10 broken technology ideas -- and how to set them

Here are x high-tech ideas that sound proficient but don't piece of work out and so well in practice

Computerworld |

Sometimes a technology thought is too good to be true. A flexible keyboard, Internet voting and watching feature films on your smart phone are examples. Today, these concepts are still evolving, but they're broken right at present. I'll tell you why and what could be done to prepare them once and for all.

1. Ultracompact PCs

Call them whatever you lot want: ultramobile PCs (UMPC), mobile information devices (MID) or subnotebooks. I call them small PCs, and they are almost indistinguishable from a practiced smart phone.

For instance, the BlackBerry 8820, with its congenital-in GPS capability and excellent email client, is a better device than the Samsung Q1 Ultra, described past the company as an "ultramobile personal reckoner." The but real difference is that y'all squint less with the Q1. Merely most people don't employ a Q1 for gaming or writing long business documents.

As Jon Stewart pointed out at the Oscars, small-screen video is non fun on a device such equally the iPhone.

The Apple iPhone is a smarter, sexier, more than useable computer than just about any MID, such as the new Toshiba prototype. Meanwhile, at that place's more ability in the OQO, than a regular UMPC, but the screen is just as tiny.

I figure that in less than three years, Apple will release a successor to the iPhone that works more like a Mac and volition become the kickoff visitor to make a truthful pocket computer -- one that runs whatever Mac OS X application natively, with a mini-DVI port.

2. Satellite Net

My main trouble with satellite Internet providers is their fair utilize policies, which penalize users who download too much by throttling their speed dorsum to about nil, and then slowly adding more than speed over a 24 hour menstruum. Both WildBlue and HughesNet do this, and they claim it helps all users.

However, the Internet is non just for email and simple browsing anymore, it's a pipeline for boob tube, network back-ups, remote access and a myriad of other activities -- not to mention Web apps and streaming media.

Other ISPs -- such every bit Charter Communications and Qwest-- don't throttle your speed at all. Others, such as Comcast, may use "network management" techniques such as throttling BitTorrent traffic, but they aren't every bit aggressive as the satellite providers.

Some other issue is that the stationary modem that you need for satellite Internet is a bulky device and uses coaxial cable that most people need a technician to install. Likewise, the required antenna is bigger than a wheel rim, but there's no reason information technology couldn't exist reduced to a size that works with your laptop.

Yet I similar the satellite concept considering it could make the Internet much more ubiquitous across large swathes of the U.South. Satellite Net has slowly increased in speed, starting out at simply 512Kbit/sec. and currently at about 1.5Mbit/sec. If the technology and speed improve, it could be a solid choice.

3. Contact managers

I'd like to retrieve the lost hours spent edifice upward a contacts database. Not long ago, I stopped meticulously inbound names, addresses, telephone numbers and due east-mails and now rely on other methods.

For instance, I search Gmail.com for names and addresses. When I want to ship a new e-mail, I simply blazon a portion of a name to become the total address, type the message, and send.

For names not in my Gmail archive, I utilise an online address book such as YellowPages.com or LinkedIn.com.

However, a good contact director could work like the iPhone: It would see phone number in an e-mail and allow me to correct-click and add the proper name and phone number to a database automatically within Gmail. The database would be smart enough to know if a phone number already matches an existing name, and it would weed out duplicates automatically. I'd never have to blazon in contacts, because this "car-database" would piece of work equally easily as a mobile phone, support any electronic mail client and piece of work in the background. Some contact managers come up close -- such as At present Upward-to-Date & Contact -- but it still involves a manual procedure.

four. Digital streaming adapters

They take names similar Apple tree TV, Netgear Digital Entertainer and Sonos, but they all do the same thing: move music, video and photos from your PC in the office to the HDTV in your family room.

They are supposed to solve a persistent dilemma: a PC just doesn't work with a tv set. A keyboard and mouse are meant for a desk, not a sofa. These adapters add another appliance to an overcrowded entertainment center bulging with DVRs and game consoles.

mediasmarttv.jpg
Putting the digital media adapter in the Telly, similar this MediaSmart Television set, makes sense -- less clutter in your entertainment room.

The set up? Put them right into the television set itself. Hewlett-Packard Co. started this with the MediaSmart TV, but I'd like to see it equally a standard characteristic that is more than open -- not just based on Windows Media Extender, but supporting any media format over Wi-Fi.

five. Video on a telephone

A telephone screen is too small for video, and fifty-fifty the iPod Touch can cause heart strain when you scout a 2-hour feature film. I'yard convinced that anything you but do one time or twice in dealing with new technology and find information technology hard to do -- like load a smart phone with video clips or swap contacts with your laptop over Bluetooth -- is just a novelty and often not worth the try. I will likely never practise it again; it's not worth the fourth dimension.