Tag: Google

Want a tablet? Choose your vendor lock-in.

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Doug Belshaw

Ever wondered why Mozilla’s Firefox web browser exists? It’s because about 10 years ago Microsoft had sewn-up about 90% of the market and was creating vendor lock-in through anti-competitive practices. You can read about this in the History of the Mozilla Project. Happily, Mozilla were successful and now there’s at least two high-quality alternatives to Microsoft Internet Explorer – which itself has become more aligned with web standards. It’s a win for everyone who uses the web.

The next battleground is mobile. Although Google’s Android mobile Operating System (OS) is billed as ‘open’, for example, it’s not really developed in the usual Open Source way: the source code tends to be released long after each iteration of the OS. Apple, meanwhile, maintains a notoriously closed ecosystem with a stringent procedure for inclusion in their App Store. They also control how you can get things on and off iOS devices in order to make money from the iTunes store.

Amazon, meanwhile, is a fairly new to the mobile device game. They’ve taken Android and significantly modified it – including defaulting to their own app store. They’ve slashed the price of the Kindle Fire 2 (with, cleverly, ‘special offers and sponsored screensavers’) for Black Friday* making it a loss-leader. They’re betting on making the money back through Kindle book purchases, Amazon Prime subscriptions, and Lovefilm streaming.

So even though we may have multiple vendors it’s essentially similar problem to the Internet Explorer issue ten years ago. You may get shiny new ways to consume things that the vendor is selling you, but it’s not a great situation, overall.

You want a tablet? For Christmas 2012 that means you’re going to need to choose your vendor lock-in.

Thankfully, all this is set to change in 2013. Why? Two reasons. First, Mozilla are working on Firefox OS built entirely of standards-based web technologies. Secondly, Ubuntu Linux is being developed for mobile devices like the Nexus 7 and (even more excitingly) you’ll soon be able to run an entire desktop OS from your docked smartphone.

My conclusion? Buy a tablet if you have to, but be aware that real choice is around the corner…

(this was an attempt to write my version of the NSFW (but excellent) post by Terence Eden)

*The cynical nature of this marketing ploy is bad enough when tied to American Thanksgiving. It’s even worse when standing alone in the UK context.

Image CC BY-SA tribehut

On (not) working in academia.

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Doug Belshaw

On (not) working in academia

I’m with Doug Pete in really liking the Zite app.

Although it’s a proprietary, closed product I haven’t come across anything close to it for discovery. Take, for instance, a post entitled On Leaving Academia by Terran Lane, someone I’ve not come across before. He’s an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico.

Terran is off to join Google.

His post is neatly organised into section titles listing the reasons he’s leaving academia to join Google:

Opportunity to make a difference
Workload and family/life balance
Centralization of authority and decrease of autonomy
Funding climate
Hyper-specialization, insularity, and narrowness of vision
Poor incentives
Mass production of education
Salaries
Anti-intellectualism, anti-education, and attacks on science and academia

I’ve written about this kind of thing before in You need us more than we need you. As Terran explains, it’s not (just) about money.

Whereas he’s decided to quit academia, I’ve made a conscious choice from the start to stay on its sidelines. Around the margins. On the edges. Whilst the logical thing to do after my doctorate would have been to apply for a research position or lectureship at a university, I decided against it.

Why?

Not only would I be earning half the amount of money I am now – and less than when I was teaching in schools – but it seems a spectacularly bad time to decide to become a career academic. No money, no status, no freedom. And with the introduction of a market into UK Higher Education it’s increasingly difficult for academics to even claim the high moral ground.

That’s not to say academics aren’t doing good, publicly-useful work. Of course they are. It’s just crunch time in their industry.

I think we’re going to see a lot more of this talent-drain from academia. In fact, we’re already seeing a new generation of people not satisfied with traditional career structures and ways of working. I’m not sure if this is good or bad in the scheme of things, given the direction the universities (in the UK) seem to be headed under the current government.

What I do know is that universities need to do something, and fast. The Bank of Goodwill doesn’t have infinite reserves…

Image CC BY-NC-SA Patrick Gage

[UPDATED] Google+ Hangout about #openbadges TODAY 11:00 (BST)

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Doug Belshaw

Update: scroll down to video at bottom of post!

I’ve organised an impromptu, informal Google+ hangout for today about Open Badges (Friday 27th July 2012) at 11:00 BST. It’s in response to a few people on Twitter who wanted to ask me questions.

Most of those asking the questions were teachers.

If you’re interested, and you can make it, then head to the following URL just before 11:00 and we’ll talk through Open Badges until people run out of questions.

~~http://goo.gl/vsE9W~~

~~I’m using the ‘Hangouts on Air’ option so it should automatically be recorded and then available on YouTube afterwards!~~

There was an issue (explained in the video) so it’s up on Vimeo.

View Google+ hangout below!

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/46490072 w=640&h=401]

What we talk about when we talk about Open Badges from Doug Belshaw on Vimeo.