Isn’t problem solving amazing? Everyone’s trying to figure out how to make smaller batteries store more power so we can run devices for longer times. But what if we went the other way? Smaller batteries that don’t last as long but can charge fully in seconds. Amazing research being done, via this video:
Unlocking phones is illegal? Let’s fix this. Sign the White House Petition.
My friend Jason Grigsby notes on his blog that apparently unlocking cell phones is illegal:
When you buy a phone, it is your property. If you have a contract that provides a subsidy for that phone, after that contract ends, you should be able to do whatever you want with the phone. You bought it.
Unfortunately, the Library of Congress sees it differently. It recently ruled that unlocking phones is illegal.
Our phone service in the United States is already more expensive than other countries because of lock in. This will make it worse.
Please sign this petition to make the White House review the policy.
We need ~24k more signatures before February 23 in order to get the White House to respond to the petition so after you sign it, please pass it on. Everyone with a mobile phone is impacted by this ruling.
We now need less than 5,000 signatures. Even if we go over every additional signature makes our case stronger. I hope you will take a moment to sign the petition.
The Uniqueness of Oregon
Oregon is a pretty unique place. As an example of that uniqueness, we recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of a decision then Governor Oswald West made regarding our beaches. In 1903 resorts and others were already starting to establish themselves. In addition there was no road system so if you wanted to get from Point A to Point B, you literally drove on the beach. Governor West also saw what was happening back east, namely that private resorts were claiming beach land for themselves.
So on February 13, 1903, Governor West went before the legislature to argue his point. Whether it was “to keep the beach road open” or to “give the beach to all the people,” we really don’t know. But whatever his intentions, what the good Governor did was establish the largest public beach access in the United States, over 360 miles.
The Oregonian talked about the anniversary in an article last week. If you haven’t explored the amazingness that is Oregon’s coast line, I highly recommend it, especially in summer. It’s a magical place.
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The included picture was taken by me at Smuggler’s Cove, Oswald West State Park, on the Oregon coast.
That Holy Shit Moment
Sometimes things don’t sink in. I’m sure I’ve heard people talk about this topic before, maybe hundreds of times, but it was something about the way John Gruber said it that it sunk in.
That holy shit moment: that moment when someone gets what you are doing and realizes how amazing it is. Seeing a Mac for the first time, in 1984, was like that. (Holy shit! I can do everything visually instead of remembering arcane commands.) The iPad was like that for me. (Holy shit! The perfect combination of size and weight to carry stuff with me all the time.) So was the PalmPilot. (Holy shit! People are going to carry these around in their pockets.) I had that reaction with the Internet (Holy shit! I can actually follow my beloved Cleveland Indians from across the country), GMail (Holy shit! All the company mail without configuration), and Dropbox (Holy shit! All my files with me wherever I am).
In Infinity Softworks’ history, I’ve seen this reaction three times to our products. The first was with our financial products back in the late ’90s. Holy shit!, was the customer reaction. I can carry one device, a PalmPilot, and still have my calculator. The second was powerOne Graph when we’d show it to teachers and administrators. Holy shit!, my kids won’t spend so much time learning keystrokes. And third is what we are working on now. I see the look in people’s eyes when I show it off. Sometimes those words even stream from their mouths.
I never put it together before. We have developed multiple products over many years, some we shipped and some we didn’t. I’ve always assumed that figuring out which to ship and which to hold was a black art, a gut feel. But now I know better. What I’ve always looked for is that holy shit moment. Seeing that from enough people makes one realize the product could be something big.
Google Now and the Mobile Information User
Fred Wilson wrote about Google Now yesterday. If you are not familiar Google Now has an interesting promise: that it knows stuff about you and can help you even without asking. To me, Google Now is the closest thing we have to fulfilling a need for what is very close to an ignored user group in the mobile market place, information users.
Michael Mace wrote in an incredible article a number of years ago on the various use cases for mobile computing. He simplified it down to three core user groups: communications, entertainment, and information. I believe very strongly that the first two are being covered well but the third is basically ignored (from the OS/hardware companies).
Google Now is interesting to me because it starts to get at a core need of information users. I have an appointment each month and invariably I forget the meeting once every couple of months. So I start setting an alarm, which sets off 10 devices around my house and means another thing I have to set. But Google Now has the potential to be smart enough to know where I am, the direction I am heading, what’s on my calendar, and which devices I have with me. If it knows all that, it can be smart enough to tell me if I’m not headed to my appointment, reminding me it’s time to go but also smart enough to not tell me if it sees I am on my way.
Once my devices are smart enough to look at my calendar, contacts and current position — with all kinds of other information — it can be smart enough to help me in all kinds of ways. I’m driving and traffic is backed up beyond my vision, it can tell me to take an alternative route. It knows where my meeting is and which parking meters are open near by, directing me to the one closest to my meeting. It knows where I am headed is for work and track the mileage for my expense report automatically.
As an information user myself feeling a bit underserved by current apps and OS implementations, I can’t wait for this future.
Elia Insider 