Of netbooks, tablets and Linux's revenge

Five years ago, I wrote an article about the relatively new class of netbook computers. I suggested the ultra-low price machines running GNU/Linux posed a problem for Microsoft. That's because it needed to charge something for Windows, pushing the price of Windows-based netbooks above similar systems running free software. As I wrote:

On The H Open.

Why Apple Will Not Be Part Of The Real Tablet Revolution

You don't have to be a marketing genius or industry pundit to foresee that tablets will be an extremely hot sector in 2012. The launch of Apple's iPad in 2010 largely defined the category, just as the launch of the iPhone defined a new kind of smartphone in 2007; in 2012 we will probably begin to see Android tablets start to gain major market share just as Android smartphones have done this year.

On Techdirt.

Rotten to the Core

Back in April, when Apple sued Samsung in the US, I noted that Apple's claims seemed pretty over the top - basically claiming that any rectangular tablet computer with rounded corners and a border was a copy of the iPad.

Well, things seemed to have escalated since then, with the battle being brought to Europe:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why Android Will Win the Tablet Wars

The Apple iPad is a huge hit: 7.33 million of them were sold in the quarter ending in December. That's a pretty amazing achievement. But despite that, there are good reasons to believe that 2011 will mark the start of the ascent of Android as king of the tablet world.

On The H Open.

Is it Time to Take Your (Android) Tablets?

However much I dislike Apple's obsession with control - the very antithesis of openness - I have to admit that its iPad is an important artefact. I think the tablet is on its way to becoming an important adjunct to other kinds of computing - ideal for sofa-top consumption, say. It will also be perfect for many business and industrial uses (I'm sure it won't be long until we see rugged versions of the form factor.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Dual-Screen Tablets: the Next Hot Form-Factor?

As new technologies arrive, and the cost of hardware components fall, innovative designs become possible Here's one that looks promising: a dual-screen Android tablet.

The two screens of the enTourage eDGe interact so that users can open hyperlinks that are included in an e-book text and view the content on the LCD screen, or ‘attach’ Web pages to passages in an e-book to be referenced at a later point. Additionally, as the enTourage eDGe uses E-Ink technology for easy digital reading, images will appear in gray-scale on the e-paper side of the device; however, users can load these in color on the LCD side, ideal for viewing colored charts and graphs from course materials.

Is this really useful, or am I just easily impressed by shiny?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Time for the Firefox Tablet?

For all its faults, TechCrunch is arguably the leading tech blog. But it has been content to remain on the sidelines - commenting rather than jumping in. Until now:

I’m tired of waiting - I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web. Nothing fancy like the Dell latitude XT, which costs $2,500. Just a Macbook Air-thin touch screen machine that runs Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist today, and as far as we can tell no one is creating one. So let’s design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them.

What's interesting about this - aside from the fact it marks a major shift for TechCrunch - is that it takes for granted that GNU/Linux and Firefox will be the foundation of such a system. Indeed, it is remarkably close to the story I posted below.

As for the name "Firefox Tablet", I say: go for it, Mark....

The Digital Sum of Human Knowledge

Most of us think of open access as a great way of reading the latest research online, so there is an implicit assumption that open access is only about the cutting edge. This also flows from the fact that most open access journals are recent launches, and those that aren't usually only provide content for volumes released after a certain (recent) date, for practical reasons of digital file availability, if nothing else.

This makes the joint Wellcome Trust and National Libary of Medicine project to place 200 years of biomedical journals online by scanning them a major expansion not just to the open access programme, but to the whole concept of open access.

It also hints at what the end-goal of open access must be: the online availability of every journal, magazine, newspaper, pamphlet, book, manuscript, tablet, inscription, statue, seal and ostracon that has survived the ravages of history - the digital sum of all written human knowledge.