Tutorial: How to use Google Cloud Print
How to use Google Cloud Print
With Google Cloud Print, you can connect your printer to the web and print from anywhere. You can use an internet-connected computer, smartphone or tablet to send documents directly to your Google Cloud-enabled printer.Printing from the cloud is incredibly useful. You could, for example, print a text document while on a train or from a hotel, and have it ready for you as soon as you get home.
You can also use Google Cloud Printing to print a web page directly from the Chrome browser, or save websites and documents as PDFs in Google Docs. You can even share your printer with others on the network, allowing them to print from their own Google accounts.
If you have a printer that's Google Cloud Print-ready out of the box, such as Kodak's Hero range, certain Kodak ESP models, HP's ePrint-capable printers and some recent Epsons, setting up is easy. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for more details.
But it's perfectly possible to set up and use a printer that isn't Cloud-ready with Google Cloud Print. It even works with a non-networked printer connected to your Mac through USB. That's what we're looking at here.
Following this tutorial installs the Google Cloud Print connector on your Mac, after which your 'classic', non-Google-enabled printer can be used for Google Cloud Printing. The initial setup has to be done using Google's Chrome browser. But after that, you can print from a wide range of web applications, and can manage your cloud printing in Safari or Firefox if you wish.
Printing from the cloud can be slow, so don't panic if your Google Cloud Print doesn't instantly appear. And before you start, make sure you have a printer connected to your Mac that's correctly installed and switched on.
How to set up your printer for cloud printing
1. Your Google Account
If you don't already have one, create a Google account. Go to www.google.com/accounts and click the Sign up for a new Google Account link in the top-right corner. Follow the instructions to create your Google Account. If you already have one, sign in.
2. Google Cloud Print
For this step, we need to use Google's Chrome browser. If you don't have it, download at www.google.com/chrome. Launch Chrome, click on the spanner in the top-right corner and select Preferences. Select the Under the Hood tab, found in the list on the left-hand side.
3. Signing in
Scroll down to the foot of the Under the Hood section, and look for Google Cloud Print - it's right at the bottom. Press the Sign in to Google Cloud Print button. You're taken to a screen that invites you to finish registering your printer with Google Cloud Print. Do so.
4. Managing Printers
Your printer is now registered with Google Cloud Print. Click on the Manage your Printers link to be taken to your cloud print page. Here you can see current print jobs, add further cloud printers, share your printers and more. It might be wise to bookmark this page.
5. Print from Chrome
To cloud-print a website from your Chrome browser, select Print from the spanner button, or press Ctrl+P. In the Print column on the left, select Print with Google Cloud Print from the Destination pull-down and press Print. Select the required printer and press Print.
6. Save to Google Docs
To save a Chrome web page to Google Docs as a PDF instead of printing it, follow Step 5, but instead of selecting a printer in the popup window, click on Save to Google Docs before pressing Print. It can then be accessed, printed or downloaded from www.docs.google.com.
7. Upload and Print
To print a document from your hard drive, from the Cloud Print page (www.google.com/cloudprint), press the orange Print button in the top-left corner. From the pop-up menu, select Upload File to Print. Navigate to and open the document, select a printer and press Print.
8. Print Queue
If your Mac or Google Cloud printer is switched off, or your Mac is signed into a different account, you can still submit a print job. It's queued and printed when you next log in. The printer-connected Mac doesn't have to be logged into your Google Account to print.
 |  |
Read More ...
Opinion: Tech constantly evolves - yet so much stays the same
Change, but so much stays the same
Sometimes it strikes me how remarkable it is that technology manages to move so fast, and yet in some ways stay exactly the same.I came across this paradox only last week, when I invested many hours programming with a protocol that's nearly 30 years old for a piece of DIY hardware that encapsulates both old technology and new, in a language that's very modern.
I was writing an editor for a SID-chip synthesizer that uses MIDI to talk to the computer. MIDI, the protocol that many digital musical instruments use to communicate with each other and your PC, is absolutely ancient.
It started life in the late 1970s, and the 1.0 specification was first published back in 1983. Even the latest hardware synthesizers sport two of MIDI's distinctive five-pin DIN ports, one for input and another for output, and with just a couple of fat cables, you could send note data, timing information, custom information and control signals directly over its 31.25kb/s serial connection.
It's slow and cumbersome, but despite the passing of a whole human generation, nothing has ever quite managed to replace it. Even when there's no visible sign of MIDI from the outside and digital musical instruments are capable of generating high quality polyphonic sound from low power ARM CPUs, there's a good chance MIDI is still there, busily humming away to itself somewhere beneath the surface.
And so I found myself digging into binary mathematics, splitting bytes into nibbles and casting significant bits as I tried to write an application to send data to and from an iPad via a synthesizer. I was even using a modern language to encapsulate these MIDI commands, which just made things worse.
In between worrying about objects and scope, I had to accommodate memory offsets for system exclusive data, timing issues for messages sent in parallel and data loss during transmission - all problems you'd expect from an earlier generation of digital computing, not a device at the vanguard of the post-PC revolution.
The trusty old MIDI protocol is still around for one very important reason: it works. It might not be the best option after being shrink-wrapped into RTP and sent down a USB cable. It might be too restrictive and only work with cables of a certain length. But it's precisely those limitations that make it good at doing the job it was designed to do, and it has proved this point by remaining relevant while the world around it has completely changed.
Moving on for the sake of it
The point I'm getting to here is that operating system developers shouldn't be too eager to throw those aspects of their usability out in the rush to make everything look 'touchy'.This is happening with Linux, with both the Gnome and Unity desktops, and Windows 8 looks to be taking plenty of inspiration from touch design. OS X is also likely to incorporate more and more iOS features as time goes on, although I think the gesture support from the Magic Trackpad is quite neat.
Thinking different is a good thing, but being objective is more important. Especially with Linux, those old paradigms have lasted not because they looked brilliant, or because they gave the user all the features they wanted. They've lasted because they simply worked. That's why so many people continue to use Vim and Emacs, staring at monochrome screens and crib sheets of keyboard shortcuts.
Yet they are two text editors that should utterly confound a generation that thinks in 3D and DPI. MIDI could be replaced by the Open Sound Control protocol (OSC). It's immensely flexible, fun to work with, and solves nearly all of the problems I mentioned earlier.
But this flexibility also makes it difficult to work with, especially for musicians. They don't care how difficult MIDI might be to program behind the scenes - they only care that when they connect a MIDI source to a MIDI destination, things happen. You can't easily do that with OSC, and many traditional desktop users can't easily do the equivalent desktop tasks with their new Unity or Gnome Shell desktops.
That certainly doesn't mean they're wrong in what they are trying to do - Mint's awesome Cinnamon update to Gnome is a great example of this compromise, and has the potential to catapult this Linux distribution into the stratosphere because it appeases so many people unhappy with a vanilla Gnome. It just means desktops shouldn't be making their brave new ideas the default option.
It's like forcing synthesizer manufacturers to only support OSC. Instead, new technology should try to convert people from the old way to the new way, carefully convincing them of the advantages, so that when they go back to MIDI or Gnome 2.x, or Windows XP, or mice and keyboards, they wonder how they were ever able to use them.
Until that happens, we're all stuck hacking away at old technology embedded within the new.
| |
Read More ...
AT&T to unlock iPhones with expired contracts on April 8
If you're an iPhone user with an AT&T contract waiting to make the leap to another carrier, your jail breaking days are over.
The wireless service provider announced that on Sunday, April 8 AT&T customers with expired contracts will be able to unlock their phones and use any other service they like — except Verizon.
Seeing that AT&T and T-Mobile operate on GSM networks while Verizon and Sprint operate on CDMA networks, iPhones sold through AT&T have different hardware than those sold through Verizon or Sprint, making it impossible to switch GSM-enabled phones to Verizon.
What's more, there are a few caveats before you liberate yourself. According to a statement from AT&T, "… a customer's account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee."
So in plain English, your account needs to be all paid up, with no long-term contracts, and no outstanding balances.
If you qualify, call AT&T on April 8 for an unlock code. Once you receive the code you'll have the freedom to use a SIM or micro-SIM from another carrier.
From VentureBeat, Engadget
| |
Read More ...
Nokia takes over New York landmark to launch Lumia 900
Nokia' has put a big chunk of cash behind the launch of the Lumia 900, taking over Times Square in New York and hiring an A-list celebrity.
The event, which saw singer Nicki Minaj drafted in as a 'secret guest', featured nine LED displays and 200-foot computer graphics projected over buildings.
The event took more than three weeks to create, and Nokia created a large teaser campaign with a countdown to the show as it seeks to re-launch its brand in the US, with the full light show available to watch on Nokia's Facebook page.
Next generations
The event mirrors the efforts of the Finnish firm to show off the Lumia 800 last year, which saw it project a '4D' display on the side of the Millbank Tower in London.Nokia is pinning its hopes on the Lumia 900, which runs Windows Phone 7.5 and comes with a large 4.3-inch AMOLED screen, to make a splash through its exclusive deal with AT&T.
The Nokia Lumia 900 is set to come to the UK in the coming months, but it's initially been crafted for the US markets thanks to LTE technology on board – and you can check out our early thoughts with our hands on: Nokia Lumia 900 review.
| |
Read More ...
In Depth: How the PC of the future is closer than you think
Ultrabooks and convertibles
PCs have always been fairly easy things to spot: if it has a keyboard, a display, a pointing device, storage and a selection of ports, it's probably a PC.This year, that's going to change.
Keyboards are becoming optional, and incoming technology could render them redundant. Instead of using a pointing device, you might just point, wave or blink.
Magnetic storage is being replaced by solid state storage, and more and more of your data will be stored on faraway servers. PCs are getting thinner and smarter, and evolving into ever more wonderful machines.
Windows 8 coverage
Hands on: Windows 8 review
50 Windows 8 tips, tricks and secrets
Windows 8 on ARM: Steven Sinofsky speaks
Windows 8 tablets: what you need to know
All our Windows 8 content
One thing's for sure: this year, the definition of a PC will have to become more elastic than the Incredible Hulk's purple shorts. Hands on: Windows 8 review50 Windows 8 tips, tricks and secrets
Windows 8 on ARM: Steven Sinofsky speaks
Windows 8 tablets: what you need to know
All our Windows 8 content
Ultrabooks
This year's big PC trend is the Ultrabook, which means an ultra-light, ultra-fast notebook computer that meets Intel's very exacting specifications. The Ultrabook specification comes in three parts.The first phase demands an overall thickness of less than 21mm, a weight of no more than 1.4kg, battery life of at least five hours, a low voltage Sandy Bridge processor (a 1.6 or 1.7GHz Core i5, or a 1.7 or 1.8GHz Core i7) and Intel's HD Graphics 3000. Flash-based solid state drives are recommended but not required, and the whole thing should come in at $1,000 or less.
Phase two, which Intel has set for the first half of 2012, uses Ivy Bridge processors instead of Sandy Bridge, and adds support for USB 3.0 and PCI Express 3.0. Most Ultrabooks have 13-inch displays, but Intel is pushing manufacturers for bigger panels.
Phase two sounds impressive enough, but in 2013 the phase three Ultrabooks will get better still, as Haswell processors, the successors to Intel's Ivy Bridge, promise to offer massively improved energy efficiency for even longer battery life.
As Dave Rogers, consumer marketing manager for Intel EMEA, explains, making very thin portable PCs without compromising performance presents multiple challenges. "The first is to design chips that operate at a thermal design point - that is, they need to give off less heat. That means the cooling challenges are made easier, and this in turn means less space being taken up with cooling solutions such as fans, vents and so on."
It's not just a matter of chucking in an ultra-low voltage processor, though. "Once you have taken steps to deal with the heat, there are the physical dimensions to take care of: the bread and butter length, breadth and depth/height. The more svelte you can make the chips, the better in terms of easing the industrial design constraints."
So how do you put processors on the SlimFast plan? "The first part is taken care of by removing the pins of the CPU and using balls of solder to connect the CPU to the rest of the system," Rogers says.
"Then there is the substrate. The thinner you can make that, the better, and that's why we've put in the time - not to mention money and human resources - into achieving just that. It also helps if you can integrate as many of the components into as few bits of silicon as possible."That's why the second generation Intel Core processors' graphics are integrated into the CPU.
There's more to the Ultrabook than impressive engineering and thin components though. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Intel demonstrated the technologies it thinks will make Ultrabooks a big hit.
There were Ultrabooks using NFC (Near Field Communications), enabling you to pay online by tapping your credit card against your PC; and gesture control, where your Ultrabook's webcam offered gesture recognition to control on-screen elements.
Monkey business
NFC and gesture control have obvious benefits, but some of Intel's other ideas are rather less attractive. In its CES showcase, the company showed Ultrabooks with voice recognition software, which has been available on PCs in various forms since the 1980s, and it defied ergonomics by advocating touchscreens on Ultrabooks.While such screens could be useful for quick swipes and taps, prolonged use of near-vertical touchscreens famously causes Gorilla Arm syndrome, a superb name for the feeling you get when your arm becomes uncomfortable and unwieldy because you're waving it around like a loon. It's also a recipe for irritation when you're prodding an ultra-light device: if your touch isn't light enough, your expensive Ultrabook becomes Captain Wobbly.
Ultrabooks are beautifully engineered, but we can't help thinking Intel is resurrecting some ideas that have been tried before with little success. Take voice recognition, for example.
It's back in the spotlight thanks to Apple's Siri, but what makes that system interesting is the back-end: instead of the familiar model of voice recognition, where the speech data is stored and processed locally, Siri is cloud-based.
That massively expands the amount of data the system can access, the number of users' speech data it can analyse, the processing power it can take advantage of and its ability to do its job properly - unless you're in Glasgow, that is, because at the time of writing Siri doesn't cope well with various UK regional accents, Glaswegian among them.
There's another problem with voice recognition: it needs to work first time, or it becomes infuriating. If you've ever spent an evening bellowing "Xbox!" at a Kinect sensor you'll know that even with dedicated hardware, voice control can be flaky.
That's why, despite speech recognition being built into Windows 7, most of us use keyboards and mice or trackpads.
It's a similar story with touchscreen PCs. They've been around for decades, and they've never sold in significant numbers because of the aforementioned Gorilla Arm, and because their software was designed for keyboard and mouse, not fingertips.
For example, HP has tried very hard with its TouchSmart devices, which are among the very best designed touchscreen Windows PCs you can buy, but Windows 7's touch features are an afterthought, not part of the DNA. That means that despite HP and Microsoft's best efforts, the touch control is fiddly, not fluid.
Windows 8's UI may change that slightly – its Metro interface was designed specifically for touch, and on suitable hardware like Lenovo's IdeaCentre A720, which has a hinge that turns it from desktop PC into something more like a tablet with a near-horizontal surface, it should be a joy to use.
But touch needs to be there from the beginning of the design process for hardware and software. Merely taking features from tablets and grafting them onto normal PCs is a tactic we've seen before, and it usually ends in compromised PCs that add cost and complexity to the manufacturing process without making the hardware significantly better.
Perhaps the answer isn't to try to make PCs more tablet-like. Perhaps the answer is to accept that in many cases, tablets are PCs - because that's where the industry is heading.
Here's a question: what is a PC? It stands for 'personal computer', of course, but to most people it's a very specific kind of personal computer: a desktop, laptop or all-in-one running Windows, OS X or Linux. After that, things get rather murky.
Let's take three examples. First up is the Ultrabook. Is it a PC? It looks like a PC, it's packed with familiar PC components, and it runs Windows by default. There's no argument: an Ultrabook is a PC.
Our second example is a Chromebook, a Google-powered laptop. Purists might quibble because they run ChromeOS, but in almost every respect bar the OS, a Chromebook is identical to a Windows PC. Refusing to accept it as a PC seems rather pedantic.
We think most people would let the Chromebook into a PC party, but would they let a tablet in? If not, where is the line? It can't be the keyboard, because if you sawed the keyboard off an Ultrabook you'd still have a PC. It can't be the lack of magnetic storage, because many PCs have SSDs instead of hard disks. And it can't be the processors, because the latest tablets are packing quad-cores that equal their desktop equivalents.
Is it their ability to play PC games? The Unreal engine runs beautifully on iOS, and we've seen The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim running on Asus's Transformer Prime, albeit streaming rather than rendering in real time.
And we can't discriminate on grounds of OS, because we've already let Chromebooks into our party and they're nibbling at the canapes. With Windows 8 tablets on the horizon, if lack of Windows is the deal-breaker, it won't be for long. As Dave Rogers says, until now we've focused on the 'computer' bit of 'personal computer'. Now it's time to pay more attention to the 'personal' bit.
"'Personal' is the key driver of change," he says. "Once upon a time, the PC was a device where to use it, the user needed to adapt to it. As technology continues to advance, and the performance of devices continues to increase, it is increasingly possible to build devices that adapt themselves to the needs of the user."
Whether they're Ultrabooks, tablets or something else, PCs are evolving into some very interesting shapes.
Cool convertibles
Microsoft is taking a big gamble with Windows 8. Whereas iOS and Android are designed solely for mobile devices and don't try to offer everything a desktop OS does, Microsoft wants Windows 8 to deliver the full Windows experience across a wide range of devices.
One of the most intriguing of these is what Microsoft calls the convertible. In its list of Windows 8 tablet specifications, Microsoft says that the convertible form factor is "defined as a standalone device that combines the PC, display and rechargeable power source with a mechanically attached keyboard and pointing device in a single chassis. A convertible can be transformed into a tablet where the attached input devices are hidden or removed, leaving the display as the only input mechanism."
If Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 is any indication, convertibles could be quite special. The Yoga 13 is a modern twist - no pun intended - on Microsoft's Tablet PC from the beginning of the millennium. It's a 13-inch Ultrabook running Windows 8, but in addition to standard Ultrabook mode it also offers extra options: tent mode, an upside-down V for watching video or reading; and tablet mode, where the screen swings around and turns the device into a tablet, complete with multi-touch.
The Ultrabook form factor and Ivy Bridge processor means it isn't too heavy or power-hungry to be a successful tablet, and Windows 8 means it can offer a stripped-down tablet interface but also do the grown-up PC stuff when you need a Windows laptop. Many devices promise the best of both worlds, but the Yoga looks like it might just deliver it.
The convertible form factor also supports a modular approach, with the tablet as the main device and the keyboard and other components as optional extras. We've seen Asus and Motorola tablets with keyboard docks containing additional ports, full-sized keyboards and additional batteries for longer life, and we're likely to see Windows tablets embracing similar ideas under the Convertible banner.
By moving half the battery and most of the ports and connectors to a dock, tablets can remain sleek, light and eminently portable without sacrificing any expandability.
There's one big problem with tablet docks though, and that's their size: if you dock a 10-inch tablet, you have a 10-inch monitor. For those of us used to larger screens, docks need to be bigger and better.
Thinking big
Much like laptops, tablets are compromise devices: if your priorities are affordability, portability and superb battery life, you're not going to need a 27-inch screen, the most powerful multi-core processors and a ridiculously powerful graphics card.That's not a problem for online shopping, word processing and arguing on Twitter, but graphics professionals, gamers and anybody else with demanding requirements will need a bigger display and a powerful GPU to drive it. Can tablets provide that?
In the short term, the answer is yes - if tablets get Thunderbolt ports and the necessary driver software. Intel's proprietary, high bandwidth interface makes it possible to connect devices to large displays and external GPUs like MSI's forthcoming GUS II.
It's an enclosure for PCI Express graphics cards, and MSI promises that it'll be powerful enough to run an AMD Radeon 5770 HD or equivalent. AMD seems to be thinking along similar lines, but using its own connector, not a Thunderbolt one.
Tablets have another trick up their sleeve: mirroring. The approaches differ - some tablets use HDMI cables, while others employ wireless technology like Apple's AirPlay, or the combination of DLNA and UPnP embraced by Sony's Tablet S, and we'd expect some Windows 8 tablets to embrace Intel's WiDi wireless-TV system when they ship later this year.
Whatever the method, the result is that you can view content on a larger device like an LCD TV. That opens up possibilities beyond mere screen sharing. The tablet could be a second screen, providing information or options that complement the larger display.
Games could use the smaller display for stats, maps or other content while the action takes place above. You could scan your media library on the smaller display without interrupting the larger one, or you could use the tablet as a control surface for your home entertainment kit.
We're already seeing apps that do just that. For example, Zeebox is designed to act as a second screen for TV, helping you chat on Twitter, find out about what's happening on screen and control compatible TVs. BSkyB has a 10 per cent stake in Zeebox and will integrate it into its various Sky apps, including Sky+ and Sky Go.
There's another way in which tablets can act as a window onto a wider world: virtualisation.
Virtual realities
We mentioned earlier that we'd seen Skyrim running on an Android tablet. It wasn't running locally; even quad-core tablets don't have the hardware heft for such a demanding game. It was running on a Windows 7 PC connected to the tablet via Splashtop's streaming software. It was played on the tablet, with commands streamed to the PC and the visuals beamed back via Wi-Fi with no discernible lag.
The PC running Skyrim was local, but if your broadband connection is good enough it needn't be - and that's where services like OnLive come in. OnLive delivers decent streaming gaming to relatively low-powered devices like netbooks and tablets, enabling them to punch way above their weight in PC gaming. It's no substitute for a tricked-out gaming PC, but for casual gaming it's fine.
Games aren't the only things you can virtualise - you can do it with Office too. OnLive's new Desktop service means tablet users don't have to wait for Microsoft to make tablet apps; they can run full-fat Microsoft Office 2010 for free.
The free service is limited - you get Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but not Outlook or OneNote, and it's on a first come, first served basis, so if the servers are busy you're out of luck. But paid-for versions offering guaranteed access are imminent, and several other firms are offering similar Office-on-your-iPad apps.
There are also remote access apps like the excellent LogMeIn, which let tablet users remotely control their PCs and Macs from anywhere with an internet connection.
By outsourcing heavy lifting to cloud-based services, virtualisation makes tablets much more useful. Devices that might struggle to run a software suite locally can let remote servers do all the hard work.
But you can outsource more than software. Increasingly we'll be outsourcing our storage too. It wasn't so long ago that when you made a telephone call, you didn't call a person - you called a building in the hope that the person you wanted to talk to might be there. We're still at that stage with our data - your music, movies, photos and files usually live locally, and if you're away from your PC, you're away from your content too.
Cloud services should do to local storage what mobile phones did to landlines by delivering truly personal computing: your stuff follows you around and is available from anywhere.
Take SkyDrive, one of the key Windows 8 features. It runs through Microsoft's OS like the word 'Blackpool' through a stick of rock, enabling you to upload data to and download data from Microsoft's massive servers. You'll be able to sync settings across multiple devices, store files, access photo albums and so on.
What that means is that your PC is whatever PC you happen to be on; no matter what the machine is or where it's situated, once you log in it's your computer.
Cloud-based storage also reduces the need for huge quantities of local storage, which is handy for ultra-thin, flash-based devices because solid state storage is relatively expensive.
Microsoft isn't the only big firm banking on the cloud: Lenovo's at it with the Lenovo Personal Cloud service, while Acer's AcerCloud and Apple's iCloud also offer cloud-based storage and synchronisation. There's also a thriving industry of third-party offerings like Dropbox, SugarSync and FilesAnywhere.
Microsoft suggests that in years to come, PC may stand for 'personal cloud', not 'personal computer'. Omar Shahine, group product manager for SkyDrive, identifies three kinds of cloud: file clouds, device clouds and app clouds.
File clouds are essentially Windows Explorer in space: they present your data using the familiar combination of files and folders, letting you access and share your content from anywhere. Dropbox, Windows Live Mesh and SkyDrive fall into this first category.
The second category, device clouds, effectively hide the folders from you. "These clouds work behind the scenes so people can easily buy and use multiple devices (phones, PCs, TVs and slates) - working or playing across them without thinking about where content is stored," Shahine says. "Today, device clouds are often proprietary to a brand or OS. The best known example is iCloud."
Then there are app clouds. Google Docs is an example of an app cloud, as is notes and clippings service Evernote. App clouds also encompass media services like Netflix, Pandora and Spotify. Cloud services lend themselves well to media delivery, whether that media is small ebooks or enormous HD videos.
Netflix and LoveFilm streams movies and TV programmes, Apple's iTunes Match streams music, and Amazon's Kindle ebooks flit from phone to tablet to PC whenever you fancy something to read. They're clever services and work really well - if your connection's up to the job.
If we're going to be trusting everything to the cloud, we'll need better connections not just indoors, but outdoors too.
Cables and wireless
If you're connected to wired broadband, things are looking up: BT Infinity's roll-out of fibre-optic broadband is ahead of schedule, Virgin Media has announced that its 50Mb customers will be upgraded to 120Mb broadband this year, and while things aren't perfect - some rural areas still struggle with sub-2Mbps speeds, and even some faster services are subject to traffic management during peak periods - the average UK broadband speed is creeping up.Broadband.co.uk reported in December that its users had an average speed of 7.58Mbps. The weak link in many homes is wireless. While 802.11n Wi-Fi is technically capable of speeds up to 300Mbps, real-world speeds are considerably lower - and the more devices you have on the network, the more the speed suffers.
That's not an issue if you're hooking an 802.11n router up to an 8Mbps broadband connection, but when you're measuring speeds in tens or even hundreds of megabits, you might not get the maximum speed.
802.11ac, aka 5G Wi-Fi, is set to change that by delivering gigabit speeds over wireless networks. As with other wireless technologies, 802.11ac will be somewhat slower than advertised, but at this year's CES Buffalo demonstrated a router achieving actual throughput of 800Mbps.
Things are less exciting when you venture outdoors. While much of the rest of the world has 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband, the best the UK can offer is 21Mpbs 3G HSPA+. Once again that's a theoretical maximum, and in practice 3G users average speeds of around 1.5Mbps.
4G promises to take speeds into double figures, with average speeds of around 15Mbps, but it'll be a while before that happens. Bickering between mobile operators in October forced Ofcom to delay the UK's 4G spectrum auction by six months, and while the regulator is adamant that the auction will definitely take place this year, that means it'll be 2014 or 2015 before significant numbers of us have access to 4G mobile phone networks.
Maybe that's a blessing in disguise; 4G LTE is a notorious battery hog, so perhaps we'll have better batteries and more efficient devices by the time we get it.
Driving forward
PCs and cars don't usually go together. High-tech cars tend to use embedded systems like Windows Embedded Automotive, which powers services like Ford SYNC, Kia UVO and Fiat Blue&Me, rather than fully-fledged PCs, but that may change as our cars become more connected.
Intel's already working on it: "Take for example, the scenario that you have a smartphone with calendar information in it and that you have an appointment somewhere outside of your normal routine," Dave Rogers says.
"Perhaps you would want that smartphone to send that information to your car's sat-nav, which would then search the best route based on time of day, roadworks and so on, and have it ready for when you left. This is an example of what Intel calls a Compute Continuum, where devices - all of which have compute capability - can interact with each other in a seamless, secure, and unobtrusive manner."
We've already seen smartphone apps supplant standalone hardware for many uses. Smartphone navigation apps can be as good as (and in some cases better than) dedicated devices, and in-car wireless hotspots could help bring car and computer closer together.
BMW's ConnectedDrive and Audi's Audi Connect both provide in-car Wi-Fi hotspots for your devices, although at present that's to keep your passengers amused rather than replace in-car entertainment systems or sat-nav.
Volkswagen has bigger ideas: its Bulli concept minivan used an iPad to control almost everything bar the driving. The docked iPad controlled the heating and air conditioning, the navigation system, hands-free calling and even the hazard lights.
Like most concept cars, the Bulli was designed to get people talking rather than show the immediate future of in-car electronics, but tablets are coming to cars near you. In December, Renault announced that it would incorporate 7-inch touch screen tablet PCs in some of its 2012 Zeo and Clios in France, and possibly in other markets too.
The tablets, dubbed R-Link, aren't removable - Renault doesn't want to provide anything too nickable - but they control the stereo, take care of sat-nav duties and tell you how green your driving is (or isn't).
Volkswagen's forthcoming Up! city car has a tablet mounted on the dashboard called Maps+More, which you can take with you to find your way around on foot.
The problem with such devices is that they're proprietary. If car firms had taken the same approach with in-car MP3 players, we'd have a mass of branded, obsolete devices in every vehicle. If tablets and cars have a long term future together, tech and car firms will have to agree on a standard to support.
The future of interfaces
The advent of touchscreen devices has transformed personal computing, and according to Gartner's Van Baker it "will be one of the most disruptive technologies of the decade". Research director Angela McIntyre elaborates: "The immediacy and simplicity of the multitouch user interface is compelling to users, regardless of their technical proficiency."
The combination of touch input and touch-oriented interfaces like Windows 8, Apple's iOS, Microsoft's Surface or Google's Android is powerful because it does something important: it hides the computer. With traditional desktop operating systems there's a layer of technology between you and what you want to do: the OS is a middle man whose job is to interpret what you want the computer to do.
Touch-based operating systems still do that, but they do it invisibly. Take photos, for example. When you're browsing a photo library, your natural impulse is to point at the one you want to see next. To achieve that on a traditional desktop OS there's a lot of mousing and clicking, but with a touch-based OS you swipe, point or prod.
Tablet-toting tots have become a YouTube cliche, but there's no doubt that when it's done properly, a touch-based OS means computing isn't something you have to learn, it's something you just do.
Hiding the computer is significant for all kinds of reasons. As Angela McIntyre points out, it opens up computing to people who are "less familiar with technology - often people who are less educated and with lower incomes", it's much more accessible for people with disabilities that limit their dexterity, and it's useful in countries where the native language uses non-Western characters - scribbling on a touchscreen is much more intuitive than messing around with a keyboard. "Touch interfaces will enable more people with disabilities to be included in the workforce," McIntyre writes.
IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Center develops innovations in touch interfaces, which when combined with other assistive technologies, makes it possible for a wider range of people to earn an income.
A key characteristic of emerging devices is 'multi-modal interfaces' that seamlessly link multiple input options, like voice, touch, pressure and gestures." McIntyre predicts that gesture control will be an increasingly common control mechanism. "Gartner has a Strategic Planning Assumption that by 2016, half of consumers in mature markets will wave more frequently to their digital devices than to their friends," she writes.
Microsoft's Kinect is a key technology here, especially now that it's coming to Windows, but even basic camera hardware can track simple gestures like waving or grabbing. Intel reckons speech will be important too, and it's probably right - although we suspect that massively powerful cloud-based recognition will have the edge over local software - and of course, keyboards will be around for a long time too.
"Touch can be more intuitive than a mouse, particularly for content consumption and navigation," Rogers says. "However, people also want to be creative and productive and right now the keyboard is still a better data entry device than a touch screen."
The eyes have it
One of the most intriguing interface ideas is the stuff of science fiction: eye tracking. Eye tracking specialist Tobii Technology already makes a range of devices to help people with mobility or literacy problems use PCs, and it believes the technology is relevant to mainstream users too.
To demonstrate it in action, it has built two unusual bits of kit: an arcade cabinet with a game of Asteroids, and a Windows 8 PC - both controlled by eye movements.
Sara Hyléen is Tobii's corporate marketing manager. She believes eye tracking is more natural than multi-touch on a typical PC. With multi-touch, "you still have to take the intermediary step of finding the mouse pointer and moving it to the place on the screen where you want to click. However, with [eye tracking] you simply don't have to take that extra step. Since you are already looking at the link or item that you want to click on, you just have to give the command."
Tobii's technology is called Gaze, and it's designed to speed things up by working in conjunction with your existing input devices. "You just give any command on the track pad (click, swipe, zoom, and so on) while focusing on the target with your gaze. When zooming you will auto-centre on the right spot, when clicking you will get super-fast response; when swiping you will get the feeling that you are virtually reaching out to the screen without having to lift your arm to touch it."
Eye tracking isn't about replacing the mouse, it's about speeding up other features. For example, you might bring up a screen showing open application and document windows and select the one you want by looking at it.
"The neat thing is that this can be applied not just to open documents, but to any layer in your information structure," Hyléen says. "Files, folders, programs, all the way up to slides in a slideshow presentation, Excel spreadsheets or layers in your photo editing software."
Hyléen suggests that CAD, graphic design, imaging and gaming would be good candidates for eye tracking. If you're thinking it sounds like Kinect for your eyeballs, you'd be right - and like Kinect, you'll need dedicated hardware.
"To get the accuracy and robustness needed for an interactive Gaze interface you have to use a dedicated eye tracking system," Hyléen says. Tobii's hardware uses near-infrared illuminators, image sensors and processing hardware. "A webcam cannot offer this capability."
There's another input device that you might not even recognise as such: simple sensors. "Gesture and voice control are more akin to the way humans communicate, and so also provide options for additional interaction with the device," Rogers says. "Add to the mix sensor-based technologies that allow proactive management of our environments, and the options for the device to become increasingly personalised and contextually aware are also increased. What we're talking about here is personalised computing."
Your PC will be the centre of a wider world, connecting wirelessly to all kinds of devices. It might even keep an eye on your health.
Bluetooth
The latest iteration of Bluetooth wireless communication, Bluetooth Smart, introduces a new kind of connected device: smart monitors.Bluetooth Smart's combination of decent range and ultra-low power consumption makes it well suited to single-issue devices like heart rate monitors, pedometers and other simple bits of kit, or to connecting domestic appliances for home monitoring and automation.
It's important to take automated home promises with a big pinch of salt, as we've been promised such wonders since the 1930s. However, now that the cost of adding sensors and automation to domestic goods is plummeting, we might just see the Android-controlled lightbulbs LightingScience demoed at last summer's Google I/O conference.
The problem with entirely automated homes is incompatible standards. Will your Samsung PC play nice with a Zanussi fridge, Sony TV or Hotpoint Cooker, or will we end up with a mess of supposedly smart kit that only talks to a few selected partners?
History suggests the latter - and the rise of multiple, closed ecosystems from the likes of Apple and Amazon suggests that history's right.
Complete control
The rise of tablets has made computing easier, more friendly and fun, and cloud computing has made it more powerful. In effect, general purpose PCs are being supplanted by a new breed of devices that could be called 'information appliances' - and that's got people worried, because it means letting others control what we can do with our computers.
Take Windows 8 running on ARM devices, for example. On such systems Microsoft prohibits the disabling of secure booting, and any operating system loader must be signed by Microsoft; where x86 Windows 8 buyers can do whatever they want with their PCs, ARM purchasers will find themselves unable to run any OS bar Windows 8.
That's not a Microsoft-only strategy: iPads, BlackBerry PlayBooks and Galaxy Tabs are locked to prevent fiddling, and while Motorola and HTC don't prevent you unlocking their tablets, doing so voids the warranty.
Then there's app approval. On platforms like iOS or the Kindle Fire, your choice of apps depends on what Apple and Amazon have approved; while the Kindle Fire is technically an Android device, it's forked and uses Amazon's app store instead of the Android Market. Access to cloud-based media is subject to the whims of the service provider, and purchased content tends to have digital rights management (DRM) locking it to a specific platform.
Amazon has built a whole business on DRM: its Kindle ebooks work on Amazon hardware and in its apps, but not on rival e-readers. The trend is towards an ecosystem where the OS you use, the content you can access and the software you can install is decided by the hardware manufacturer and enforced by digital locks, and where the content you can access online is filtered and blocked in the name of preventing copyright infringement.
For many people that's a trade-off worth having - forcing every program through an approval process makes life difficult for malware, and blocking potentially dodgy websites can prevent your kids from downloading infected files - but for others it's part of a war on general purpose computing.
One of the biggest critics of the information appliance model is novelist and digital activist Cory Doctorow, who writes:
"Today we have marketing departments that say things such as 'we don't need computers, we need appliances. Make me a computer that doesn't run every program, just a program that does this specialised task, like streaming audio, or routing packets, or playing Xbox games, and make sure it doesn't run programs I haven't authorised that might undermine our profits.'
Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policies for them; to examine and terminate the software processes that runs on them; and to maintain them as honest servants to our will, not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks."
It's a terrifying prospect, but it's important to keep things in perspective. The vast majority of PCs sold aren't locked down and don't limit software to approved apps, and that will be the case for years to come. If Microsoft blocks access to unapproved Windows apps or Apple makes the OS X App Store the only way to distribute Mac software then we'll have a problem - and so will they, because any such move would cause uproar.
The future
So what does the future hold for the PC? Gartner's Angela McIntyre thinks it will be increasingly tablet-shaped."During the next five to 10 years, media tablets will instigate change in computing form factors," she writes. "Modular designs will enable tablets to take on new functions, becoming the cross-platform controller and brain for hybrid consumer electronics and computers.
Tablets will be substitutes for several of the consumer electronics consumers often carry with them. Thin-and-light mobile PCs with tablet-like features will become mainstream, pushing out some bulkier PC styles that have been the norm. Gartner has the Strategic Planning Assumption that in 2015, the biggest distinction between connected TVs, all-in-one desktops and tablets will be the screen size."
"When one looks across consumer electronics, mobile communication and PC industries, there is significant evidence of technology innovation aimed at delivering the ultimate personal consumer device - smartphone, tablet, PC, as well as embedded devices capable of operating seamlessly,"
Dave Rogers says. "Usage models, ergonomics and personal preference will play a very significant role in determining individual consumer choice." Perhaps the future of the PC is one where we have multiple bits of hardware connected to the same services and the same data, but all meeting specific needs.
"What seems to matter to consumers is that devices fit their needs, and that if multiple devices are needed, then they are happy to have multiple devices provided each does their job well," Rogers says.
Rather than one do-everything device, many of us will have multiple devices: an ultraportable notebook for work, perhaps, or an all-in-one family PC, a large tablet for the sofa, and a small one for the car. It's still a personal computer, but one that flits from device to device according to where you are, what you're doing and what happens to be handy.
That means we'll see a dizzying range of devices. Some PCs will have keyboards, others multi-touch, still others speech recognition, gesture control or eye tracking. Some will process locally and others will use the cloud; some will go everywhere you do, and others will stay in your living room.
The next generation of PCs mean that computing will become more personal than ever.
| |
Read More ...
Available Tags:Google , Nokia ,
No comments:
Post a Comment