Sticks and Stones

Molly Wood from CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast has started a new blog called ‘Cult of Ownership’. While we’ve written on copyright in the past, in fact the very first Sticks and Stones post was about the Creative Commons licensing used on this website, Molly is uniquely qualified to offer a comprehensive view on the tech industry and how we understand our rights regarding what we create.

In an age of more freely available digital artwork, music, and video, we perceive these materials to be free to use, share, remix, and indulge in - but those who know copyright law, especially the dreaded DMCA and the beleaguered concept of ‘fair use’ will know that this perception is very far from reality. I highly recommend Cult of Ownership, and strongly suggest you head over to the blog and read it in its entirety.

To answer the question in the title of this post, yes you do have the right to edit my photo of the Jaguar E-type, as long as you state that the original work is mine, and that you don’t use your edition or my original for commercial purposes.

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Before getting this MacBook I was used to a 20 inch screen which allowed me a lot more screen real estate. Downsizing was painful because it allowed me much less space in which to do all that I do, which is why Rafe Needleman’s piece at Webware.com last week was so useful.

Even though you may not be able to decorate your desk with two 30 inch Apple Cinema displays as Al Gore does, it is likely that from a hodgepodge of assorted CRTs and LCDs you could create a truly impressive screen worthy of a nuclear power plant.

While impressive to look at and possibly quite pleasing to own, there are actual usability benefits to this indulgent proposal: you’ll get more done. It’s incredibly easy to add a second display: all modern operating systems and computers have support for this. It takes the click of a few buttons and the tightening of a few screws (possibly just the sliding in of a plug to a socket i.e. MacBook, Cinema display and the wonder of mini-DVI).

But what if you need your RSS reader, a word processor, a spreadsheet application, World of Warcraft, and Sticks and Stones open? You would need two, maybe three monitors at the very least. Products like DisplayLink and DisplayFusion would be best suited for this sort of rigourous usage. As soon as I dive behind my computer and unhook the necessary cables to link up the 13 year old Gateway 17 inch monitor, I’ll be hitting feeds twice as hard, and hammering out posts twice as quickly. Or, procrastinating twice as much.

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I suppose it was inevitable. They used Myriad Pro but thinned it. They showed only half the Apple icon - the notebook is half the weight of the Sony TZ. They even used the word air. To be honest, I was hoping for an impressive WiMAX implementation but perhaps that is too WWDC for Macworld.

With a 13.3″ screen, a full-size backlit keyboard, 0.76 inches thick at the thickest point down to 0.16 at the thinnest… this is a truly cutting edge device; something we’ve not really seen from Apple since the titanium PowerBook. The MacBook Pro was always impressively fast but it was a heavy, full-featured device. This MacBook Air is fast, thin, and features a 1.8″ (iPod classic derived) 80GB hard drive with the option for a 64GB solid state drive (better: shocks and drops won’t affect SSDs as much and in general they are more reliable - particularly being less susceptible to data loss).

Expectedly, but no less disappointingly, there won’t be an optical drive there. While I am all for the death of physical media, we’re not there yet! We still need drives for Blu-ray videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs (for the same price, far superior sound to DRM laden AACs or Amazon’s MP3s) because WiMAX isn’t worldwide, which means we rely on 4Mb connections and wired broadband. Despite whatever pipe-dreams Steve & Co. have, over-the-air content distribution is not yet a reality. For $99, an external drive. Shows we really aren’t ready to move away from physical media yet.

The MacBook Air comes with a 60% smaller Core 2 Duo running at 1.6 to 1.8 GHz (see, when Steve snaps his fingers, even the mighty Intel rebuilds their flagship processor). 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, a phenomenal 5 hours battery life, and the industry standard 2GB RAM round out the specifications list I can glean from Tom Krazit at CNET’s liveblogging of the keynote. One final note, it is a relief to see that the device will have the usual array of ports (albeit likely the paltry set featured on the MacBook) and a MagSafe connector.

It will be available for pre-order today, delivering in 2 weeks. And when you finally decide to throw away your svelte little 3lbs notebook, it is fully recyclable: their first mercury and aresenic free display. All of the circuit boards are bromide and PVC free. But for $1799 and up, I doubt you’ll be throwing it away any time soon.

A couple of additions: 1. Highly disappointing: the battery is not user-replaceable! While of course a compromise to ensure minimum size and weight, it is very unimpressive. 2. That external drive is a really smart move. Why? Because in a few months, don’t be surprised to see an external Blu-ray drive, in the way the Xbox 360 has an external HD-DVD drive.

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I wrote that piece about naval warfare on my T-Mobile MDA compact. That was an exercise in patience and an exploration of true frustration. I would draw an ‘a’ and see a ‘c’, which I would attempt to remove by drawing a dash: indicating ‘delete’. Instead, all I see is ‘c-’ and a blinking cursor. The verbal diatribe that I promptly emitted was an effusive and thoroughly profane lament aimed at this hapless little device which believed it had done exactly what I had requested.

This conundrum is a perfect example of a dichotomy. On the one hand we have our perennial desire to shrink devices. So it fits in our jacket pockets (Apple Newton), now let’s have it fit in trouser pockets (iPod), now let’s have it fit in that loose change slip on jeans (iPod nano) - and so it goes on. On the other, we have hands. And fingers too, eight of them with some thumbs thrown in for free. As our devices shrink, we face the increasing problem that they are too small for our hands. Amazon’s Kindle is considered vast because the iPod shuffle is absolutely tiny, but anyone who has used the Kindle will notice that it is ergonomically sound.

Ergonomics dictates which devices succeed and fail. Touchscreen devices and thumb-pad keyboards have not taken the cell-phone market away from phones with numeric keypads because 12 buttons of that size makes ergonomic sense. The irony of demanding gadgets that will fit into the pockets of skinny jeans - pockets which hands can’t go into - is lost on those who want the newest, shiniest, smallest little phone/MP3 player/web browser/camera on sale. We use our hands to operate these devices and so there is a minimum size, which devices like Neonode’s N2 are hopelessly beyond. I remember Alex trying to press ‘Messages’ on his N1 only to keep hitting the ‘Start’ button.

The iPhone is that minimum. It’s no wonder that we keep praising Apple for great design: they understand ergonomics. One failing there is the keyboard, and Apple concedes it as soon as you press a key. Those who have used the iPhone know that it shows an enlarged icon after you press a key: that enlargement is the correct size, but consider the size of the physical device if Apple built to that specification. It wouldn’t fit in your jeans pocket.

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Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz writes: A 14-year-old boy in Lodz, Poland allegedly hacked a TV remote control so that he could control parts of his city’s tram system. Sounds like he identified the infrared pulses used to override the track switching. Four trams were derailed and 12 people were injured.

The issue is more complicated than doling out a punishment. Children like this, obviously endowed with ingenuity and intelligence need to understand the error of their ways, however their intellect and ingenuity should be fostered. These kids have the imagination to see beyond what is the designated use for devices like TV remotes. Perhaps it is an indictment of their education system; that these bright young boys and girls are not challenged enough at school, but in reality it is an opportunity for that country to take a special interest in a very promising child.

Punishment for young men and women should not be vengeful. They are not fully grown adults and so won’t have the maturity to know the fun tricks they play can be dangerous. Funnel that energy and talent into something productive and ten years on, you may have a brilliant rocket scientist. By all means give the boy a punishment; we must be very aware that his actions caused the injury to 12 people and that must not be taken lightly at all. He deserves to be punished for that, but he also needs to have his talents harnessed in beneficial ways. After all, we don’t want him in prison for a few months only to come out bitter, angry, and likely to re-offend.

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