The plan is to have most, if not all cell phones using the micro-USB interface as the means to charge a cell phone by the year 2012. This will please two main groups: the tree-hugging environmentalists, and the scatterbrained travelers that lose chargers in luggage/hotels/airports, etc. (guilty).

The universal charger should decrease waste in landfills and lower the cost of replacement chargers. There will be little or no demand for new car chargers or wall chargers, since everyone will have one from a previous phone (ideally). I’m all for fewer chargers and cords laying everywhere, and I also happen to be strongly in favor of lower prices.

The plan also calls for chargers to be far more efficient in the actual charging process, using approximately 50% less electricity in the charging process. Combine that with the benefits of fewer chargers in landfills, and environmentalists everywhere will give extra big hugs to the nearest tree they can find. (I’m kidding, environmentalists are ok by me.)

There is one major producer that is missing from the list. Go figure, it’s Apple. It’s kind of hard to be mad at them when they continue to pump out cool products, but c’mon guys, it’s a charger. Fall in line. All the “cool” manufacturers are doin’ it.

Hooray for the cell phone industry. It’s a small step in the right direction. Maybe in a few years, ALL devices can have a universal charging interface. Maybe. (I know, it’s crazy talk. After all, it took the cell phone industry 20 years or so…)

You guys have any ideas to make the cell phone industry/ mobile device industry better? Comment away.

Well, I can officially say that I am now completely satisfied.  On March 12, Stone Design released their new version of the popular app, version 2.0.  I was immediately impressed with the obvious improvements.  Here are some of the new updates and why I like them.

Design and Notifications:

The clean sleek design makes tweets easy to read and navigate.  I love the notification icons so I always know how many tweets I have waiting for me when I open the app.

Options Options Options

The new design makes it super easy to send replies and direct messages.  Not to mention, notice the COPY option!  I love having this option even before iPhone 3.0 is released.

Detailed User Info

An easy way to check out friends info and follow those you aren’t yet.  Plus, it is always nice to check out who your friends are following and see if you might be interested in their content too.

Landscape Tweeting

I don’t mind typing on the normal keyboard, but I must say, I am so much quicker in landscape.  And, while I don’t use them often, the emoticons are a nice option to have if I’m in the mood.

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I am obviously a fan of Twittelator Pro.  There are certainly many more features to this application that I haven’t even touched.  These are just my favorites.  I have tried several others for the iPhone but have never found anything that is the full package as much as this.  Hey, if you won’t take my word for it, maybe Guy Kawasaki can convince you - tweeted “Have to say that Twittelator Pro is the way to go on iPhone”.  Until next time…

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we’ve created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

Tim Westergren
Founder
The Music Genome Project

Hey!  What a novel idea!  Listening to music that I like!  None of this crap shoveled at me by mass media.  (Gotta love Brittney, Paris, emo bands, et.al.)  All I have to do is type in a song or artist, and Pandora throws up a play list of the music I should or (more often than not) do like.  But how does Pandora know what songs I’ll like?  The FAQ over at Pandora explains everything quite well, but I’ll toss in a snippet as well, just for fun…

Q: How many songs do you have in your collection?

There are well over half a million analyzed songs, and counting…

Q: How long does it take to analyze a track? How many songs do you add to the collection in a month?

It takes most of our seasoned analysts about 20 minutes to analyze a single track. Pop singles takes less time, than say, many jazz tracks do. Some songs can take well over 30 minutes to analyze.

We add over 15,000 analyzed tracks to the Music Genome a month!

Q: How many attributes or “genes” are there in the Music Genome?

There are just shy of 400 musical attributes in the Music Genome Project.

When you ask the Pandora Tuner “why is this song playing?” what gets displayed is just a summary of the information used by the Music Genome.

Even two songs that show identical answers to “why is this song playing?” still have countless differences that the Music Genome uses when it matches music based on each of those songs.

These attribute summaries are just intended to provide some interesting insight into the musicological elements of a song — without getting into dozens of individual attributes for each element.

And there you go.  The technology behind the technology is a band of music lovers (granted, far more talented and better trained) much like ourselves that pour over every song they encounter.  Despite all the amazing advancements in the world of science and technology, when it comes to music, nothing beats the good old human ear.

Let’s assume, for the time being, that in the not too distant future, most Americans (and the rest of the world, for that matter) can have access to lightning quick internet.  This would drastically reduce the wait time to download a new game.  Problem solved.

Wait, not quite.  Currently, the only two realistic options for a hard drive are the 60 gb and the 120 gb HDD’s that Microsoft offers.  The 120 gb HDD will set you back $150 US.  If the average size of a game is around 7.5 gb (I’m assuming 8 gb is the max) you can squeeze 15 or so games, without DLC or demos or anything else, on the largest HDD that Microsoft offers.

So why should we want games without discs? First off, it would make game buying easy as can be (not that it’s terribly hard at the moment).  The problem of scratched discs and unplayable games would be a thing of the past.  And less clutter (i.e. games, cases, instruction manuals, etc.) laying around is always a plus.

Why would the game developers want discless games?  Lower costs, and more control over who, and how the games are purchased.  I would be curious to see how much of of my $60 goes towards making the physical game, case, and instruction manual.  Ideally, this would lead to lower costs to the consumer.  The used game stores would become a thing of the past, since there would be no physical copy of the game to trade in.  I’m sure someone somewhere will figure out a way to make a buck or two off of the new process, but not I.  I’m not nearly smart enough.

So when will all this happen?  My guess is not in the next 2 to 3 years.  I’m sure game developers are pushing hard to have it happen sooner, but until many more pepple have ready access to broadband internet, and Microsoft develops a newer, larger HDD, it won’t be feasable.  As soon as the technology makes the leap, and it all makes sense, full downloadable games will be here before you know it.

Web Browser:

The obvious first here is Firefox, and rightfully so.  Whenever I set up any computer my order of operations is 1) Install the OS, 2) Make sure it has internet access, and 3) Install Firefox.  Well, that is the case when I install a Windows OS, Linux usually has it pre-installed.  Everything else is less important.  I also sometimes find myself using Google’s Chrome and Safari, but Firefox is definitely the leader of the pack,  at least for me.  Judging by their market share, however, I probably didn’t need to point this out, but I know that I would be in trouble if I didn’t include it.

Video:

Hands down without question, nothing, and I mean nothing even compares tothe abilities of VLC.  I am often suprised at how many people are not aware of VLC.  It is available for whatever your OS of choice is so there are no excuses for not using it.  Plus, it is open-sourced wich is an automatic +10 points in my book.

Instant Messaging:

This is one that I go back and forth on, though I don’t find myself doing very much instant messaging anymore.  I’m partial to Pidgin (formerly Gaim), and please don’t pronounce it ‘Pid-Gin’… it’s pronounced like the filthy bird.  It works with mostly all instant messaging protocols.  Again, this selection is open-source.  Another that peoeple seem to be partial to is Trillian, which also has its merits.  Finally, if you really do like AIM and want to use it, at least save yourself the trouble and install it with MiddleMan.  MiddleMan is an add-on that removes all the crap that makees AIM pretty much adware on its own.

Word Processing:

Don’t you dare go out and spend a barrel of cash to get Microsoft Word when you don’t have to.  You have several options, but the best choice is easy.  OpenOffice.org.  If you don’t have it, you’ve probably at least seen it mentioned when you install Java support on your computer.  It has the look and feel of Microsoft Word XP or 2003 only without the hassle of actually paying for it.  And guess what, it’s open source (duh).  Also, Google has their solution at docs.google.com.  It is free and online so you can easily access your documents from everywhere, but it doesn’t have all the functionality of full-fledged applications.

Torrents:

Everyone seems to have their favorite, but I don’t see how any of them can compare to µTorrent (Yes, that is the letter “micro”, not a ‘u’, so pronounce it as such).  Aptly named because it is a very small program as far as filesize goes.  It is closed-source, but that is forgivable because it is just so great.  You’ll never need another torrent application again.

Here is a look at an interview with America’s new CIO as he talks about cell phones and technology safety precautions at the inaguration.  A bit dated but a good look into what we can expect.

This statement caught me off guard for two reasons:

1.  I don’t recall being especially outspoken in any of his classes.

2.  I guess I didn’t realize how much technology had improved from “when I was in school, when we had to walk uphill, both ways, barefoot, in the snow…”

I quickly gathered my thoughts, and we began to discuss how communication between teens and young adults has shifted over these last few years.  Technology such as facebook, twitter, texting, and blogs were all either in their early stages, or not yet available.  Hell, cell phones in general didn’t become prevalent on campus until my junior year (2002).

Today, almost every student has a laptop/notebook in front of them with wifi access to the internet as they sit in class.  Kids no longer talk on cell phones, they text.  Everything is becoming a typing oriented.  Emails, RSS feeds for news, texting, status updates, tweets, you name it, is all keyboard intensive.

Don’t get me wrong, this is all wonderful technology that can, and does, make our lives easier.  But I feel at times, we (myself included, I’m as guilty as the next guy) become too dependent on technology to communicate in our daily lives.  We need to, from time to time, take a step back and consider that all the wonderful advancements in technology we have been witness to should enhance our day to day lives, not consume them.  I might be burned at the stake, preaching about less tech. on a tech. blog, oh well.  I’ll get over it.

If you want a fun little “challenge”, go on vacation for a week.  Try a cruise to some warm, tropical location.  The vacation part will be a blast, but it’s amazing how the week away from cell phones, computers, and TV can be a welcome relief.  Try it, you just might like it.

How will emerging technology improve our productivity in the years ahead? What opportunities will arise from evolving trends and global change? Microsoft has collaborated with customers, partners, and thought leaders across multiple disciplines to develop scenarios that explore how long-term trends, customer challenges, and emerging technologies might converge to improve our lives, both at work and home.

Graphics
Now, the obvious thing to suggest, given the Wii’s puny graphical abilities compared to its competitors would be a drastic improvement in graphics. On the contrary, in my opinion the Wii does not need a drastic improvement in this field. The Wii is not about super realistic graphics, it is about gameplay. It just needs graphics to be enough better that the developers of serious games take it more seriously and consider it less of a child’s toy. I believe the major reason we see hundreds of cartoony children’s games and only a handful of games rated T or higher is because of the graphics. Nintendo needs to reach out to the developers and show them that the Wii is a platform for games other than Barbie’s Pony Rides. Who knows, they may already be doing this, look at MadWorld.

User Generated Content
With this, I am not just talking about user-created Wii games, but games for the virtual console as well. If I can download, say, VisualHAM and make my own game for the GBA (Try it, it’s really easy if you have some C or C++ knowledge), I should be able to share it with my Wii and have the Wii recognize it as a GBA rom and play it accordingly. I know there will have to be some sort of checks and balances to make sure I’m not just bypassing the Wii shop channel by downloading a rom on my own, but I’m sure there’s a way they can figure that out.

Better Channels
The Wii has a big thing going for them with their channels, the only problem is that they don’t take advantage of it. They could easily have a Wii Demo channel with demos for upcoming games (all their competitors are doing it), some sort of actual community channel to play simple games in a virtual world (much like Home for the PS3), or even something unique that users can’t find anywhere else (No, the everybody votes channel does not count). I just wish I had a use outside of the Weather Channel and News Channel.

DVD playback
Yes, many people claim ways to do this, and whether or not they somehow can force a DVD codec and player onto the Wii is beside the point, the Wii uses DVDs for games, which means it has a DVD player in it. Why can’t we use that built-in player on our own? They are letting the Japanese do it.

Less of a network hog
This one is a big problem for me. Unless you want your Wii to be unplugged when not in use, chances are you will see it hogging the wireless. It’s fine with me if it uses its fair share of the network when I am using it and logged in to the Wii shop channel or something, but I can’t imagine what it is doing when turned off aside from checking for messages. This shouldn’t be difficult, whatever the Wii is doing, make it stop doing it. Sure, I can set it as the virtual DMZ and it helps, but I shouldn’t have to do that.

Anything I missed?

1.  Slotz Racer - While there isn’t much to this game as far as controls, it is a great throwback to the classic slot track racing game many of us had as kids.  It costs a couple of bucks, but it is well worth the money for the hours of entertainment it provides.

2.  Twittelator - I’ve tried most of the Twitter apps available for the iPhone and think Twittelator is the most comprehensive.  It comes in both a free and pro version.  I used the free version (ad supported)  for a while before deciding to go with pro.

3.  Google - Even with Google search built-in to Safari, I find myself using this app as my go to for searching.  The built in links to all of their mobile web apps makes it a must have for me.  It certainly makes my life easier.

4.  The Weather Channel - It is exactly what you would expect, but it is leaps and bounds more useful than the weather app Apple included.

5. Pandora - Since you already know about my love affair with Pandora as a service, I won’t bore you with any of that on the app.  A perfect little free app that should be on everyones phone.