Plamwashed?

Couple of days ago, I was hanging out on the #webOS channel (IRC), when the conversation moved onto Apple's IP threats. Now, I mostly hang-out there because I know some folks that now work for Palm (and on the Pre), and not because I'm a Palm user or developer (in fact quite the opposite). Anyhow, during the conversation, I had to (kindly) correct one of the participant (clearly re-educated by Palm's political police) who believed the Palm Pilot to have come before the Apple's Newton ... Not only was the first Newton (OMP100) introduced close to 3 years before the first Pilot (Pilot 1000), but also the term PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) itself, was coined by John Sculley, then CEO of Apple.

To be fair to the Pilot, I just don't think both devices are comparable. The Original MessagePad, even with its laughable handwriting recognition, packed much more punch and capabilities than what Palm could delivers 3 years later! The same extends to the late MessagePads, which more than 10 years after its introduction, still simply rocks and is still been used by thousands. around the worlds (including yours truly up to June 2008). How many PalmPilot Personal are still been used in 2009? ....

Don't believe the Newton can still be useful? Check this article made by cnet.co.uk back in 2006, in which the Newton came out as the winner when compared to an UMPC!!

(Edit: the Casio/Tandy Zoomer did beat the OMP release by 2 months, and thus it is considered the first PDA. Palm Computing contribution to it was the Personal Information Management (PIM) software).

Insanely Great!

What better way to celebrate the first computer for the rest of us, than doing so by watching a part of Steve Jobs' keynote?

1984

Since we are only 1 day away of the 25th anniversary of the Apple's Macintosh release, it is time for me to indulge into a little bit of nostalgia and go back to January 1984 ... Back then, I was only 2 weeks shy of been 10 years old, and the personal computer revolution was in full swing (yes, even in France!). I probably wasn't aware of the new Macintosh and its game changing Graphical User Interface, but I was already been titillated by computers and programming, thanks to my dad whom was very much into it, albeit in mobile computing. Mobile computing? In 1984? Well back then it was called pocket computing, and my dad's favorite toy was his trusty Casio FX-702P (which he was using also for work) and he was fully equipped with tape recorder and the tiny thermal printer with its funky metallic like paper. The 702 was indeed great, and I myself falled in love with it in the following years when it was handed down to me. To the point that I used to carry it around (in its little pouch) with me everywhere. Not contempt to just being geeking on his calculator, my dad was also a member of the local computer club, where I had my first encounters with top of the line computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Oric Atmos, Apple IIc, Matra Alice and VG 5000. The later eventually became my very first personal computer (for christmas '84 I guess) for countless hours of gaming and BASIC programming. My dad, back then, had subscription to two french computer magazines (both long gone) which had tons of little programs to be typed in (yep, that's right typed in, not loaded!), so it was possible to spend lots of time on the computer without actually doing much of anything except entering the code. Trying to run it was always a bit of a frustrating experience since there was very often errors in the code which were making it un-workable (that and/or typing mistakes made by little fingers ...). Anyhow, my first encounter with what I'll call a modern computer didn't occurs until late '86, when a school friend got a Macintosh Plus, which we used to do the school newspaper on.

Did I knew back then that computer was what I wanted to do when I grew up? I like to said yes (of course) but unfortunatly it's not the case. I didn't really get into computers until the late 80s, and only decided to make it my profession in 92. Up to that point, all I really wanted to be was either a Naval officer or an Archeologist (the later was likely due to that romatic image of archeology imprinted in my mind by waaaay too much of Indiana Jones) ...

As for the very famous 1984 commercial, well I never saw it until years after the event. To be honest I don't think it was ever aired in France (I could be wrong though) ...

Book worming!

When people asks me who is my favorite author (like once every 5 years or so), I'm usually very quick in replying: "Well, Umberto Eco of course!". Then, I get a blank stare from my questioner, at least until I mention that he's the author of The Name of the Rose, which movie version had Sean Connery on the cast ... As far as I can tell, his popularity in North America isn't as good as it is in Europe ... or maybe I just happen to know about him because I was introduced to his novels by my dad ... With only 5 novels on track record, it is no real surprise (really) that most people will have not heard of him, unless you are an Italian medievalist, a semiotician, or a philosopher. Anyhow, I finished his last (really his last apparently) novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana Saturday night with mixed feelings. I did enjoy the usual display of erudition, which is so typical of Mr Eco work (Dan Brown's an amateur in comparison!) ... but I failed to really found myself spellbound by the story as I had in past readings (e.g Foucault's Pendulum). Yet, it was a welcome change of scenery in this times of interrupted sleep and diaper changing duties ...

Spacecraft get artsy ...

What does the Kaguya lunar orbiter and the CBC Radio 2's show The Signal have in common? They both play weird and yet (sometimes) tantalizing "music"! Some crazy folks over at JAXA are using the laser altimeter's data from the spacecraft to generate music based on the relief of the moon: Moonbell. Isn't it cool?

Palm and its Mojo ...

When I first saw that Palm's Pre SDK was called Mojo, I couldn't beleive that will pick such a ridiculous name for their brand new platform. I mean come-on Palm, Mojo!?! Yeah we get it, like Austin Powers you got your Mojo back ... It will be more than fine for an internal codename, but for a public name? Not very classy ... Then, there is the whole thing about the framework been based on HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. How many mobile developers knows theses, or have time and will to learn them? Apple got a a lot of flak from the developers community from using Objective-C on its mobile platform, which only a small (tiny?) fraction of the developers (most of which live in the Mac platform ghetto) knows ... and it's a C superset!!! At the risk of sounding like an a$$, I'll like to said that web developer != software developer ... experience, education and skills are usualy very different. But maybe, that's what Palm is after? A platform where applications are quick and easy to hack and release?

Palm's Nova ... #2

It's out and in the open, and it's called webOS! gdgt.com has a live feed of the keynote. Looks good, rather iPhone-ish but with some nice features (e.g app switching) ... but HTML, CSS, and javascript for dev tools? Surely there will be some sort of C API ...

Palm's Nova ...

Well today is the day where Palm is supposed to announce, at the CES, its new OS (Linux based apparently) which should compete with the iPhone. Not much have leaked so far on what to expect (somehow this sounds like an Apple's operation), so there is not much to said for now. I'm not very warm to Palm, mainly because the Palm Pilot is somewhat responsible for the (inevitable?) demise of my beloved Newton (smaller & cheaper devices which didn't do a quarter of what the Newt' could do). It's not that I didn't try to like them, since I got myself (I know! What was I thinking!) a Palm Tungsten T3 back in 2004. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), there was no spark between us. The device it-self was alright I guess, but the OS left me cold, uninterested and the unit ended-up collecting dust on my desk for years, unused.

10 years of OS X (sort of)

Well, this beginning of year is sure full of anniversaries. Few days ago it was the Mars Rover, and yesterday it was the release of Mac OS X Server which occurred 10 years ago. Oops ... did I wrote release? I meant announce ... Stories of Apple.net has a bit more detail on it (including a link to a screenshot, sure did look like OS9 ...). The very same Macworld keynote was also used to introduce the Blue&White PowerMac G3 with that funky look which at that time looks pretty darn cool but now look, well ... very late 90s ...

While I'm still talking (a bit) about the MER, I must mention that one of Spirit's drivers (Scott Maxwell) have started (to celebrate the anniversary) a very interesting (and well written) blog on the first 3 years on Mars of the rovers. Each daily post will be covering a martian day (sol).

Scott participated in August to some sort of conference, which is now on Youtube

5 years on Mars!

Well here we are, January 2009. 5 years ago, the first of the two MER, Spirit, was landing on Mars. I still recall, although it's getting a little fuzzy in my memory, watching the event LIVE on NASA TV. It was great in a nerdy sort of way :-) 5 years after, what was suppose to last only 90 Martian days, have lasted +1773 days, quite the endurance.

Mass Digital which was behind a video of the EDL (Entry, Descent and Landing) have released some time ago a video on YouTube showing the whole mission (well not the ALL mission) :

It sure looks a little dated now, especially if you compare with the HD video of MSL's EDL, but it is still pretty fun to watch. Speaking of fun, Emily, of the Planetary Society, have written up a little article on the excellent adventure of Spirit, worth reading. I'm sure there will be lot of articles to come out this week on the subject.