AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

We're at a Japanese restaurant in Pasadena, CA on a busy Friday night (I should be able to make it home in time for the NASA moon launch tonight - if not, I'll watch it on my phone). Even at this time, there is a long line of people waiting for their turn to be seated. I like the people here. The servers work very hard, running around. I got to thinking. While it is good to have some interaction with the servers who are always smiling, it would sure help with efficiency if I could order via a dedicated app, leaving the servers to waste as little time running around. It's my understanding many establishments already equip their servers with Android devices or iPads to enter orders. How cool is that right? Even so, those places are in the minority. What I want, a dedicate app would go beyond ordering food. If I need a refill, more napkins, or need to order something else, I can use the app instead of trying to get the attention of our servers. And one more thing, specials. S...

JAVRIS, if you're not aware, is Tony Stark's version of Siri but vastly better. It's what Siri should be and more. Well, we are a long way off from that. However, Marvel Comic, owned by Disney, will be releasing a JAVRIS app for the iOS platform. Now, don't get excited. It's an app that will simulate some of the Iron Man look and feel at best. It will not work like that in the movie. However, as an inspiration, Apple should look to JAVRIS in the Iron Man movies and strive to make Siri like the digital assistant. Right iOS version does some stuff that Siri already does with ease - messages, weather, etc. But it sounds like real purpose of JAVRIS is for Marvel to sell ringtones and the movie to users. It is unlike enough for me to download and keep using it. However, I do hope that the head of the Siri team watched the Iron Man movies and will get his team working on a JAVRIS-like Siri. Source: iMore . - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This is posted from Clouding Around on NASA's moon launch of the LADEE to study its thin atmosphere.  You can download the  Ustream app (iTunes)  to view it on your mobile.  Whatever you're doing on a Friday night, it's probably worth dropping for a few minutes to watch this live launch.  How often can you say you witness a mission to the moon? -- NASA is due to launch the  Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer  around 2330 (11:30 PM EST).  According to NASA's page, "LADEE, managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., is scheduled for launch at 11:27 p.m. EDT on Sept. 6 from Pad 0B at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE, pronounced like "laddie") is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmenta...

There was chatter all over the Internet earlier this week about the discovery of a new 17 Watt charger that Apple is working or already is sitting around ready to go.  Hence, the immediate reaction is "wow, new product!" Maybe.  That was my reaction and hope.  But saying and thinking it doesn't make it so.  Which is why we also have to consider other explanations. Extensions offered just one such plausible and likely scenario.  Apple figured out a way to add more charge and improve battery capacity within the same confines of the iOS form factor and requires a bigger and more capable charger. I am assumed that this is for an iOS device, probably the new iPad because Apple may have fit more battery inside that thin body but needs a better charger to charge it. So, there you go.  What do you think?  Is the 17 Watt charger for a new product or for the iPad because it now has a bigger battery? I want to get into this more because it's fun to spe...

Let's be honest.  There is no brand recognition in consumer device that rival that of Apple.  Sure, we speak of Samsung as if it is in the same league.  It's not.  Not even close. The top line of the Galaxy S devices come close to one of Apple's iPhone.  Google is recognize as a brand only because of its search.  However, Microsoft is unique in that Windows is freaking everywhere even as the PC market slows and shrinks. This why even as Apple battles Android devices in the mobile market, there has never been a fear of the Galaxy or Nexus brand overshadowing the iPhone.  Nor doe Google fear Apple's iCloud effort.  I mean, what a joke compared to Google apps, right? Even as Microsoft's mobile and cloud efforts made Redmond looks confused and dazed, it is nevertheless a confused and dazed giant.  A very rich one at that. If Surface 2 fails, it's like Microsoft has one more chance.  That will be its own Lumia phone.  Not the ones ...

KGI analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, has made a name for himself.  Alone, he has out predicted other fellow analysts and tabloid-like tech press like Digitimes.  And he's come out with more just days from Apple's iPhone event and weeks from new iPad unveiling. You can read the rest on Macrumors .  It's plausible and makes sense to me. I've got only one issue with this.  The lower-cost iPad mini Kuo focused on.  I think we will see it on 2013 and it's last year's iPad mini at a lower price. It's unlikely that the Retina Display iPad mini will cost more than $330.  If anything, it'll take over that price point which is what the 2012 iPad mini cost when it first debut and even now.  This will allow Apple to lower the 2012 mini down to $280, maybe even $250 - one can only hope. Kuo seems to suggest that Apple will offer a mini in 2014 that is different from the current iPad mini.  We had all assumed that the mini pricing model will follow that of the iP...

Source: Cult of Mac . Yesterday, we found out that Apple will be hosting an iPhone launch even just for China (also analyzed the reasons why a Chinese event makes sense for Apple).  Apparently, not just China. Berlin, London, and Tokyo will also have their own events as well.  While such events hosted by Apple has occurred in the past, the Chinese one remains the most important in recent memory.  There's talk that Apple could announce China Mobile with its 700 million customers as a partner.  No seventy million.  Seven hundred million, as in three hundred million short of a billion. However, I'm still on the fence about it.  If something was afoot, Weibo, the Chinese rumors and Twitter-like social network, would have caught on by now.

I don't want to get into the rumors game but boy, the following video of a comparison between the mini back cases versus the case of what we all think the full sized 9.7" redesigned iPad is going to look.  Looks awfully close to what we want. I know probably real but I kinda want to put this in the rumor category.  However, I also think it's a good speculation on what we think the next iPad and iPad mini will look like.  We assumed two things.  The new 2013 mini will look like the 2012 iPad mini.  Also, we assumed the redesigned iPad will look like a bigger sized iPad mini with thinner bezel. Watch the video and judge for yourself.  We are probably a month away from finding out what is what when Apple unveils the 2013 iPad.  And no, it won't happen on 9/10.  Rather, Apple will set up a separate fall event for the iPads and probably the Macbook Pro as well.

There is a sense of pride in that Nokia is a Finnish company.  And Nokia's dominance for years fueled that pride.  At the same time, I'm sure some of the neighbor states in the EU for years felt the same on some level.  With Nokia faltering in the smartphone race, more and more users switched to using Android and the iPhone. But now, with Nokia's mobile division now firmly in the hands of an American company, Microsoft, it likely has freed more users to abandon any allegiance to the Finnish brand, seeing the buyout as a green light to look and switch to another brand and mobile platform. No matter what Microsoft/Nokia announced in the last month, with the Nokia 1020 and its crazy 41 MP camera (I'm very jealous mine's only 8MP - with that big of a difference, size matters), and whatever will be out for the 2013 Christmas season, it will make a large segment of the consumers feel uneasy about a floundering platform that may not go anywhere even if it is Microsoft ...

Source:  My friend (who I thought was yanking my chain),  SCPR . It's been a while but I can now once again say, "I can't wait for school to start".  This is just a one course, online, class created by University of California at Irvine (south of Los Angeles).  It's in cooperation with  AMC to create a The Walking Dead  online course to teach about what lessons we can learn from the highly rated zombie-apocalyptic series now entering its fourth season. I could not believe it when my friend told me she heard it on her drive into work on radio.   Here's the thing that is so interesting.  This isn't the first time that anyone has ever used zombies to create buzz to educate the public.  There have been other college courses that have used zombies.  Also, the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  also used zombies as a case study to prepare for disasters.   Also,  the US military  has used zombies...

This is just speculation on my part and nothing more.  I just need to mention that before things get out of control. Now, Apple will be holding a press event to introduce the next iPhone and whatever goodies it has in store for us.  However, hours later, that day or the next, Apple is due to host a separate event on the other side of the planet, on the continent of Asia, specifically, in China. It's like that Apple wants to let the Chinese feel that they are very important to the company that designs its products in California (doesn't say the USA) but was manufactured in China locally.  A few things could also happen. Again, just speculation on my part but nothing so far out in left field. A new deal with China Mobile for the less expensive but still top of the line iPhone 5C.  Of course, the iPhone 5S or iPhone 6 should still make a grand debut as well.  However, by then, we will have known what we're getting in terms of hardware. iTunes deal with Chin...

I have a question that I'm sure will be answered in time.  But while many pundits out there are coming the new Microsoft with the old Nokia mobile hardware business to be like Apple, I'm not so sure.  It's likely that Microsoft engineers had been working closely with their former Nokia counterparts, now new Microsoft employees, with new products in the pipeline prepared, the fact that Nokia is selling now speaks volumes about what is in exactly in the pipeline. If they were going to be gushing out and take the mobile market by storm, it's not likely Nokia would sell its business at the time it has.  So, one has to wonder if what's there is going to clog things up further for Nokia so it was best to just get rid of it and hand it all over to Microsoft to sort out. So, the new Microsoft sounds more and more to be like the Google-Motorola situation where it took longer after the merger for products like the Moto X to come up.  It remains to be seen whether Moto X i...

You have to assume that Nokia's $7+ (some say $7.1 billion and other say $7.2 billion) sale of its mobile business to Microsoft, allowing Microsoft access to its name, some mobile tech like mapping, and licenses to use its patents, had been in the works long before Steve Balmer offered (or pushed out) to resign as CEO of Microsoft .  Still, the announcement was likely timed to avoid getting bumped off the front page by Balmer's news. And this is probably part of new plan at Microsoft to compete against the likes of Apple's iPhone/iPad and Android which has thoroughly dominated the mobile market - with Android taking around 70% of global smartphones shipped and Apple selling over 50% of tablets while Windows based Surface caused Redmond to write down nearly $900 million and forcing Microsoft to permanently cut the price of the ARM-based version by $150 and the Intel version by $100.  I'm thinking there's going to be additional write-downs for Microsoft in the com...