Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27

The Wall Street Journal offers some details – it cites people “briefed by the company” who say Apple plans to ship the tablet in March, and that it will feature either a 10 or 11-inch touch screen. The paper also cites analysts who “currently believe” the machine will cost $1,000, which may include a Kindle-like built-in wireless plan.

Amazon’s original Kindle was released in November of 2007 and people were impressed. Those people were rightly impressed because it was an innovative piece of technology at the time. Shortly after the Kindle, a number of competing e-book reader products were released only barely to be acknowledged to even exist. I won’t mention any of them either. Netbooks flood the market, and their owners are typically underwhelmed by their performance. I’ve come to the realization that these are pieces of single-serving technology. What does the Kindle do without books? What does a netbook do without a network? Not much.

All the while Apple was building and perfecting a method for the distribution of digital goods. The iPhone changed the way people think about cellular phones and what they expect out of technology. The technology that Apple has brought to the market has created an expectation. All reports indicate that Apple is stepping up to the plate with a tablet computing device that could change things in the same way the iPhone changed cellular phones. iPhone wasn’t just a step ahead it was miles ahead, and the expectation is that anything Apple does must be similarly groundbreaking.

Apple now has a mountain of paying customers who are now quite invested in music and movies and are also overwhelmingly satisfied with their iPhone. Who can blame them? They’ve got a great user interface, a speedy mobile browser and an excellent content distribution system. To create the ultimate device in this ultra-mobile space all it would take is the addition of print-style media, books and magazines to fill the gap that exists in the content they offer. I have no idea if that’s what they’re going to attempt, but it seems reasonable.

I’m not sure anyone really knows what is going to be released, the usual Apple secrecy has people making wild predictions. The only thing I can count on is to expect the unexpected.

^{As an aside; if you are in the business of printing stuff on paper on a daily basis take the deal. Whatever it is, take it before they stop doing you the courtesy of even offering.}

Nexus One review

For all the hype, this one appears to be a bit of a let down.

I recently saw Avatar and was struck by quality of the visual effects. The technology which produced the movie is equally as impressive.

The Data-Crunching Powerhouse Behind ‘Avatar’

For the last month or more of production those 40,000 processors were handling 7 or 8 gigabytes of data per second, running 24 hours a day. A final copy of Avatar equated to 17.28 gigabytes per minute of storage. For a 166 minute movie the rendering coordination was intense.

Google to Start Selling Own Phone Next Year

The Internet giant is taking a new, and potentially risky approach to selling the device. Rather than selling the phone through a wireless carrier–the way the bulk of phones are sold in the U.S. today–Google plans to sell the Nexus One itself online, these people said. Users will have to buy cellular service for the device separately.

A bold move by Google by allowing the device to be attached to the consumers carrier of choice. I hope we see more of this in the future as it forces competition in the device market and forces carriers to compete for customers.

The device will allegedly be for sale next year. The crux, in my opinion, is weather or not HTC can deliver the device. Android is good, and getting better all the time but a mediocre piece of hardware will make for a flop.

Google Public DNS is a free, global Domain Name System (DNS) resolution service, that you can use as an alternative to your current DNS provider.

Baby steps towards world domination? Perhaps.