Fame

Is it any wonder, I reject you first?

 

There are (as one may have it) a number of things which strike me as an oddity of juxtaposition within my life. Through situational awareness, it can be said that I am suddenly surprised by how people react to my presence. It isn’t to say that I suddenly just now became surprised, but it is something that I consistently forget and then am reminded of.

 

To this end, the topic of this blog (journal rambling) is that of perception and (for lack of better word) fame.

 

 

 

I’ve never considered myself famous in the more common sense, but more often than not I am treated as a sort of celebrity depending on the circumstances. It seems to rear up when I least expect it – for instance when talking to actual celebrities and while I find myself flattered that they take the time to speak with me, I come to find out that they are actually a fan of me.

 

That takes a while to sink in, to be honest.

 

I don’t think it ever really does sink in to my conscious mind too long, but it does just long enough to make me go “Oh... wow...” and then in a few days it wears off and I somehow manage to repress that memory like it never happened.

 

But somewhere in the back of my mind, I know it is still there lingering. I didn’t actually forget that I’m a celebrity. I just seem to do a really good job convincing myself that I’m not and acting like I’m not. Maybe (despite opinions to the contrary) I am actually a bit humble. I know in my persona I act like I’m hot stuff but like Andy Warhol it’s really just a front.

 

I am (to the public eye) mostly just a persona. A fabrication of intellectual bad-ass propped up by perceptions of genius and brilliance. The problem is, I’ve never seen myself like that, even when I know it is true... it could be said that I am highly intelligent (MENSA level) and I wouldn’t deny that, and I’ve had an interesting, if not illustrious, career involvements that have had me in the right place at the right time.

 

Despite my disastrous luck in life, I’ve been an exceedingly lucky individual. My whole life is an ongoing exercise in polar opposite absurdity. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, really...

 

I’ve seen the after parties for MTV, hung out with actual celebrities and rock stars, and found myself in the company of some of the brightest and most talented minds in the world. For all of that, I find myself feeling honored to be there, and almost always surprised when I come to find that I’m usually the man of the hour. Celebrities and high-powered people acting like they are the ones who are honored to meet and get to hang out with me.

 

I’m still kinda weirded out by that...

 

 

 

 

Did I mention I’m not entirely a fan of Hollywood? They always came across as hollow and fake to me. No wonder David Bowie sang about it in his song Fame (for which the title of today’s post borrows a line). I’m not against celebrity and Hollywood... I just see past the smoke and mirrors and get right to the authentic people aspect of it. Which tends to either endear people or scare the living bejesus out of them. One of the many benefits of being an INTJ personality...

 

I see through the facade and they tend to relax a bit and stop putting up a front. That’s all Hollywood really is, just a bunch of smoke and mirrors. The ultimate of sustained persona versus sincerity.

 

All the while I play it cool and just try to stay down to Earth (and usually am). Approachable and an “everyday” sort of guy you could just hang out with. That’s how I see myself in my own mind. But my reputation precedes me in most cases and what I think of myself is rarely what others see in me when I enter the room.

 

This (in and of itself) is the crux of what being famous actually is. Meaning millions of people have the wrong idea about who you actually are, and no amount of contradiction can change their mind.

 

Of course, that internal image of myself goes to hell in a hand basket when I suddenly get a text message from an actual celebrity just to say “Hi” and to let me know they’re heading out for the next week and wanted to let me know.

 

I mean... at first I’m like “Hey, have a wonderful trip!” but then (about thirty seconds later) it really hits me.

 

I’m like: Wait a minute. Millions of adoring fans worldwide, television interviews, globetrotting, the whole nine yards... and you specifically think it is important to stop and let me (of all people) know that you’re heading out to Sweden for a week to visit family and you’ll be back soon?

 

I’m actually really speechless about that.

 

There is the understanding that this isn’t an isolated incident, either. I mean, somebody else (who I won’t disclose) took the time to let me know they were going to Hong Kong next month (visiting the wife’s family) and wanted to let me know ahead of time. Again, a really well known person worldwide... taking time out of their day to let me know they were going on vacation but would be back in a month.

 

As I sit here and think about it, I’m a bit flabbergasted. At what point in my life did that transition actually happen? But what blows my mind most is that while I’m sitting here thinking that I’m flattered and honored that they thought of me in all of this (enough to take the time out to let me know personally), I come to find out that they are fans of me.

 

All the while as I’m thinking they are the celebrity, they are thinking I’m the important celebrity to know.

 

That’s about the moment I realize (once again) that I actually am (sorta) a celebrity in my own right. Though I consistently try not to be, people treat me like I am and it never ceases to baffle me.

 

Sure, I can say that I’ve accomplished quite a lot in my life (so far). Been there and done that sort of mentality. I’m not entirely certain if the inner image of myself and celebrities has reached a point where I take it for granted or if I’m just in denial that I’m a celebrity as well.

 

Maybe it is a little bit of both?

 

When I spent a lot of time in Second Life, that persona had a chance to really take hold in the virtual sense. It did help that I had a PR department behind me, and that started the snowball rolling. I did interviews, photo shoots, a research paper, book chapter, and even spoke at virtual events.

 

My last “appearance” was as a panelist for the previous Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference, whereby it never ceased to amaze me what amazing people I was sharing a stage with.

 

 

 

 

But there I was, just as large as life (maybe larger).

 

One could say that I voluntarily made an exit from that scene in the virtual sense, but in reality it never stopped. All I managed to actually do was to lay low and go off the radar a bit for some peace and quiet. More or less I took the Johnny Depp route and moved to virtual France.

 

This can be evidenced by the continuation (even today) whereby a lot of SL folks are like “I’m a huge fan of you!” when I’m saying I’m a fan of them... But while I’ve scaled back the public appearances portion of my persona aspect, it only seemed to apply to the virtual world. In the real world that celebrity mentality continues unabated and completely to my surprise.

 

The actual reasoning for my absence in Second Life has been more along the lines of a recurring theme in virtual worlds users that I refer to as Groundhog Day Syndrome. Named after that wonderful Bill Murray movie, it is a perfect symbolism for just having total ennui and a loss of motivation/tolerance for something.

 

It comes and goes, so don’t think for a moment that I’m suddenly never going to be passionate about virtual worlds again. It’s just that after... I’d say about twenty years now, it all just gets repetitive and boring. You log in and see the same old things, that pattern recognition kicks in and you start to think “Why bother?”

 

Or maybe I’m a virtual God?

 

Of course, not the God. But, ya know... a god by the definition of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? Maybe just a guy that’s been around so long he seems like he knows everything (but doesn’t)? Nothing is “new” and so everything (most things) are expected and seen coming a mile away.

 

I think maybe in the bigger scheme of things, a lot of us are gods in that manner.

 

And just like a “god”, when I get bored of something I want to make something better and create something amazing. Something totally new.

 

 

 

I could sit around and talk about the virtues of Oculus Rift and all the great things it’ll do for the industry, but to be honest it is merely an over-hyped stopgap between virtual reality and mixed reality.

 

The real evolution and future of virtual worlds, and ultimately the Metaverse as a whole is in mixed reality/augmented reality space. So much so that even Neal Stephenson himself was recently hired by Magic Leap. So it’s not really an uneducated opinion I’m putting out there, but pointing out that the godfather of the Metaverse itself and a huge name in Cyberpunk is involved not in virtual reality but in advanced Mixed Reality.

 

Of course, I already knew this was coming. Not that I’m tooting my own horn, but I have been saying for the past few years now that the future is in Augmented and Mixed Reality, and that Virtual Reality is just the Gartner Hype Cycle to get us there.

 

 

 

Right now, Virtual Reality is back at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and by the time Oculus Rift leaves the gate officially, it’ll likely be overshadowed by things like Magic Leap and similar mixed reality systems, which will dropkick VR back into the Trough of Disillusionment. Or maybe not... seeing as Oculus recently bought out 13th Lab, which is a company that specializes in augmented reality and has their own SLAM algorithm for real world mapping.

 

I think Oculus sees the writing on the wall already and is looking to shift gears to a headset that can do AR/MR before they launch so they’ll potentially have an “all in one” sort of headset.

 

But still, that sort of mixed reality system is still very limited in the bigger scope. It is localized and effectively tethered to smaller spaces and publish model experiences. The same can be said (ahead of time) for Magic Leap technology, and although their display technology is actually really fuck-all impressive, they still only have one piece of the bigger puzzle for the future. They (like Oculus) are (to me) considered just enabler technology in the stop gap to the future.

 

Which (of course) brings us to that all important question:

 

What the hell have you been up to, Will?

 

Whereby the reply is going to be that I’ve been focusing on the technology forecast concerning advanced mixed reality systems and how to actually build one that would meet my stupidly high expectations. I started drifting out of the VR sector and into the MR sector awhile ago, but keeping in mind all of the stuff I’ve learned from VR in the past twenty years. Not surprisingly, it applies to the mixed reality sector quite well.

 

After all, I think I’ve said pretty much all there is to say about Virtual Reality and The Metaverse. Though I am still the Vice Chair for the IEEE Virtual World Standard Group (P1828) and likely for a rekindled standard initiative stemming from P1828 at IEEE, I want to think bigger than that.

 

My general philosophy has always been that if the whole damned world is looking at something and it’s collectively “the future”, then I’m not looking far enough ahead at the trends. So that’s pretty much why I transitioned my attention from VR to Mixed Reality systems.

 

 

 

 

In the bigger picture, there’s a guy formerly at the Nokia Mobile Life Centre who was (is) working on his PhD thesis and project (Kim Nevelsteen). An avid fan of The Metaverse overall for the past ten years, he always wanted to focus on Pervasive Games and Mixed Reality. As per his update, he moved on to just being at Stockholm University in the Immersive Networking group but has had the opportunity to change direction and focus on pervasive games and mixed reality like he originally wanted (finally!)

 

 

“Your paper was a pivotal point because it just made me burn (pun intended) even more for working on the Metaverse. It also puts in black and white lots of things I have been thinking about before.”

 

 

He and I have had wonderful conversations on and off about the state of the industry and where we think the future is at, and it’s nice to know that he is finally able to pursue that future.

 

In all honesty, it is flattering to know that I am able to inspire people in the industry like that, and have a positive effect. I wouldn’t say I was the only thing that drove him in that direction, but instead (as it apparently wasn’t clear before), I see myself as one of many pivotal parts of the whole conversation and part of that inspiration and culmination of many things.

 

In and of itself, I am still amazingly flattered and humbled that I could have even the slightest effect in the industry.

 

Editor’s Note: Part of the problem with writing a blog as a stream of consciousness with little (or no) editing is that a lot of the time I miss things that I think are implied when they come across as meaning something else. Happens sometimes when you’re writing far into the morning, and so I’d like to make that clear on behalf of Kim in what will probably one of the first edits to this blog. He’s an amazing guy and highly intelligent, definitely check out what he’s up to via the link above.

 

Other than that, I’ve been tied up with a NASA project called Deep Space Blue about the experience of being a near future Mars inhabitant and replicating some of that atmosphere for the real world participants. Hashtag #JourneyToMars if that’s your thing... Which in turn has landed me smack dab back where I was before with the whole “dealing with Hollywood and celebrities” thing.

 

Except a lot bigger than before.

 

As part of the Deep Space Blue initiative, there is a major Hollywood agency involved (the people who represent the celebrities and talent), as well as a big production company. And so, I’m back at the center of that maelstrom again as the intellectual celebrity bad-ass of the group.

 

Without even giving it a second thought, we send out best wishes and condolences to Melissa (Rivers) while congratulating Ben (Affleck) on getting the green light on his recent indie collaboration. This is the sort of normality I’ve come to take for granted in my life. I’m just not surprised by it any more...

 

I suppose I’m an intellectual celebrity versus famous for simply being good looking and an actor... though I’m sure a lot of ladies out there will correct me about the whole “being good looking” thing... I’ll take whatever I can get on that front. Flattery is always an acceptable currency.

 

It never ceases to amaze me just how many fan girls I actually have, or the various things they are prepared to do to and with me if only I’d give them a chance.

 

It’s enough to make me blush, and that says a lot.

 

 

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The Internet Is For Porn

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To the outsider, the Singularity looks like madness | #SecondLife

 

In a recent Newsweek cover story, it is asserted that technology in general and (more precisely) access to the Internet and mass communication is somehow driving us insane.

 

 

Tweets, texts, emails, posts. New research says the Internet can make us lonely and depressed—and may even create more extreme forms of mental illness.

 

 

Let’s start the ball rolling by stating this is absolute hogwash. What we are seeing are the effects of an accelerated mind adapting to ubiquitous presence and access.

 

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I know, the kids these days with their iPhones, MP3 players, and computers. Tablets and other electronic cocaine addictions up the wazoo only compound the issue, right? I’m not so certain about that assertion.

 

What I’ve noticed is that these studies clearly take the situation out of context and make half-witted assertions about what they feel is going on with the participants. Yes, they are more apt to multitask and become irritable when disconnected from the Internet. Of course their attention span is lower and not able to concentrate on a single thing… or maybe they really can focus on a single thing but only if they truly are interested in it?

 

That’s something I’ve noticed more than anything.

 

In a world of endless information at our fingertips, we’re mentally adapting to the situation by becoming exceedingly quick at deciding what is important and what isn’t. So when we’re talking to our teenagers and they’re staring at their smart phones in a text messaging conversation, maybe they are deciding in a moment that what you are saying is really not as important as you are making it out to be? More to the point is that in an overwhelming onslaught of ubiquitous information and interaction, it’s not so much what you are saying but how you are choosing to convey that information that counts? Generally speaking, we’re simply not choosing the most efficient manner to convey information, nor is that information worth the sustained attention of the person you are trying to convey it to.

 

I wouldn’t say this is an unhealthy addiction. If anything, this is promising because what I see from my end is a population quickly adapting to the singularity context. Accelerating returns essentially mandates that progress will quicken, information will continue to expand and time will compress. In short, it’ll take less time to do more when compared to the same task in a prior generation.

 

So our population is adapting to this time compression. On the surface, I suppose it looks like a sort of mental illness or addiction. We’re already in a multiplicity of persona through or digital interactions, and we refer to ourselves in many differing contexts. A generation ago that notion would have immediately been characterized as a mental instability, but by today’s standards we are expected to engage the world as a multiplicity.

 

However, that isn’t to say that everyone is actually capable of this transition.

 

There are the digital natives and the digital immigrants, the prior are the younger generation that were born into the digital context and had access to these devices and technologies from birth, while the latter generation is not so lucky to have been a native and must retrain their minds to adapt to the technology and implications it brings.

 

Digital natives are most likely to handle this singularity transition without much of an issue, while the ones who will see the adverse effects are likely the digital immigrants who aren’t mentally prepared for this accelerated time shifting and ubiquity.

 

From a medical standpoint, we term this issue Reactive Psychosis, which essentially boils down to a sudden and overwhelming shift in engagement from relative quiet to an onslaught of information overload. To put it more precisely, we’re back to the notion of the monkey sphere (or Dunbar’s Number if you will) and how the mind is adapting to handle the inner-sphere and the outer-sphere. In the case of digital natives, they are already adapting to handle both inner and outer-sphere through highly adaptive prioritization of importance. To a digital immigrant, however, they have a predisposition to believe that all interactions hold relatively the same attention weight in order to remain courteous, and that mentality is the precursory to a mental breakdown when all things seemingly require full attention to be polite but the sheer number of interactions is overwhelming.

 

When we look at this more in-depth, I suppose we can assert that the recent generation has a much higher affliction of A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. but I’m wary to say that is really a bad thing. I’m sure in an analog context, those things are bad, but instead of diagnosing the individual with an attention problem, maybe we should be diagnosing our means of information stream myopic instead?

 

I’d like to hypothesize that those with attention deficit disorder really have nothing wrong with them at all, but instead they are adapted to handle a hyper-contextual environment which the standard methodologies today aren’t capable of delivering. A single mode of communication and, more importantly, a single thread of interaction is not appropriate in a ubiquitous environment. These digital natives are adapting to handle many things at once and actually perform better when able to interact with many things in shorter bursts.

 

In an education aspect, and I know many reading this are keen to perk up their ears, this means that the textbook approach to learning is dying a quick death. What education needs is a multi-sensory and immersive context in order for our digital natives to focus. Not only that, but there needs to be an open-ended context in which exploration of that immersion and many paths can lead to not just a predetermined outcome but the possibility of different outcomes.

 

If you’re an educator and into virtual worlds, then this is a perfect justification for integrating virtual environments into your classroom context. That doesn’t mean a linear environment that walks students through a lesson plan is appropriate, however. What it means is that the students literally thrive and focus on multi-faceted immersive contexts.

 

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Now, I know Rupert Murdoch isn’t exactly the most trustworthy person to quote concerning all of this, but if you put aside the unsavory actions what you have is at least a man who understood this situation from his own perspective and what would need to be done in order to move forward.

 

I’m not one to agree with Rupert Murdoch, but on this he is absolutely correct.

 

So far our solution has been to diagnose our kids with a disorder and pump them full of drugs to slow them down. I find this disturbing and amusing simultaneously because we’re approaching the situation in the same manner as the scientists in the game Portal where GladOS was becoming too smart and too fast, so the solution was to attach other cores to her in order to add noise and slow her down.

 

It’s disturbing because we’re addressing a symptom and not the problem, and amusing because instead of evolving our own methodologies, the digital immigrants immediately see this behavioral change as bad because it is very different than their own, and so they have to “solve” it by diagnosing it as a problem and prescribing drugs to handle it.

 

The problem isn’t the kids, and the problem isn’t technology. The problem is now that the digital natives aren’t being spoon fed information and context in a trickle that is an analog or singular context scenario, they simply aren’t tolerant of the old methodologies any longer. Yet our classrooms and digital immigrant society is still rooted in analog methodologies and contexts, so they decide that something is wrong with the new generation for not acting like they did at their age.

 

The problem is the methodologies and approach to interaction and learning. It’s no longer a world of single stream context, but instead we’re in a world of ubiquitous and hyper-threading context. Short bursts and high impact.

 

I suspect this is also the reason why my own blog is considered “hard to parse” or read for the average person. We’re used to a single graphic and a burst of text, 30 seconds of context and then we move on. However when we’re faced with long reads and deeper context, many people refer to the Cliff Notes version.

 

That being said, I’m still a digital native myself. I can get on with a smart phone and short burst conversations, but sometimes there are things which need to be given due diligence and time in a discussion. I think when we begin to cultivate a balance between the two, we’ll get along just fine. For those that are full-tilt digital natives; These are the people who are the future. Don’t treat it as a disorder or negative addiction. We’re addicted to information and the world. We’re soaking up all things of interest at a hyper-active pace. We’re retraining our minds to learn like we did when we were children…

 

Think about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Surface

Oh look, it’s a laptop/tablet hybrid design.

 

On Monday, Microsoft had this huge press conference to unveil plans for something they said would be revolutionary and, more to the point, a paradigm shift in computing interfaces. Of course, this is a really loose paraphrase because for all I know they were promising that they’d invented a new way to slice bread.

 

Over the weekend, millions of people were taking shots at what this amazing revelation could be, while I on the other hand already knew. To be honest, I knew this was coming a year ago so this is yet another case of the future catching up to me instead of the other way around. When I originally said it, I asserted (as I continued to do) that the only way that Windows 8 Metro made any sense at all was if it was married to a hybrid tablet/laptop design and that Microsoft clearly was designing an OS for devices that didn’t exist yet but were anticipating would exist.

 

Let me introduce to you the beginning of what will be the convergence of computing.

 

When I say “convergence” what I mean is that for all the times people have told me that tablets and mobile are the future, I just laugh and tell them they’re wrong. It’s not about Tablets or about Mobiles, and it’s not about whether or not PCs in any form are dead. What this is about is hybrid computing environments, as I said last year in the article The Future: Now In Tablet Form

 

 

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A tablet used as the screen which is detachable from the keyboard? No way!

 

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Last year I asked the question – what if the future is just a scenario where the screen on your laptop is the tablet and it detaches from the base unit to become a mobile device? Well, this is the future… However, that being said, this is only the beginning of that future. The second part of my question/statement was concerning the keyboard section being the more powerful base station while the tablet portion as the screen was the mobile processing computer on the go. When you docked the tablet to the base station the processing would switch over from the tablet to the base station to handle the tasks in a more robust manner.

 

We’re not quite there yet, but there are clearly prototypes in the works. The base station concept is a logical next step for computer manufacturers at this point instead of just slapping a keyboard on a tablet and calling it a day. At least I really hope so, because it would suck horribly if we were all being forced into a future where we’re paying the same price of an entry laptop and getting half the power and capabilities.

 

In this scenario, it’s also likely that systems like this would be wirelessly connected to the home computer as a server or something to offset the fact that you’re getting royally screwed on tablet storage. It’s 2012 and I still think cloud computing and storage as it is currently presented is a rip-off, and you can quote me on this freely.

 

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In which Microsoft sells you half the computer and OS for the same price while calling it innovation.

 

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Renting Your Data

 

I’m not ok with this idea and never have been. For cloud storage services the cost you pay is astronomical in relation to the actual storage space you get in return. At about $50.00 USD per month for 1TB of cloud storage, within 2 months you’ve already paid enough to rent that space to actually have bought an external 1TB hard drive outright.

 

For instance, let’s take DropBox as an example. On average, 1,000GB of storage is $15.00 USD per user, per month with a maximum amount of users being 500. Let’s say for an average household of 5 people (Mom, Dad and three kids) that’s $75 per month. Right there in the first month you may as well have bought a 1TB external HD and hooked it up to your home network. As a matter of fact, over the life of using cloud storage you would have spent so much money for the convenience of accessing your stuff “everywhere” that it becomes overkill.

 

Don’t get me wrong, cloud storage and access is going to continue being integrated into nearly everything and you are going to be forced into using it at every turn. For evidence of this, just look at the tablet/laptop hybrid above and ask whether 64GB hard drive is really enough for you?

 

Of course not.

 

That’s why Windows 8 conveniently comes with Windows SkyDrive cloud storage for you, where you can rent storage space continuously at a price which may as well be highway robbery. The best part about cloud storage is that there is no guarantee that your data is safe, let alone going to be available. What cloud storage is, and let’s make this clear, is that it is renting space on somebody else’s computer who will gladly “keep it safe” for you for a rental fee that may as well exceed the cost of just buying an external drive altogether. Overall, you may as well be paying a premium to store your own files to the tune of 450x the cost of the hard drive. Of course cloud computing and storage are the big industry when there is a ridiculous amount of money to be made.

 

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Apparently I have $4,500 worth of Cloud Storage in the palm of my hand.

 

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Then there is Google, which also offers Drive cloud storage services and generously gives 5GB freely. I am aware that there are plenty of cloud computing applications that are a benefit to humanity such as GMail, Google Docs, etc… I’m not disputing that at all. What I’m getting at is that cloud storage as it is currently presented seriously bothers me.

 

My personal thoughts about this are that the security and privacy of your data is about as expectant as you would imagine with say, Facebook. Which is to say, they all talk a big game but likely fall flat on their face in practice. There is nothing to say that the data center doesn’t have a cascade failure, or that the service itself isn’t discontinued after you’ve spent all that time investing in it with your data.

 

If you think that’s not likely, just ask yourself about Apple and their now defunct MobileMe cloud system that so many people jumped onboard. When Apple moved over to iCloud one of the things that wasn’t included in the transition just happened to be the MobileMe iDisk storage service. Essentially, users are prompted to download all of their data locally to avoid losing it.

 

 

What happens to the files on my MobileMe iDisk?

 

You can continue using MobileMe iDisk through June 30th, 2012, even after moving to iCloud. After June 30th, iDisk will no longer be available. You should save copies of all files stored on iDisk before that date. Please read this article for details.

 

 

   

You wouldn’t think this is a big deal but in the future it likely will be more of a problem when things like this happen. The only reason it’s even feasible right now to follow those directions from Apple about downloading all of your files from iDisk to avoid losing your data is because your local hard drive is actually big enough to handle that… The real question that I’m left asking internally is why the hell didn’t Apple simply migrate iDisk data over to iCloud for their users automatically?

 

But with tablets and hybrids, the internal storage is intentionally smaller in order to create a need to use these built-in cloud storage options (like iCloud or SkyDrive) so you actually become wholly dependent on it for your main drive.

 

So let’s fast forward 5 years where your average computer is a tablet hybrid and the internal storage is about 500GB as an SSD. Even under the premise that cloud storage is going to get cheaper, a scenario like the one above where migration or storage failure requires you to back up your stuff locally – you likely aren’t going to have that option since you’ve essentially had no need to have an adequate local storage system and it was so much more compelling and cheaper to buy a tablet with only 128GB internal storage (if you’re lucky).

 

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April 1997 is when I got my Hotmail account. Now Microsoft just attaches everything to it.

 

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Of course there is the other caveat for this cloud storage paradigm in that it’s only useful if you have wireless internet access. Otherwise, if you’re in a dead zone or don’t have WiFi where you’re at, you’re pretty much screwed out of most of your data.

 

Cloud storage and applications should be treated as a secondary option, and not your primary option. But unfortunately they are being integrated into the operating systems and devices under the premise of being your primary. That’s what bothers me… well, that and no longer just buying a program but instead indefinitely renting it – which I’ll concede isn’t totally the norm at this point but does seem to be happening with gaming and other media forms (ebooks). You may as well be renting your games indefinitely at this point if you’re paying for a subscription to an online gaming service like Steam, XBox Live, Origin, etc just to be able to play the game you actually bought.

 

Ten years ago you would have been up in arms about this. You just bought a video game at retail price (let’s say $50), you get home and install it. You fire that bad boy up and find out in order to play it you have to have internet access and the game must be able to check into the server periodically (or all the time) for it to work. The moment you no longer have an internet connection, the game stops working. The moment the publisher’s servers stop working, so does your game. The moment they discontinue their authentication server for your game, your game becomes worthless.

 

When Square|Enix did Final Fantasy XI Online I immediately stopped playing Final Fantasy games entirely. I understand the interest with online multiplayer gaming, I really do. I’m an avid user of Second Life and also have a Minecraft account. But the art of single player or multiplayer at home is pretty much a dying breed any more. There’s a reason, I suspect, that flash games online are a big ticket for entertainment. It’s because those games are modeled after the simpler games we used to play years ago where they were more about fun than trying to cram graphics. They have to make up the lack of graphics with actual storyline and gameplay.

 

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Less is More?

 

The idea about all of this is that the future is not as great as we like to believe. If anything, we’re paying about the same price for considerably less than what we’ve had in the past. I’m not talking about less in a good way, either. Like, smaller components or more efficient circuitry…

 

No, I’m saying less is the new more in the same manner as you’re paying the same amount of money for a thinner tablet that does much less than the laptop you bought a few years ago. Standard on the laptop was a 500GB or 1TB hard drive but on that tablet (even the hybrid) the storage is more likely 32GB, 64GB or for the most expensive model 128GB internal storage for the same price as your laptop a few years ago at 500GB or 1TB internal storage.

 

To make up for giving you less internal storage, these companies found a solution that essentially screws you even harder than you just got screwed by connecting cloud storage to your device and offering to rent you space for a monthly fee that may as well be 450x the cost of the hard drive over the expected lifespan of that hardware.

 

Yes, you read that correctly.

 

If an external 1TB hard drive costs about $100 (which mine did), and the average expected lifespan of that hard drive is about 5 years, then I’ve paid $100 for 1TB of storage that will last 5 years. In comparison, for the equivalent of $75 per month under an average scenario and access to 1TB of cloud storage, I will pay $4,500 over the course of 5 years for the same storage capacity.

 

Take also into account that the operating system (Windows 8 in this example) is less robust than Windows 7 before it. Metro UI is stripped down and very basic in comparison to Windows 7 working environment. No Aero, no real multitasking… everything is pretty much full screen or not at all with Metro. There’s “legacy” support for applications that ran on Windows 7, so windows like you’re kind of used to… but the focus is entirely on Metro for this. Which brings me to another point that the outlet for Metro enabled applications is a choking point app store controlled tightly by Microsoft. I have the same issues with Apple’s App store as well, so don’t think I’m just harping on Microsoft here.

 

Even the bootloader is locked down and so is access to the Win32 API which most applications prior enjoyed access to freely in order to develop for Windows. Now the rules (as if there were rules before this) say that win32 API is off limits as well as a whole slew of other design requirements and guidelines to be accepted into the Metro store.

 

Good Christ… when did this happen?

 

Not specifically, but as a collective of humanity… when did we start really settling for less and paying more for it? When did we start saying it’s ok to have our options taken away from us and strictly controlled? When did we say it was alright to no longer do with the hardware, software and media we legally bought what we want to do with it?

 

When did we stop demanding the freedom to innovate on our own?

 

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And then I calm down… sort of.

 

I have my gripes about all of this, but my assertion is still sound. I’m not interested in owning a tablet until such time as it becomes a full hybrid that isn’t screwing me over. I love the idea of the screen detaching to become a mobile tablet as my secondary computing paradigm – but not at the expense of my primary computing paradigm in the process.

 

I’m not accepting an either/or scenario.

 

When my tablet/screen is attached to the base, my “real” computer will take over the processing and power. My real computer then, will be my storage where the mobile tablet screen is underwhelming. My real computer, then, will have the desktop paradigm because it makes absolutely no sense to use a tablet interaction paradigm while I’m using a desktop, no more than it makes any sense whatsoever to use a desktop paradigm on a tablet computer.

 

Both will have access to my cloud drive which is a secondary backup but never my primary storage. It’ll be convenient for me because I’ll have access to my files on the go, but I won’t be worried about the service because a majority will be locally stored.

 

Cloud storage to me is a supplementary option that is worth paying for in that context, but never expected to be treated like my primary storage on account of my local system short changing me up front by design.

 

As far as the operating system goes, I like the freedom to run whatever the hell I want on my computer. I like the idea of multitasking, and by god if I want a media player that looks like a Polar Bear on LSD then so be it.

 

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Meet Windows Media Player – Aeonix Edition.

 

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I don’t like the idea of having a central application store being my only option under tight constraints to access programs. So this is what I’m expecting shortly after the release of Windows 8 -

 

It’s going to get jail-broken in a hurry. That Start Menu button is going to be there whether Microsoft likes it or not on the Desktop view, and if they fight too hard to force people to use the Metro screen instead, then they’ll just be shooting themselves in the foot. The Bootloader will be unlocked, and ultimately with enough people pissed off about this situation, Windows 8 will work the way that advanced users will demand it to work and not the way Microsoft demands it.

 

Either that or Microsoft is about to lose quite a lot of customers, with or without their new tablet.

 

It doesn’t help the situation when you aren’t willing to build an operating system that a majority of your customers are asking for. Luckily, that’s what Linux is for.

 

As a matter of fact – I might just go back to using Ubuntu Linux thanks to Windows 8.

 

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Unlike Windows 8, I’ll have the option to choose whether or not I want to keep the Unity interface of Ubuntu 12.04 or simply go back to using Gnome (Fallback) like I’m used to. That’s the point that I believe Microsoft is entirely missing here… that people don’t necessarily like or hate Metro, but instead they hate being given no option to choose what they think is best for their own working environment.

 

We’ve had this desktop metaphor since the dawn of the GUI interface in the 1980s. That is a hell of a long time for the computing world to get accustomed to something. Forcing a radical change on people now in 2012 will likely go over about as well as Microsoft BOB or forcing Clippy on people.

 

Generally speaking, the bottom line is this:

 

The idea of a hybrid tablet/laptop is a good idea when put into proper perspective. Right now, however, it’s a veritable clusterfsk of half-baked ideas. Without the ability to choose a desktop paradigm that is familiar when using a keyboard and mouse, the Metro UI being forced on people will invariably be a no-go unless they’re using one of those new tablet hybrids.

 

Essentially it’s an operating system that is trying too hard to please tablet users at the expense of the interaction paradigm over the entire course of personal computing history. While I’m not against change, even if it’s a radical change, I still like the ability to make that choice on my own instead of an all or nothing approach.

 

Given that the only option is Metro in Windows 8 with the desktop paradigm being an afterthought, I will likely end up exercising my right to choose and skip Windows 8 altogether.

 

I don’t really care how amazing they claim the tablet with a keyboard is. It’s a revolution I’ll do without, thank-you.

 

As far as the tablet/hybrid itself:

 

The disturbing trend has been to build half of a computer and sell it to you at full price, while renting you access to the other half indefinitely for 450 times the actual cost. To the business end of things, this seems like a technology wet dream scenario because they’re making money hand over fist off of this. Even more surprising is that society as a whole (that means you) are gladly falling for it.

 

Of course, after seeing the first picture in this post, you probably ignored everything that came afterward.

 

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