RANT: Palm Pre on O2 in UK

I’m sorry, I’ve ranted about this subject before, but what is the various phone companies’ obsessions with releasing a phone on 1 carrier? Lets have a look at various ones:

• HTC Dream (G1) – T-mobile
• HTC Magic – Vodafone
• Apple iPhone – O2
• Blackberry Storm – Vodafone

And now…the Palm Pre will be on O2

Seriously dudes? Why do you do that? It drives me insane. Obviously, I am not looking for a new phone just now, as I have my Nokia 5800, but it just drives me insane, a person who thinks we should have choice, that we don’t have choice to choose a phone, AND a carrier. You choose a phone OR a carrier nowadays.

TomTom added to my "Good Companies" list

You may remember a while ago, Microsoft started to try and sue TomTom for its use of the Linux Kernel and the Fat filesystem (in a big mess of patents that noone totally understands). Well, TomTom then decided to try and sue Microsoft over their mapping system. Supposodly it breaks a TomTom patent. Ok, so noone likes suing and patents, but that is only part of what TomTom has done which has made them into my Good Companies list.

TomTom joined the Open Invention Network. This is a group of companies (such as Red Hat, IBM, Google, etc) who joined together to share patents and fight Microsoft and Apple essentially. By joining the Open Invention Network, TomTom promise to not sue any other companie in the Open Invention Network and to help fight any companies trying to sue another companie in the Network. In return for this, TomTom get the protection of all the other companies in the Network. The only other requirement is they have to have something to do with Linux or Open Source software.

This is a great move, because, by doing this, it stops TomTom being able to make a patent deal with Microsoft, and shows that TomTom are really willing to fight Microsoft. This is great, because now we will see if Microsoft really has anything, or if it is just scaremongering. I think this is fantastic and I am very happy with TomTom, and for this reason, they are now on my Good Companies list. Good on ya TomTom

Tech Predictions

Right, ok, so its that time of year when everyone tries to say what they think will happen with tech in the next year/few years.

Now, I don’t know why people keep doing this…because they are almost always wrong. Let me give you a few examples.

Bill Gates 1982 – “640K is more memory than anyone will ever need”
PC World in 2000 – “Within 3 years we will have PDA and phone batteries that last a year, like watch batteries.”
Alan Sugar 2005 – “Next Christmas, the ipod will be kaput”

If you want more you can go here http://listverse.com/history/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/

So…the question we all ask is…why on earth do we do it?
I have an answer…because its fun.

I am not expecting anything I say to be correct…but at this point in time this is how I feel it will go this year.

1. Microsoft will postpone their deadline for Windows 7. (Currently at 3rd quarter of this year)
2. Apple won’t wait till Christmas to release their new Iphone, which is what they said they will do.
3. 10000 people will once again say that this is the year of linux.
4. This will be the year of linux.
5. I will get my computer working again.
6. Google will release 2 more versions of their G range of phones, taking as long to release the source code as they did with the first version.
7. Canonical will make an increasingly stupid name for version 9.10 of Ubuntu. Kranky Kangaroo or something.
8. We will see the start of the silicon -> something else switchover, near the end of the year.
9. Google will release a desktop OS, because they don’t have one yet.
10. Thunderbird 3.0 might get released…that would be nice…taking long enough.
11. 3d desktops will become all the rage, and noone will believe linux users when they say we’ve had the cube for 6 years.

Ok, these are my predictions. If I think of anymore, I will put them in, but I will post one at the end of the year discussing what was right, and what was wrong.

Maybe I’ll be quoted as one of the top 30 worst predictions ever. Nah…that crown belongs to the people in the link above.