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Technically Speaking - Helping you survive and thrive in the Digital Age

Hello Friend,

For once there's not a lot of smartphone news - they've become a commodity and most of them are very good or at least good enough.

The Consumer Electronics Show last week and the coming Mobile World Congress in March are where the action is now. This morning just as I was putting this issue to bed (an expression I learned as a printer/press operator at a very young age saving money for looming college tuition bills) a very informative article came across the wire (another ancient expression). The Internet of Things was the hot topic at this year's CES and this article is a must read if you want to see the upside (a lot) and the downside (a lot) of this always connected future. You might also want to check out the Audi Smartwatch - now everybody is gettng in on the act.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year
Gary

Words to live by
You don't need to be a geek to survive today but you should understand basic concepts of technology if you intend to be in the game. Here are three terms that are showing up everywhere and a simple Google search will tell you everything you need to know. I'll add more to the list later.
     > NFC
     > Beacons
     > IOT

What can Samsung learn from Downton Abbey?
My apologies if you are one of the three people not yet hooked on Downton Abbey but there really are striking similarities between the two. DA features the owners of a large English estate governed by a descendant of previous owners. Likewise Samsung is ruled by the grandson of the original founder like many other SE Asian companies.

DA and Samsung are both struggling to find a new business model. In the case of DA they decided to raise pigs! Samsung has lost significant ground in the the smartphone market in the last year due to competition from Xiaomi at the low end and Apple at the top. Their focus at last week's Consumer Electronics extravaganza was not on phones (or pigs) but all the things they could connect to the Internet - the Internet of Things. Samsung still sells more smartphones than anyone - they just don't make much money doing it.

Please forgive me - I never imagined I'd be writing my tech column about a soap opera!

Click to enlarge

The future of tablets
It's likely tablets will continue to grow in power, storage and size. If they hope to replace laptops, they will need to be bigger and rumors abound that Apple will introduce a 12 inch model this year. This could be related to the recent agreement between Apple and IBM which is beginning to bear fruit - including their first roll out of business apps.

Speaking of replacing laptops, a good keyboard is a must companion for your tablet and the latest models by Logitech are astounding. I do most of my typing - including this newsletter - on the one shown above at a coffee shop yesterday. If you want to use a tablet as a productivity tool, you really should get a keyboard.

You did what?
One of the first "things" that comes to mind with the IOT is a wi-fi connection to your thermostat as popularized by the NEST/Google device. With that in mind, I overheard the following - CLOSE FRIEND: Guess what, I just turned up my thermostat back home. CLOSE FRIEND'S SPOUSE: Why did you do that? CF: So it will be warm when we get back home. CFS: That won't be for twelve hours! CF: Yea, I guess you're right!

This type of "conversation" is likely to be increasingly common as more and more "things" are connected and more and more family discussions revolve around the necessity of doing something just because you can. Samsung is said to have transferred 500 engineers from their smartphone projects to work on the IOT.

Click to see an enlargement of this iPhone video frame.

Picture This: Have you tried video/still photography?
For kids, sports and wildlife photography, it's very difficult to press the shutter at exactly the right time for that "special" image. As smartphone cameras improve, you should consider taking action shots in video mode and then extracting the best stills.

Professionals who spend thousands of dollars on a single lens for cameras that can snap ten frames per second and weigh five pounds have the perfect solution - but I only know six professional photographers. For the rest of us a good quality smartphone, a little time to get the best video possible and an app such as SnapStill to locate and save special images is all it takes. Click on the image above taken in the back yard in cold weather with my iPhone to see what is possible.

Remember what I said at the beginning -
This article is a must read! if you want to know what's happening today and tomorrow.

January 2015
Issue 63

Who I am and what I do

My lifetime passion has been explaining technology to non-technical audiences. I've been a programmer, project manager, system designer and independent consultant. I've taught at the high school and university level, published numerous articles and given hundreds of lectures across the US and abroad. In my spare time I volunteer for several social service organizations and enjoy my photography hobby.

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