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The shame of being a jock

Anyone who grew up in the 80s will remember Revenge of the Nerds. The movie made ruthless fun of nerds, while offering them an olive branch in the form of Hollywood catharsis. My, how times have changed.

Now, social awkwardness is endearing. Comic-book movies are cool. Gadgets, gaming, and tech are in. Kids want to be programmers and engineers. Their parents want them to do well in math and science - in short, they want their kids to be nerds.

What happened to the jocks? Are they out there somewhere, hosting secret Superbowl parties, covertly snapping towels at each other, and anxiously awaiting the release of Revenge of the Jocks? One thing’s for sure - they’re not holding their heads high anymore. The nerds won. And I for one welcome our new overlords (had to say it).

Virtual Windows 7 - free!

Here’s a recent offering that didn’t get much press as it should have, but it’s really cool. As you may know, OnLive is a cloud-computing company that allows you to play games on your underpowered computer by streaming the content to your screen. All the grunt work is done on their servers.

They’ve now expanded into the enterprise market by offering a free virtual Windows 7 environment. You can use the full versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint online and save your data in the cloud (2 gigs free). Right now, the OnLive Desktop is for the iPad only, but is coming soon to PCs, Macs, Android, and even TVs. As all the processing power is handled on their end, you could presumably run the virtual Windows on any crappy computer with a decent Internet connection.

The trend towards OS cloud integration and a more seamless user experience in cloud computing is most welcome and makes Moore’s Law increasingly irrelevant. So hold on to that old 486 PC you were about to toss out. It could soon be given a new lease on life.

Pirate’s sanctuary?

Last month, the Swedish government recognized The church of Kopimism as an official religion. The central tenet of this church is that the exchange of information is holy. The church has its own constitution, symbols, and even hymns. Worship consists of a digital service in which files are shared. Of course, to avoid litigious persecution, participants in “worship” must encrypt their traffic.

Now, you may have gotten sufficiently caught up in the recent SOPA and PIPA protests to think this is fantastic. Except, it isn’t. A free and open Internet is a noble cause, absolutely. Free = good. But listen: piracy = bad. When does the free and open exchange of information cross over into base thievery? Who knows anymore. The debate over creative ownership and copyright rages on and a complete solution continues to be elusive.

But one thing I do know - The church of Kopimism (Copy+Me+ism - get it?) is a thinly-veiled mockery. Take a look at this video as a Christ-like figure bathed in an eerie blue glow shows us how to perform the sacred Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V cut and paste gestures:

These guys make The Jedi Church and The Church of Scientology seem mildly credible. A pirate’s sanctuary? More like a desperate joke that undermines the whole open movement.

The real textbook dilemma

Yesterday, Apple announced the arrival of interactive textbooks on it’s new iBooks2 platform, as well as an online course delivery system through iTunesU. Thus fulfilling Steve Jobs’ dream to take on the textbook industry and relieve students everywhere of their back-breaking packs filled with dead trees.

A digital textbook seems like a great idea, but that’s where it ends - just a nice idea. The reality is that our educational landscape is so uneven and broken that the idea of iPads for every students seems a pipe dream at best. This sobering editorial says it best - the devil is in the hardware. Who’s going to pay for all these iPads? And who will replace them when they inevitably break? Can families afford it?

It seems that a few pilot projects in the richest schools is about all we can hope for, leaving poorer school districts drooling in envy. If you’ve seen the excellent documentary Waiting for Superman, then you’ll know that the education system, in the US at least, has a lot of catching up to do before entering the digital age.

What about university? I can really see the value of digital textbooks shining here - but not on the iPad. Students have enough to distract them without the temptation of tweeting or playing Angry Birds during that boring biology lecture. Perhaps it would work if there was some sort of classroom equivalent of “Airplane Mode” where you could lock the iPad into textbook mode. I can’t see that ever taking off with students though.

Am I being a bit of a Neanderthal? Perhaps. But I was educated with a blunt pencil and the back of a ruler and turned out just fine.

Transparency - the new aesthetic

One of the coolest kinds of fictional tech has to be the transparent window, as seen in Minority Report, and by extension, the transparent tablet, à la Avatar. How long will it be before these futuristic interfaces become a reality? Not too long at all, it seems.

Science looks to science fiction when identifying an aesthetic that resonates with people. And it’s becoming apparent that the transparent touch user interface is the next big thing. At CES this year, Samsung showcased the Smart Window:

With space at a premium in our shrinking condos, a window that doubles as a screen seems insanely logical. I can also see touch applications with HUD displays in vehicles and airplanes happening really soon. And how about the transparent tablet? Samsung has that covered too, as seen in this concept video:

Seem far-fetched? Well, the technology, the flexible AMOLED display on show here, is very real - and coming to a future near you.

Why every CEO should watch Kitchen Nightmares

I’m quite enjoying Kitchen Nightmares (UK version) on Netflix. At first, I thought it was a typical cooking show, or merely a culinary car crash where Gordon Ramsay cuts down hapless cooks with his exceedingly foul mouth. And yes, there is a bit of that. But, surprisingly, Kitchen Nightmares is more a crash-course on effective business management.

It’s tough to make it as a restaurant owner, where most new restaurants fail in their first year. As a microcosm of any small business, there are valuable lessons to be learned in the gastronomical trenches:

1. Source and use raw materials wisely. Savvy head chefs hit the local markets and haggled for deals, then produced dishes that used cheap and chunky vegetables to fill the plate and minimize the expensive meats. The result? Higher revenues per dish.
2. Keep a low inventory. Food sitting in the freezer is not food being sold. Preparing dishes fresh to order not only eliminated food rot and contamination, but greatly increased quality for the customer.
3. Keep prices down. If you’re in financial trouble, increasing customer traffic is always better than increasing prices to get back on track.
4. Open up lateral communication across all divisions. This is perhaps the most important point. When the head chef failed to communicate with the kitchen underlings or with front-of-house, or when the owner wasn’t providing continuous feedback to the kitchen, everything fell apart.

Now, if only I could get my act together for dinner tonight…

Dry and dorky

I came upon this recently - perhaps you’ve seen it in your neighbourhood? Nah, didn’t think so. This atrocious umbrella is a fantastic example of great engineering, but poor design. Terrible, insufferable design.

The Nubrella has a spec sheet that would make a meteorologist drool: aerodynamic, ergonomic, hands-free, and will never invert in a hurricane-force gale. But the trade-off is that you are transformed into a giant bobble head.

Nubrella, you can shower me with pictures of fashionable models sporting this monstrosity all you want but that will never impute a sense of style to your product. You can now join Vibram Five Fingers and full-body mosquito nets in the pantheon of most embarrassing trends of the 21st century.

Steve Jobs bio review

Cover from Whole Earth Catalog

This isn’t a book for fanboys who are looking for a insider’s view of Apple or the tech industry. The author, Walter Isaacson, is very much an outsider looking in. As such, he granted Steve Jobs a cool respect, but was never drawn in by Steve’s Reality Distortion Field.

As a result, this biography is extremely well researched. Isaacson gives us a measured, balanced narrative of Steve’s life. The writing is gushing when describing Steve’s many accomplishments, and rightly so. On the other hand, Steve’s dark side is portrayed with frankness, but at times tinged with a sense of self-righteousness that shows the reader Isaacson wasn’t able to truly understand his subject, even after two years of interviews. As open as Steve was to engaging with others, he was also intensely private, as befitting his dualistic, black-or-white nature.

Overall, I’d say this book is a compelling and fascinating read, not just for Apple acolytes, but for anybody interested in the man who created (and resurrected) the most valuable company in the world today.