According to Ars Technica, Apple is using a technique called Timer Coalescing to create App Nap. Apps that are not active will have their processes set to a lower priority, and therefore use less CPU/disk/etc, and thereby save power. This feature has been around on Linux for a long time, and apparently has been part of Windows as well.

I had not heard, however, of this compressed memory technique, although apparently it had been done many years ago by a program called “RamDoubler”. After some quick Googling, it seems that this is available via a kernel module called “zram”.

Wanna try it out? If you’re running Precise or newer (12.04 or later), you’re in luck. Just apt-get zram with

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sudo apt-get install zram-config

and you’re all set.

To see the effects of zram, just run free -m and you’ll notice an increase in memory/swap space. I haven’t thoroughly tested to see the performance gains, but it’s interesting to see that some of the new OS X features are already available elsewhere.

In order to work around this limitation in ChromeOS, a developer at Google named David Schneider developed a set of scripts called crouton. Crouton allows you to run Ubuntu inside a your ChromeOS system, so that you can easily swap back and forth between the operating systems. This is not limited to the Pixel, so if you’re using another model Chromebook, even dating back to the CR-48, this guide should work for you.

Installing Crouton

Step One: Enable Developer Mode (This might vary slightly depending on your model)

Warning: Switching into or out of developer mode will wipe all the user data on the ChromeOS machine.

1. Shutdown your machine.
2. Press and hold esc + refresh, and push the power button to turn on your computer.
3. Push Ctrl+D to be prompted to enable developer mode.
4. Hit enter, and watch the progress bar at the top of the screen as the system is wiped.
5. When the machine boots up again, either wait til it boots, or you can hit Ctrl+D again to start faster.

Step Two: Install Crouton

1. Download crouton here.
2. Open a shell (Ctrl+Alt+T, type shell and hit enter) and run sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t xfce,touch.
3. Go get a drink, come back and answer some questions.
4. Done! Start up an XFCE session with sudo startxfce4.

Step Three: Enjoy Ubuntu on your Chromebook!

To switch back and forth between ChromeOS and Crouton, swap with Ctrl+Alt+Back and the sequence Ctrl+Alt+Forward followed by Ctrl+Alt+Refresh.

Pro tip: Increase the font size under the display settings, so that the text is a little more readable!

Last Wednesday I took the trip up to NYC, to the top floor of Chelsea Market to pick up a device that many have waited anxiously for. A device unlike anything else we’ve seen before: Google’s Glass. This is the Explorer Edition of the device, which is targeted towards developers, who attended Google’s IO conference last year. I was fortunate to be invited to pick up my device on the first day of New York’s pickups, which followed several pickup days in Mountain View the previous week.

The pickup experience was very exciting, it included an informative one-on-one experience with a Glass Guide, who helped walk me through the device (which I had gotten some previous experience a few months back) and fit it to my face. The top floor of Chelsea Market allowed me to break in the camera of the device with a nice view of lower Manhattan.

I was able to try on all five colors that were available, but I ended up choosing charcoal (also known as black.) Other options included Cotton, Shale, Tangerine, and Sky (white, grey, orange and light blue, respectively.)

Configuring Glass was a snap, I opted to use the MyGlass app for Android, although users without the app, can use a web based utility to set up their device. After my scheduled pickup apoinment, another Explorer and myself walked up towards Times Square, and were greeted with several people giving us a look for wearing at our new eyeware.

So far people have either thought they look ridiculous, which might be the nature of the device, or the fact that I’ve been wearing them overtop of my prescription glasses. This hasn’t stopped anyone, however, from asking me to try them on and get a demo of the features.

What’s in the box?

Included in the box is Glass (obviously), a micro USB cable and a AC adapter for it, a microfiber bag for storing Glass when it’s not in use, and two visor attachments, one polarized for sun, and the other clear.

Thoughts so far

Since I’ve only had the device for a few days, I’ll need to post a review after I’ve used it for a little longer. So far I’ve enjoyed the hands-free navigation for wandering around DC, as well as taking some snapshots. I’ve always thought it was a little awkward to reply to text messages and emails using your voice (which is why I never really did it on my phone), but maybe I’ll warm up to it with Glass. The battery life has been pretty decent, even with the heavy usage of showing it off to excited friends.

But wait…there’s more!

A few days after I returned with Glass, I was interviewed by The Fold, a flagship video series by The Washington Post! You can check out the video here:

Got any questions you’d like answered? Drop me a line below in the comments, on Twitter or on Google Plus!

Obligatory selfie.

If you try using Linkify and LinkMovementMethod, which you’d use on normal links in a TextView, you’ll find that you can no longer use the ListView properly.

The solution I’m using is slightly modified from this answer on StackOverflow here.

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import android.content.Context;
import android.text.Layout;
import android.text.Selection;
import android.text.Spannable;
import android.text.Spanned;
import android.text.style.ClickableSpan;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.view.MotionEvent;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class LinkifiedTextView extends TextView {
  public LinkifiedTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
      super(context, attrs);
  }

  @Override
  public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
      TextView widget = (TextView) this;
      Object text = widget.getText();
      if (text instanceof Spanned) {
          Spannable buffer = (Spannable) text;

          int action = event.getAction();

          if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP
                  || action == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
              int x = (int) event.getX();
              int y = (int) event.getY();

              x -= widget.getTotalPaddingLeft();
              y -= widget.getTotalPaddingTop();

              x += widget.getScrollX();
              y += widget.getScrollY();

              Layout layout = widget.getLayout();
              int line = layout.getLineForVertical(y);
              int off = layout.getOffsetForHorizontal(line, x);

              ClickableSpan[] link = buffer.getSpans(off, off,
                      ClickableSpan.class);

              if (link.length != 0) {
                  if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) {
                      link[0].onClick(widget);
                  } else if (action == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
                      Selection.setSelection(buffer,
                              buffer.getSpanStart(link[0]),
                              buffer.getSpanEnd(link[0]));
                  }
                  return true;
              }
          }

      }

      return false;
  }
}

Just drop this in as a replacement for your normal TextView, and you’ll have the clicks on links in your text intercepted. Hope this helps a fellow developer!

Like this post? Any other Android tips you’d like to hear about? Let me know on Twitter or Google Plus, or leave a comment.

If you look closely, it looks like the Google+ Messenger icon on the bottom right corner of the dock. Is this finally the integration of G+ Messenger and the web that we’ve been waiting for since G+ Messenger was introduced? Maybe we’ll find out in a few short weeks during Google IO this year!

Here comes the bad news though: Google Reader is being shut down. If you don’t know, Google Reader is an RSS reader for the web, a hub for all your subscriptions online. This pending shutdown has caused quite a stir, leading to many users scrambling to new RSS readers, or building new ones. (There was even a petition on whitehouse.org for the government to intervene…)

Google Reader was one of my favorite Google applications, so it’s quite sad to see it go. Hopefully one of these replacements will provide a good enough experience so the switch is a bit less painful.

Suggestions for a new RSS reader? Predictions for IO 2013? Drop me a line on Twitter or Google Plus, or leave a comment.

Why might you want Google Authorship?

• It helps distinguish your content from other search results.
• You might get more followers on Google+.

Would you like to get Authorship on Google? It’s actually extremely easy. Just follow the following steps:

1. You need a Google+ profile with a profile picture of yourself.
2. On the profile editor of Google+, there is a “Contributor to” section; add your website here.
3. Add a link like this: <a href="[your profile URL]?rel=author">Google</a> somewhere on your website.
4. You’re done! You can validate what your site would look like as a search result with a tool found here.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t guarantee to show author information in Google Web Search or Google News results.

Things to be excited about:

• Immediate local play of digital titles while they download

  I think it’s very cool to be able to play the digital downloads while they download. I’ve often hoped for something like this, especially since the size of these games has gotten so large over the last few years.

• Video replay/stream of your screen

  This is a very popular feature already for games like Call of Duty. There will be an explosion of PS4 videos on YouTube as soon as this is released.

• Instant system hibernation

  I like the idea of being able to put my console to sleep in a game and pick up where I left off.

• Allowing remote friends to assume control over your currently playing game

  “Pass the controller” sort of feeling over the internet. Not a bad idea.

• The new system uses a DualShock 4 controller with a touchpad, share button, lightbar and headphone jack

  It’s time for an update here. It will be interesting to see what developers do with the touchpad portion of the controller though.

• Silent preloading of games you may be interested in

  Like I said before, file sizes are getting really large. It’s actually a very smart idea to preload some games I might be interested in, so I can quickly try them out.

Things to be wary about:

• Seemingly high bandwidth requirements

  Most of the things they showed off require lots of bandwidth. (Possibly a dealbreaker, depending on your internet provider)

• No backwards compatibility with PS3 games?!

  Are you kidding me? This seems like a no brainer.

• Game demos were renders

  I’d have liked to see actual gameplay. We have no idea what games will look like yet. (Similarly disappointing is that the PS4 will output 4K video, but not 4K resolution for games.)

• No price, no release date AND didn’t actually see the console

After that, now I’m curious to see what Microsoft has to offer. I guess we’ll see how the Xbox (720?) compares at E3 this summer!

Anything I missed? Something you’re excited about? Leave a comment!

Me (and my team, which included Jacob Hilker and Ryan Warner), won the Glass Foundry Hackathon! Like I said, I cannot share much more about it, but I do have this sweet picture of me wearing them:

And the best part is the prize for the winners - a free Glass Explorer device (when they are available, of course).

Like I said, I’m using a Macbook Air, so there’s two steps to this process: creating a bootable flash drive with the Ubuntu image, and the actual installation.

Creating a bootable install image

This is pretty standard stuff, if you’re reading this, it’s likely you already know it. Heck, if you have an external DVD drive, you can skip this all together.

1. Download the image from Ubuntu
2. Hit up your terminal and use the following command to convert that image hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso
3. More terminal goodness: diskutil list to find which disk is your flash drive
4. diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN where N is the disk number you found in step 3.
5. sudo dd if=/path/to/converted.iso of=/dev/diskN bs=1m to copy that image over to the flash drive.
6. diskutil eject /dev/diskN to EJECT!

Setup the SD Card

Now we’re ready to install Ubuntu on the SD card (SD card must be at least 8 Gigs). I used a Class 10 card, and performance was…not terrible. I can’t speak for any of the slower cards.

1. Download rEFIt from the rEFIt website. You should grab the .dmg version)
2. Open up Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and create a partition of 50 MB formatted “Mac OS Extended Journaled”
3. Fill up the rest of the card with a partition of MSDOS-FAT.
4. Before writing the Partition Table, hit the options button and select “GUID Partition Table”
5. Copy the ‘efi’ directory onto the root of the 50MB partition created in step 2.
6. Get back to that trusty terminal cd /Volumes/partition1/efi/refit (where ‘partition1’ is the name of that same parition) followed by ./enable.sh
7. Reboot your machine, and press and hold the option key to select a boot device. You should see ones for your main HD, the SD card, and the Live CD image. Select the Live CD image, and let’s get installing.
8. During installation, you’ll want to select the advanced partitionint setup. Select the /dev/sdb3 device (Should match the size of the SD card) for formatting and give them the mount point “/”. Device for boot loader installation must be also /dev/sdb3 (not /dev/sdb!). Ubuntu is going to give you a warning about no swap partition. That’s alright, you don’t need it.
9. This is going to take a while. Seriously, it’s not gonna be fast. Go get a coffee.
10. Reboot when the install is complete, and hold option again to select that SD card. Ta-da!

Bonus Step:

After you remove the SD card and try to boot normally, you’ll likely hit this error “grub error: no such device”

You can fix this by booting into OS X and selecting your hard drive as the Startup Disk, which can be found in the System Preferences.

Did you find this useful? Feel free to comment below, or follow me on Twitter and let me know if you have any questions, or would like to suggest things for me to talk in the future.

Disclaimer: This may void your warranty, I take no responsibility, etc.

Part One: Unlocking your One V

The first part of the process is called “Rooting” your device. Rooting basically means obtaining admin access on your device, which allows you to do all sorts of fun things down the line. In order to root your device however, there are a few steps you’ll have to take. The first thing you’ll need to do is unlock the bootloader. The bootloader is the software that loads the operating system of your phone. Normally this is locked to only start the software that ships on the device, but we are going to unlock it so that we may install custom software.

1. Go to HTC Dev and create yourself an account.
2. Download these Fastboot Files
3. Make a new folder on your C: or home directory called fastboot.
4. Extract the zip downloaded in step 2 to the new folder
5. Go here and select “All Other Supported Models” and then “Begin Unlock bootloader”
6. Check both checkboxes, and then proceed.
7. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 5-7 seconds (the three keys will flash a few times then it will power off)
8. Hold the volume down button and power the device on, the device will boot to a white screen called “HBOOT”
9. Select “Fastboot” with volume up or down then press the power button once (you’ll be in fastboot mode)
10. Plug your phone into your computer and open a Command Prompt.
11. cd to your folder where we put fastboot files (i.e c:\fastboot)
12. type this into your command prompt: fastboot oem get_identifier_token
13. Select & copy the text as per step 9 on the HTC Dev website
14. Paste your identifier token into the box at the bottom and submit You will then receive an email from HTCDev with a link to the second part of the instructions and your “Unlock_code.bin” file attached.
15. Download the “Unlock_code.bin” attachment from the email and save it to the same folder that we extracted fastboot files.
16. Type this into your command prompt window: fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
17. The display will change on your phone, and ask you to confirm the unlock. press volume up to accept and power to confirm.

Congratulations! You have successfully unlocked the bootloader.

Part Two: Rooting the One V

The next step in this process, is actually obtaining root access. In order to do that, we will be installing an application called SuperSU, which allows you to run applications on your phone with administrative priveledges (also known as superuser or root).

1. Download r1-primo-cdma-superboot.zip to your computer and extract in any directory.
2. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 5-7 seconds (the three keys will flash a few times then it will power off)
3. Hold volume down button while powering on, the device will boot to HBOOT (like we did before)
4. Select Fastboot with volume up or down then press power once
5. Connect your phone to PC
6. Double click ‘install-superboot-windows.bat’ (or mac or linux, depending on your platform)

Excellent! You now have root access on your phone. When you start up Android, you’ll see a new application in your launcher. It’s called SuperSU, and will ask you to allow/deny applications root access if they request it. This is useful for installing things like tethering applications, or modifying system files.

Part Three: Installing Custom Recovery

The last thing we are going to do as part of this guide is install a custom recovery. A recovery is a mode of the phone that allows you to backup/restore your device, or modify device files, like installing new software. This will be important if you’d like to backup your device before wiping it to install custom software. In order to install ClockworkMod Recovery (which is probably the most popular recovery you’ll find):

1. Download ClockworkMod Recovery here.
2. Power off your phone by holding the power button down for 5-7 seconds (the three keys will flash a few times then it will power off)
3. Hold the volume down button while powering on, the device will boot to HBOOT (You should be getting the hang of this by now)
4. Select Fastboot with volume up or down then press power once
5. Connect your phone to PC
6. Type the following in to your command prompt: adb flash recovery cwmrecovery.img
7. Restart your phone, and hold the volume down button. This time, select “recovery” and hit the power button.

You’re now in recovery mode! While we’re here, let’s make a backup.

1. Scroll through the list of options 2 times using volume up or volume down. (Without doing this, you won’t be able to select an option)
2. Use the power button to select “Backup and restore”
3. Select “Backup”
4. The backup process is now running. It will be a few minutes to complete.
5. Once complete, let’s make sure the backup is successful.
6. Once again, select “Backup and restore”
7. Choose “Restore”. You will see your backup files, e.g: 2013-01-12.10.13.04
8. Pick “Go Back”
9. Select “Reboot system”

It’s probably best to copy that backup folder off your SD card and onto your computer in the event something happens to your SD card.

Awesome! You’re now all set to do all sorts of things, like installing custom roms. Be sure to check back for the next part of this series, where we will go over that.

I decided to log in and start X manually, so I could at least mess around with it in the meanwhile. Without being able to resize the window/use the shared clipboard, I decided to try to install the tools manually. No dice here, since VMware won’t let you install the tools while the Easy Install process is still running. Here’s what you can do to fix it:

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sudo mv /etc/issue.backup /etc/issue
sudo mv /etc/rc.local.backup /etc/rc.local
sudo mv /opt/vmware-tools-installer/lightdm.conf /etc/init

Then follow these few steps to stop the easy install process:

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Power off the virtual machine.
Go to VM > Settings
Select Floppy.
Select 'Use physical drive', and set the dropdown to 'Auto Detect'.
Power on the virtual machine and install VMware Tools.

Hope this helps!

On the back of the Q, things are less clean. There’s both micro HDMI and optical audio out, ethernet and a micro USB port for “encouraged hacking”. There’s also a set of banana connectors to allow you to hook up speakers to the built in 25-watt amplifier.

So how’s the UI of the Nexus Q, you might ask. Does it look as smooth as Jelly Bean does on the other devices that I showed you a few weeks ago? Funny thing is, the Nexus Q doesn’t have a UI of it’s own; it requires an Android device to set up. All you need to do is tap an NFC enabled device to the sphere, and it will take you to download the Nexus Q app from Google Play. Start up the app, log in with your Google account, and you’re all set to use the Q.

Since the Q doesn’t have it’s own UI, let’s take a look at the Nexus Q app for Android.

You don’t really use the app for anything after setting up the Q initially, all the media is controlled through the Play Music, Play Movies and Youtube apps. All you need to do is hit the little triangle that will appear when you’re on the same network as a Q.

My biggest complaint about the Q is the way you set it up to involve your friends. First you need to enable guest mode from the Q app, and then manually invite all the people you want to have access, which actually sends them an email to download the app. This seems like such a convoluted process, and I doubt people will actually care to do this. Not only that, but I see no way of revoking someone’s ability to use the Q after you’ve invited them. We all know that one person who takes their music privileges a little too far, but it seems that the only recourse in that event is to turn guest mode off all together.

Is it work $300 right now? Probably not, no. Unless you’re a huge consumer of Play media, you’ll probably be better off with a Roku, or something like that. Even if you are a consumer of Play content, you’re probably better off with a Google TV, since after all, that does other things.

As a backstory, you should know that prior to recieving the Nexus 7 at Google IO, I already owned a Motorola Xoom, a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 (from IO 2011), and an HP Touchpad. Surprising as it might seem for someone with all these gadgets, I actually don’t really get tablets. I have a laptop, and a smartphone, and there just really isn’t a whole lot of use for a tablet that I’ve found. I’ve tried them all, including the iPad, and I just haven’t found a way to fit it into the collection of things I use on a daily basis.

But, I don’t give up trying so easily. Nor has Google it seems, because slowly but surely, Google has finally put together a combination of software and hardware that is an absolute pleasure to use. Not only that, but at $200, it’s a steal compared to other popular options.

The best way to review the Nexus however, is by breaking it down into the two main components that it’s comprised of: software and hardware.

Software

The core of the Nexus 7 is Android 4.1, codenamed “Jelly Bean”. Jelly Bean was not a revolutionary update like its predessesor, Ice Cream Sandwich, but an evolutionary one. It includes three main changes, as well as some small ones. The main changes were “Project Butter”, Google Search, and Google Now.

Project Butter

Project Butter has probably made the most significant impact for me on the overall feel of Android. Prior to IO, my main complaint with Android was how occasionally laggy it was. However, in Jelly Bean, Google has smoothed out the experience with faster response to touch, animations, and even has the CPU ramp up faster as a response to touch events. Speaking of touch events, Google has apparently devised a way to predict where your fingers will be, and allows the system to respond more quickly as a result. The sum of these changes results in a much smoother feel to the entire operating system.

Google Search

Google’s new voice search is their strike back against Siri. Powered by Google’s Knowledge Graph, it can do a lot more than Apple’s offering.

The speech-to-text seems to be significantly more accurate than Apple’s, as well as much quicker. I imagine this is because Google has moved the speech-to-text engine onto the device, as this is another feature of the new keyboard (more on that below).

Instead of just listing off a whole bunch of things that I’ve tried, here’s a video from JLishere, who has compiled 41 queries against knoweledge graph. He demonstrates the wide variety of what Knowledge Graph allows the device to respond to, like local queries, transit directions, and what seems to just be tidbits from Wikipedia.

What’s most interesting to me, however, is the preview of the possibile ability to access core hardware functions, like turning on and off Wifi or Bluetooth. Another interesting feature is how this new voice search seems to fit in well with another new platform feature: Google Now.

Google Now

Google Now is a new card based system introduced in the new version of Android. It tells you about the weather, traffic information, sports scores, and other tidbits of information you’re likely to look up during your day. It’s quite convenient to have information about an upcoming flight available without having to keep checking it, or traffic information regarding my daily commute delivered right to my handset or tablet. Right now the number of available ‘cards’ is limited, but as the number of uses expands, the functionality will continue to grow.

Other features

In addition to the fancy speech-to-text features, as well as the speed improvements, Google has added rich notifications that allow you to perform actions without opening the app. You can control the music player, or reply to a SMS message, all from the notification tray. Another addition is a new keyboard, which does text prediction. If you’ve ever used Swiftkey, you’ll feel right at home with the new stock keyboard. Also included is the offline speech-to-text engine, which allows for speedy transcription, if you’re into that.

Other changes include some fancy new camera and gallery improvements, and now Chrome is the standard browser. Combined with tab sync from other machines, this is the best mobile browsing experience I’ve had so far.

Hardware

At 340 grams (compared to the Kindle Fire’s 413 grams), the Nexus 7 feels extremely light. It measures 10.45mm thick, which is just shy of the thickness of the Kindle Fire. The front of the tablet is an IPS 7-inch 1280 x 800 display, which is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, with 12 GPU cores, and 1GB of RAM. As for storage, it comes in 8GB ($199) and 16GB ($249) capacities.

In addition to that serious computing power, the Nexus 7 has plenty of sensors and radios. Under the hood, there’s Bluetooth and NFC, not to mention GPS, an accelerometer, a digital compass and a gyroscope. All this is paired with a battery that managed to last me around eight hours. Based on other reviews I’ve seen, the battery seems to last between seven and nine hours, depending on usage.

This all sounds fantastic, but there’s a few things that could have been added/improved as well. First, since there’s a lack of a rear camera, no camera app has been included. This is most certainly not a deal breaker, but it’s worth noting, if you’re into self portraits. There’s also no HDMI/MHL output, nor a MicroSD slot. The only other gripe that I have is that the speakers are fairly inadiquite, so you’ll be reaching for your headphones.

The Nexus 7 is a great deal for a tablet that costs just under $200. It has a great display, smooth performance and all the bells and whistles of Jelly Bean. In my opinion, this is the best Android tablet available.

And for the first time, I’m actually excited about using a tablet.

Oh yeah, if you were wondering: I did preorder Project Glass.

My guess is that there will be a Nexus tablet (see the Nexus banner on the third floor), with NFC and Google Wallet, and then attendees will get to test the tap-to-pay out at the Google Wallet sponsored Google Store.

We’ll certainly find out tomorrow though!

It’s thinner and lighter than an iPad, and has a built in kickstand. But here’s the kicker, the “smart cover”, doubles as a keyboard. Combine this with Microsoft Office, and I think you might have a competitor in the works. It has a stylus that can work even when your hand is on the screen, a USB port, and all the bells and whistles you’d want to see from a mobile machine.

Unfortunately, I can’t end the article there. Despite the fact that Microsoft blew me away by revealing a hot tablet, they still might let us down anyway. They were unable to provide a concrete release date, pricing, or battery life. Those three factors could easily change this purchase from a must-have, to a don’t-bother.

And then there’s the name. You’d think they’d call it Microsoft Surface/Surface Pro, or something along those lines. It’s a popular naming scheme used by a few other companies, and even in their own product lines. But alas, they went with the succinct “Surface for Windows 8 Pro.” Rolls right off the tongue, right?

All in all, I’m still impressed with what I saw yesterday. The form factor is good, and the potential is there. And when Microsoft takes the hardware and software into their own hands, the usually do a good job. Hopefully when it comes out in the fall, Microsoft won’t let us down.

New Macs

Yep. Refresh for the Air and Pro lines, and the introduction of the “Super Pro”. Yeah, I was wrong about the “Retina” all around, and nothing for the Mac Mini, but I’d say I was pretty darn close. There was technically an update for the Mac Pro, but as Marco from Instapaper points out, they basically didn’t do Pro owners any favors.

Mountain Lion

Got a release month (July). There was iCloud Tabs, and a few other iOS features (Notification Center, iMessage, etc.) coming to the desktop.

iOS 6

I was a bit disappointed. Nothing I saw made me feel like I needed to have the newest update, since most of the new features are already present in the competitor’s latest offering, Ice Cream Sandwich. Can’t wait to see how Google strikes back in two weeks.

Retina Displays

I can’t wait to see it, but at the same time, I don’t want to. I know that I’ll love it, and it will make me want one and get rid of my current Macbook Air. So if you own one, please don’t show me.

New Maps

Yawn. Android users have had the same basic experience for maybe two years now.

Siri Update

Almost there. They added some more third party support, but it’s not yet at that API level where I think it will really shine. Maybe in iOS 7?

Apple TV Update

Nothing, called that one.

Facebook Integration

Still don’t care.

Yeah, I got the “Won’t happen stuff” right too (Did anyone really think there would be a iPad Mini?).

All in all, I was actually kind of let down. Nothing in Mountain Lion or iOS 6 really makes me get that “gotta have it” feeling that iOS 5, or even Lion had. I really was hoping for a Retina Macbook Air (which I’m guessing will come with the next refresh as Apple drives prices of displays down), but I didn’t even see hardware (minus the Superbook Pro, which costs way more than I want to pay), that made me feel jealous because I still had the current stuff. Maybe my expectations were too high. I’m still way more excited for Google IO, since I really don’t have any concrete idea what we’ll be seeing. Project Glass anyone?

Things that I think are likely/definite:

New Macs

As any techy will tell you, Intel has shipped some new generation CPU’s recently (referred to as Ivy Bridge), which would be natural fits for the aging Macbook Pros, as well as the Macbook Airs, iMacs, and even the Mini/Pro. This would also confirm another rumor that’s going around regarding USB 3.0, since the Ivy Bridge CPUs ship with USB 3.0 support. It’s also believeable that there will be a new Mac Pro too.

Mountain Lion

Since WWDC really is a developer conference, I think it’s pretty likely that Apple will be setting a release date for it’s newest operating system release. There’s not too much else to say about this one, since Apple has already had a small annoucement for it, and there’s also a good bit of information on their website. There’s rumors about “iCloud Tabs”, essentially browser tab sync between iOS and OS X, which also seems feasable, since Google has already done this with Chrome.

iOS 6 Unveiling

Again, this is a developer conference, and Apple has no better time to demo all their fancy new APIs and features than now. Apple has used WWDC as a time to show off previous versions of iOS, it only seems logical we’ll get a taste of the new bits next week.

Retina Displays

Probably could have grouped this with the new Macs, but I figured the displays deserved their own section. Just as with the iPad, the interface will look the same, but the screen will be far crisper. I think this is huge, not just for Mac users, but to pressure other manufacturers to finally up the resolution on their own notebooks. Using a 15” notebook with a 1366x768 or 1280x800 resolution is a joke. If you don’t know or aren’t sure of the difference the retina displays make, go look at an iPhone 3GS, and then a 4 or 4S. You’ll wonder how we lived like that.

New Maps for iOS

I’m really surprised it took them this long. As far as I know, no other iPhone app that shipped with 1.0 has had as little work since 2007 as Maps. The signs for an upgrade have been all over. First Apple dropped Google Maps in iPhoto for iOS, and then leaked screenshots made their way onto the internet. Anyway, I hope they knock it out of the park. I’ve been a long time Google Maps user, and having turn by turn directions and a first class maps app was one of my favorite Android features. After Google’s update for Google Maps on Wednesday, Apple certainly has their work cut out for them.

Things that I think are possible

Siri Update

Something that would make me want to use Siri! I have owned an iPhone 4S since shortly after launch, and I have never felt the need to talk to her. Opening up Siri to at least some third parties could go a long way. Yeah, they might even let iPad users in on the “fun”.

Apple TV Update

Well, the Apple TV rumor is that there will be some sort of App Store for the ATV. I’m not sold on it. Yeah, it would probably sell Apple TVs like hotcakes, but even as the owner of a Google TV, I really don’t see the draw to having too many apps on my TV. I guess I could be convinced otherwise with some well-polished software, but I just don’t see it happening right now.

Facebook Integration

Meh. Might happen, might not. Don’t really feel too strongly either way.

Things that won’t be happening

iPhone 5

Let’s get this one out of the way right now. It ain’t happening. My bet is that it will ship in the fall, along with the release of iOS 6.

Apple’s own TV

Yeah, right.

iPad Mini/iPad 7

Hahahahaha.

Oh you weren’t kidding? Nope.

Well, that’s all I have for now. If I’m missing something, or you have different opinions, feel free to leave a comment! Unfortunately I won’t be attending WWDC this year, but I will be attending Google IO later this month. So if people find this article interesting, I’ll do another one before that, and I’ll also do some live blogging from the conference.

I have to say, despite looking at pictures, and seeing information about the Pi on the web, I’m still surprised how small this thing is. It’s so small that the box that it comes in looks like a deck of playing cards:

I decided to go with the Debian image, not only because I’m familiar with it, but also because that is the suggested distro in the documentation. I’m considering switching to Arch after I fiddle around with it a little bit more. After quickly running to pick up an SD card, I hastily plugged in the Pi to my home network, and plugged in the power. A few seconds later, and I was up and running. I logged in and tried the default setup of LXDE (pictured below), and I have to say, it’s a little sluggish. I tried out some of the included apps, like Midori (the default browser), and a few of the included development tools.

While the CPU is a little on the slow side, the GPU performance looks impressive. It plays 1080p content with no trouble, and I’m going to try streaming some video from my NAS later. Others on the internet have reported no issues with that so far.

Anyway, I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with it yet, but it is a pretty fun little machine. I am investigating options for cases, since I also don’t really have a good place for it yet. I was looking at this one on Shapeways, but then the case would cost more than the computer itself! The Raspberry Pi foundation appears to be working on something though.

Small Computer, Huge Screen

Is it worth the $35? Yeah, I think so. Maybe not to the average person, since it’s pretty underpowered for things like web browsing. The community around this thing seems huge (and probably will grow as more are shipped) which makes me feel there will be more in store for it. At this price, it’s slightly more expensive than an Arduino, and a lot more versatile (at least from a software perspective).

We learn new things because our perception of the world is shaped by our mental catalogues of what is possible and what it useful. We constantly filtering out perceptual noise on the criterion that it doesn’t help us achieve some goal or end. Just think of when you learn a new word. You suddenly hear it everywhere. Not because everyone else just learned it too, but because you had been filtering it out. It didn’t help you get around because you didn’t know how to use it.

If you don’t know how to program, you filter out all parts of the world that involve programming. You miss the loops and divide-and-conquers of everyday life. You cannot recognize programming problems without the understanding that outlines these problems against the noise of useless or random information.

The whole thing is worth the read, so if you have a few minutes, I highly suggest it.