Philoking.comfrom Jason Burns’ perspective…

About once a year, I get the idea to do these crazy rants where I go on and on about technology and where it’s awesome, and where it has a long way to go. It’s 2:48pm Pacific time and I am n the air somewhere between Seattle, Washington and Boise, Idaho.

I am taking a quick, and I mean quick, business trip to meet with some of my team in the Boise Microsoft office and then come back, so all is well. So I will start this rant with the 5 things I truly love in technology right now, and cap it off with the 5 “Why the hell don’t we have this yet” items.

I love:

1. I love the fact that I can get every bit of the news I care about, filtered the way I want it, on pretty much every electronic device I have no matter where I am. Think about that for a second. RSS feeds in particular have dramatically changed the way I view and consume news. No longer is it “wait until what I care about is mentioned.” Now its, “I want to see everything but…” That’s huge folks. I filter my news and by doing that am able to view over 70 sites now that I care about every single day. If you haven’t seen it yet check out Yahoo Pipes or Microsoft’s Popfly, the mashup is where it’s at. Grab all the feeds you want, filter by what you do or do not want to see, add that feed to your feed browser and bam, just the news you want. Use a reader like Google’s that works well on mobile browsers and you can look at it wherever you want.
2. I love that manufacturers are finally starting to get it when it comes to power. I thank God every day for the mini-USB jack. I wish everything would adopt it and get it over with. I forgot my phone charger on this trip, so what, I can grab the USB cable that I use for my hard drive and charge it with my laptop or simply plug it into the brick that comes with my USB iPod charger. Simple, that’s what it’s all about.
3. I love that IM is starting to become as common as text messaging. I can only hope that it converges further, the standards simplify, and texting and IMing are one in the same, you have one or two IDs, depending on your needs, and when someone pings you, if you aren’t at your desk, you get it on your phone. Currently I have something similar setup with Microsoft Messenger on my cell phone and I love it.
4. I love that devices that don’t traditionally communicate are starting to get in on the fun. My new car will email me and tell me if the tires are low. Are you kidding me? Any diagnostic things that I need to know, the car tells OnStar, and OnStar emails me the details. Add in that it has a 120v outlet built in to power laptops and such, and this is yet another instance of convergence done right! It has an Aux in 1/8 jack for MP3, which is nice, but I am surprised they didn’t go for a USB connection ala the Ford Sync setup so you can control the device with the head unit and steering wheel controls. Oh well, my last vehicle didn’t even have the Aux so I feel blessed.
5. I love that the Internet is everywhere now. I love that no matter where I am I can check email, look at my bank balance, get movie times, locate myself, get directions, find restaurants and stores, get comparative prices while shopping and stay totally connected with work and family on the go. My only complaints with the Internet at this point are “Why don’t airplanes have it yet.” And “Why is it that I feel lost and confused when I don’t have access to it!”

What do I hate about technology right now?

1. I absolutely hate that laptops batteries still suck. Even this Macbook Pro, which is still a great battery machine, sucks. Why can’t we get 8 hours yet? Surely someone knows a way!!! On that same subject, get with the wireless charging program. I know it’s filtering out slowly, but dang, imagine if there was something giving off a charge, I set my backpack near it at night, and when I leave in the AM, every device in my bag (and that’s a lot) is totally charged and ready to go.
2. Why have cell phone manufacturers not figured out how to let you have two handsets on the same number yet? Home phones can do it, get with the 30s man. I want to have one I can use that has every goodie known to man, like an iPhone, and then one that’s just a junker that is tiny and works great for just phone calls. That way I don’t have to risk a precious smart phone when I am going, oh, I don’t know, kayaking? That just makes sense to me…oh well.
3. I hate the movie industry. Ok, that doesn’t sound tech related, but it is. My wife and I buy upwards of 5 DVDs a week on Average. A trip to the local video store that nets more than 10 DVDs is not highly unusual. I would consider myself a prime DVD customer for the movie industry right? Well, if that’s the case, why is it still not legal for me to watch that same movie I paid $18 for on my iPod, Zune or laptop (digitally.) Why is it still not legal for me to make a media server that rips all of those movies so I can stream them anywhere in my house? Sure, I know the arguments about how it could get misused, but since when is a product not sold because someone could misuse it. They still sell butterfly knives and throwing stars to kids at the flea market don’t they! I want to be able to take my DVD, throw it in one of my machines, rip it to a file that I am totally OK with having some personal information to identify that it’s mine on, and let me play it wherever the hell I want.
4. I hate un-warranted techno fear. I hate that when something happens like the current attempted purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft, that the entire uneducated Internet society gets up and cries that Microsoft will destroy Yahoo. Last time I checked Microsoft buys great technology to incorporate and use it, not to shut it down. I seriously doubt Flickr will find itself on the chopping block folks. Microsoft would be hard pressed to toss that many users out in the wind in such a vibrant living community. Ditto that for Yahoo IM and Yahoo mail.
5. Last but not least, I hate Linux. Yea, that pissed you off right? Ok, I don’t hate Linux; I just hate what it has become to stand for. Some guy gets the idea to make a Unixy clone and give it away and let the world develop on and against it, great. The thing is, Linux has now become this poster child for a clueless open source community. Now I love open source as much as the next guy, I really do, but the problem is when someone writes a decent piece of software, like say “Gimp” and the entire community rises up saying that Adobe should give away it’s intellectual property just like Gimp does because it’s the right thing to do, be open source, why in the world do you want to make money anyway? You can go ahead and Xerox that for Linux/Windows, Open Office/Office, Amarok/iTunes, etc. I guess Nike should start giving their shoes away too.

Well, I hope you were entertained by my rants, I am sure I will incite a comment riot or two here, but I just thought this would be an entertaining way to burn an hour getting it off of my chest!