Google's hot trends sizzle!

Google today launched Google Hot Trends (mean branding).

Check it out. It should make search based trend spotting more scientific...??

(For those of you still baffled you can almost-real-time check out what the heck people are searching for. Na not porn dummy.... hey, it's Google).

Google Presentations - here they come!

Google Presentations are on their way intended to take aim and fire at Microsoft Powerpoint!

And Microsoft still not nervous?

Of course they are...

100 million iPods - what revolution?

Over 100 million sold!

Still denying there's a music revolution about?

Think again...

Digital music finally unleashed!

DRM free music - finally!

Thanks Apple.

Tip of the iceberg, babe. Tip of the iceberg.

Scandinavia new global tech leaders - US dethroned!

The tech pot of gold slips from the US' hands and tumbles Scandinavia's way.

Sweden and Norway take 2nd and 4th globally in tech innovation. The US collapses to 7th position in the rankings.

Is the US empire collapsing? Is Europe rising?

Just question the World Economic Forum...

One home, one screen!

How many screens do you have?

Screens, screens, screens crowding our lives and cluttering our homes.

PC's, laptops, iPods, cellphones, TV's, Gameboys and others forever cramping our sense of space.

Why can't someone invent a universal screen capable of effortlessly displaying data from any of my devices. One home, one screen. One car, one screen. One... Oh joy!

Back to basics... Surely this worm must turn.

The digital revolution unmasked!

The multi-pronged digital battle flows through global arteries like never before, battling for our living rooms, bedrooms, cars, wrists and souls.

The titans continue to slug it out and we perpetually win out. Crap!

Telecoms operators bleed us. Internet giants police us while software queens embrace and control us. Meanwhile media empires just con us.

Who will liberate us?

Skype? Joost? YouTube? Fon? MySpace?

Never... Shame. One day. Come on!

Jobs and options - his next ejector?

Ah, l'enfant terrible is at it again.

Will he depart Apple a second time round?

First at the merciless hands of Sculley, now under the scrutiny of the FCC.

It's all possible. And now a second investigation - this time into options misdemeanors at Pixar.

Mind you, should the truly unthinkable happen and Jobs is forced off his iconic computing pedestal - Bill Gates will soon hit the job market.

Apple and Gates. The next Adam and Eve? (Poor Adam!)

Vista or no vista..!

Vista or no vista...like waiting for Godot.

Finally here, almost there, not really anywhere.

Can it halt the software as services march - or OSX charge?

Probably not. Sorry Bill. Goodbye Jim. Enjoy your new Mac!

Google sell digital books - why?

So Google's about to start selling digital books. Oh God, really? How? Why? Not now... please!

I hear readers scream out.

A few short months after Sony launched the Sony Connect service and device, intended to do for books what Apple has done for music (right...), Google seems in on the game too.

Does this mean that we are finally ready for the online book revolution? Not on your iPod! The world is about as ready to devour digital novels as they would swig digital M&M's.

Lets face it, there is not one compelling reason to switch from paper books. They are portable, cheap and easy to read. Digital readers are expensive and about as easy to read as Tolstoy.

Plus, people still enjoy building libraries and showing off books on coffee tables etc.

Is there any justification for the digital book? We think not, or at least not until someone cracks low cost printing that produces good looking in-house/in-copy-store versions. A photo printer for books.

I could well see buying a digital book to archive permanently so long as I could print out a sexy looking version whenever I needed it (for less than buying it in the store). And if I could even choose my own dust cover design? Well, now I'm getting mildly excited.

Interested HP?

2007 - What will be hot in tech?

2007 looks set to deliver two hotter than hot tech trends/realities.

First up will be the battle for video over the Internet and our very own living rooms. Help!

Expect Microsoft and Apple to dominate. Microsoft using video games and the XBox as their Trojan horse while the company formally known as Apple Computers will ride the popularity of iTunes to inject Apple TV's into the back of countless TV's.

Video over the Internet will continue to be dominated by Google (YouTube), MySpace, AOL and Yahoo (who may be forced to merge or get swallowed by Microsoft). iTunes will be the only destination to make any money. DVD sales will go the way of CD sales - down the toilet!

The second most sizzling sector of 2007 will be mobile - finally!

Not because cellphone users will approach 3 billion or because more than 1 billion handsets will be sold. Neither will it be thanks to the gradual and painful roll out of 3G et al speedier networks. It will not be thanks to mobile Internet killer (Bill) applications or mobile TV.

It will be thanks to two impending and growing threats to the inflexible and stagnant mobile phone companies - Wi-Fi and Apple's iPhone. The one-two from a competing network's unending proliferation and power plus a computer company's real deal product will jolt the rest of the industry into untold innovations and partnerships.

The mobile phone operators will finally open their networks to the real Internet and stop hogging their highways. As a result consumers will no longer get ripped off or disappointed. The mobile Internet will become a reality and mobile network providers will realize that if the only let go they will make money out of this game. If not - bye, bye revenue growth.

All in all 2007 looks quite exciting. Particularly if you're Apple, Google, News Corp or Disney. The rest will scramble. Some successfully and some not. Enjoy the ride.

Apple to launch the iTV in 2008!

Apple yet again rocked the tech industry by simultaneously and synchronously shaking up both the mobile space and our living rooms. All with just two products; the iPhone (unless of course Cisco have their way) and the Apple TV. How 'du jour' is that?

Enough to ensure that Apple's shares shot up while mobile handset makers throttled down. Microsoft's remained as flat as a pancake/Zune on its back.

And I was about to go and buy a video iPod - no longer. How many others will follow suit?

Apple's decision to call their new PC/Mac to TV set top box the Apple TV as opposed to the iTV presumably means that one day they will create an all in one intelligent TV with the Apple TV embedded.

The iTV. 2008? Probably...

Skype duo at it again!

First they brought us illegal file sharing and proved that Internet lawsuits can abound. Then they rattled global telecom companies with almost free Internet telephony for the masses.

And if you believe the latest hype the Skype duo are about to shake the world of Internet TV/video (hasn't YouTube already done that?) with their latest and greatest venture bizarrely named The Venice Project. I guess they like gondolas.

OK, so their company nomenclature leaves much to be desired, but you've got to hand it to the two Scandi's, they sure know how to create hype, cash and intrigue. The latter obviously fueling the first two like gas on flames.

As Google's real asset is their massive on-demand platform that serves up everything from search to real-time word processors, the Kazaa kids core invention is file-sharing, legally or illegally. First they applied it to digital music, then telephony and now Web TV.

In the first two instances the industries they attacked are still reeling from their affects even though with digital music a la Kazaa they ultimately let iTunes take over the show.

So what next I hear you say? How about Web books? Na. What about consumer software? Na. Bandwidth sharing? Nope, Fon's already done that. Mind you they have invested in them.

Maybe The Venice Project will be it and like so many filthy rich and slightly egotistical (don't they always go hand in hand) businessfolk they will become media barons on the back of it. Hey, if Branson can do it... And no investors here. Their own company with their very own wads of cash bank rolling it and two plucky fingers to Ebay.

Murdoch move aside.

Can two techies really create the next CBS? Maybe. And if so, now is as good a time as any. Watch out Google and Yahoo! Hello real Web TV - I hope.

Will the mobile Internet ever take off?

With this planet gradually moving towards 3 billion mobile phone users, it is time to ask whether the mobile Internet will ever really happen.

If you talk to the telecoms and tech industry they are all resoundingly positive. "Isn't the mobile Internet already a given?"

If you talk to the average user you hear an entirely different story. "I just use my phone to make calls."

Will the mobile Internet ever become reality?

Well, maybe, but certainly not before a few things happen:
1. Smartphones become a big selling category (and the devices get smaller/lighter).
2. Mobile phone operators give up their walled gardens and become access providers and not access monopolizers.
3. Hi-speed, next generation 3G (called HSPDA) becomes widely available.
4. Compelling mobile Internet applications take off. Not including texting, email, music or games downloads. (Come on Google et al!)
5. Mobile Internet browsers become more sophisticated.

The above barriers should all be removed by 2010, but ultimately it will be up to the industry to excite and entice us consumers. Maybe Apple will do it with their soon to be launched iPhone. They sure shook up the once equally unexciting digital music market.

What a shame for the mobile phone operators if they need a catalyst like Apple to shake the mobile Internet into shape.

All my friends are switching to Apple!

As 2006 gradually winds to a close, like a drunkard idling home after closing time, I am becoming aware of a year end trend. And no, I have not been drinking.

Lots of my friends are talking about switching to Apple computers for their home/personal life. Added to that, whenever I am in a public place (cafe, airport, library etc) I get approached (after being spotted using my Apple MacBook Pro) for advice on switching.

I switched over to Apple ten months ago as soon as Apple moved to Intel chips and I have never looked back. Now granted, I am a writer, photographer and film maker and as a result in the sweet spot of Apple users, but I have to say that switching to Apple today could be a no-brainer.

You get all the benefits of Apple hardware, support and media oriented software and services AND you can still run Windows. Plus Microsoft Office for the Mac is great and compatibility issues seem largely in the past.

Connecting your iMac to an iPod and the iPhone (starting in January), then sharing music, movies and more across Apple's AirPort Express and iTV swiftly and easily turns your home into a C21 media hub.

With the added benefit of Apple Stores which provide free advice and tech support I am not surprised that so many people are switching. And the new Intel Dual-core chips make any Apple lightening fast.

Where will it all end? I could even imagine Apple getting a 20% share of the US PC market. From there its anyone's guess.