Technology

Feb 7 2007

The Super Highway Traffic Jam

The Internet is getting busier and busier. According to Deloitte & Touche, they predict that this year will have greater traffic on the Internet than its capacity to serve it. Their reason for them stating this is that the number of Internet users have increased enormously along with an increase in streaming video (which is quite a bandwidth hog). The Internet backbones have failed to make the upgrade to be able to handle the future digital traffic jam.

The costs of building Internet infrastructures are multi-billion dollar projects. This is one reason why there is hesitation in upgrading existing systems. A major slow down in Web traffic could also justify creating a two-tiered Internet (see Free As In Internet Freedom). This is a battle currently being waged by net neutrality advocates.

No matter what happens, Internet infrastructres will need to be upgraded. Bandwidth and usage will continuosly increase. People will soon be downloading high capacity DVD media, which can 25 GB or greater in size. We’re going to need a faster Internet and larger hard drives to be able to store all these things.

By Johan • Technology • 0

Jan 22 2007

The New Amiga

I remember back in the mid 1980′s when I first saw an Amiga. At that time I had an IBM PCjr with 16-colour graphics and 3-voice sound. I thought that was pretty impressive compared to the 4-colour graphics and beeper speaker on PC’s.

When Commodore Business Machines introduced the Amiga, it was a revolutionary new computer. It was better than anything that came from IBM or Apple. The Amiga could display 32, 64, or 4096 colours. It had 4 channel stereo sound and preemptive multitasking. At the time, the only other serious competitor in the 32-bit arena was the monochrome Macintosh with its tiny monitor. The Amiga truly was ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, due to various reasons Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994 and the Amiga was discontinued. However, the Amiga never disappeared. It was purchased by one company after another. Today, you can buy an AmigaOne PowerPC motherboard from Eyetech.

The OS continued to be improved as well. Hyperion Entertainment recently released AmigaOS 4.0. This was the result of a 5 year effort on producing a powerful multimedia operating system.

Its good to see this computer making a come back. I hope it continues the tradition of leading the pack instead of creating a “me-too” system. Now only if someone would bring back the Atari ST computers. Then we can have 4 systems competing with each other like back in the 80′s.

By Johan • Technology • 1

Jan 22 2007

800 lb (363 Kg) Gorilla Getting Heavier

We’re seeing Linux appear in more and more places. Its gradually gaining market share but I think its still a long way off from seriously competing with Microsoft. This is due to the user hostile nature of installing software on it and the user interface needs a lot of work. Not to mention the lack of a good office suite (OpenOffice isn’t as good Microsoft Office) and a lack of good development tools. If you can program in C++ or Java, Linux is great. If you want an easy to use a programming environment like Visual Studio, your out of luck.

But there’s hope. Today, the Open Source Developer Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group announced that they will be merging into The Linux Foundation. Its members have to approve this first but I can’t see it not happening.

Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the new group, stated that the organization would be a “safe haven for developers”. The foundation’s purpose will be protecting software developers from intellectual property threats, working with trademarks, and the elusive goal of standardizing Linux. This could be difficult since the largest players would like to set their own standards.

The Linux Foundation has the support of IBM, HP, Intel, Oracle, and Novell. All of them no doubt would like to see Linux grow at Window’s expense.

We have to wait and see what this new group will be able to achieve. Competition is good for business and in the long run, the consumer benefits from better, more innovative products.

By Johan • Technology • 2