New York’s public phones will be reborn as Wi-Fi spots. It’s good news for people living and travelling there. It’s bad news for some people, though.

Anyhow, visiting New York will be fun once we can use Wi-Fi everywhere there.

I wish Tokyo follows this. There are lots of unwanted public phone boothes. “Internet, Water and Air are all free and tasty”.

As I said in Beyond Wi-Fi, telephone companies will suffer from this if they rely on the current business model of charging people based on subscriptions. Telephone and internet access will be cheaper and cheaper. AT&T, Verizon, Sprints, and others need to compete with other services. They will have to fight with Amazon, Apple, Google, and other cloud services.

People will use smartphones, phablets and tablets. We might be using special glasses or wrist watches. But less people will be using Windows and Mac computers. Those are for professionals and geeks. They are monsters in ordinary people’s eyes.

Musics and movies will be more and more stream-based. People will rent them or pay for subscription but they will not own it.

Why should we have to have so much strage at home like terabytes to just keep stuff there just in case we need them? Why should we need to back them up in case we lose them?

It’s a huge waste of world wide resources.

Well, I might be talking too ahead of the times but I think 10 years won’t be required to prove the point. We are so much inefficient today.

I’ve just thought so after reading the news on New York’s Wi-Fi Plan.

I really like Daniel Day-Lewis’s Lincoln. His play made me think Lincoln actually behaved like that. A guy who looks gentle and old but is very strong in sprits. It was very well performed. Daniel really deserves the best actor prize.

As for the best director, Ang Lee did an excellent work to produce the beautiful
“Life of Pi”. To me, “Les Miserables” was also as great as LoP. Very beautifully done, singing and visuals. I guess LoP was a bit more amazing in terms of visual effects.

Finally, the best picture was “Argo”. To be honest, any of nominated movies deserves the prize. No one film was standing out. All of them were good but not as amazing like Titanic and Avatar.

I’d say all those movies are kind of slow tempo but “Argo” was probably most realistic and exciting as it is regarding the recent history.

I wonder if they will be like Disney stores to sell character goods? That might actually work.

At least, they could compete with AngryBirds puppets. It’s entirely different approach than Apple stores. It could be cool.

I imagine the Google Store might have Samsung’s Chrome note and other brands. Nexus mobile phones as well as other android phones.

I’m not sure if they can provide services like Apple or they even consider doing that. I like Apple Store and I’ve used their genius service when I need to repair my Mac and iPhone a couple of times. This is very different experience when I bought a Windows PC in a shop which will not really care about or provide PC repair services.

In HK, we already have 3 Apple stores and they are located at very convenient place. For example, one Apple shop is in the Central district which is only one station away from my office (5 min trip).

I think Google would put their shops in very visible places so that they could promote their existence in order to contribute to their ad business. Maybe Times Square in NYC? That’d be awesome.

This is just one of the aspects of the competition between Google, Apple, Microsoft and others. They compete not only by the integration of software and hardware but also shops and services.

Anyhow, I’d love to visit a Google Shop (if they come to Hong Kong or Japan) and be amazed.

Today, I saw a person asking what is the best editor for C++ in some C++ forum. That reminded me that we used to have much more choices for C++ editors. Not only on Unix/Linux, on Windows, you could chose Visual Studio, C++ Builder, Code Warrior, Symantec C++, etc, etc.

We still have some choices but I won’t spend too much time in choosing.

A development environment depends on target OS/runtime environment and as such, the editor is usually integrated into that environment. For example, if I target Windows, I’ll use Visual Studio and won’t spend much time on other choices. Visual Studio comes with very good editor and it is fully integrated for that environment. As for Mac, I’ll use Xcode. For Flash or Adobe AIR, I’ll use Adobe’s tools. For others, my default choice is Eclipse + some plugins.

Once upon a time, programming languages are bigger than OS. If I know C/C++ or Java well, I should be able to program in any OS environments. It is still true but you also need to learn the environment/runtime. As such, programming languages are felt like part of target environments.

Exceptions are HTML/XML and some scripting languages like Perl, Python and Ruby. They are targeting the internet and it is largely common environment in any OS, and they are not tightly coupled with any specific development environment.

Overall, the best editor is the one well integrated with the target environment and it is depends on the company that provide the environment. This is why I would not spend too much time choosing an best editor but I’d rather have confident in my ability to learn the target environment and use any programming language well for that environment.

The author of the book The Words reads the book loud to the audience. It was a promotion on his new book.

The book’s story have a young writer and a old writer. So, there are three writers in this movie.

Spoiler Warning!

Each writer loves writing. They love words. So much so they did not realize they were losing something in real life – their love.

Towards the end, it becomes clear that the three writers are all having the same issues.

The real life and written stories are very similar thing but they are two different things. Even if you write a great book, it can not replace your life. It can only give some grief and that’s all. It can not save you. You can not live a story. You still need to live your life and that needs full attention from you.

Still a writer can only write. That’s what he’s good at.

It can be applied to any profession or occupation. It tells you what you should pay attention to before it’s too late.

Based on a true story which was a CIA’s top secret for 18 years.

In 1979 Iran, a riot broke out in the US embassy. 6 people escaped and hid but there was no way of escaping out of the country.

Spoiler warning!

The story seems very simple. It does not require you to know the history. The ending is quite predictable.

There are some scenes that keep your heart pumping but overall it has very little action scenes. The progress is somewhat slow.

So, is it worth watching?

It depends on what you are looking for.

The drama is centered around people’s conflict under the limited timeframe constraint.

Ben Affleck plays the tough guy who kept going with the fake movie project.

It’s the psychological pressure that makes you want to watch it until the final happy ending.

John Goodman and other actors are playing well, too.

iPhone5′s battery runs out quickly. It goes pretty low by the time you go home from the office.

I love mophie’s case for iPhone 4S because the case is not too bulky and it’s cool. So, I’ve been waiting for the iPhone 5 version.

Apparently, it will be on sale from March.

Once I get hold of it, I’ll write how it feels like. Just a heads up.

In recent years, Wi-Fi has become ubiquitous in hotels. Many of them are free.

It’s not heard to imagine that Wi-Fi will be available more places like buses, trained, cars and any other places people can exist.

NextGen Wi-Fi will be much faster. Once Wi-Fi becomes ubiquitous, 3G and LTE will become obsolete.

Chat apps will be more and more popular. People stop using phones and use chats for non urgent calls. Or voice chat when Wi-Fi is available.

Phone companies will be in trouble unless they act quickly. They need to provide more and more Wi-Fi spots to compete. At the same time, their profit margin will sink like Titanic.

The below is what I think will happen beyond Wi-Fi.

Phone companies will give away phones with no monthly subscription fee. People are still given phone numbers and can call others via Internet or normal phone line for which they will be billed. International calls will be free as long as Wi-Fi is used.

So how do they make money?

They will provide ecosystem which is like iTunes from Apple or Google Play from Google

Many chat platforms will be used to provide such ecosystems.

LINE, Cacao Talk, WeChat, etc etc

These are all Asian chat platforms which are leading in this arena.

These ecosystem will be cross platform and it’d be interesting to see how Apple fights for keeping their own ecosystem.

Android, Tizen, etc will be competing with each other.

Samsung will play a big role and they might give up on Android once Tizen takes off. They need their own ecosystem to keep finding.

Software and hardware must work hand in hand to achieve a well integrated ecosystem.

Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft will be competing. Samsung and NTT are also joining. More and more will come.

So far, Android seems to be leading.

What will Apple do?

I did not conduct any formal research on this and I have no stats to prove my claim. However, a year ago would be that most of smart phones were iPhones. There has been some tidal change for sure as I do see many Samsung’s smart phones.

On the move, people take lots of photos and check pictures on their phone. The bigger the screen the better. I feel envious when I see the big SIII or Note2 screen. iPhone5 has longer screen than iPhone4 but it is not big enough.

I read newspaper and books on iPhone. I’ve always been longing for bigger screen.

I’m considering iPad mini but I don’t really carry two gadgets all the time. If not all the time, I might as well not to have it.

Slightly off topic: when I commute, I do not carry any bag. It’s been like this for some time. I can access office computers from home so there is no need for carrying anything around except for a phone.

So I made it that I can do most of the things on iPhone. In fact, I only need my Mac for certain things that requires software a available only on Mac like music production and software development. Same for iPad.

Outside, I take my iPhone, ear phones and wallet. I want to replace wallet with NFC when that becomes available on iPhone. I really prefer to carry less stuff with me while on the go.

So, I did not bring my MBP to this travel as I won’t be doing things I usually do on it while away from home. I do bring MBA with us but I rarely use it. If I do, it’s only in the hotel room. I prefer iPhone on the sofa or bed.

I’m writing this article with a coffee on my left hand and my right thumb does the typing.

If new iPhone5S had bigger screen, can I comfortably thumb typing?

I suggest Apple make the soft keyboard movable towards the left or the right Sid of the screen so that the keys are within the thumb’s reach.

Apple did not extend the width with iPhone5. I believe they will for iPhone5. Otherwise more people consider Samsung as the first choice.

As for tablets, I see most of travelers use iPad. It’s not iPad mini. If Retina is supported, I think more people use it for taking photos and checking pictures.

If iWatch is really delivered, it’s the ultimate on the go device. But I’m not sure if I can write blogs on it.

A wristwatch like device WSJ says Apple is testing with Foxconn might support Siri so that users can send messages and conduct Internet search by talking to it.

Moreover, it uses Bluetooth to communicate with iPhone and iPad although nobody seems to know precisely how that can be useful. Apple is also working with Intel for this device.

All of this is just a rumor. Having said that, many such rumors came true in the past. I can not just deny it.

This rumor was there since the last fall. It was not getting too much attention due to the much bigger rumor of iPad mini that time.

Once we saw iPad mini announcement and new iPod nano which can bear a wristband, the rumor lost the attraction.

Not only WSJ but also New York Times reported a similar story, making me believe it with slightly higher confidence. The newspaper mentioned it might be like a cool gadget that James Bond and Dick Tracy could have been using.

Will it be announced in the next WDC?

That’d be around June.

By the way, Sony will be announcing PlayStation 4 this month.

But is it only me who cares more about iWatch even though it might or might not be announced in 4 month time or more?