Foxconn Suicides and Chinese Labor Developments

This is actually pretty tragic/ interesting and has worldwide ramifications. Apple followers know that most of our products are made by Foxconn Technology Group, a China-based manufacturing company and one of the world's largest employers with a workforce that exceeds 400,000[sic]. That's incomprehensibly large.

What's interesting and concerning about this company/workforce is that for a few years now they've come under much scrutiny for a seemingly dangerously high rate of unhappiness and suicide.

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WWDC Tomorrow

Tomorrow is like Christmas.
No, no! Tomorrow is like BIGGER than Christmas!
It's like for us half-Jew Christians where we get to celebrate Hanukah AND Christmas in the same month! And like for me, when it's followed the very next week by my birthday!

Tomorrow is Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

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Over/Under Rated: The Microsoft Surface

The value of this post is completely based on audience participation- please get involved :)

I'm pretty sure 90% of AMDAL rides the Apple train, but aside from my shuffle, PCs still have my heart and, in turn, my wallet. My PC life has yet to fail me*, but I've been a little ashamed of my PC love until recently. I demoed the touch screen computer's older, roid-ed out big brother: the Microsoft Surface and I'm feeling pretty okay about it now.

Why post about it? After the feedback on the iPad, it dawned on me that some of you might have seen, heard about or demoed a Surface & I can use your brilliance to help me decide if I/we (my Hospital, not AMDAL... yet) should buy a bunch of these for the Pediatric Emergency Departments' waiting rooms as our first "go" at implementing these into the patient experience. I am totally amped up about having little buggers be able to entertain themselves with these while their parental unit(s) is pre-occupied tending to their sibling.

My top 2 O/U points for your input after the jump- please send yours on over, comments are greatly appreciated!

*PC fail: The evil blue screen of death in 2003 that ate my senior thesis paper will never be forgotten



OverRated:-
1) The Surface's surface is not exactly Teflon tough. We would purchase the insurance so that we can have the top protective layer replaced as often as needed. I loved that it was very sensitive to every movement, but I wonder how long this will last with rug-rats banging on them and getting their grubby little cookie monster hands all over it. Thoughts?

2) Lack of software- there are no children-based education software programs developed yet. What do y'all think the time table on this is/ do you have any good company names you can send me that I can inquire about building something? We use Kidzpace products now & they go over well with parents, kids, child life specialists, etc. There are plenty of things for kids do do on the Surface (paint, card games, move pictures, write/type, etc) but nothing specifically built for the Surface yet.

UnderRated:
1) User interaction- They are just awesome! I don't know who has gotten to use these yet, but if you can do it immediately. The practicality of them for other areas of the Hospital is endless, but we also like to show everyone who visits that we're not just life savers- we're hip and technologically advanced too :) I demoed it for patient evaluations & consults- viewing 3D imaging results, pulling up records, and linking physical objects on the surface to the data stored inside [a la laying my ID on it to log in or placing a heart valve pump on the Surface & it would place it into the anatomical image of a heart on the screen. Everyone who has touched one is excited about the opportunities to improve the patient experience, especially in terms of understanding procedures before they have them, as well as post-surgical compliance & care.

2) Bang for your Buck- for $20,000 each (table, insurance plan, installation, etc), it's pretty cheap for all that it does and eventually will be able to do once there is software built. But, in the same light- does anyone think that these will go down in price within the next year like everything seems to with technology or is it going to stay pretty standardized for a bit until they can get into more markets/need to produce them at high quantities?


Thanks AMDAL tech support!

Apple iPad: Unwieldy iPod Touch? 2nd Tier eBook Reader? Both?

I hate to crap in the punchbowl but I'm somewhat of a techie dude and an Apple fanboy and, so far, I'm a bit disappointed in what I've seen from Apple's brand new iPad. I own a laptop and it's great for helping me work. I own an iPhone and it's the best mobile device around. I own a Kindle and it has truly reignited my love of reading.

So, what the heck am I going to do with an iPad?

Maybe I'm not the target market. Maybe, if you own all three of these devices, you'd be foolish to dole out $700+ for an iPad. And yes, I know that the device starts at $499 but, seriously, if this is truly going to change the way you listen to music, do work, watch TV shows and movies, etc. you're going to need at least 64GB. Heck, I have 32GB+ of music alone!

So, again, maybe Apple isn't going after me and my money. But, even if you only have two of the three devices, would you seriously consider buying an iPad?

Let's assume that everyone who gives a flying fig about the iPad in the first place owns a laptop that they consider serviceable. I think that's fair. That leaves three scenarios: a laptop owner who also owns an iPhone (but no Kindle), a laptop owner who also owns a Kindle (but no iPhone) and a laptop owner with neither an iPhone nor a Kindle.

Scenario 1: Laptop + iPhone. My guess is that if you own a laptop and an iPhone, you aren't going to spring for a device that ads the functionality of an eBook reader and little else. Anyone who has ever used a Kindle knows that the advantage of the device isn't the capacity to hold thousands of books or the ability to download books and articles on demand; the advantage is the opaque screen/e-ink system that makes reading just as easy on your eyes as reading actual ink on paper. It might even be easier! Couple that with the fact that Amazon eBooks are cheaper than all other books ("e" or not) and the Kindle will pay itself off in a year for an avid reader; Apple plans to charge around $15/book for a smaller selection of books. I hate reading off of my monitor, I hate reading off of my laptop and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that I'd hate reading off of yet another backlit device like the iPad.

Here's an idea, Apple: either make a device that can somehow transition from a backlit screen to an opaque screen seamlessly or stop calling the device "magical." Yes, I know that that would be a tall order but a tall order is what you expect when your spokespeople refer to a single device as "magical" more than three times in a single presentation!

Scenario 2: Laptop + Kindle. Now, let's say you own a laptop and a Kindle (or similar device) but no iPhone. Well, perhaps the iPad is for you, right? Umm... wrong. Considering the size of the iPad, it's not going into your pocket. Considering the price of the iPad, you're not just going to tuck it under your arm; you're going to need a messenger bag. So, if I need a messenger bag and I've already got my laptop and Kindle in my messenger bag, there's no reason add an iPad to the mix.

To be honest, it would just make more sense to purchase a cheaper, 85% as functional iPhone at this point or just be satisfied with whatever functionality my current phone/smart phone brings to the table. Keep in mind, the iPad cannot make calls. If you are a real genius and know how to jailbreak your iPad and use a sweet combination of Google Voice and Skype, you could probably fix that but, for most normal folks, the iPad is just a big iPod touch, not a big iPhone.

Scenario 3: Laptop only. Even given a $599 price point for the non-3G, 32GB model of the iPad, I could literally go buy a $299 32GB iPhone 3GS and a $259 Kindle and have $41 left over to take my girlfriend to go see Avatar in 3D. To boot, I'd have a better, truly mobile device and a better, e-ink-based eBook reader. Assuming I own pockets and a bag for my laptop. I've sacrificed nothing in terms of convenience.

The only thing I've ignored so far is gaming, which, apparently, some crazy people would plan on doing with their iPad. Most gamers would probably agree that this is a joke. Also, if I saw a guy holding his iPad at "ten and two" with his arms outstretched, twisting at the shoulders as if he were driving a Formula 1 car through a series of chicanes, I would walk up and slap the device onto the ground out of principle. Really? You're going to use a $700+ piece of equipment as a virtual steering wheel in public? That's just unacceptable. Wait until you get home and play Xbox like an adult!

I love Apple. It's up there with my favorite brands: Google, Pixar, Alberton's Generic Oatmeal, etc. I'm loyal to them because they almost always get it right. I still hope that I'm proven wrong about the iPad, however, unless I'm missing something big, it looks like it's poised to be the biggest flop since the last Apple tablet: the Newton. The only way I could imagine someone justifying purchasing this thing is because it's worth the price to them as a status symbol alone. If that happens and the iPad succeeds, the good news will be that the recession is officially over and Americans are ready to start irresponsibly burning cash again!

[See a review of Apple's presentation at Engadget]

[Edit: Additional, damning review from Gizmodo]

Posted via email from Michael Block's Website

Cameras, Phones and Camera Phones

Technological advances in the past fifty years or so have yielded a few trends that appear to be true across many different devices. For example, size seems to be a one-way street. Phones, cameras, music players... they all seem to get smaller, to a certain point, as the technology improves. Even TVs, which get bigger and bigger, still get lighter and slimmer as cathode tubes give way to plasmas and LCDs which will give way to OLEDs.

Another trend that seems to be something of a universal truth is the combination of functions in single devices. Cell phones can play music and take pictures, TVs can hook directly to the Internet and PlayStations double as Blu-Ray players. The demand for convenience and bang-for-your-buck seem to drive these trends and, unless you look carefully, everybody wins.

That is, everybody except the camera.

For some reason, the camera has been left by the wayside, casually forgotten by the side of the road like the ugliest puppy in the litter. Other than being able to take pictures and video, which isn't much of a leap, the camera remains a one-function device. Moreover, cameras have been shoved into everything else. Cell phones, mp3 players, computer monitors, laptops and just about every other hand held device nowadays contains a camera. Mike Birbiglia, one of my favorite comedians, once joked: "...everything's also a camera. They'll be like, 'It's also a camera,' and I'm like, 'I just wanted a grapefruit.'"

The sad truth is that the camera in that grapefruit probably sucks. I still have yet to see a picture or video taken by a cell phone, mp3 player or grapefruit that would rival the quality of a $50 digital camera. The problem, I think, is that we've gone in the wrong direction. We don't need better cameras in our cell phones, we need better cell phones in our cameras!

Ever since Jemaine taped Bret's phone to his camera in Flight of the Conchords, I've been thinking. Recently, I drew up some specs for a new camera that has the full functionality of a camera with the normal, tangible knobs for on/off, zoom and shoot. For these sorts of operations necessary to photography, tangible rather than virtual buttons are necessary. On my camera, however, the screen also doubles as a freakin' cell phone! Check it out:

Guess what else? You could probably play video games, listen to music or surf the internet on this thing, too! I see no reason why we've let cameras become the only monofunctional device and doomed their multifunctionality to second-rate versions.

Let's turn this ship around. I don't want a cell phone that takes crappy pictures; I want a camera that rings and takes calls. Anyone who has dropped an iPhone in the toilet and had to use their Motorola SLVR from 2007 knows that you get the same reception on an old device as a new device. Are you telling me that a camera couldn't compete with 2007 technology?

I refuse to believe it.

I've also been working on a camera that can make waffles, however, I think I still have a few kinks to iron out.