This is pretty complex stuff. Needless to say, this is how Big Brother is watching you.
Why do you think that you get ads for something you never searched but just talked about? Hell, sometimes I just think of stuff and it shows up it seems.
You are a dumbass for taking nudies or sexting because they are probably laughing at you as they can look at everything.
You’ve been warned.
Hat tip to Moonbattery
For politics, we need balance. History shows that too much dominance by any side makes for lack of clear vision as leaders. Their goal becomes being re-elected instead of serving the office they were elected to. There are plenty of examples.
In Companies, being the solution to a problem is one business model, until the problem goes away then so do profits.
The better model is innovation. Not that I find it that innovative, but look no further than the iPhone as an example. Conversely, we are still stuck with Windows however and I find no real innovation there. I left that platform as quickly as I could
Then of course there is Facebook, Twitter, Google and host of other platforms that haven’t really offered a solution other than sucking the time out of your day and providing a place to move along anarchy.
Look at the motives of the person trying to offer a solution. Are they selling you a bill of goods, re-election or innovation?
Schaeffer’s First Law of the Digital Age:
The Global Digital Infrastructure (GDI) connects all human life on the planet into a single, giant, metastasizing organism throbbing with incredible potential for advancing human good, expanding knowledge exponentially, invading our lives with unimaginable malice and evil, and transforming unsuspecting users into helpless and obedient cyborgs.
Schaeffer’s Second Law of the Digital Age:
Each breakthrough in utility deriving from advances in the Global Digital Domain is accompanied by equal or greater vulnerabilities and potential detriments to quality of life. Anything that can do amazingly great things for you can almost always do terribly awful things to you as well.
Schaeffer’s Third Law of the Digital Age:
I’m not a conspiracy person, rather an observer of trends and patterns. Haven’t we been down this path before in history where there are classes of people? This time, they start as digital helpers like Alexa, Echo, Google assistant or Siri, but at what point are they re-directing our lives? Aren’t there always people who try to control your lives thus enriching their lives both in money and power.
Since there are hackers constantly attacking the cloud, where your data is stored and accessible, when you lose control over your life? The digital hacks can be found at Krebsonsecurity.com.
It has already begun with your digital footprint being tracked, monitored and being sold off to advertisers, but where does it stop, the Jetson’s?
I advise that you carefully monitor who is monitoring you, even the government.
Now for fun, why is that in the movies that the robots always try to take over the world and kill humans?
Apple has prided itself on cutting edge products. Their mantra is to create great products that we didn’t know we needed. It worked for the iPod, IPhone and iPad. Now there are rumors about the iWatch. Guess what, they are going to miss the boat on this as they have overlooked what we do and do not need.
Who are the biggest consumers of new technology?
First it is the early adopters, they’ll buy anything. That is a small percentage of the population though, maybe 15% at the most and that is being generous.
They will likely be the bulk of the iWatch consumers. Here are the others:
Dilberts who need to have the most gadgets.
Some workout people who for while will think this is cool. This groups purchasing power will wear off as you can tell by the proliferation of watch style monitoring devices being purchased, but then discarded. It is not the killer app.
Who won’t by buying them?
Almost everyone else and the biggest problem is the group that has the largest digital footprint:
The generation of 18- to 34-year-olds, known as Millennials, are an increasingly influential group that impacts many aspects of the American lifestyle, including fashion, technology and entertainment, according to the upcoming 2013 Digital Marketer Report from Experian Marketing Services. The report looks at key segments of the consumer landscape, including millennials, who provide a major opportunity for marketers to reach consumers via mobile. Millennials spend 14 percent more time engaged with their mobile devices in an average week than their generational peers.
Guess what? They don’t wear watches for the most part, they keep time on their phone. They want a phone with a bigger screen, better input capabilities and easy access to social media. An iWatch doesn’t fit this model. This will continue for the rest of their lives (likely) and with the younger generation.
They also have to pick which device they are going to buy as student debt is at an all time high. If you need an iPhone to work the watch, no money left for beer or video games.
Digital Currency
What is the biggest attraction for Facebook and most social media? It is the sharing of pictures. Why did Instagram get bought for 1 Billion dollars? Why is snapchat gaining ground and Twitter adding video to their photo capabilities? With the grandparents getting onto Facebook, the youngsters are using other apps like Instagram to share their lives with their friends. While you can see a picture, it is small.
So why are they doing it? Because they need the buzz or the next great thing. Will they do it anyway? Of course, Samsung already has one announced and Apple copies and tries to make it better
I’m not saying watches are dead, who doesn’t want a Rolex for example, it’s just that the impact of an Apple Watch isn’t going to be the $100 jump in the stock price that earlier products were.
Gone are the glory days when the PC would rule over the vaunted Mainframe, putting power at desks without the overbearing DP department overcharging and under delivering past the due date.
What has evolved though is a commodity product that is at best a commodity like a toaster. You can buy one anywhere to toast your productivity suite, cloud connection or corporate image. Further, the once dominant Wintel model is being out-cooled by Apple, and outdated by tablet computing.
First, I was mildly shocked when I learned that Lenovo had a policy where you get an allowance and use what you want to, regardless of who made it. Next comes the inevitable…..
While this isn’t really new news, in fact it’s been a theme for a while now. But it was confirmed by the lackluster performance of HP, Dell and other manufacturers. Even IBM, the company that really put the PC in the office of businesses is famous for dumping the low margin business to Lenovo who lucked out in marketshare due to the HP and Dell screw-ups. This will be short lived as soon as Apple finishes mopping up in China and the real Lenovo cash cow gets malnourished.
All Things Digital confirms the facts via DRAM supply:
As a signpost on the road to the so-called Post-PC Era we’ve been hearing about for so many years, this one is pretty hard to argue with: As of this year, personal computers no longer consume the majority of the world’s memory chip supply.
And while it may not come as a terrible surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to personal technology trends during the last few years, there’s nothing like a cold, hard number to make the point crystal clear.
Word of this tipping point came quietly in the form of a press release from the market research firm IHS (the same group formerly known as iSuppli). The moment came during the second quarter of 2012. For the first time in a generation, according to the firm’s reckoning, PCs did not consume the the majority of commodity memory chips, also known as DRAM (pronounced “DEE-ram”).
During that period, PCs accounted for the consumption of 49 percent of DRAM produced around the world, down from 50.2 percent in the first quarter of the year. The share of these chips going into PCs — both desktop and notebooks — has been hovering at or near 55 percent since early 2008, IHS says.
As shifts in market share statistics go, it at first seems insignificant until you consider the wider sweep of memory chips in the history of the modern technology industry. PCs have consumed the majority of memory chips since sometime in the 1980s. IHS couldn’t say when exactly when the first personal computers started showing up in appreciable numbers in homes and businesses.
And where are all those memory chips going? Tablets and smartphones for starters. IHS says that phones consumed more than 13 percent percent of memory chips manufactured, and it expects that figure to grow to nearly 20 percent by the end of this year. Tablets — including the iPad — consumed only 2.7 percent of the world’s memory chip supply. The remaining 35 percent, which IHS classifies as “other,” includes servers, professional workstations, and presumably specialized applications like supercomputers and embedded systems.
And given their rates of growth, IHS expects phones and tablets combined to consume about 27 percent of the world’s memory by 2013, while by that time PCs will consume less than 43 percent, making the decline, in the firm’s estimation, irreversible.
Even the much hyped Windows 8 launch doesn’t really do much. WRAL goes on to say:
Dell executives also indicated that the company is unlikely to get a sales lift from the Oct. 26 release of Microsoft Corp.’s much-anticipated makeover of its Windows operating system. That’s because Dell focuses on selling PCs to companies, which typically take a long time before they decide to switch from one version of Windows to the next generation.
HP’s screw up came when they tried to become an IBM clone. Dell had their own set of issues as reported by the AP:
Coming off a five-year stretch of miscalculations, HP is in such desperate need of a reboot that many investors have written off its chances of a comeback.
Consider this: Since Apple Inc. shifted the direction of computing with the release of the iPhone in June 2007, HP’s market value has plunged by 60 percent to $35 billion. During that time, HP has spent more than $40 billion on dozens of acquisitions that have largely turned out to be duds so far.
“Just think of all the value that they have destroyed,” ISI analyst Brian Marshall said. “It has been a case of just horrible management.”
Marshall traces the bungling to the reign of Carly Fiorina, who pushed through an acquisition of Compaq Computer a decade ago despite staunch resistance from many shareholders, including the heirs of HP’s co-founders. After HP ousted Fiorina in 2005, other questionable deals and investments were made by two subsequent CEOS, Mark Hurd and Leo Apotheker.
HP hired Meg Whitman 11 months ago in the latest effort to salvage what remains of one of the most hallowed names in Silicon Valley 73 years after its start in a Palo Alto, Calif., garage.
The latest reminder of HP’s ineptitude came last week when the company reported an $8.9 billion quarterly loss, the largest in the company’s history. Most of the loss stemmed from an accounting charge taken to acknowledge that HP paid far too much when it bought technology consultant Electronic Data Systems for $13 billion in 2008.
HP might have been unchallenged for the ignominious title as technology’s most troubled company if not for one its biggest rivals, Dell Inc.
Like HP, Dell missed the trends that have turned selling PCs into one of technology’s least profitable and slowest growing niches. As a result, Dell’s market value has also plummeted by 60 percent, to about $20 billion, since the iPhone’s release.
That means the combined market value of HP and Dell — the two largest PC makers in the U.S. — is less than the $63 billion in revenue Apple got from iPhones and various accessories during just the past nine months.
So now you can go to a consumer electronics store or go online and pick up a PC, a video game and a toaster, all about the same difficulty of decision. The model is dying and a new paradigm is taking place somewhere between mobile devices and tablets with a combination likely just around the corner, but your Thinkpad is a gravestone in the near future.
It is now reported that Mobiles are the devices most turned to for online activity, banking and other internet activity.
“Cell users now treat their gadget as a body appendage,” Lee Rainie, the Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, told Mashable. “There is striking growth in the number of people who are taking advantage of the growing number of functions that these phones can perform and there isn’t much evidence yet that the pace of change is slowing down.”
The study, released yesterday by Pew Internet concludes that cellphone usage is increasing in basically every department, especially online activities. One in two people now check their email on their phone, up from 19% in 2007 and the number of Americans surfing the web on-the-go has doubled too, going from 25% in 2008 to 56% today.
People are also starting to be less reluctant to use their phones for sensitive activities that were almost considered taboo in a recent past, like online banking. Almost one in three Americans (29%) now use their phones to check their bank account, a considerable increase from just one year ago, when only 19% did. And one in three people are using their mobile device to look for health information as well. Just two years ago that figure was as low as 17%.
Phones are also becoming a substitute for other traditional devices like photo and video cameras. 82% of people who responded to the survey use their phones to snap pictures and 44% use it to record videos
John has always been interesting and very gracious to me (while I was just a flack) whenever we spoke. He should get a kick out of this..
It took me this long to finally buy an iPhone. I waited until the right carrier had it (AT&T is a diversity nightmare), then my current provider didn’t have international covered because of CDMA. So when that all came online, I then had to wait for an upgrade time so that I wouldn’t pay an arm/leg/firstborn. It wasn’t a feature to feature comparison, 3G or 4G or any other techie issue that caused it. It was because I know Google, have worked with Eric Schmidt and believe they are evil about their intentions with our data, public or private.
Before any hate mail comes in that Apple does it too, I turn off location services when I leave the house and can confuse them enough that tracking me doesn’t me do them any good….not that anyone would/should care. I’m a statistic to them and so be it.
Disclaimer: I’ve had an iPod since 1994 (rotary wheel version) and have an iPad and iPod before I bought the phone, but I worked with/against Google and have met Eric Schmidt at a partner conference. I don’t trust Google nor do I trust Schmidt as I heard what they are up to. Basically the same thing as Pinky and the Brain are after, take over the world.
I and I believe they are sincere. Apple developers are trying to build an ad base to compete against the world/Google, but I can turn them off…..Google follows me, my house, what I buy and everything else…..then are all too happy to share it with those I don’t want them knowing I exist.
In the quest for data analytics, companies have sold their soul. Google and IBM are at the top of this data list, closely followed by Oracle, only closely in this case as they are hampered by a leader who holds them back from becoming a great (or modern) company.
OPEN SOURCE VS. PROPRIETARY.
Most analyst’s I talk to have Android so that they can practice what they preach, it’s an open world. Well open source doesn’t work as well and smooth as IOS, so I don’t give a rat’s rump about this. I just want it to work and for me not to have to fix or code one more device. Most open systems require tinkering far too often. So I’m calling BS on that argument. I’m a consumer with too much going on to have a device that doesn’t work every time and easily.
SECURITY
It appears that Smartphones are now being attacked by malware and theft. I know of 2 so far on IOS, but Android seems to be up 90%, so it looks like Apps on this OS are easier to break into. This was not my initial decision point, but has skyrocketed to my list of concerns within a short period of time.
MY PREVIOUS SMARTPHONE
I had one of the newest Blackberry’s and in one word of advice for those who are considering buying it….don’t. The interface is archaic compared to IOS and I got it because of a corporate policy that stuck me with a device that was hard to use. I had to take it the phone store to set up the special things I wanted (I have about 7 email addresses and many special things related to what I do, and BTW I set them up myself on the iPhone) and have set up phones and computers for 31 years….before things were easy so I know how to reverse engineer without instructions
One thing I liked about Google was that 3 executives owned 8 corporate jets. God Bless Capitalism. I think IBM has a whole fleet of jets for the executives also so they “don’t” have to fly commercial. Too inconvenient I guess. It’s the same for most corporations.
Anyway I bought the iPhone.
BTW, I’ll never buy another Windows/Microsoft product again now that I work for myself. They can only treat me this poorly (since Windows was released) for so long before I vote with my own money like I did here….
It looks like I’m not the only one. ZDNet wrote this a few days after I wrote about my travails.
Update: Apple is more nails in the PC coffin with the new announcement of Post PC devices.
The Real Meaning in Marketing Speak
In the mid 2000’s, Sam Palmisano of IBM declared the era of the PC is over. This was somewhat of a marketing move since IBM had just sold the PC Division to Lenovo. What he really meant was that IBM is getting out of consumer products. IBM also sold other consumer divisions that were not the margin kings that Software and Services were. Disclaimer, after working either for/with/against/partnering with IBM for 31 years, I can say that a lot of what they do is incredible spin on pretty good technology. I had better knowledge of what was going on than what was told to the outside.
PC’s are Toasters Now
This is a bit of a history lesson. There was a time that PC’s were special and had value. They still can be found on almost every desk or backpack at an airport, but in reality they are now (and have been for a while) a consumer product. There gets to a point in time in every product’s life cycle that economies of scale and parts availability drive this value (and therefore the price) down when you can’t differntiate. It is compounded by newer technologies (tablet computers and mobile devices) to where you can get them at any consumer store that sells toasters, video games and TV’s. Any improvement is just a little bit better (except Windows which usually is worse), not an era better which was the case when they were new.
PC’s have done this to themselves over the years. Remember when all you could get was a bulky desktop? Technology moved on to the luggable computer to the laptop. Now you can get a wafer thin Macbook Air (for a premium price), but the technology curve will drive cost down here when every manufacturer offers it. Margins are razor thin and there is minimal hardware differentiation on the Wintel platform.
The Effect of iPad and Mobile Phones
Ultimately, the world is driving your communications and computing device to be in your hand. The end game of input is not a keyboard, but voice. This addresses the need for instantaneous that we have required as we’ve shifted from email to IM and texting, and from blogging to tweeting. I envision a vision screen that is projected by your small handheld that lets you see what a huge monitor is required for now in the near future. For more on this, see Project Blade Runner as an example of what the future could look like.
PC’s are already under fire from Tablet computing and smartphones. While at some point you still need a PC for complicated input/output such as the dreaded Powerpoint and the more mundane payroll/HR applications, they soon will be adapted to tablets as we easily morphed from immobile desktops to laptops.
Many analysts have shown that more phones and tablets are sold than PC’s. More texts are sent than emails and we certainly have more tweets than blogs.
The Cloud
Powering a lot of this of course is the overhyped Cloud model. While conceptually it has been around for a long time (we have called it client/server and other names), it is a software delivery model that will make the end device irrelevant. Perhaps you could get your email on your toaster or refrigerator. You could make phone calls by dialing in the air at some point. The issue is that we are driving the connecting device smaller, cheaper and more powerful (and less relevant) so that we can get what we want, when we want it and wherever we want it.
Lenovo and HP
Companies are jumping out of this market as evidenced by IBM and HP willing to sell their PC businesses worth billions in revenue, mostly because of low single digit profit margin. They realize that there isn’t much money to be made anymore, again putting them in the toaster category. Similar components by most, similar operating systems, market driving memory and storage costs and overhead to sell. HP is now particularly vulnerable as companies negotiating long term contracts will throw HP out as a viable vendor not knowing what their future will be either in terms of ownership or viability. HP has completely lost their way starting with the purchase of Compaq years ago, then dumping their tablet, announcing the sale of their PC division and switching CEO’s like underwear.
The Apple Factor
Everyone eventually builds a better mousetrap. The Mac has been around for a long time, but the entry way to the door to Apple changed with the iPad/iPhone. A new processor, operating system visibility, technology paradigm, profit potential and the coolness factor make Apple a different model than the PC. Prior to that, Mac’s were a niche player in the creative, advertising and education world. This has changed partly because the OS is better, Windows is not a great platform and Mac’s are headed in the direction of iPads.
So Is the PC Dead?
Ultimately yes, but not this year or in the near future. I’ve seen models of computers called bricks the size of your phone that you can drop in a kiosk and work anywhere. You can even use them like an iPhone if needed, but until the voice input issue is resolved, keyboard input is an inhibitor.
No one thought we’d ever see the end of typewriters, faxing or even the 360, but technology advances at an increasing rate economically speaking. What will be interesting is which social mores we’ll break like talking to ourselves (on a cellphone) in public (or worse in a bathroom or driving).
Is the iPad the next endgame? Likely also not. Companies are trying to out do themselves and we’ll wind up like the Jetson’s one day.
Every time a company comes up with a good idea, another company finds a way to one up it. Patents, trademarks, copy-writes or any other legal means don’t stand in the way of a better idea.
This also works when you don’t have a better idea, but your product still dominates the market, mostly due to better marketing. Yes, there is a good percentage of people don’t think Windows is a good product. Most have experienced the Blue screen of death. Booting takes forever, drivers, compatibility, price and any number of factors make it a product that is only doing well because of marketing and the force of Microsoft.
Apple OS, Linux and even OS/2 were or are better operating systems. Now the Chromebook is out. I won’t pontificate as to whether it is better or not, but it will take share away from Windoze as the OS of choice. There are many Google lovers or users out there and for the price of a Chromebook, you could only get Windows 7 from Microsoft.
I’ve often said that Microsoft will have to pull an IBM by re-inventing itself, but their phone OS, gaming, MP3 players and Office haven’t really done the trick. They are are the quintessential one trick pony.
Time will tell what will happen, but the introduction of the Chromebook is just another layer of the onion being peeled away. Good thing they have a lot of cash in the bank, because they will need it to buy a better product. They sure haven’t invented one……ever.
I’m not wishing any bad luck or premonitions to Steve, but conditions don’t look that good given he already had a liver replacement and he hasn’t been the picture of health at conferences. I hope that he has a good recovery and stays at Apple keeping the industry hopping and keeps Apple bringing out newer and better products that make our lives free from Microsoft.
THOSE WHO SAY YES
There is enough in the pipeline with iPhone extending to new carriers like Verizon and any CDMA based companies. The iPad is just beginning to take off and as soon as they resolve flash or HTML 5.0 or whatever video standard, it will be the de-facto standard. The only drawback I can see is the keyboard is less than stellar, but I’m sure the form factor will change. We can already see what the iPad has done to NetBooks, the next big notebook innovation that never happened. It will likely kill most of the low to mid range PC sales. I think the iPod has a lifespan that may be ending after a few more revisions, but there is just too many other options that make this redundant.
This doesn’t even count Macbook which shouldn’t be selling as well as it does at 3 times the price of a Windoze PC, but they have a following and a growing market share. If they pattern it after the iPad, look out HP and Dell.
The Apple designers have enough Steve Jobs inspiration for 3-5 years of innovation and they have set the bar again and again. As long as Tim Cook keeps the Jobs mantra viable, they will dominate.
Let’s not forget that Jobs created Next and sold it to Apple, and Pixar which made him one, if not the largest Disney stakeholder. He is the creative mind who invented Apple and rejuvenated it.
THOSE WHO SAY NO
John Sculley came to mind as a corporate wizard who doesn’t get what Apple is. It is a culture and a mindset that just isn’t GE or Pepsi or your standard fortune 100 company. They need to keep Cook in place to keep things together, but will need an actual creative genius who will keep the juices flowing and create the next iSomething. Otherwise, short the stock and move along. Tim Cook is boring and will try to tread water, but will likely lead the company down the Political Correctness and climate drain of boredom and safety rather than innovation. He seems more worried about diversity and the culture of appeasing political groups or his interests rather than how Jobs ran the company.
OTHER COMMENTS
Others like ZDNet weigh in:
There’s no doubt that Jobs played a big part in shaping Apple and helping it grow beyond that early base of cult followers and taking the company mainstream and beyond. Like Apple or not, you can’t dismiss the impact that the company has had on consumer electronics, music and movies. Jobs has done a marvelous job as CEO, and whether you own any Apple products or not, I’m certain that in some way Apple’s vision will have shaped and influenced some of the tech you have in your life. Apple shareholders should especially be grateful for the work he’s done and the effort he’s put into Apple.
So, given that Jobs has done so much for Apple, are the pundits right? Is Apple doomed without Jobs?
In a word, not yet. It will slowly deteriorate with the next product cycles or iphone refresh rate.
Delusions of Adequacy 