsoft may have sunk below Apple on the stock market but it doesn't really mean much

Microsoft may have lost much of its sheen but it is far from a company in trouble, says Jason Walsh.

Once the belle of the technology ball, Microsoft has been having a tough time of it lately. Never-ending problems with its X-Box hardware, internet initiatives continually eclipsed by Google and Facebook and now its old enemy Apple has apparently surpassed it in value.

This stuff is like catnip to tech pundits: big bad Microsoft being beaten by plucky (though increasingly evil itself) Apple. Alas, like all fairy tales it is mere kids’ stuff and while the moral may be worth debating, real life is more complicated.

Now Jean Louis Gasée, a former Apple executive who struck out on his own in the 1990s (and failed), says Microsoft is in serious trouble. While a lot of what he says is correct, his conclusion, that the company is in danger, is not.

All of this because Apple’s stock is now considered more valuable than Microsoft’s. But market capitalisation, as it is called, is no way to work out the value of a company let alone the relative values of two competing outfits.

For a start, the two companies products don’t actually overlap as significantly as people think.

Apple is in the following markets: consumer desktop computing and workstation desktop computing for the creative industries (design, publishing, photography, film and video, audio and three-dimensional graphics) with its Macintosh computer range, consumer electronics and servers.

In addition, Apple’s server business is severely limited to a couple of niches: supercomputing clusters and back-end support for the aforementioned creative industries. Arguably this is due to pure pig-headedness on Apple’s part as the company refuses to support key technologies such as virtualisation, presumably for fear of cannibalising Macintosh hardware sales.

Apple’s consumer electronics business, centred on the iPod, iPhone and now iPad, is impressive—and impressively profitable—but it is also relatively limited. Apple is still a new player in the market and has little interest in engaging with what it sees as outdated products such as digital radios, DVD and Blu Ray players. In short, the iPod and its siblings are surely the greatest consumer electronics success of the last decade but that doesn’t mean Apple is suddenly Sony.

Where there is a direct and historical overlap, such as between sales of Macintosh computers versus sales of Windows-powered machines, Apple has long enjoyed huge profits and even huger margins despite playing second fiddle to Microsoft—precisely the position Microsoft now finds itself in when it comes to new products.

Unlike the relatively narrow offerings of Apple, Microsoft, possibly the most boring corporation on the face of the earth, has its bloated fingers in every technology pie you can imagine. Even if in the areas where it has attempted to compete with Apple directly of late, such as consumer electronics, Microsoft’s efforts have been in vain, unlike Apple it is involved in just about every sector there is, including the invisible but massively profitable area of embedded devices, computers found in cars, washing machines and just about everything else.

These are not areas Apple has any interest in competing in and yet they remain profitable for Microsoft. And herein lies the source of the error: the whole exercise of comparing Apple and Microsoft is akin to comparing Apples to the shiny, enraged and purple heads of so many Steve Ballmers.

So why is Wall Street pimping Apple and dissing Microsoft? For the same reason it dismissed Apple in the late 1990s: stock markets are a guide to nothing.

Economic illiteracy isn’t only a characteristic of tech pundits, it’s also a blind spot for capitalists. Let’s have a quick look at some salient facts:

• 90 per cent of investment expenditures are drawn from operating profits, not stock. (1) Despite their potential to ‘produce’ huge amounts of cash, stock markets are not even remotely close to being a major source of investment in actual business activity.
• Between 1901 and 1996, net flotations of new stock paid for just four per cent of non-financial corporations’ capital expenditure. (2) Capital expenditure is expenditures that creates future benefits such as the purchase or upgrading of fixed assets, a cost that must be paid somehow but, it turns out, is paid from operating profits, not the issuing of new stock.
• As a result of takeovers and buybacks in recent years, more stock has been retired than issued, resulting in the cold, hard fact that net new stock offerings were minus eleven per cent of capital expenditure between 1980 and 1997, making the stock market a negative source of funds. (3)
• Anyone imagining this has changed since the late 1990s, a boom time for capitalism that has since been followed by a huge bust in 2001 and, most recently, a recession of the kind not seen since the 1920s, is doing just that: imagining.

To put it more bluntly, the stock market is still as full of shit as it has always been and Microsoft isn’t ’smaller’ than Apple, let alone on the verge of bankruptcy.

Jason Walsh is a freelance journalist and editor of forth daily.

The Acer Liquid E Ferrari. Tack.

The power you feel in your hands as you control a special piece of human engineering. The stares as passers-by spot the iconic bucking horse upon the sharp red body. The exhilaration as the wind rushes through your hair.

Yes, you may be waiting for a bus on a breezy day but you’ve got your Ferrari-branded phone to set you apart from the crowd.

This is the Acer Liquid E Ferrari, a phone for the obscenely rich user who just so happens to be poor. Akin to putting a Porshe logo on your clapped-out ’91 Nissan Micra, this is simply the Acer Liquid E phone with a tacky red paint job and – more than likely – a bigger price tag.

For those wanting to push their sap-o-meters to 11 there is also the option of a branded Bluetooth headset; the perfect accessory for the man who wants to give people some sort of visual entertainment on a constant basis.

The press release describes it as passionate, sophisticated, high-performance, exclusive and fully-equipped. It is none of these things.

People weren't as worried about their privacy as the coverage suggested

For all the hand-wringing about Facebook’s privacy changes it appears that very few users actually care all that much, writes Adam Maguire.

Today is ‘Quit Facebook Day‘, the moment when the anger against Facebook’s privacy chances comes to a head in the form of a mass exodus from the website. Or at least that was the plan. Looking at the campaign’s website there are currently just over 29,000 ‘committed’ quitters signed up to the plan, that’s out of nearly 500m active users (it should be stated that that number is relatively quickly throughout the day – though so is Facebook’s membership).

Assuming these users all actually follow through on their promise and quit the site will suffer less than a 0.007% dip in membership; something that will take all of ten minutes to recoup. Even if you allow for those users who have already quit the site over privacy concerns the numbers still fail to make a dent. In fact even if 400,000 users walked away tonight it would still be below a 0.1% drop in membership figures.

These small ‘quit’ figures may in some way be attributable to last week’s changes which moved to simplify privacy settings for individual users. This has gone a long way to allaying privacy fears but it has not gone far enough for some and the problem still remains that Facebook automatically shares information unless told to do otherwise.

However even before these changes were announced the Quit Facebook campaign’s numbers were low. All of this flies completely in the face of a recent poll which suggested that over half of all members might quit over privacy concerns. So what is going on?

One possibility is that people just do not know what risks they are taking by being on Facebook.

However while it would be easy to paint those who have not pledged to quit as ignorant dolts who know no better – and many probably will – this is far too easy a categorisation to be true. Yes, there are many users who are unaware of the information they give away by using the site but most are fully tuned-in. Many have made changes to their profiles to suit their tastes and are happy to carry on using the site as it stands.

Another possibility is that people just do not care all that much about their privacy. These people are just as tech savvy as any other Facebook user and have no doubt seen the impact of Facebook’s openness first-hand, probably more than those who shout from the sidelines, yet they carry on regardless.

It is most likely the case, however, that they are aware of their privacy but do not feel that Facebook has crossed their own personal threshold just yet. Users may have privacy concerns but they are either minor or misplaced; they are certainly not as serious as some coverage suggested and clearly the benefits out-weight the negatives attached.

In reality the rage-filled coverage of the controversy did not represent the average user but instead reflected the result of the internet’s echo-chamber, where those in the vast minority talk themselves into a frenzy. It was helped by the fact that it involved a rising star of new media and the risk that its ascent may pose to the hapless individual.

But most users, it is now clear, did not really care. They might want to protect their privacy but they feel that at present it is not in danger.

Privacy campaigners, to their credit, are generally fighting for the right reasons but if they want to advance their cause they first need to recognise that not everyone is supportive of it, even if it affects them. For the sake of avoiding similar mass-hysteria in the future let’s hope they do.

Android could compete in home gaming because of Google TV

Google’s announcement that it would bring Android to TV sets changes the game significantly, not least by putting the search giant head-to-head with games console makers, says Adam Maguire.

The announcement that Google would make a TV platform has been met with quiet interest as the industry tries to gauge exactly what this will mean for broadcasters and online video services alike. Google TV appears to work as a top-layer service, interfacing with a user’s other set-top boxes -and video content available online – sorting its content through its search algorithm for easy access.

Critically Google TV will run on a tweaked version of Android OS, the software that has to date been used most in mobile phone handsets. This means that the service will also have a built-in web browser but most importantly it will also have access to the Android Market, where applications will be downloaded and viewed on a TV.

Not only does this mean the TV could become a hub of activity once again, home to people’s organisational tools and social networks but it also puts Google head to head with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo in the home gaming market.

As it stands mobile phones are being touted as an increasing threat to the handheld gaming market, with the iPhone in particular producing games to rival what is available on the Nintendo DS. Google TV could – and almost certainly will – feature downloadable games on its app store and with the extra hardware power available it could start to become a real challenger in the home console space.

The games made for Google TV would not be of PS3 quality, of course, but they could easily compete with the Xbox Arcade and WiiWare markets when it comes to cheap, small and disposable games. In fact the Wii is probably the one to fear most as Android handsets can be used as controllers, offering a clear competitor to the WiiMote.

The Google TV set-top box is likely to be more powerful than a phone, in some ways at least, and has far more potential than a phone to be made even more powerful over time. In fact it is likely that we will very quickly see a modified PC running the software, with all the power required to allow for high-spec gaming.

The question now is how developers play this hand and how the likes of Sony and Microsoft react. Do they see the threat? Perhaps they do and this is the reason why Sony has only committed to making a built-in version of Google TV so far, as opposed one running in a separate set-top box.

If they are at all sensible they will not repeat past mistakes and write this off as too under-powered to be a challenge, just as they did the Nintendo Wii.

HP explain the science of ink

With cheaper options now available, printer firms have to justify the high cost of cartridges, writes Adam Maguire.

STAFF AT HP are quick to list interesting facts and figures about the company’s print technology, and they do so with a certain sense of pride. An ink cartridge’s nozzle is one-third of the width of a human hair, for example, and can have up to 36,000 drops of ink passed through it every second. It can take three to four years to develop a new ink formula and it must be suitable to use in several climates and on any type of job.

These and many other statistics are used by HP, to some degree at least, to explain the high cost of ink for the consumer. The mantra that “ink is not just coloured water” is stated repeatedly by Geraldine Morel, the company’s European marketing product manager, as she explains just how much work is involved in print and ink production.

“We are always spending on RD [research and development] at all levels to ensure we can provide reliability to our customers,” she says.

“For example, certain climates can cause mould to grow inside cartridges if they are not made in a particular way so we work to ensure that does not happen.”

In the past printer manufacturers did not really have to justify the cost of ink. But with towns and cities across Ireland – and the world – now dotted with cartridge refill centres and companies such as Tesco selling own-brand cartridges, this has changed.

Customers are increasingly moving to these so-called “after-market” suppliers to get ink for their printers, having noticed a significant difference in the upfront cost of a full cartridge.

HP suggests this is a false economy, however, pointing to research it commissioned QualityLogic to undertake. According to the study, HP cartridges give nearly 17 per cent more prints than third-party alternatives and over 52 per cent more than refills.

This alone may not compensate fully for the price difference but Morel points to the study’s other statistics on cartridge reliability to make up the difference. According to QualityLogic, more than 12 per cent of third-party cartridges and 18 per cent of the refills it tested simply did not work at all.

“Reliability is hugely important – if a cartridge does not work, that’s time you have lost in having to go back out and buy another one, not to mention the headache caused if it means not having a job done when it was needed,” she says. “It also means you might have to buy another cartridge so you’ve spent twice as much before printing anything.”

With these figures in mind, HP claims that after-market ink can cost up to twice as much as its own consumables in the long run.

However, ink is always going to be most expensive for consumers. As Morel points out, ink’s cost per page drops when bought in larger quantities but as home users only buy a small amount at a time the cost stays high. HP is trying to counter this by offering “standard” and “value” versions of some cartridges, the latter being of higher capacity and so cheaper per print.

Morel does not make any cost comparisons between HP and other printer manufacturers, however, saying the company’s focus is currently on the alternative sources of ink for its machines.

Another study conducted by QualityLogic on ink costs does make this comparison and is less than flattering to HP. Kodak machines proved to be the cheapest, costing 4p per colour page printed. HP’s cost fluctuates depending on the machine tested, ranging between 11p and 17p. The worst was a Lexmark cartridge, which cost 22p per colour page.

However, value is not the only thing HP is using to keep customers buying its consumables; its environmental credentials is another. The company, like other manufacturers, has a recycling programme which encourages users to send back empty cartridges so they can be re-manufactured into new ones.

As part of the HP Planet Partners recycling programme, customers can order recycling envelopes or boxes online, and new cartridges are being designed to be more easily processed upon their return. The programme is running in 53 countries and has recycled 770,000 tonnes of waste in the past 20 years, though this only represents a small percentage of the cartridges manufactured in this time.

The company also uses recycled material in its product packaging and says it is considering launching a specialised line of recycled paper in the future. According to Morel, the company previously had a similar product but it did not prove popular with customers.

At present customers are encouraged to recycle for their conscience alone. When asked if the company would consider offering a discount scheme to those returning empty cartridges, Morel says this is not an option.

“Our lawyers say we cannot link [cartridge recycling] to financial incentives as it would be deemed unfair competition to the after-market industry,” she says.

“We would need to find a non-financial incentive instead and so far we have not found anything.”

This article originally appeared in The Irish Times on the 14th May 2010.

Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association

Through this week’s ‘Digitise The Nation’ event Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association (IIA), wants to see every businessperson and consumer make the net a part of their lives. Quite an ambitious pitch for someone less than six months in the job.

Given her role it should be no surprise that Ms Mulvihill is passionate about the opportunities the internet brings. With little effort she is able to cite numerous examples of how businesses can gain efficiencies and customers by embracing the web and how normal people too can enrich their lives by getting computer-savvy.

However her belief that Ireland can do better when it comes to the web is exemplified in perhaps the most unusual of cases, with an example that she says shows how far we have yet to come.

“My target audience is the woman from the Brennan’s bread ad; why should that be funny?,” she says, referring to the intentionally humorous advert where an elderly rural woman rushes back home to bid on eBay for a foot-spa. “The internet is not just for young people from urban areas, it should be seen as something everyone can benefit from in some way.”

To combat this the IIA is turning its annual conference into a week-long event which Ms Mulvihill says will aim to be a Red Nose Day for the online world. Each day of the week will be given a theme and companies are encouraged to use these topics to share information and expertise on their IT-based practices.

The whole thing begins today with a ‘business productivity’ day and continues through to the Friday, taking in the association’s AGM as it goes. One of the main focuses of the week is on SMEs, for many of whom the internet age is still passing them by.

“The SME sector have been in some ways neglected during the years,” says Ms. Mulvihill. “Here we are now in a new wave of economic recovery and growth and we’re hinging it on the tech sector, environment and pharmaceuticals and again I wonder who’s focusing on and looking after [SMEs].

“There is huge potential and opportunity there for embracing technology in the SME sector.”

Many of the IIA’s core members are big multi-nationals like Intel and Microsoft, both of which have contributed heavily to planning. The aim is that these big tech experts will assist other companies during the week and develop relationships and new ideas from there.

A number of other IIA members have also offered to hold events across the country on a variety of topics relating to e-commerce and business technology. It is not only the big players offering a hand either; in Kerry, for example, local businesswoman Lynda Foran is running a free training course for her local business community.

However the ‘Digitise The Nation’ week is not just about businesses; it is also pitched at educating the average person on how the internet can make their lives better.

“We’ve all seen how the internet has been a saviour for a lot of people recently and how it can be used to keep people informed,” says Ms Mulvihill, referring to the travel chaos caused by the recent Icelandic volcano. “It can bring huge social benefits to people and their lives and I think that’s an important message to deliver.”

Some of the other events taking place also reflect this. For example a computer training company in Dublin plans to teach local pensioners how to make Skype calls and send e-mails. Likewise Digital Hub-based animation company Kavaleer will go into a local primary school to show children there how to make their own digital cartoons.

“My dream is that in 15 years time one of those children will be up for an Oscar for the animation they worked on having been inspired on that day in school,” says Ms Mulvihill. “The smart economy belongs to everyone and I think it would be hugely beneficial if we focus our efforts to get everyone to try one thing they’ve never done before online.”

Despite her passion for connectivity IT is not really in Ms Mulvihill’s background, with her having worked in a number of industries and a number of countries over the years. She joined the IIA in November 2009 and quickly made her way into the CEO position after that, however, showing a clear ability to motivate key players at the right time.

She says she was recently asked why she has made such a workload for herself in her first year at the head of the organisation, with some suggesting she give herself time to ease into role first. To her the question is why she would not give herself so much to do:

“Why would I want to make it easy? That’s not why I came into the job. I like the idea of doing something that is beyond making profit and I love that we are not-for-profit as I can now do all the right things for all the right reasons.”

Ideally she says if she does the job right there should be no need for an IIA or its CEO in a decade’s time as the internet will be such a standard part of every businesses’ structure. As she says herself; there is no digital economy, there is just the economy and all of that needs to be digitised.

As the IIA gears up to encourage that idea with its events during May the planning in already beginning to turn this into an annual event. Ms. Mulvihill hopes that as times goes on more companies will see what relevance it has to them and more will get involved in spreading their knowledge around.

“It’s a hugely virtuous circle and we create something that will gather speed around it over time,” she says. “The internet is important so let’s not leave any people behind in this.”

Samsung has gotten to market first with its 3D sets.

Having become the biggest TV manufacturer in Ireland Samsung’s country manager says they hope to stay on the cutting edge in the months ahead, starting with its launch of 3D-capable sets in April.

3D video is not a new concept. Most people over 20 years of age would have rose – and blue – tinted memories of the Hallowe’en specials and novelty Westerns shown on TV and in cinema over the years. Despite this negative association modern 3D has flourished on the big screen in the past year with massive hits like Avatar and is now about to invade the living room, with Samsung leading the charge and trying to stake a claim in the burgeoning market segment.

“We are the first manufacturer to mass-produce 3D TV and you will physically see that in the Irish market in April so we will be first to market on this,” said Kevin Maguire, country manager for Samsung Ireland. “Getting to market first is critical to us from a brand point of view and for brand positioning.”

Samsung is the first to retail 3D TVs in Ireland – and many other countries – with the recent arrival of its new sets in recent weeks but it is not the only manufacturer hoping to make its mark in the area. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, a reliable weather vane for the technology trends of the year ahead, 3D was everywhere with countless companies trying to show that they were doing it best.

While these manufacturers will try to set themselves apart from the competition the only important difference between their sets will be whether they use ‘active’ or ‘passive’ panels and lenses, with the choice made determining overall cost and picture quality.

Active 3D refers to a screen that syncs electronically with the lenses worn by the user, which are battery powered and rechargeable. This allows the lenses to shutter rapidly in time with the display to give a more impressive 3D effect – however it does require investment in expensive glasses. Passive 3D, on the other hand, uses simple tinted lenses with the screen itself doing all the work. The quality of the 3D image may not be as good as a result but it does mean lenses are cheap and easily replaced.

“We are using active panels… you really have to see it in person to understand just how good it looks and how well it works,” said Mr Maguire.

Once on sale customers should be able to pick up a 40” Samsung 3D LED TV for €1999, while the same sized 3D LCD TV will cost €1299. The active lenses will add to this cost, coming in at around €100 each though the company is planning on bundling them with Blu Ray players to encourage adoption.

Cost will obviously be a factor for many buyers at first but for committed early adopters it will not; for them what matters is what they can do with the technology once they buy it. But with no 3D content available on any channel in Ireland at the moment, how can Samsung convince people to invest in something they cannot use yet?

“We are offering customers a complete suite of 3D products including home theatre systems and Blu Ray players that will allow them to watch 3D movies they have bought,” said Mr. Maguire, who also pointed to the move by sports broadcasters to 3D programming. “However our sales projections for the year would also be based on some decent content coming across like Sky launching a 3D channel this year and ESPN broadcasting World Cup matches in 3D as they have talked about.”

Mr Maguire sees sport being a significant driver in 3D adoption, along with movies and nature programming made by the likes of National Geographic. He does accept, however, that not all genres and programmes would benefit from the technology and it will be more specific in its use.

But any talk of 3D content on TV ignores the fact that the last major content jump to HD is still on-going, particularly in Ireland where no indigenous broadcasters have made the move to higher definition content.

“In terms of the digital signal being rolled out that’s very disappointing for everyone in the country as places in the UK have already had digital switch-over take place,” he said. “Northern Ireland will be completely switched over next year I think and no-body here knows when we will make the switch which is very frustrating.

“If you’re selling this high-quality hardware obviously you need the software to drive it.”

Another potential problem the company faces is the decision to launch 3D so soon after the arrival of LED to Ireland. With the aforementioned early adopters being the target market in both cases, is there a chance the company is angering its customers by making their recent purchases seem old-hat so quickly?

“I genuinely don’t feel that we upset or annoy any customers [by launching new products so fast],” said Mr Maguire, who said the company has been quick to retro-fit features to sets wherever possible. “For example many people bought sets without internet on TV but the beautiful thing is now they can add the function by buying a Blu Ray player, so we do try to add these features on afterwards where possible.”

Of course it is not just 3D that the company is focusing on in its attempts to maintain a lead over its rivals and it still has big plans for the basic categories of LCD and Plasma TV, even if they do seem decidedly old fashioned when compared to the latest technology on offer.

“There’s still quite a bit to go [in the transition from CRT to flat-screen],” said Mr Maguire. “I saw some stats from the UK market last week where there’s still something like 64% of households with CRT.

“I was quite taken a back by that figure, it seemed quite high to me, but there are definitely still a lot of households out there with CRTs and that transition to flat-screen has been a huge driver for LCD and Plasma over the years.”

This feature was originally written for Business & Finance magazine and appeared in its April issue.

The WebOS platform is a key asset held by Palm.

Recent manoeuvres by HP has shown it understands the burgeoning tablet market better than Microsoft currently does, says Adam Maguire.

It was with great fanfare that Steve Ballmer took to the stage at CES this year to unveil the HP Slate, or at least that is how he is likely to recount the story. In reality the big reveal of the HP/Microsoft co-operation went down like a lead balloon, clearly suffering from the decision to push the announcement forward in an attempt to under-cut Apple’s suspected tablet plans.

Since then the HP Slate has been quietly killed off. It seems that the hardware company doubted the viability of a Windows 7-based tablet device and decided it could not compete with the far more focused challenge presented by Apple’s iPhone OS.

It was right too. Windows 7 is a fine operating system and has successfully shaken off the ghosts of Vista in a very short space of time. It was also designed with touch in mind but in reality it could never compete with a touch-only interface; nor could it promise quality touch integration with all of the applications that run on it.

Clearly that is where HP’s acquisition of Palm comes into its own. Palm is known predominantly as a hardware company; some would argue a has-been hardware company. However the greatest asset that company has at the moment by a country mile is the WebOS platform it developed for use on the Palm Pre and Pixi, two devices that would have been great were it not for the hardware itself.

What HP will do with the hardware side of Palm is unclear at present. It’s unlikely that they will jettison it – after all they have spent $1.2bn (€912m) on the company and will want to make a good return on that in the months and years ahead. However Palm is by no means a big player in any market and has not been for some time, so it is hard to know if trying to slug it out against Nokia and co. in such a settled market will be worth it in the long run.

Regardless it is almost a certainty that we will see a WebOS-based HP tablet very soon, all it will take is a scaling up of an already impressive operating system.

HP will want to move fast, too. While Apple is by no means in pole position in the phone market its iPhone has been the one to beat since its arrival in 2007 and most importantly has locked down the app industry leaving seasoned companies scratching their figurative heads.

The iPad is already doing the same in the personal computing space and rivals will be rushing to try to stop this from happening, many relying on Google’s Android as the launch pad to do so. Whether Android will translate well to tablet is anyone’s guess for now but there is no reason why it would not, assuming the coders do more than ship their device with a bare-bones edition of the software.

As for Microsoft, well they risk being left way behind in all of this. For a start they are still in the process of launching their latest phone OS, Windows Phone 7, which is their first real answer to the change in the market brought on by Apple three years ago. In that time pretty much every manufacturer has gotten to grips with various other touch-specific operating systems leaving Microsoft with a very hard sell to make.

The fact that it is only making that pitch now suggests that it will be a year or two more before we see their real solution to the tablet issue with the company almost certain to push Windows 7 as the ideal answer until then.

There is, of course, the potential for them to scale up Windows Phone 7 to a tablet OS just like Apple did with its iPhone OS but first impressions suggest its interface would not sit quite so well on a 10″ screen. Perhaps it is reading into things too much but the name of its mobile operating system also suggests it is designed for phones and not for mobile computing in general.

Given that they were working together just four months ago suggests that HP were of the same mindset as Microsoft when it came to tablets until very recently. Maybe the launch of the iPad made them realise just what they needed to do or maybe something else made them change tact. What matters, however, is that they did change tact and did so with impressive speed and certainty.

It could all still go badly wrong for the company; they may have just blown a huge chunk of money on a fool’s errand. The fact that they seem to know at least what they should be aiming for suggests that they have a fighting chance at least, though.

Internet Explorer is on its eight iteration but is still losing users.

That Microsoft is now airing prime-time television ads to promote Internet Explorer 8 says more than its competitors’ bragging ever could. Years of security threats and innovation by more nimble rivals has given the iconic browser brand a bad reputation and shrinking market share; both of which Microsoft is now trying to reverse.

Just a few years ago this kind of push was completely unnecessary. As late as 2004 the blue ‘e’ was a standard feature on almost all PC – and Mac – desktops, for many users signifying ‘the internet’ as opposed to an application of any kind. However 2004 was also the year that Mozilla launched its alternative Firefox browser, rekindling competition that had not existed in the market for years.

“The browser is probably the most visible [Microsoft software] people use so it is at the forefront of the competition we’re facing,” says Ronnie Dockery, manager of Microsoft’s Windows client business in Ireland. “Competition is a good thing and like the operating system space it’s a race; you have to be ahead of the game all the time.”

At the time of Firefox’s arrival Internet Explorer – which was then on its sixth iteration – had over 91% of the browser market according to analytics company Net Applications. Since then the application’s share has been on a near-constant downward trend, rising only briefly in 2007 on the back of the launch of Internet Explorer 7.

Internet Explorer 8 launched last year into a very different climate to its predecessors; the brand now holds 61% of users against Firefox’s 24%.

This shift in customers has an impact beyond the application people use to access the internet. In many cases the browser a person uses can inform what search engine and web services they frequent, the precise reason Google launched its Chrome browser in 2008.

Threatening to chip away Internet Explorer’s lead even further is the recent introduction of the ‘browser ballot’ screen, an EU-mandated menu that offers Windows users a choice of browsers upon starting their machine for the first time. This decision came on the back of a European Commission investigation which found that Internet Explorer had an unfair advantage as it came pre-installed on all Windows operating systems.

On the back of the option being offered rivals like Firefox and Opera both recorded a rise in downloads and a further rise in market share. Mr Dockery, however, says the offer of a choice to customers is not something the company fears.

“The browser ballot was proposed by Microsoft to the EU and it gives people choice which is a good thing,” he says. “I think people should by all means take a look at other browsers but my sentiment, and I think the sentiment of the market is that Internet Explorer is the most popular browser and that’s for a reason.”

However the fact is that many people abandoned Internet Explorer over the years because they preferred the product others were offering.

Internet Explorer 6 was launched in 2001 and was kept as the standard-bearer for five years, compared to the standard two-year cycle used for other releases. During this time Microsoft failed to adapt to the new ideas like tabbed browsing, only doing so when Internet Explorer 7 arrived in 2006.

Internet Explorer 6′s lifetime was also marked by a series of high-profile security and bug issues which the company was slow to fix, something many put down to complacency on Microsoft’s part.

Responding to this perception, security has now become a core message in the push for Internet Explorer 8. The company has also been far more pro-active with updates too, pushing them through to users as part of the regular Windows update schedule.

Statistics suggest their claim of a more secure browser is not just clever marketing too. One of the browser’s much-lauded safety features is the SmartScreen Filter, which checks addresses visited to see if they are harmful and warns the user if they are.

A survey run by NSS Labs found that Internet Explorer 8 blocked 85% of harmful sites tested compared to the 29% blocked by Firefox. The filter scores particularly well when blocking ‘socially engineered’ attacks – where a fraudulent site tricks users into giving personal information or downloading a virus.

“Fundamentally it’s more secure and it’s proven to be more secure; getting a virus is not a nice thing to happen and we’re ahead of the game big time there,” says Mr Dockery. “If you’re the most popular then you’re the most attacked and that is something that other browsers are going to have to deal with now too.”

Mr Dockery also suggests that Firefox’s open source nature may end up being a double-edged sword, as malicious code could disguise itself as an add-on and be installed by an unwitting user.

Many of the browser’s other new features will already be familiar to its rivals’ users, however. InPrivate, for example, is a feature that deletes all history and cookies after a browsing session and was first available in Google’s Chrome as ‘Incognito’ mode.

“To be competitive we have to have the latest features in there and if the competition comes out with a neat feature we have to look to leverage that too,” says Mr Dockery “It’s an evolution; we look at what customers want, we do research and we look at other browsers – and they look at us too.”

Arguably, however, Internet Explorer’s greatest competition does not come from Google and Mozilla but rather from within. Despite being available to users for over a year Internet Explorer 8 only makes up 1/3 of all Internet Explorer installs in use, with 23% of users still running version 7 and 34% sticking with version 6. This is despite the best efforts of the company and even the German and French governments, both of which have advised its citizens to move away from the programme.

“The threat profile has changed and we’ve evolved with the latest version [of the browser],” says Mr Dockery. “I always tell people they need to update to the latest version and that’s a message we need to get out there.”

This feature was written for The Irish Times and was first published there on the 30th April 2010.

The iPad is an attempt by Steve Jobs to replace the PC.

The Apple iPad represents a fork in the road for not just computing but cultural consumption itself – and both paths are not without their difficulties says Jason Walsh.

Regularly derided as more of a cult than a company (including by at least one forth contributor), Apple Inc has thrown down the gauntlet to the rest of the PC industry: get rid of PCs or get out of the game.

With the release of the iPad Apple is clearly positioning its iPhone platform as a direct replacement for the personal computer in everyday use, particularly communication and information consumption.

The latest development is the firm’s war with Adobe Systems, developer of Photoshop and Flash. Apple boss Steve Jobs has listed a litany of problems with Adobe’s Flash platform – from its inherent instability and unreliability to Adobe’s tight control of the platform – and he’s right about all of them.

On the other hand, Apple’s vision isn’t exactly pure. Apple is a significant supporter of open standards and even free software but with the iPad/iPhone platform it has total control of the software distribution channel. Building a closed system on top of open software is not what the likes of the Free Software Foundation regard as supporting users’ freedom.

It’s not hard to see why this is happening, and it’s not all about money. Jobs’s vision of a post-personal computer age is worrying for many of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. The iPad threatens the utility of the computer as the universal machine.

On the other hand, the truth is that the computing industry, software in particular, slit its own throat. Computers have evolved tremendously but they remain trapped in the ‘desktop paradigm’ devised in the 1970s and popularised in the 1980s and the conceptual abstraction no longer suits what we expect do do with computers. At the same time software has become bloated and unstable and, as we can clearly see with the plague of security problems, the operating systems themselves are fundamentally insecure and made worse by users’ lack of understanding.

Apple’s iPad is a response to this and is effectively saying ‘Why should a user have to understand the details of network security and countless other arcane issues?’

This is not so different from what Apple did in 1984 when it unveiled the Macintosh computer. In a world dominated by obscure text-based computers operated by invoking virtually incomprehensible commands the Macintosh was a revelation.

Compared to the horror of DOS, CP/M and the host of other gibberish-based and incompatible systems the Macintosh with its mouse and graphical user interface was like a thunderbolt from the heavens. Finally computers could be used by, as Apple famously put it, ’the rest of us’.

The tech priesthood objected – after all, this little machine threatened the power they wielded through obscurity – and, then as now, dismissed Apple’s machine as a ‘mere’ toy. They were wrong then and they are still wrong today. Paired with a laser printer, the Macintosh unleashed a desktop-publishing revolution and though many an unemployed printer may lament the loss of their own priestly power there is no question that the world changed for the better with the adoption of this technology.

Over time things changed, of course. The Macintosh remains significantly easier to use than its competitors but it is not quite correct to actually call it intuitive. Widespread networking, the internet in particular, has added a significant amount of complexity to the computing experience and though many of us don’t realise it, we have been trained to use the machine when, in fact, the promise of the computer is precisely the opposite.

When I interviewed the late Jef Raskin for the Guardian newspaper in 2004 he said the then-new iMac G5 was stylish but lamented that ‘the Mac is now a mess’. What he meant is that even the Mac OS, the easiest to use of all operating systems, was unnecessarily complex. For those who don’t know, Raskin was the founder of the Macintosh project and ran it from 1979 until 1983 when Steve Jobs booted him off. Raskin and Jobs never saw eye-to-eye on anything except a single issue: computers were too complicated and should be more appliance-like.

The original Macintosh was a major step in this direction: it was the first popularly available computer with a graphical user interface, it was (officially, at least) un-upgradeable and it was a simple, stylish single unit. But there were limitations to what was possible with the technology of the day. For a start, the internet was still used only by universities and governments, meaning users had to install software and save documents using floppy disks. Today it is possible to develop a real appliance computer – and that is exactly what Apple has done with the iPad. It also means that today Apple can control the distribution channel in a way that was simply impossible in the 1980s.

The information technology revolution has been worth it. With every step our lives have been improved and the iPad is another leap forward. Today, though, we risk being faced with Hobson’s choice: outmoded and broken computers or modern but restricted devices.

Jason Walsh is a journalist and edits forth daily.

The hugely successful (for its time) A500+

Commodores & Amigas may be little more than an antique now but it was be well ahead of its time in some ways, says Adam Maguire.

As fondly remembered as Commodore may be, few fans would trade in their existing computer for a C64 or Amiga A500. However as antiquated as the technology is it did approach computing in a way that was ahead of its time; one that is only now being seen as a selling point by modern manufacturers.

One of the most visually apparent identifiers of the Commodore has always been its unified hardware, which combined the keyboard and computer within one body. This – along with the ability to hook the computers up to a standard TV instead of a monitor – added hugely to the appeal of both the Commodore 64 and Amiga A500 amongst regular consumers.

However as Commodore’s grip on computing began to sink its design style faded with it. The hardware involved in making a computer became more complex – and bulky. Graphical demands changed, squeezing the household television out of the equation altogether. Manufacturers like IBM and Apple also preferred to take full control of the hardware, shipping their computers with a dedicated monitor as standard.

As a result of this the computer quite quickly became a far more imposing beast that demanded a space all to itself, not just for the dedicated monitor but for the oversized tower that powered the whole thing.

Fast forward a few years and Apple – a manufacturer that had espoused the separate computer+monitor+keyboard approach during the age of Commodore – released the iMac and started a trend towards unification once more. As Apple realised computers were becoming a factor of the living room and suddenly lower desktop real estate became a selling point. The more incidental a computer could be the better, a trend that has helped the laptop to grow its market significantly.

Today the computer is as acceptable – or even expected – in a living room as the television itself. People now sit on their couches watching TV while working away on a laptop; perhaps even as a way of discussing what’s on their TV over Twitter. This is one of the justifications given by Apple for its iPad – as a way of bridging the gap between television and computer.

However they are not being ambitious enough, perhaps still smarting by the luke-warm reception received by the Apple TV. In fact they – and others – are still playing catch up with a company that went bankrupt 15 years ago. While the iPad is a stylish way to go online it is no more a part of the furniture than a laptop or netbook, nor is it any more integrated with the television itself.

It is instead Asus – purveyor of the original netbook – that has seen the light and is leading the trend towards the re-unification of TV and PC. Its EeeKeyboard, which is now going on sale in the US, takes its lead from the C64 of old and combines the computer with the keyboard in one case. It also sports a touchscreen panel on one end which makes it easier to switch through applications and functions.

However the EeeKeyboard has no real purpose if looked at as a standard computer. It cannot be used on the go so is not a good laptop replacement, it is low-powered so is not a good gaming rig and is not the cheapest computer out there so cannot even compete with mini-desktops.

What makes the EeeKeyboard a device worth considering is its built-in HDMI-out port and – perhaps most importantly – a UWB module and receiver. In other words this machine was made for TVs, which takes it out of the traditional PC space and turns it into a peripheral just as the Amiga A500 was all those years ago.

The logical applications of this combination are plentiful. For a start it allows people to go online as an aside, hopping over to their computer during an ad break to check e-mails or search for something – just as they might change channels. It also opens the door to extremely easy media centre creation, where the user’s videos and music is easily accessed and viewed on the central screen.

This idea – that the computer is as much at home in the living room as a video player – is what made Commodore such memorable and successful manufacturers. For a long time computer makers have shied away from returning to this idea but users’ actions are now forcing them to come back to it. It is something that Apple and others may not have expected to have to do after all these years but companies are having to play catch up with Commodore once more.

Coders are not the only ones who can create things, says Jason Walsh

Just because you cannot code does not mean you cannot create, says Jason Walsh.

It pains me to write this, it really does, but it has to be said: Shut up! You’re wrong!

As a noted fan of the hackerspace and free software movements writing a defence of the iPad is not how I expected to spend my Sunday morning. However if I read one more geek’s elitist ranting about how the iPad is an ‘evil’ device for ’sheeple’ and morons, designed to lock people into a Murdochian world of passive consumption then I may have to commission someone to build an automatic slapping machine that travels the world administering much-needed correctives to every opinionated code-sniffer with a broadband connection and too much free time on their hands.

I am not a computer programmer. The closest I get to that is messing around with shell scripts, AppleScript or Revolution – and let’s face it, that’s closer than most people.

And that is exactly how it should be. Computers, even the simplest to use, such as Macintoshes, are still far too complicated. It doesn’t matter that people don’t know that double-clicking on Macintosh HD is the same as typing ‘ls ~[home]’ at the shell – they shouldn’t have to know that. They shouldn’t even have to know what a shell is – and, happily, most don’t.

I admire the DIY nature of the free software movement and the nascent hackerspaces. More than that, though, I support Richard Stallman’s clearly thought out views on how software is used as a system of control and both his attempt to free us from that and the hackers ability to break any system of control forced on us by manufacturers.

So why am I defending the iPad from its critics? Simple, because its critics are wrong. Anyone can heap a pile of dung onto an idea but that doesn’t mean their criticisms are valid.

The main complaint about the iPad is that it is supposedly designed for ‘passive’ consumption of media. This mistaken idea is based on a one-eyed view of creativity only being possible when logged into a computer as ‘root’.

Straight out of the box the iPad supports two key creative activities: writing and drawing. Over time it will undoubtedly support more. Most importantly, though, the iPad ‘supports’ learning and thinking – creativity is not located in the device, it is located in the user. There is no ghost in the machine.

I hate to get all Marxist on you but, really, it’s about time some people had a lesson in political economy. Creativity is not limited to writing code or building things from circuits. In fact, creativity is humanity’s unique characteristic. We are all creative – not necessarily equally so, this isn’t senior infants – and it is through creativity that humanity has transformed the world for the better and continues to do so to this day. Escaping our estrangement from the products of our labour is a worthy long-term goal but the increasingly common view of the geek elite that people are stupid is as ignorant as it is ludicrous.

The iPad’s obvious limitations are a product of capitalist social relations, yes. But the iPad is also an attempt to transcend the key limitation of the personal computer as we know it, which is that PCs are big piles of thrown-together shit that barely work properly at the best of times.

The iPad is no more a ‘passive’ device than a newspaper is – another distressingly common view among propeller-heads who sneer at the public for being ’sheep’ without seeing the irony that being well-informed about the world requires access to information of universal value, not just the latest headlines on Slashdot.

Moreover, the hobbyist attitude that is building-up – blogs are better than news, for instance – is a fundamentally elitist and anti-democratic sentiment. I’m all for a world of free access but we won’t get there by saying people shouldn’t be paid for their work.

So, who’s the moron, then?

Do I want to see devices like the iPad with no DRM? Yes, I do. Do I want to see a programmable iPad that doesn’t have Apple as the sole channel for distribution? Yes, I do. But instead of whinging about Apple, maybe the company’s critics should get to work building something better instead of obsessing about getting Debian to run on a toaster.

Anyone who thinks that liberation is coming down a fibre optic cable or found writing shell scripts has a mistaken – and, frankly, religious – view of how the world works.

Jason Walsh is a journalist and social commentator. He edits forth daily.

The new C64 retains the 'computer & keyboard in one' style of the original but little else

The Commodore 64 has been ‘relaunched’ as a modern Windows PC. Jason Walsh asks if we are getting a bit too nostalgic for times gone by.

You just can’t keep an old computer down. The Commodore 64, an ancient machine of the 8-bit era has been relaunched as a quad-core Ubuntu machine.

OK, it’s not really a Commodore 64, it’s just a computer that is being sold using the name, but there are minority platforms that live on in a kind of radioactive half-life to this very day.

The Amiga, also late of Commodore, just won’t go away, instead living a zombie-like life after death that doesn’t do much other than annoy people into realising that things could have been better if Microsoft hadn’t prevailed. Another undead platform is Risc OS, late of British outfit Acorn, the designers of the legendary BBC Microcomputer.

It’s hard to know what to make of retro computing. On the one hand it’s a perfectly harmless way to while away time but, looked at another way, it is little more than nostalgia for the stone age of information technology. Quite apart from the fact that the new ‘Commodore 64’ has no relationship whatsoever with the original machine, why are so many people suddenly interested in old PCs?

True, may of us enjoy vintage objects – I myself drive a two decade old car that looks as though it is seven decades old – and there has long been a roaring trade in antique clothes, furniture, tableware jewellery and watches, but the comparison doesn’t quite hold.

The joy of a true antique is that it is still useful. Old computers, though, are not always useful. An old computer is more industrial archaeology than it is vintage style. A mint condition Sinclair Spectrum 48K is a beautiful object – but it is an appalling computer. A 50 year old wristwatch can be both beautiful and genuinely useful. The difference is that information technology is subject to continual innovation, timekeeping less so. When it comes to computers, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

It is true that in many instances it is easier to keep an old system running than replace it with a new one – plenty of large corporations and government departments still use ancient mainframes, either actual or virtualised and emulated, for tedious and unchanging tasks such as payroll calculation. As the saying goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

On the other hand, desktop users have little to gain from using an old computer. Retro computing is fine as an amusement or pastime, and some of the old software, games in particular, is certainly worth hanging-on to. On the other hand, the desire to get back to a bygone ‘simpler’ age is a deeply problematic one. The past truly is a foreign country – and an underdeveloped one, at that.

Jason Walsh is a journalist and editor of forth.ie

Scottevest's new vest has a dedicated iPad pocket, which is nice.

Alongside the US launch of Apple’s iPad has come the inevitable deluge of iPad-compatible accessories from third party developers. Some of these will be clever and useful while others will be pointless and ill-conceived.

Few entrants fit the latter category quite so well as Scottevest’s iPad “compatible” travel vest. The company claims its new product is the “first & only clothing line with a pocket for the iPad”, a fact that really should have given them some clue to how desirable such a trait is.

Of course the feature is arguably not so unique – it’s just a giant pocket after all – but let’s give them their moment in the sun regardless.

For more information on the product – including a guide on how to wire your vest – visit their site.

TeicTat is a new, irregular feature on the site that highlights some of the crappier gadgets and accessories on sale in Ireland and across the world – if you know of anything that might be worth featuring send an e-mail through to info[at]teic.ie (replacing the ‘[at]‘ with an ‘@’) with details.

Campaigners are calling for a panic button on Facebook profiles to protect users

The murder of Ashleigh Hall was tragic but blaming Facebook shows just how ignorant some people are, says Adam Maguire.

Depending on your age you may recall the surge in popularity enjoyed by chat rooms in the 1990s. In the age of the social network services like IRC seem archaic and clumsy but at their peak they were an innovative way to instantly communicate with like-minded people across the world.

You may also remember the concerns that quickly became a part of the public understanding of chat rooms during this time. Far from being a place to socialise, this chatter would tell you that they were becoming a hub for the world’s worst; a home for paedophiles, rapists and murderers who wanted to lure innocent (and usually young) people to an horrific end.

Of course chat rooms were used by the disturbed and disturbing in an attempt to do things not worth thinking about – and in far too many cases they were successful. However anyone who actually spent time in chat rooms knew this behaviour was in the vast minority and that the most depraved communications generally started with ‘wanna cyber?’

But whatever can be said about its users, the internet has matured since the days of IRC and we now have media-rich environments like Facebook to communicate and socialise with friends and would-be friends alike. Safety concerns have remained, however, and have been highlighted in recent weeks by the conviction of Peter Chapman in England, who raped and murdered Ashleigh Hall after making friends with her through Facebook.

Many prominent voices – such as that of Chris Huhne of the UK’s Liberal Democrats – have been quick to point a finger of blame at Facebook in light of this horrific case, saying they should feature a large ‘panic button’ on profile pages so people can report suspicious behaviour. Child protection and online safety groups have chimed in with a similar argument.

However such reactionism completely ignores the facts of the case – just as similar moral panic did in the days of the chat room. Quite simply, safety online is the responsibility of the individual user and no-one else and to suggest otherwise is akin to blaming a drug for an overdose.

As with all cases of this type, Ashleigh Hall did not suspect any sinister intent in Peter Chapman – or more his alias’s – online advances. Even had there been a giant panic button there to report suspicious behaviour she would not have used it, because she did not notice any.

On the contrary, as is the way Facebook works, Ashleigh Hall became this person’s ‘friend’ and volunteered to communicate with him on an ongoing basis. She then took the decision to meet with him and omitted to tell anyone about doing so, suggesting that she knew what she was doing was wrong but was willing to take the chance anyway.

When people – be they children or adults – share intimate information online or arrange to meet with people they only know virtually they do not do so with the suspicion that they may be putting themselves in danger. They do so because they have developed enough trust to take a chance.

What the case of Ashleigh Hall does show – or more the reaction to it – is that establishment figures in politics, the media and elsewhere still have a fear of technology as something ‘other’, rather than simply an enabler of human behaviour in all is forms.

There is a clear insinuation in some of the reaction to this case that the internet and all that goes on within that is some sentient being that can attack rationally-minded people when they least expect it. There is no recognition of the fact that people with concerns about other users are not the ones that need protecting, or that no design changes can tackle naivity. Likewise there seems to be no contextualisation of cases like this, such as an acceptance that similar threats exist in real world encounters and that the location of them is unlikely to be to blame when they happen.

What is needed to minimise the number of future cases like Ashleigh Hall’s is not a lip-service panic button but a proper attempt at online safety education, one that encourages a healthy suspicion without descending into fear-mongering and moral panic. This needs to be more than a stop-start campaign and needs to be part of an overall education on the internet and technology, which details and explains its benefits along with its risks.

However what is needed most is an acceptance by politicians, parents and the media that the internet is a medium and not a target board. It needs to be recognised that if bad things happen online it is because bad people exist and, in some cases, good people allow themselves to fall prey to them.

NeXT formed the foundations of Apple's visually appealing re-birth.

Aesthetic experience matters in all other aspects of life so why, asks Jason Walsh, do software developers treat it like a frivolous luxury?

Steve Jobs is a pompous ass – but he gets one thing right: aesthetics matter. Anyone who knows anything of Jobs’s history will know his obsession with aesthetics.

Most tech-inclined people dismiss aesthetics as mere ‘chrome’, shiny bolted-on fins that have no actual function other than to please and titillate the user.

This is entirely the wrong attitude – and precisely what leads to the train wreck that is not only most human-computer interfaces, but also the astonishing ugliness of most consumer electronics devices. Jobs, while he was chief executive of NeXT Computer – his home after being booted-out of Apple – famously said that Microsoft lacked art.

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products,” he told the makers of the documentary film ‘Triumph of the Nerds’.

Sadly he was right – and not just about Microsoft. The manner in which software is developed actually encourages unpleasant user interfaces and the fact that desktop computing is, in terms of its basic paradigm, a dead and un-innovative space doesn’t help.

As more and more features are added to applications the interfaces become increasingly cluttered, confusing and downright ugly. The latest abomination to be unleashed upon the hitherto productive computing public is the desktop Flash application – thanks Adobe. That’s exactly what we needed: a thousand and one non-standard interfaces.

Of course, Apple doesn’t always get it right – far from it – but at least the company’s developers realise that there is more to the user experience than the technical underpinnings of an application. One important issue is that we are not talking about art. NeXT – and Apple since Jobs’s return – has a tendency to produce arty interfaces. This is not a good thing.

There is a strong argument for form following function but this does not mean dispensing with aesthetics. In fact, anyone who knows about the history of design will immediately associate the phrase ‘form follows function’ with modernism and the Bauhaus in particular.

The perfect human-computer interface should be small to the point of near invisibility. Where we do see it, it should be simple, clean and formal. It should never confuse and it should have a beauty in its simplicity.

For the past month or more I have been searching for the ‘perfect’ word processor. It sounds ridiculous, but I write tens of thousands of words every week and so, inevitably, I spend a lot of time staring at a screen. I want this time to be spent in an environment that is conducive to writing.

Microsoft Word, the word processor used by most of my colleagues, is hellish. It’s busy, cluttered, over-powered and just plain annoying. Apple’s Pages is a much more pleasant experience but it is let down by insisting on using its own quixotic file format. This results in me having two copies of every saved file – something that quickly becomes a real headache and is, in its own way, an aesthetic problem.

I will continue to search for the blank page that allows beautiful typography and includes no features other than a word count and a spell checker. I doubt I will ever find it though.

Jason Walsh is a journalist and the editor of forth

Headline speeds are increasing but contention is keeping real speeds down

With broadband speeds increasing, Ireland appears to be catching up with other countries’ super-fast networks. However, the small print leaves many customers with far less than they pay for.

While most of the attention on broadband statistics is given to the headline speeds, the issue of line contention is now proving to be equally important.

Contention refers to the number of customer lines that share a connection in a local network exchange, with the top speed being split between them all. As a result, a customer on a 20MBit/sec broadband connection with a contention of 20:1 may end up with speeds as low as 1Mbit/sec during busier times as the top speed of 20Mbit/sec is in reality shared with 19 other customers.

Contention is one of the reasons why broadband speeds are generally advertised as “up to”, although the quality of the line and the customer’s distance from the exchange – where local connections are passed through to the wider network – are also a factor.

“Some telecommunications companies, because of a lack of capital or as a way of squeezing the customer, design in contention to their network so that a number of people will share an amount of bandwidth,” says Mark Kellet, chief executive of Magnet Networks, which offers uncontended lines so the customer gets access to all of the potential speed without having to share.

“So while companies like Eircom advertise 24Mbits/sec the chance of you getting that speed during the busy period is very slim because you’re sharing with other people.”

At present Eircom and Vodafone offer a contention ratio of 48:1 on their residential broadband packages, while cable company Chorus/NTL set theirs at 17:1.

Mobile broadband is also highly contended. However, exact figures differ depending on the network a user is on, the mast they are connected to and how many other connections are using it at that time.

A survey in 2008 by broadband communications company Epitiro found that Irish landline customers were getting just 60 per cent of speeds advertised by their suppliers, while mobile broadband was found to be far slower than landlines with comparable top speeds.

Overall the report found that faster broadband speeds did not equate to faster browsing for the end user. However, Sean Lockman, director of portfolio strategy in Eircom Retail, argues that much of this depends on when the user connects. “Many people will experience their peak speeds – they’ll only start to experience less than that in the evening time when everyone else is online. So I don’t think it’s disingenuous as the connection can achieve that speed most of the time for most people.”

In March 2008, the Advertising Standard Authority of Ireland issued a directive requiring the inclusion of a “busy hour” speed in broadband marketing, which would factor in contention among other things. So far none of the big players has adhered to this but Magnet Networks recently called for its rivals to do so in the interest of transparency. Providers such as Vodafone, however, say it is not a realistic option. “Advertising busy-hour speeds with any accuracy is a very considerable challenge . . . because it varies from exchange to exchange,” says Eileen Maher, head of fixed services with Vodafone Ireland. “There are huge variations nationally, and even from town to town, so it would be unfair and misleading to pick one number for all as it would be non-representative and also would change constantly.”

Vodafone specifies its landline contention ratio on its website alongside the connection’s maximum speed. However, neither Eircom nor Chorus/NTL has these details listed online.

As the authority is a self-regulatory body, it has no real powers to punish companies that fail to follow its directives. The Communications Regulator (ComReg) has no regulatory limit on contention or directives on the way it is factored in to advertised speeds but says that it advocates transparency on the matter.

Regardless, there is agreement among industry players that the advertised speeds are not reflective of the real speeds people experience, particularly at peak times.

While the broadband market in Ireland has changed since Epitiro’s survey in 2008, so have the habits of web-users, something Eircom’s Sean Lockman says is making contention more of an issue.

“We see internet video, file-sharing, online back-up and services like RTÉ’s Player becoming more popular, and they all require a more constant stream of information,” he says, citing a Cisco Systems report which recorded a 62 per cent increase in online video streaming to PCs in the past year.

“More people want to be online all the time doing a lot more stuff . . . We’re seeing a lot of our more advanced customers having three or four users on at the same time on different devices like PCs, gaming machines and smartphones.”

Simple web-browsing only requires bandwidth every time a user updates or moves to a new webpage, so it can be redistributed across the other contended connections as it is needed. Streaming services like video require a constant flow of speed, however, leaving the remaining contended connections with much less to share.

According to Lockman, Eircom has undertaken a major network overhaul to address this shift, one which will eventually remove the issue of contention for about 75 per cent of its customers.

The company has started with upgrades to the Dublin network, and plans to have all urban areas uncontended in 12-18 months.

Once complete, the upgraded lines will be available to wholesale customers as well as residential, meaning competitors like Vodafone will be able to offer uncontended packages too.

While Lockman could not give specific details, it is understood that some customers may see the benefits of this upgrade within the next two months. For others it could take some time, however, due to the extent of the aged infrastructure Eircom has to replace.

Until then, users’ broadband speeds may remain a purely aspirational figure.

This article originally appeared in The Irish Times on the 19th February 2010.

Steve Jobs said netbooks were just "cheap laptops"

At the launch of Apple’s iPad, Steve Jobs argued that netbooks were good for nothing. He was completely wrong, says Adam Maguire.

It is a foregone conclusion that anything Steve Jobs says at an Apple conference will be well-received. Contribute it to the reality distortion field around him or the careful selection of attendees but either way it’s a fact.

At the conference that launched Apple’s tablet computer – the iPad – one line in particular went down very well with the crowd; the one where Jobs argued netbooks weren’t “better than anything” and were just cheap laptops.

It was a straw-man argument and a bad one at that. Obviously when netbooks are compared with laptops on single features they will always lose out but they were never meant to compete. It is the combination of benefits; namely their portability, functionality and price; that make them a worthwhile proposition.

The netbook segment has been successful because it appeals to a wide range of users, particularly students and professionals. Netbooks are easy to take on journeys and unobtrusive in a bag, they work just as a laptop would (albeit with considerably less power behind them) and they are a cheap supplement to a proper home computer.

They are a work-horse machine and not the media solution Apple wants the iPad to be.

The iPad is of no use to the people who tend to use netbooks. It may be portable and relatively – for an Apple product anyway – cheap. However it lacks a huge amount of the functionality necessary to make it a back-up computer device and is probably more awkward to type on than even the fiddliest of keyboards.

People use netbooks for on-the-go work and web-browsing and little else;  in fact many netbook users would only use them for off-line work while travelling. The iPad does not even have USB so people cannot transfer files they are working on from one machine to another – which is likely the first thing a netbook-user will do once they get near a proper PC.

The iPad will almost certainly to a good job of handling media – even if it is locked-in to specific formats – but this is not what is needed to replace the netbook. By targeting this market segment Jobs took a cheap and mis-guided shot at a product that Apple won’t even be competing with once it arrives.

But there is no reason why people don’t use their netbooks as a video and games machine – bar the 10″ screens that are never going to be a first option for users… that said Jobs will certainly hope otherwise.

Podcasting is a great way to catch up on radio and hear niche programmes

Podcasts are a great way of catching up on radio shows you’ve missed, listening to the best of international radio and finding some high-quality niche shows for all interests. Adam Maguire shows what you need to do to become a podcast listener and lists some must-hear shows to get once you are.

There is a good chance you have been encouraged by a radio presenter to get the ‘podcast’ of their show; although they have likely left if up to you to find out what that means.

In essence a podcast is a regularly updated series of audio – or video – clips available online. They can be of any length, on any topic, of any frequency and they are not necessarily based on existing radio shows. Instead of having to find the show every week, however, you can simply ‘subscribe’ to a show once and new episodes will automatically be downloaded to your computer from then on.

However in order to become a listener you need a podcast player, though these are easily found.

The most popular podcast player is iTunes, which can also be used to play any music you have on your computer. The software is free to download and has a dedicated podcast section built in, which you will find on the left-hand menu when you open it up (pictured below).

Clicking on this section will bring you straight to your library. To start downloading a show you can click on the ‘podcast directory’ (pictured below), which will bring you to a huge selection of programmes.

The iTunes podcast directory hosts countless shows from around the world. Most Irish radio shows have podcasts however as podcasting is is international you can also tune in to American and British radio shows – or programmes that are made specifically for the internet.

You can select from the featured podcasts on the directory’s main page, search by category or even search by name to find what you want.

Once you find a show you like you can click on the ‘Subscribe’ button (pictured below) and it will start to download to your library. You can return to the directory and add another show if you like or if you are finished you can wait for your episodes to download.

Once done you can listen to it on your PC – or even transfer it to an mp3 player – and now all new episodes of your shows will start to download automatically when you open iTunes. If you decide you do not want to listen to a particular show any more you can simply click ‘unsubscribe’ and your computer will no longer fetch new episodes for you.

There are podcasts available to suit every taste and not just those that are regular radio shows. Just be aware, however, that some of the shows may not be of great quality and you may sometimes need to use trial and error to find the best ones out there.

To help you get started, however, here are a few hand-picked podcasts that are top quality and well worth a listen.

Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews (BBC Radio)
Both Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo really know their films and know what makes a good one.
If you want to listen to film reviews, news and witty banter then this is the podcast for you.

This American Life
This American Life is an award winning show from US public radio. Each week’s show is based around a theme and features a number of stories connected to it, usually true stories from normal people.
This American Life is sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious but almost always inspirational and beautiful.

LibriVox
LibriVox is an audio-book service, making its readings of out-of-copyright books available as individual podcasts. Classics from Dracula to Sense and Sensibility are covered with each book acting as a separate podcast you can subscribe to. Best of all each book is split up into a number of episodes so you can listen to it one piece at a time.

TedTalks
This podcast features talks from the TED conference in California, which are given by the world’s greatest minds on bizarre and mind-blowing topics like ‘The intelligence of crows’ or ’6 ways mushrooms can save the universe’.
The speakers are simply required to talk about something interesting and unique without notes and within a strict 18 minute time-limit.
Be careful when downloading, though. The videos from TedTalks are also available as a podcast and are quite large so best avoided if you only want to listen to the talks.

This article originally appeared on SilverCircle.ie