Monthly Archives: October 2012

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October 15, 2012

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Digital Lifestyle, Thoughts

Does Google really have tablet woes?

There seems to be much discussion concerning Google and its apparent failure in the tablet market.  If I understand, the suggestion is that Google has failed to execute correctly; it simply hasn’t put enough effort into pushing the idea of an Android tablet so much as it has pushed the idea of Android mobile devices. The Nexus 7 is widely regarded as Google’s first (and only) success in the tablet space, despite being preceded by a number of retail devices and one major OS revision.

And it would seem that time isn’t on Google’s side either, what with the impending release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT tablets.  Microsoft has been courting the tablet space for a number of years now, and their inability to make deep inroads was as much due to Windows itself as it was to a lackluster consumer demand.

But with Apple proving that tablets are now in demand, and Microsoft having an established user base on the desktop that seems primed to jump into mobile, is Google destined to be a distant third in the tablet space?  Have they gotten it wrong while Apple has run with the crown and Microsoft has finally gotten it right

I think there’s more at play here.  I’ve talked about it here, and others have talked about it too – that is, the question of whether people really need a tablet.  Tablets have – and still do – sit somewhere between the uber-personal smartphone and the uber-productive laptop/desktop.  They’re an interesting media consumption device, and Apple successfully capitalized on its existing media ecosystem by introducing another client that was less personal, less presumptuous and more convenient than the existing alternatives.

And yet we’re seeing a shift in the tablet space.  Like it or not, tablets are approaching the smartphone in size and – crucially – in importance.  They’re becoming more personal.  The shift from 10″ to 7″ has obvious implications re: productivity, and the combination of lower price and smaller screen suddenly makes the device more personal again – probably because it’s more mobile.  Microsoft will likely find success with Windows 8 RT, but it won’t be iPad-level success.  Rather, they’ll have nothing more than a viable slate alternative to a Windows desktop/laptop at best, and a larger version of a Windows Phone 8 smartphone at worst – complete with the market traction that they’ve enjoyed for the past year with Windows Phone 7.

Personally, I think that the relative success of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 are harbingers of the future of consumer tablets.  Curated experiences.  Portals to the ecosystem.  Unquestionable media-consumption devices that can run mobile apps on a larger, more comfortable screen than a smartphone.  And presently, the only real contenders in this space seem to be – yes, Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.  But there’s more to the story.  Google is probably better positioned than any other company at present to lead the next tablet wave.  Why?  Simply, Amazon has no interest in tablets for tablet’s sake.  Google, with the unvieiling of the Play brand, has a competitor to Amazon and they have an app store to compete with Apple.  And… they have a slew of online resources that cater to social and productivity – the latter of which has been Microsoft’s strong suit.

They’re the only company that has a 7″ tablet, a mature media store, a mature app store, and mature cloud-based social and productivity offerings.  If they were to use the 7″ tablet as a curated experience, they could immediately offer the end-user a solution to every usage case there is for a mobile device that’s not a smartphone and doesn’t have a hardware keyboard.

Stop treating Drive/Docs, Gmail, Google+ etc. as mere apps.  They need to be integrated.  Google needs to own the experience.  Sure, a user can still run the Kindle app, but there would be an obvious and clear distinction between an “app” and the ecosystem.  Stop treating the tablet as an app launcher and start treating it as an extension of your brand.

This is something that Google could do without alienating the notion of “openness”.  Again, they’re well-positioned – they have the hardware “Nexus” brand.  Rather than have a Nexus phone and a larger Nexus phone as they do now (ie, the Google Nexus and the Nexus 7), have a Nexus phone with stock Android and a Nexus tablet with “Google Experience” – the curated experience.  And if they want to continue to pursue the 10″ space (which they should), then get serious about tablet apps.  Distinguish them in the Play store, and work with developers to take advantage of the recent app guidelines.

Google still has time to figure this out.  Word is that an iPad Mini will be released soon, but unless Apple changes the staid iOS experience then we’re really only talking about the same old iPad in a smaller form factor.  It will challenge the Kindle Fire and existing Nexus 7 simply because it’s an Apple product.  If Google were to redefine (or evolve) the 7″ tablet space then they could compete with an iPad Mini on the same basis – it would become a bonafied Google product, not just an Android tablet.

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October 12, 2012

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Digital Lifestyle, Home Automation

What have I been up to? (“Home Automation” edition)

Apologies for the dearth of updates.  The silent masses have been wailing my name incessantly as a result.  I hear you, your screams are defeaning.

(WTF?)

Things have been… different… this year.  That’s about as much as I can say at the moment.  The lack of a stable “all systems OK” comfort zone has basically meant that I’m in maintenance mode more than anything else.  Hence – little in the way of blog updates and other reckless indulgences 🙂

Anyhoo, on to the subject of this particular post.  And this will likely be quick.

You may recall that, to-date, the home automation system consists primarily of surveillance, hvac, and music.  Much hasn’t changed in that respect, but I have been able to make some changes that have increased the reliability, efficiency and usefulness of the system.

Surveillance first.  The most notable change here has been the inclusion of HTML5-compatible transcoded video.  For some time I’ve relied on Flash to allow for remote viewing of archived surveillance video – but having upgraded my phone to Jelly Bean and settled on Chrome as my browser of choice, Flash is no longer an option on that particular device.  To that end, the backend transcodes video into both Flash and x264 formats.  The format available to you is in the browser is determined automagically.

Other small changes have been the regular code cleaning that occurs when you realize that the way you did something a year ago makes absolutely no sense and – there – this makes much more sense.  For now.

The next notable change/improvement actually touches on HVAC as well, so it’s a good segue.  You may recall (but probably don’t) that the automation system is occupant-aware.  When we’re home, certain things happen – like telling the thermostat to target a comfortable temperature, or telling the surviellance system not to pepper me with event notifications.  Previously, occupant detection relied on Bluetooth and its rather short range.  And while I had dreams of hacking unsightly 2.4Ghz antennas onto cheap USB Bluetooth adapters, I woke up recently and decided to use WiFi for the same purpose – which also makes sense since our phones are connected to WiFi whenever we’re home.  Well, Shelly’s Nokia wasn’t always connected, by her loaner phone (my Desire Z) is as is my Galaxy S III.  It was just a matter of course before – no changes in usage or increased battery consumption.

This has simplified matters greatly, in addition to greatly increasing the reliability of the detection code.  The method is actually straightforward – check the wireless access point’s association table to see if particular MAC addresses are connected.  C’est tout.

Also within the spherical roundness of occupant-detection (???) is the news that the system can now get updates from the alarm system.  This is very useful, as it leads to very dependable home/away information that is actually more reliable (in some cases) than the wireless detection method.  The automation system is also configured to simulate motion/audio events on all cameras if the alarm notifies it of a perimeter breach.

Now over to HVAC.

Again – more code cleaning.  I spent a little bit of time thinking I could simplify the “Smart Logic” – the stuff that determines if the system should be off or on and what mode and when to run the fan and blah blah blah – but that turned out to be more painful than just leaving it the way it was so left it I did.  However, the system now has the ability to pre-condition the house if the next program calls for it.  This is one end of a multi-month effort that involved the automated collection of efficiency information.  The system keeps track of how long it takes to heat/cool the house – and currently maintains these statistics seperately for various absolute inside temperatures as well as inside/outside temperature differences – and if the next program calls for more heating or cooling, the system will start doing just that so that we hit the desired temperature just as the next program becomes active.

Admittedly this is not a novel concept.  Some thermostats have been doing this for years.  Something they can’t do is take the efficiency data and determine when to start pre-conditioning the house once it has been determined that occupants are on the way home.  And in the name of openness – my system can’t do this either.  But presently that has more to do with niggling concerns rather than a dearth of information or ability.  Any claims to the contrary would be blasphemy – you’ve been warned.

???

Anyhoo, the reality is that the current pre-conditioning only happens once a day – and perhaps twice a day in the cooling season.  Mostly this is due do the fact that I’ve “flattened” my thermostat’s programs, so that we basically have an overnight setpoint and a not-overnight setpoint (like I talked about here).  I’ve been able to do this because:

  1. the HVAC is much more efficient now than it was before (since we’ve moved)
  2. occupant detection can lower/raise the setpoint appropriately
  3. occupant prediction can target the “home” setpoint before we get home

We tend to keep a “cool” house when we’re asleep, but it absolutely sucks to wake up in the morning to cold floors and cold everything-else-too.  Otherwise, there’s really no need to program the thermostat when the pieces are in place to make more effective decisions automatically.

So ya, that’s HVAC.  Last (and perhaps least?), Music.

Admittedly there hasn’t been much development there.  Not to say that I/we don’t use the system – in fact I used it this past Thanksgiving when we entertained family.  I just haven’t had occassion to spend oodles of time on it.  As it is now, it Just Works(tm).

What I have done, though, is to bring some HTML5 usefulness to the streaming aspect of the system.  As with video in the surviellance system, there has been a browser-embedded solution for some time to stream music via a Flash player.  Got the job done, but again – Flash’s days seem numbered and are basically done and done in the mobile world.

To that end I added HTML5 Audio, and it gets regular use when I’m at work.  Not so much in the car (also known as “not at all in the car”) but that’s because Chrome (and perhaps others) will not allow for background HTML5 audio.  If the screen turns off or the browser is pushed to the background: sayonara streaming audio.  So I still rely on a bonafied SHOUTcast client for streaming in the car, and truthfully I’d love to be able to run the browser-only solution as it requires much less in the way of security concessions.

Aaaaaaand….

….that’s it!