The Wall St. Journal hosted their annual conference yesterday, D: all things digital. I guess due to Mossberg's status this has become a big thing in the computer / gadget industry. This year Jeff Hawkins from Palm had a big announcement that turned out to just be the introduction of the Palm Foleo, a subnotebook device that basically just piggy-backs on your Treo (and soon other smartphones) giving you a big screen and full sized keyboard when using those devices. I guess that's interesting, but for $500 (not counting several hundred for the Treo) I'm not sure why you just wouldn't carry an actual subnotebook, rather than this strange quasi thin client arrangement. Color me unimpressed once again with Palm. Can't they just concentrate on making the Treo better?
Steve Jobs had a sit down with Mossberg that didn't reveal much new info. Probably the biggest thing was this quote about 3rd party apps on the iPhone: "...we'll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone. But until we find that way we can't compromise the security of the phone." That seems to pretty clearly state that 3rd party apps will be possible in the future, although there are still a bunch of questions around this. I'm happy to at least hear this much though.
Later, Jobs and Gates, somewhat historically, took the stage together. I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, but supposedly it was a cordial affair.
Earlier Microsoft debuted Surface, their new multi-touch table top Minority Report-ish computer. Sort of like a giant iPhone in terms of it's multi-touch input technology, although Surface goes even further in some ways. Really impressive. Not sure how much market penetration this will have at its' 10K price point, but as a proof of concept it looks amazing. Well done. Here are some more pics.
Updated: And here's a nice Popular Mechanics video of Surface.
Ars Technica gets into some Surface details. Interesting. It's not really a touch screen in the standard sense, but uses 5 cameras mounted beneath the surface to read points of contact. Lots more info at the link.
The NY Time's John Markoff confirms 3rd party iPhone SDK to be released at this months World Wide Developers Conference. I'll truly believe it when I see it, but all signs do seem to be pointing to yes. Will it just be that Widgets can be recompiled for the phone? They do seem kind of perfect. I'd be happy with that solution.
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Steve Jobs had a sit down with Mossberg that didn't reveal much new info. Probably the biggest thing was this quote about 3rd party apps on the iPhone: "...we'll find a way to let 3rd parties write apps and still preserve security on the iPhone. But until we find that way we can't compromise the security of the phone." That seems to pretty clearly state that 3rd party apps will be possible in the future, although there are still a bunch of questions around this. I'm happy to at least hear this much though.
Later, Jobs and Gates, somewhat historically, took the stage together. I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet, but supposedly it was a cordial affair.
Earlier Microsoft debuted Surface, their new multi-touch table top Minority Report-ish computer. Sort of like a giant iPhone in terms of it's multi-touch input technology, although Surface goes even further in some ways. Really impressive. Not sure how much market penetration this will have at its' 10K price point, but as a proof of concept it looks amazing. Well done. Here are some more pics.
Updated: And here's a nice Popular Mechanics video of Surface.
- jim 5-31-2007 9:30 pm
Ars Technica gets into some Surface details. Interesting. It's not really a touch screen in the standard sense, but uses 5 cameras mounted beneath the surface to read points of contact. Lots more info at the link.
- jim 6-01-2007 1:15 am
The NY Time's John Markoff confirms 3rd party iPhone SDK to be released at this months World Wide Developers Conference. I'll truly believe it when I see it, but all signs do seem to be pointing to yes. Will it just be that Widgets can be recompiled for the phone? They do seem kind of perfect. I'd be happy with that solution.
- jim 6-04-2007 8:36 pm