Category: Technology

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Technology

Onward Wii U

So Christmas is past and through no fault of Christmas I have my hands on a Wii U. I’ll document some of my initial thoughts here.

Black Wii U

  • Hardware is nice. Really nice. I liked the Wii as just a piece of technology (and one that Nintendo really didn’t re-release like the slimmed-up Xbox 360 and PS3), and the Wii U continues the trend of really nice, slick, hardware that might not need a major revision in the future. Granted, the console itself is bigger, but it is quieter than the original Wii … so points on that. I do like the separate LED to show that a disk is loaded. A nice, simple touch. Bringing the sync button outside of the hinged door is another small change but makes it much easier to use the console.
  • The Wii U GamePad is going to take some time for me to get used to. After the Wii Remote + Nunchuck of the Wii, the GamePad seems very rigid because … it is. Not a knock against it, but it is something different. The screen looks really good and I can understand why they used resistive instead of capacitive touch for as well. No, it is not HD, but it works well enough for a controller with eleventy-billion different sensors on it.
  • I’m starting to think of the Wii U as a more powerful Wii plus the addition of the dual-screen nature of the Nintendo DS. I wasn’t even thinking that way before, but after using the console for over a day, I can already see what Nintendo was going after. The GamePad really opens up some avenues before restricted to just the mobile-focused DS and 3DS, which could be exciting. It took almost the entire generation of the Wii to get to a game that really harnessed the motion controls in such a way to deliver what everyone was hoping for in the beginning (I’m looking at you The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword), and the DS took a good, long while before games started to really take advantage of the dual-screen nature of that device. The Wii U will take some time as well as developers try and put the two together, but I think Nintendo has provided a decent game to showcase some ideas (Nintendoland), and I have a feeling that hey will be pushing things forward as they usually do. This is why we need a strong Nintendo and I cringe every time someone says that Nintendo should stop making hardware and start just publishing games for other platforms. How quickly we forget about Sega.
  • It is nice to see Nintendo properties in HD.
  • I’m very interested to see what Nintendo is going to do with the Zelda series. So far Zelda, Metroid, and 3D Mario have not been announced or even shown off … but with the GamePad, Remote, Remote + Nunchuck, and Pro Controller you have a plethora of options for controlling those games and who knows what will happen with the second screen available. I’m hoping they keep the 1:1 controls from Skyward Sword around but refine them just a little bit. The future will be interesting.
  • I’m planning on picking up one of the big-name 3rd party ports to try and get an idea of how those might do on the system. There is a huge backlog of high-quality ports that could now be brought over to the Wii U and probably do quite well. Mass Effect 3 is on the top of the list for now.

I think that is about it for now. Overall, I’m highly impressed with the system and even just the two games I have so far (Nintendoland and Just Dance 4). Having an HD Nintendo system should not be underestimated.

One thing I have not dug into is any of the online components. That will be for later (and for games that feature online play more prevalently).

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Life Technology

Rural Uptake of Technology

Two posts this morning crossed my desk and I thought I’d just comment briefly on something neither of them talked about.

The first was MG Siegler’s iTunes 11 article at TechCrunch. Go ahead and read it if you like, but I’m going to pull out a choice quote anyway.

Again, it works a lot better than the previous versions of iTunes for this, though performance still leaves a bit to be desired. For example, clicking a track to play it from the cloud always seems to result in a couple-to-few second delay. Not huge, but not as fast as say, Rdio.

He does mention the “performance issues” a few more times, but more on that later.

Finally I saw another article on Ars Technica titled The rest of the Internet is too slow for Google Fiber. I didn’t read much of the article, but the idea of an ISP being too slow for the rest of the internet blends in quite well with what Siegler was saying and what I’m going to write about.

In a time and place where you can get almost limitless amounts of information at any time, we’re very quickly getting into a technology disparity gap that is going to end up rivaling the wealth gap we continue to hear so much about. It has always been there (sound familiar) but it is getting worse (now I’m just playing with you).

The main issue right now is the lack of wired bandwidth to rural communities. It is sad to see smaller communities seemingly accept cable and DSL as acceptable “broadband” solution for every business. The lack of high-speed, wired, fiber bandwidth is not just a problem for consumers, but for businesses as well.

I think it is fairly safe to say that the world is not going to become less connected than it is right now (barring any unforeseen circumstances), but in order for those new communication platforms and mediums to takeoff, the latency and speed of consumer and business connections need to increase drastically … and nowhere more-so than in rural communities.

I don’t have answers, but putting all of our hopes on wireless technologies isn’t going to cut it. If you want to break the backs of incumbents in almost any industry, you’re going to need to get rural areas up-to-speed or things are never going to get there.

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Technology

Integrating Computing Components

Apple has their A-series SOC (system-on-a-chip) parts. AMD is touting its APUs. Intel is beefing up their graphical offering with their Haswell-series next year. All of this points to a future where formerly-separate parts of a computing device are consolidated into a single chip.

I’m excited.

Now I am, by no means, a system designer or some kind of engineering so I speak only from the expertise of others and also with rampant speculation. However, I am excited about the future where the components we choose become simpler and simpler because they are required to do more and more of the heavy lifting.

A future where the surface of a motherboard is not pockmarked on every little corner with yet another little chip doing some minute little task. A future where chips are not lauded just for how fast they might be able to crunch numbers, but the other tasks that that single chip is able to perform so ably.

First I need to take a step back into the past and what thoughts would go through my head as a system-builder. Here’s a sampling:

  • What overall manufacturer for the CPU?
  • What CPU architecture?
  • What socket or slot does it need?
  • What chipsets are available for that socket or slot?
  • What wattage is the CPU?
  • Does this chipset/board combo support this wattage?
  • What RAM is needed?
  • How much can it handle?
  • What power requirements for the system are there?
  • Does the power supply meet the requirements?
  • How about graphics cards?
  • Now how does that power supply hold up?
  • Hard drives?
  • Sound?
  • Network?
  • BUELLER!?

You get the idea. I haven’t even begun to purchase anything yet. Now Intel is the worst offender, but it seems that every new chip architecture brings a new socket or chipset requirement but AMD is almost as bad (and maybe more confusing with AM2, AM2+, AM3, etc.).

However, combining things brings it all down a little bit. Instead of wondering what graphics card you need to purchase, you have it on-die with the rest of the CPU. This brings down the total wattage of the system. This makes choices of other components easier (or nonexistent). This means less chips and pieces on the main system board so that less stuff can fail.

That’s great!

There will always be a place for discreet components for those who really want/need to mix-and-match stuff for the best outcome in their situation, but in most cases less = more for consumers.

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Business Technology

The Forgotten Industries

Within the realm of “hot startups” and “amazing technology” on the internet are some forgotten industries.

No, these industries won’t be prompting you to write a review about that blade of grass in that new dog park in San Francisco while geo-tagging your whereabouts while you do it so that their application might be able to offer you a discounted grass shake from the local shake shop … and then filter the image of the grass shake so that you can share it with your friends.

These industries are also not filled with multi-billion-dollar VC funds handing out multi-million-dollar rounds of VC funding to high school kids (and a dog) to build the next great social-media-geo-tagging-geo-fencing-filter-inducing-vomit-forming startup. Oh no.

No, these industries are older and more entrenched than that, but the possibilities within are almost endless.

My life is dominated by my family, my faith, and my work. Luckily, all three come together at various points.

Both agricultural and church software is in a woeful state for the sorts of customers that 37signals targets in business. Now there is a lot of overlap to be had with applications like Basecamp and Campfire and the groups I am talking about, but right now there is also an extreme need for newer, better applications tailored specifically for the needs of churches and small-to-mid-sized family farms.

That forgets completely about the fact that there is always the need for better software and better services everywhere. I was reminded of this when looking around for RAM to upgrade my MacBook Pro and Mac mini. I spent over an hour looking around for the best prices but it really came down to what retailer I trusted the most. Which place did I have the best experience with in the past, regardless of the price.

Think about anything you do within that context as well. It isn’t enough to just have a great product to sell, but you want to also have a great relationship for your customers to enter into. It is mutually beneficial on both sides, which should make it even easier, but so many times the relationship is neglected on one or both ends and it ends poorly.

So many parallels.

So I’m asking for other people out there to turn an eye, or two, over here and spend some time and effort into looking into how these industries might be best served. I think there is a huge potential to get some great products up and running.

Maybe I’ll just do it myself.

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Business Life Technology

Fear of Imperfection

When I get stuck, I tend to try and think my way out.

As my wife of almost six years would tell you, that’s probably not the best thing for me to do. However, it is a habit I cannot seem to break.

In my current rut of which I am stuck in I’ve been doing some reflection on why I’m in this rut. It is not a fun rut. I really don’t like being here and I know that things are better when I am out of this said rut but … here I sit. Stuck. In a rut.

Here’s the thing, I’m afraid.

I’m not afraid of failing, per say, or of the unknown (because who really knows what is going to happen even when we do think we have a decent idea of where things are going). No, I’m afraid of doing some imperfect.

Mainly this revolves around programming. What is stuck in my head is that I can’t do anything unless the entire project, from start to finish and every step in between, is going to be perfect. Every step clear. Every decision the correct one. Every line of code exactly where it should be and typed the correct way the first time. Having to clean up later or remove code that really didn’t need to be there is not acceptable. In my head, it shouldn’t be that way. Not that this should be easy, but that I should be able to, somehow, do it perfectly even if it is hard.

I’m not wholly sure where this has come from or how long it has been here, but that is what has been surfaced during my current reflection. It is amazing what a person can find out about themselves even after 26 years.

So what to do? Really, it is to get the fingers moving and the code going again. It is to force through even if things aren’t going perfectly. Embrace the ugly, as it may be in a way. Focus on small wins.

All stuff I know.

It also means putting down the books and tutorials, at least in the obsessive, “this will surely teach me the perfect way” style that I have been reading books recently. What good is the knowledge if not harnessed for something bigger, for moving ahead? It isn’t worth anything except to help me sound smarter when sitting around the table.

What good is that last part anyway? Meaningless.

So I move ahead, with fits and starts, with ideas. With failure behind and ahead and move forward, hoping to find something and knowing that going anywhere is infinitely better than standing still.