This past week, I attended and presented at a conference for Adaptive Technologists. This is my official geek-tech title. I work with people, primarily students, with disabilities, providing technical solutions to their accessibility needs. This is the premier conference for geeks like me, and I spend the entire week networking with others who do what I do. Usually our keynote speaker is someone from the disability services community — a counselor at a school, or head of a deaf institute or something along those lines.

This year, we had Dr. T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, from Google, Inc. The title of his keynote was Cloud Computing — Access Opportunity and Challenge. Dr. Raman spoke extensively about how cloud computing was the goal for the future, and that anyone who wasn’t headed toward that goal was going to be left behind. He also spent considerable time talking about how cloud computing could be the answer to the accessibility needs of our disabled population, in a way current software providers were not. Dr. Raman, blind since the age of 14, believes that accessibility should be, and will be built into future applications. Instead of a blind user having to purchase specialized (and expensive) software to work across all platforms and applications, the platforms and apps themselves will house the accessibility functions within them. This means that no special device or extra software will be required by anyone to use any application on any platform.

For a non-disabled person, it may not be clear what an advantage such innovation would be. Right now, a blind user is best equipped to do everything a sighted person can do only with their own laptop/computer/iPhone loaded with specialized (often expensive) software that allows them to “read” what they need to read. Imagine then, if the operating system, or the app being used, included adaptive technology built-in? That would mean that blind user could use anyone’s computer, anyone’s smart phone, and do what they needed to do. Imagine the freedom that this would bring. Expand that for low-vision users, for deaf users (built-in closed captioning on all multi-media), mobility impaired users, and virtually any other impairment, and you’ve got a whole new audience ready to use your apps.

And this was Dr. Raman’s message, the future he was seeing. He didn’t mention specifically a Google operating system at the time, but most of us have seen this as a potential future for a long time. Today we are told that a Google Chrome operating system will be released in late 2010. Featuring a much friendlier interface than most Linux installs, plus a decreased memory footprint and the expanded use of cloud computing, this has the potential to bust wide open access for a chunk of our population that is currently limited for many reasons. Accessibility software like Jaws for Windows or Zoomtext can cost a thousand dollars a pop; imagine getting that functionality built into the operating system or application being used.

Dr. Raman’s assertion that cloud computing is our future is pretty spot-on. Many of us are using cloud computing in substantial ways already, either through the use of Google Docs, through cloud storage like quanp and Dropbox, and organization systems like Microsoft OneNote. Why are we using them? Because they aren’t platform-dependent, and they are readily available to us as long as we have an Internet connection on the device we are using.

The Google Chrome operating system promises to be a huge leap towards cloud computing as a standard practice, something neither Apple nor Microsoft have truly embraced with any sort of gusto. It took the brains at Google to take this idea and make it real. They already made a huge leap with the release of the Android software for smartphones, and now for netbooks. The times, they are a’changing, and Google seems to be ahead of the curve. We’ve been asking for this for years; our mobile society no longer wants to be tethered to hardware, to desks, even to offices. And if the old standards no longer apply, then we must embrace new ones.

Dr. Raman was a dynamic and fascinating speaker. Many of his presentations and interviews are available online; simple searches should find them. I encourage everyone to take a listen (or read) what he has to say.

“There are businesses that want to make sure they keep making money by having cures that fix the last one, but not the next one.”

The above quote is from Dr. Fred Cohen, President of the California Sciences Institute, and inventor of the first ever computer virus over 26 years ago. He was speaking specifically about how virus prevention software builders are working only towards having cures, but not really towards prevention. This got me to thinking. How many of the patches and upgrades we install are done as an eye for fixing an existing problem, rather than preventing future problems?

As geek-tech workers, a more-than-fair amount of our time is spent putting out fires. Malware infected machines, network cables that have gotten chewed by mice or a rolling desk chair, trying to find a replacement cable for that syncing device that has been lost. Imagine how much time we’d have back if we weren’t busy putting out fires, and instead were looking for ways to keep us from having fires to put out in the first place.

One of my biggest beefs these days is the variety of cables needed for all the devices we have. My iPod has one type of syncing cable, my electronic note-taking tablet another, and the camera a completely different one. Then there’s the very strange cable that belongs to my Sony Ericsson phone, and the very odd mini-cable that goes to my Kindle DX. When I traveled last week, there were five different cables in my laptop case to accommodate the multiple devices I was carrying. When I set up for my presentation, my laptop’s USB ports were completely full with all of these devices as I demonstrated syncing and updating onto these multiple devices from my laptop. It was a virtual spaghetti factory up there on the podium, and I could not just plug in one cable and rotate devices around, there was a different cable for each one. No wonder people are always losing cables.

Standardization of cables and chargers would go a long way toward preventing problems these types of problems. So does decent cable management (what does it look like under your desk right now?). And in the case of malware/viruses, why aren’t we, as geek-techs, demanding that programs prevent infection, rather than cure it? If Dr. Cohen is right, and I believe he is, we are actually setting ourselves up for more fire-fighting in the future. And while that does create some measure of job security for all of us, it sure would be nice to come to work and do actual planning and development, instead of dealing with crisis after crisis.

I have announced my tentative date for the 24hr Podcast, lots to cover between then and now. But as always it is my pleasure to do that 24hr show. Need to pick a charity for this year. Suggestions are welcome. Production of the video portion of the show is really improving, have a few more things to work out but I am happy with process. Back to a normal show flow next show.

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Show Notes:
Why Microsoft has lost the mobile phone market!
Are you using Dropbox I want to hear your opinion!
It is time for Personal Servers in fact it’s overdue!
Sony rolls out its own Music, Movie store.
Apple needs to really ready this!
Captions on YouTube
Extra Benefit of YouTube Captions.
Google Phone.
PeerNews launching in Hawaii!
Shuttle at ISS all is well.
Yahoo to Index Twitter Immediately!
14 Free Mac Developer Apps.
Apple and Others Quality Control.
FTC going after Fraudulent Check printer.
Azure comes out of Beta Jan 1st!
Are these folks stealing from you?
Pirate Bay Alive and Well!
California to add Border checks for TV’s
The REAL Mars research game!
Smile for the Camera Please!
What are you doing is no What’s Happening!
Hypocrites!
Going Free doubles a companies Business.
Senate to put Hammer down on Phrama, Professors and Book Publishers!
Walmart new Copyright Police!
The destruction of Live Music in America!
Tradeup to Bluray for $15.00?
Hackintosh back in Action on Atom!
Windows 7 Sales Explosive!
Check WiFi on American Airline Flights!
Google Chrome the Announcement!
Google Chrome OS do I really want this?
Will this list support Google Chrome OS?
Windows Home Server Update Coming!
Pandora has amazing conversion rates!
Sprint 4G you gotta get better than this?
EFF Goes after Podcasting Patent in Big way!

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Over the past 6 months I have been an proponent of the Mophie Juice Pack Air. For those that do not know, your iPhone slides into the Juice pack and when you are getting low on power you throw the switch on the bottom of the Juice Pack Air and your phone starts charging.

They are not cheap they run about $80.00 dollars. All was well up to last week when my Juice Pack Air that is less than 6 months old stopped taking a charge. It was good in the morning bad in the evening. I had not dropped the phone or had anything similar happen to it.

I use the Juice Pack Air on a daily basis as I am always killing the battery to my phone after 8-10 hours our usage. I was in Best Buy this weekend and grabbed a new charger and for a couple of days it worked as advertised.

Yesterday I started getting error messages on my iPhone that the device attached to it, which was the Mophie Juice Pack Air was not compatible and the phone refused to take a charge from the new Juice Pack Air.

My plan is to take the new unit back to Best Buy and exchange it. But honestly I have lost confidence in the brand. Doing a Google search I can tell that I am not alone and a lot of people are having the same issues I am.

The folks at Apple need to take a closer look at this companies quality control. In the mean time I am telling all my geeky friends, buyer beware to existing owners keep the sales receipt handy for return of your unit. Sadly I am left with a brick because I cannot find the original receipt for the first unit.

Are you willing to pay for the news. That is what Rupert Murdoch maybe betting on. Rupert Murdoch is the owner of a media empire which includes the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. Lately he has been talking about removing his news empire from Google Search and putting them behind a pay wall

Clearly for this to work it would depend on if people are willing to pay for their news. I found an article on Technologizer that said that 45% of people surveyed were willing to pay for news. When I saw this article red flags immediately went up in my head, based on what I had previously heard and read. I wanted to find out more about this survey. The original article came from the New York Times, upon reading the Times’ article I found that the survey was done by the Boston Consulting Group.

I went to their Web site, where there was a fuller explanation of the survey. People are willing to pay for the news, but only under narrow and specific circumstances. This is the key paragraph that the New York Times and Tech chose to ignore.

“• Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents)

• Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents)

• Conveniently accessible on a device of choice.”

Consumer, however are not willing to pay for news that is freely available all over the Internet. The consumers that are most willing to pay for their news are those that are already paying for newspaper. I suspect that this is an older and increasingly smaller audience. Even if consumer are willing to pay for their subscription, they are not willing to pay enough to make up for the lost of advertisement that newspapers have been dealing with. A pay wall might slow the decline but it will not stop it. The only way that newspapers can survive is to adapt to the new world, the old model is no longer viable and to try to save it is doom to fail

Never let your Audio recorder start doing a Virus Scan in the middle of the show. 15 minutes had to be re-recorded tonight which sucks.. You know me no editing but when the audio was blank I had to do it twice. Probably better the second time around anyway.

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