Nathan Taylor

Apple’s strategy tax on services versus Google. Voice interaction becoming the “God particle” of mobile.

Steve Jobs had a well documented 2008 tirade where he fired the MobileMe leadership team for their terrible product rollout. A good quote: “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do? So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?” This reminds us that Apple’s struggles with server side cloud services (MobileMe, email, iCloud,… Continue reading Apple’s strategy tax on services versus Google. Voice interaction becoming the “God particle” of mobile.

This is my first Praxtime blog post on WordPress. Moved from Tumblr.

Today Sunday, Nov 3, 2013, I moved my Praxtime blog from the Tumblr web site to here on WordPress at praxtime.com. The reason is simple enough. My posts run 600-1000 words, sometimes much more. WordPress is designed for the longer form, while Tumblr is optimized for microblogging. As part of the move I also set… Continue reading This is my first Praxtime blog post on WordPress. Moved from Tumblr.

Business Models for Free Software

The announcement that deservedly got the most attention at the Oct 22 Apple event was Apple dropping the price of their consumer software to zero. iOS was already free, but now the free list includes Mac OS X, iWork (spreadsheet, word processing, presentations), and iLife (photo editing, video editing, music editing). The New York Times… Continue reading Business Models for Free Software

Life hacking tips and tricks

This post is a random list of life hacks I use on a regular basis. By “life hacks” I mean any type of shortcut or trick that saves time. Most I’ve been doing for so long I can’t recall where I learned them. But where I know I’ve linked back to the source. If you… Continue reading Life hacking tips and tricks

GM Crops: The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Genetically Modified (GM) crops are slowly gaining traction against “frankenfood” opposition. I think this is great. Though if you hate GM crops, of course you’re unhappy. Similar to global warming, people tend to hold quasi-religious beliefs about GM crops. So realistically this (partisan) post won’t change anyone’s mind. But if you are on the fence… Continue reading GM Crops: The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

Utopian Radicals Never Recant. Not 1960’s leftists. Not Tea Party rightists.

Bill Keller at the New York Times has an op-ed comparing modern right wing Tea Party radicals to leftist 1960’s radicals. Not only do I think this is accurate, I think he doesn’t take his analogy far enough.

Intelligent life is just getting started

Update: also see my follow-on post about Sagan Syndrome I wrote an earlier post supporting the view that Earth is a unique planet. It’s likely the only planet in our galaxy supporting complex life. I wanted to do an update after coming across an excellent post by Stephen Ashworth, who categorizes views on alien life into either… Continue reading Intelligent life is just getting started

Next Gen TV Set Top Boxes are generalized platforms combining DVR + Cable + Receiver + Game Console

Under my TV I have two game consoles, a TiVo DVR with CableCard, a pre-amp and amp, Sonos, cable modem and wifi router. A big mess. If you follow the tech and TV industry, you already know companies have been trying for years to combine this mess into a single box. It’s more of question… Continue reading Next Gen TV Set Top Boxes are generalized platforms combining DVR + Cable + Receiver + Game Console

The Future of Phones? Free Phablets!

Giant phones, “phablets” with 5-6 inch screens, seemed pretty crazy to me at first. But phablets are becoming increasingly popular, especially in less developed countries. What’s even more interesting is that phablets may become free.

The Innovation/Monopoly axis

Last week’s post discussed why Microsoft built their Windows 8 hybrid interface, combining a touch screen and mouse/keyboard in a single device. The reason had to do with how Microsoft is situated on the Innovation-Monopoly axis above. They tried to extend their Windows desktop monopoly to tablets. Investors want a sure thing. They lust after… Continue reading The Innovation/Monopoly axis