Author: James Kendrick

Here at jkOnTheRun, we have some of the smartest and most well informed readers around when it come to mobile devices. With this in mind, we wondered what would happen if we asked you your thoughts about tech products such as smartphones and web tablets.

So, working with our colleagues over at GigaOM Pro, we present a short survey asking about just that. We also think you would love to see the results, so if you take the survey, we’ll send you an executive summary of the report we’ll produce for GigaOM Pro, and we’ll also be posting some results on jkOnTheRun as well.  And if that doesn’t compel you, if you take the survey you might win one of two $50 Amazon gift certificates we’ll be giving away to those here who take the survey.

And  just so you know, these results are only going to be used for this survey and analysis for a report (which you’ll get the summary results for in PDF), and nothing else.

So head on over, take the survey.  It’ll only take a few minutes. You’ll also get some interesting analysis as well as maybe some free Amazon $.

This is not new technology, but as of a few minutes ago it is new to me. I finally swung by the Apple Store and picked up a Magic Mouse of my very own. It took all of 30 seconds to unpack it and get it paired up to my MacBook. I’ve been using it for all of five minutes but I’m already ready liking the way the multitouch gestures work. I had to enable right-clicking in the preferences (what’s up with that, Apple?), and so far I am just using the default gestures.

One of my concerns was how well the Magic Mouse would work with Firefox, but I needn’t have worried. Scrolling works fine with either one or two fingers, and even the swipe left and right works in Firefox. I’ll have to hold off final judgement as to whether it’s worth the $69 I paid for it, but so far it’s been pretty nice. Before anyone asks, yes, you have to remove it from the plastic case before using it.

Slates are all the rage and we’ve seen a few packing Windows 7 onboard, including this new model dubbed the Netbook Navigator. I’m not sure what a slate has to do with being a netbook, but it looks like a compelling device. Like other Windows slates, the Netbook Navigator is a netbook with no keyboard, making it a “less is more” type of device. More is definitely the case as the 3G-enabled model of the NN will reportedly cost $1,199. Yowza, that’s a dent in the wallet for what is essentially a netbook missing the keyboard. There will also be a model of the NN without 3G (and less storage), and that will retail for $799. That’s still a healthy price penalty for producing a netbook missing the keyboard.

This leads to the observation that the cost of Windows slates may not be competitive with alternatives. I suspect that we will see slates with ARM processors and a form of Linux for a lot less than these Windows slates. It’s worth noting that the Netbook Navigator web site mentions a cheaper model coming that will run Windows 7 Starter Edition. If I’m not mistaken Starter Edition lacks the advanced touch features of Windows 7. What’s a geek to do?

By the middle of this year I expect we’ll have a big selection of e-book readers to choose from. There were dozens of readers on display at the CES 2010 this month, and it seems that every gadget maker is working on one for the market. I am still a firm believer that in the e-book world content is king, and that just having a reader on the market is not that big a deal. A reader with little available content is just a hunk of plastic, consumers want the ability to get the books they crave. Giant e-book sellers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon have a big advantage in this area, with each offering hundreds of thousands of titles on their respective online stores. But the formats between the two stores are not compatible, and like any other retail segment competition could help keep prices competitive. Don’t believe that? I was in the market for some new e-book releases, and was surprised to find how widely the prices varied.

First up I was in the mood to pick up James Patterson’s latest — Witch and Wizard. I hit up Amazon, B&N, the eReader store (a subsidiary of B&N), Fictionwise (another subsidiary of B&N) and the Sony Reader Store. Here’s what I found:

While the three major e-book sellers have obviously gravitated towards the $9.99 price for new releases, in the future if a consumer owns a reader that is tied into one store then there is no guarantee the price will be competitive. A lot of reader makers are embracing ePUB format for books, and that’s a good thing, but that’s only half the battle for new releases. These books will almost certainly be infested with a DRM scheme, and just because a given reader can handle the ePUB format it will still stick the owner with whatever DRM system it supports. That will likely tie a given reader to a particular store. And as you can see, prices may vary.

It’s almost looking like the smart money is on putting multiple readers on a given device, like an iPhone, so that content can be read from more than one source. Of course this makes keeping an online library much harder for the consumer.

Our platform focus continues this fine Sunday with the e-Book Echo, our take on the week in the digital publishing world. Publishers are learning the hard way that consumers are willing to pay for what they want, and more importantly they don’t like for companies to push them around. That’s what consumers felt was happening when a number of publishers recently stated they would delay the release of e-book versions of best sellers in an attempt to get consumers to buy the expensive hardcover books instead. This is nothing new, having purchased e-books for a decade I can remember when e-book versions of top sellers followed the paper versions by months. What is new is how consumers are fighting back. A few publishers, HarperCollins among them, have seen a number of their books get stuck with one-star reviews on Amazon to mark displeasure at the delay of the Kindle version.

The folks that gave us the netbook are preparing to enter what is becoming a crowded field of e-book readers. The ASUS DR-570 will have a 6-inch screen and the company is claiming it will provide 122 hours of reading on a battery charge. While Eee-Reader sounds better than DR-570, ASUS is raising the bar by including a color OLED screen, and the integrated 3G and Wi-Fi will come in handy to get Flash content that can be played.  There is no word on what this jewel might cost.

The week marches on and today being Saturday means it is time to recap the recent happenings in the world of Windows Mobile. No matter if you fall in the long-time WinMo camp or the merely curious, all eyes are focused on Windows Mobile 7. It is clear that Microsoft needs to get this out the door as quickly as possible or face continued loss of market share to the competition. Microsoft is not willing to let us know yet when we might expect the big upgrade, but handset maker LG may have let the cat out of the bag that it expects WM7 to hit in September of this year. LG tweeted that its handsets would get WM7 in September, but the tweets were rapidly deleted. WMPoweruser was quick enough to catch them, and it does seem that LG at least expects to be doling WM7 out to its customers in September.

Steve Ballmer was all excited that the HTC HD2 with WM6.5 is coming to the U. S., and I admit I am happy that T-Mobile has picked up the best Windows phone currently available. It’s not clear if the HD2 will be getting an upgrade to WM7 when it’s available, but HTC has sort of leaked that it will be getting the upgrade when it is available and it will be a free download. The HD2 has all of the latest smartphone hardware inside, notably the Snapdragon processor, and it should easily be able to run the new OS when it is released. Now if we can only get WM7 in our hands.

With the Mobile World Congress (MWC) looming near, it has long been expected that Microsoft would use the global phone event to roll WM7 out to the masses. This week it got a bit murkier as to whether MS would indeed be using MWC to finally show of WM7, or if they would instead be touting yet another interim release to the platform, WM6.6. While I am hoping this is just another negative rumor, Mary Jo Foley points out one very disturbing fact that lends a bit of credence to this possibility:

Some time in the past week, Microsoft removed any references to Windows Mobile from the Mix 2010 show site. A week ago, I saw a session placeholder saying there’d be some Windows Mobile content of interest to Mix attendees at the show, but it was too early to provide specifics. That placeholder is now gone, as are any references in the “Sessions” area to Windows Mobile.

It certainly seems Microsoft is playing WM7 too close to the vest, something that can be positive in the PR game if one is in a position of market strength. That is definitely not the case here, so MS better demonstrate WM7 at the MWC or there will be long-term ramifications.

I don’t know what to make of the way Microsoft handles Windows Mobile. You can’t look anywhere on the web without finding some information pointing to how far Windows Mobile is slipping behind the competition. Even enthusiasts, who regularly try to make sense of the direction that WinMo is headed, keep getting beat back by the gang in Redmond.

I watched Steve Ballmer’s keynote address at the CES last week, and I kept waiting to hear him say something, anything, about Windows Mobile 7. That’s the next major version of WinMo after all, and all indications are it should be released this year. All I can recall from Ballmer’s keynote is how happy he was to show the HTC HD2, and how proud he was that it is coming to the U. S. Um, Steve, that phone’s been out in Europe for months. It runs Windows Mobile 6.5. There’s nothing new here.

How far out of touch is Microsoft with how to get WinMo 7 on track? This story on Betanews sums it up. It seems they interviewed Windows Phone Senior Marketing Manager Greg Sullivan at the CES, and they assumed the discussion concerned Windows Mobile 7. After all, what else would Microsoft be talking about that would get announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC)?

Today Betanews was contacted by a spokesperson for Microsoft who “asked us to reiterate that, while we were given an overview of the direction of Windows Phone, we were not speaking specifically of Windows Mobile 7.

The spokesperson did not go into further detail as to which product the interview did concern.”

So on the surface it seems that Microsoft not only doesn’t want anyone to think that Windows Mobile 7 will be discussed at the MWC next month, they in effect are issuing “takedowns” to those who say they will be discussing WM7. Is it any wonder that Windows Mobile is floundering so badly?

Everyone has been obsessed about slates lately, don’t ask me why. OK, I know why, but you have to admit it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Some folks are anxious for a big slate running an ARM processor, although there are many who insist on having Windows on board so the slate will be a full, familiar computer. The DigitalRise X9 is clearly aimed at the latter group, and it looks to be a pretty decent Windows slate computer.

The X9 seems to be a real product, although it was strangely not present at the CES this year. It’s also produced by DigitalRise, a company famous for iPhone clones. In any event. the X9 has all of the right specs to produce a decent slate, including multitouch.

• CPU: Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz
• Memory: 2GB DDR2
• HDD: 160G SATA2.5
• Monitor: 10.2” TFT Multitouch screen, 1024 x 600
• Battery: Li-ion 3000mAh
• Webcam: 1.3 megapixels
• Wireless network: 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, WCDMA-SCDMA, CDMA2000
• Video card: Intel 950 integrated graphics

The DigitalRise X9 is listed for $780, but there is a “two week waiting list”. I guess it’s real.

(via engadget)

It’s the end of the week and we know what that means kiddos, time to share how I spent my time since our last visit. And that visit was a long time ago given the holidays and that big trade show in the desert. Besides the big show I went on vacation, attended a wedding and read a lot of e-books. This week’s column is dedicated to Steve Rubel, read on to find out why.

The first week of the long hiatus from writing this column was my vacation, which was wonderful. We didn’t go anywhere, my wife and I simply hung out at the house and did the sort of stuff you do when you don’t have to work each day. I read lots of good books and we had a wonderful holiday period as a result. I did miss writing this column far more than I thought I would. I came to realize that I really enjoy sharing my weeks with you, and I almost broke down and wrote a column during my week of vacation. I came to my senses, though, and kept at the vacation as I should.

The holidays held an unexpected joyous event, as my step-daughter got married on New Year’s Day. She married a great guy, a firefighter who has his head on straight. They had intended to get married later this year but he has an opportunity for a great job with another fire department for a lot more money, and since they are expecting their first child they were concerned about the health insurance situation given the job change. They decided not to risk losing coverage so they got a judge to marry them in his chambers on January 1st. It was really cool as the judge is the same guy who married Sheri and I 11 years ago. Talk about coming full circle.

Sin City

Of course the biggest time filler over the past three weeks was the big trip to Las Vegas for the CES. I won’t get into a lot of detail about the trip as I covered it on the site. But I do have some observations/ ruminations about the CES that are worth sharing. The week was so action-packed that there was a lot I couldn’t cover through normal show coverage so I’ll dump it on you here.

The CES is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) show of its type for the press in the U. S. Each year thousands of us register for press credentials that provides access to press events and allows us to use the press facilities at the show. Each year the CES organizers along with Toshiba give each press registrant a press kit that is contained in some sort of laptop bag or backpack that can be used during the week. The bags are yours to keep, and it’s not unusual to see these distinctive bags at other events throughout the year as some start using them full-time going forward.

I had accumulated so many of these press bags that in the past few years I have not brought them home, I would give them away to someone in Vegas before leaving. Not this year, as I really liked the messenger bag that the CES handed out. It is a really good messenger bag that will handle a laptop and all the assorted gear one normally carries with one. I like it so much I’ve been using it quite a bit since returning from the trip. Thanks CES and Toshiba for providing a useful piece of gear this year.

The show was smaller than in years past, a reflection of the economic conditions affecting the industry. I did find that everyone at the show was highly optimistic about the near future, and that feeling was contagious. I returned from the show feeling quite good about the way the industry is headed, and about things to come this year.

The show floor seemed as crowded as ever, and I grew quite tired of getting pushed and shoved while walking around the convention. One thing hadn’t changed this year, the prevalence of folks racing through the crowded halls while pulling a rolling laptop case behind them. I must have tripped on these things a dozen times, and I absolutely hate that people will use them in big crowds like this. I so wish they would be banned by the organizers, but I know that’s never going to happen. I wonder if anyone has ever been sued for injuries caused by these rolling bags? It’s definitely a big pet peeve of mine.

Without a question the best part of the CES week is seeing friends that I interact with online but rarely get to hang out with in person. Kevin and I hang out all week, which is cool, and this year we got to spend a fair bit of time with podcast co-host Matt Miller. Matt’s a great guy and I love hanging out with him so it was a real treat. The three of us had a great dinner at the beginning of the week and it was a lot of fun. Matt’s dinner was pretty spicy and it was funny watching him sweat his way through it.

Both Kevin and Matt ordered a Nexus One from Google and had them delivered to their hotel in Vegas. Talk about geeks, that’s about the geekiest thing you can do. Of course I was jealous, what kind of geek wouldn’t be?

One of the strangest things about the CES each year is that it runs alongside the Adult Entertainment Expo. This makes for some very amusing scenes indeed, with scantily clad people walking all over Vegas alongside scores of geeks with pocket protectors. I was walking back to my hotel room in the Venetian one day and spotted a small group of women walking through the middle of the casino, and they were wearing thongs and not much else. That will make you stop what you’re doing.

What made this scene memorable was another couple also walking through the casino at that time, accompanied by their two small children. Why anyone would take their kids to a Vegas casino is beyond me to begin with, but given this scene even worse. What do you say to your 6 or 7 year-old daughter about this, anyway? “No dear, that is highly inappropriate, but it’s OK in Vegas.” I don’t think so.

One of the best things I did in Vegas, and I don’t mean the scene I just described, was having dinner with Steve Rubel. Steve and I had met once before this, and I always enjoy time spent with him. Steve is one of the first A-list bloggers, and his lifestream is one I follow religiously. He’s one of the smartest people I know, and he has a great knack for getting to the core issues of any topic under discussion. I always learn a lot chatting with Steve, and it was the best thing I did all week. I was glad Kevin got a chance to meet Steve in person at this dinner.

I must admit that I was quite embarrassed when Steve told our waiter that jkOnTheRun is the best technology web site on the web. I don’t think the waiter really cared, he probably just wanted to get rid of us and go on a break. It was nice of Steve to pimp us out, though.

This column is dedicated to Steve, as he confessed something that made my entire trip worthwhile. It seems Steve finds this column his favorite thing that I do, and he emails the column to himself each week. This lets him have the entire column on his phone, and he has developed a ritual where he reads This Week in Mobile Tech Manor on the weekend in a coffee shop while he has a good coffee. This is just so cool I can’t tell you. Sorry for the long hiatus, Steve.

He spends 2/3 of his time traveling on business, and he is a true dedicated road warrior. He told us he has taken to leaving his laptop at home as much as possible, and just using his smartphone on his trips. He does this by using his phone for any content he creates of less than 1,000 words. I know I couldn’t do that, but he claims it has made his traveling so much easier that it is well worth it. That’s a true mobile geek.

Last CES for Me?

I haven’t made up my mind for sure but there’s a very good chance that the CES trip this year may be my last. It’s not easy for me to give up something I enjoy so much but I found this trip to be almost too much for me to handle. I suffered a severe back injury 20 years ago that has resulted in two different back surgeries over the passing years. These two laminectomies have been due to the initial injury and then re-injuring it years later.  In each of these surgieries they had to remove the lowest disc from my spine. These surgeries were tough, and required a 6-week recovery each time where I couldn’t risk damaging my spinal cord. The disc is the shock absorber between the spinal vertabrae, and when one is removed extreme caution must be taken to prevent permanent damage, even paralysis, until scar tissue grows back to replace the removed disc.

Both of these recoveries went well for me, but an end result is that standing for extended periods, or even walking, can cause nerve pain that gets quite bad. In years past, given the tremendous amount of walking around the CES (up to 8 miles a day), by the end of the week my back has made its presence known by causing back pain and worse, cramps in my calves. If you’ve ever had a cramp in your calf you know how painful that is.

This year I was troubled to find my calves cramping up the very first day of the show, and it happened again every day I was walking around Vegas. When the cramps hit, all I can do is sit or stretch out until they pass. Then I was able to continue for a while until my legs started cramping up again. By the end of the week it had almost gotten to be too much for me, and I seriously started thinking that this would be my last trip to cover the show.

I must also admit that the extreme exhaustion that is caused by the massive effort to cover the CES scares the hell out of me. Casual readers probably don’t realize that I had a small stroke two years ago. That traumatic event was one of the most frightening of my life, and I relive it every year at CES time. You see, that stroke happened less than two days after returning from covering the CES that year. There’s no way to know for certain that the exhaustion from the constant walking played a role in my stroke, but the doctors at the time admitted it could have played a role.

You can perhaps see now why I approach the CES trip with a fair amount of trepidation. Hell, I might as well admit that the trip scares me a great deal. That fear actually gets worse after returning from the exhausting trip, and I find I am watching myself closely for any adverse effects. I’m thinking it may be time to hang up my CES bag.

Help for Haiti

The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti is on all of our minds currently, and they need all the help they can get. There are many aid programs in place to accept donations, and the tech community is rallying to help in case you are interested. Xavier Lanier of notebooks.com is spearheading an effort to match text messaging donations for the people of Haiti. It’s a great cause so see if you can help out these poor people in this devastating time.

I can only imagine the ordeal that Haitians are facing right now. The coverage of the earthquake I have seen has been troubling to say the least. I’ve only been through one earthquake myself, and that was frightening enough even though fortunately it was not close enough to my location in Venezuela when it hit to be very damaging. Even so, to be on the 12th floor of a skyscraper that was swaying dramatically back and forth was downright scary, so I can only imagine what Haiti is like today.

e-Books of the Weeks

The long hiatus gave me plenty of time to read lots of good e-books, so I’ll only mention my top picks this time. I read the second and third installments in David Hewson’s great Nic Costa series. The Villa of Mysteries and The Sacred Cut were both stellar mysteries, and I quite enjoyed seeing how David has developed the characters in the series. That’s one of the joys of finding a good series, watching how the novelist advances the characters, as well as watching the writing get better and better. Hewson weaves very intricate, picturesque stories, and I am anxious to read the other four novels in the series.

I read a lot of books on the new Kindle 2 I got for the holidays, and was happy to find some free books on Amazon’s top 100 list. One of them was a great find — Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch. What happens when a serial killer who preys on hitchikers picks up a serial killer who hitches rides? A great story, that’s what. It’s still free, BTW.

I found another series that I am really getting to like, the Alex LaDuca series by Noel Hynd. The first two books, Conspiracy in Kiev and Midnight in Madrid were action-packed mysteries that had more twists and turns than most novels. I am looking forward to continuing this series, too. Both of these books were free from Amazon, but I see they are not free anymore. They’re good enough that I’d have no problem paying for them. This shows it pays to check the Amazon list often for free novels.

Wrap-up

This has been a long piece for you to wade through, and I hope you enjoyed it. The CES dominated this week’s column, due to the huge show that it is. I am getting asked what gadget I liked best at the show, and invariably my answer is the Lenovo U1 Hybrid Notebook. I spent an hour with one in Vegas and I want one so badly.  Until next week, take care.

The tight Google integration with Android apps can now be enjoyed to a degree by BlackBerry owners with a new version of the Google Mobile App. Google has added the ability to search the contacts and messages on a BlackBerry using the app. Just type in the query — or better yet, say it — and Google will return all contacts and messages that contain the search term.

Taking action on searched item is only a click away — either calling a contact or replying to an email. Note that all searching is done on the handset; the app does not send any of your personal information to Google. If you’d rather not search your information, and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t, you can turn this off in the app’s options section.

The app will suggest contacts in your list as you type names, refining the returned contacts as the letters are entered. A very cool function promotes frequently contacted people to the top of this search list.

To grab the app just visit m.google.com on your BlackBerry. Thanks to the Google Mobile Blog for pointing this new version out.

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another Palm Press, our weekly look at the world of Palm. The big Palm press event during the CES last week was full of pomp and flair, although minus the huge excitement from a year earlier when the Pre was first announced. Palm confirmed the two new model refreshes in the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. The two new phones will be improved versions of the original, the only real surprise being they will be exclusive to the Verizon network in the U.S., something Sprint must not be too happy about.

A new webOS update, 1.3.5.2, was quietly released for the Pre in Germany, and if reports are accurate this update enables tethering the phone to a laptop. The tethering works over Bluetooth, a good wireless method for connecting two devices. It doesn’t appear to make any other changes, but tethering itself is worthy of an update. Let’s hope Pres all over get the tethering update, but I’ll bet carriers have a thing to say about that.

Smartphone owners can attest to the difficulty in keeping informed about new apps hitting any app store, and the Palm App Catalog is no exception. But tracking new additions just got a lot easier with the RSS feeds that Palm has enabled. You can track new additions to the Catalog, or just updates. Now if we could only get more apps in the Catalog to track.

I recently told you about the utility Cinch for the Mac, a $7 shareware utility that brings the Windows 7 Aero drag features to OS X. I’m still getting contacted by people not sure how it works so I figured the best thing is to show how it works on video. It is a simple utility that does what it does very well, and I think you’ll agree with me when you see the video.

GigaOM Pro is our network’s subscription research arm, and it has grown by leaps and bounds since the launch last year. The Pro site has lots of research and deep looks into various technology industries, all for a low annual subscription fee. The launch of Pro set the research world on its ear, as most industry reports are sold for large fees piecemeal, rather than a low subscription rate for all reports produced over the course of a year.

A new program launched this week under the GigaOM Pro banner will further shake up the research business, as the Analyst Relations Program looks to bring industry professionals together forming an insider community. Verified Analyst Relations folks can join the program, which includes a free subscription to the GigaOM Pro research. From the press release:

“The success so far of GigaOM Pro is in large part due to our belief that expert opinion and research is infinitely more valuable through discussion,” said Paul Walborsky, CEO of the GigaOM Network. “The next step in the evolution is to empower analyst relations professionals to join the conversation.”

GigaOM Pro’s Analyst Relations Program will offer industry first: enabling a more open, engaged and persistent conversation around informed opinion and analysis by leveraging our large community and interactive platform that are the pillars for GigaOM Pro.

“At GigaOM, we strongly believe that the more smart people that are engaged in the conversation, the more value is found in our platform,” said Michael Wolf, Vice President of Research, GigaOM Pro. “By creating a program where vendors can engage, clarify and lend insights around their positioning, all of our community will benefit and we’ll see more interesting, relevant conversations between analysts, vendors and our subscribers.”

“Part of the challenge for an analyst relations professional is to find channels to react to market research once it’s published,” said Ted Miller, Global Analyst Relations Manager, Opera Software. “GigaOM Pro’s Analyst Relations program enables a way for an AR pro to respond directly to research and engage with the analyst.”

Analyst Relations professionals can learn more about the platform and sign up today for the program by visiting: http://pro.gigaom.com/gigaom-analysts-relation-program.

I know that some of our readers are involved in the AR business, so if that is your line of work don’t miss this opportunity.

It seems that everyone is obsessed with tablets these days, a far cry from the Microsoft Tablet PC days when no one cared. The focus began to shift toward web surfing slates last year, and it has heated up as it gets closer to the expected Apple tablet announcement. I have a unique perspective on using a web tablet, as I have been using tablets for years. These have included slate devices, and while they would do anything a “real” computer could do, they certainly did the web well. I have turned that perspective toward what type of web tablet I would like today, which is a much simpler device than you might think.

A web tablet to me means one thing — content consumption. I don’t want to create very much content on such a device, I have many better gadgets to use for content creation. I want a slate that is designed in every way to help me surf the web, watch online videos, listen to music and read e-books. That is all I want to do with my tablet, and I want no compromises in those tasks.

My slate should have a screen of 9 0r 10 inches, not a bit smaller or a bit bigger. I want it to offer a great web experience, and in my actual experience with screens of all sizes, that is the sweet spot. The slate must be easy to handle for long periods, so that means less than half an inch thick and not more than one pound in weight. I can use devices thicker and heavier, but I don’t want to.

My ideal tablet will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at least 1 GHz, but faster would be better. I have played with a number of phones and even a 10-inch slate using the Snapdragon, and it is a wonderful processor for these tasks. It also offers great battery life and days of standby without the need for charging.

I would like the ability to connect a Bluetooth keyboard to the slate, but to be honest this is not a major requirement. I am serious when I contend that I do not intend to use this tablet for content creation. I can see myself happy just using an onscreen touch keyboard. This takes me to my main requirement for the slate — a capacitive touch screen. Multitouch is mandatory for a good usage scenario, and I won’t budge on that.

The web browser needs to be as good as any desktop browser, as I must be able to surf to any web site I do on the desktop. There cannot be problems with that, a web tablet must serve the entire web as good as anything out there. That probably means the Mozilla browser, fully opened to accept extensions. If you sense a theme of no compromised web surfing, you get my point.

The browser needs to handle all online video perfectly, and that means good Adobe Flash and Java support. There cannot be deficiencies in the display of any online content. That includes PDF support — no compromises.

There needs to be a good media player for both audio, photos and video. This slate is designed for leisure more than anything, and that means media playing. I will also use my slate for reading e-books, so a good reader application is a must, preferably one that is compatible with both Kindle and Barnes & Noble content.

I would be willing to settle for integrated Wi-Fi for connectivity, but I suspect eventually I’d want 3G support. This could be integrated or a plug-in solution, initially I don’t care. I just need to get online — it is a web tablet after all.

I don’t care what OS the slate runs, as long as it is optimized for touch control. That means seamless, intuitive control by touch. There shouldn’t be anything that is difficult to do, as touch is the only control the user has over the interface.

It may sound like I want a lot, but I think my requirements are reasonable. I also think they could be provided at a decent cost. I’m thinking in the neighborhood of $300. The more I think about my ideal web tablet, the more I realize I am describing the slate part of the Lenovo U1 hybrid that I saw at the Consumer Electronics Show. I wonder if Lenovo has plans to sell only the slate?  Hmm…

Using the loaner ThinkPad x200 for my only computer during the week of the CES was a great experience. Lenovo makes ThinkPads to be great mobile computers and the pre-installed ThinkPad Power Manager utility proved that to me the entire week. Notebooks used on the go are reliant on the battery, as outlets are not handy. Fortunately, Windows 7 allows tight control over all aspects of the system to eke out the most from a notebook’s battery. The key to make this work is a good power management utility, and the ThinkPad utility is the best I have used.

The ThinkPad Power Manager has two modes — a basic mode that provides a simple slider to adjust power consumption, and an advanced mode that provides total control of the system’s components. The utility is so well written that I find the basic mode the best method to control the power, meaning a simple slide of the control adjusts the entire system to the new setting. When I desire more power, I slide the control toward the “High performance” setting. Sliding the control toward the “High energy savings” end of the slider does exactly that. The screen dims, and all the system components are changed to use less power.

Using the power slider not only makes an immediate switch in the power consumption, but the utility also instantly tells you how many watts of power the system is using and how long the battery is estimated to last with the new setting. In my experience, this estimation is very accurate, and is a great gauge that allows me to always have the system optimally configured to balance between performance and battery life.

I knew it was only a matter of time until some developer figured out a way to turn the big trackpad on the MacBooks into a little tablet. The folks at Ten One Design have stepped up to the plate with Inklet, a program that does quite a bit. Inklet accepts input from the fingertip, but adds even more functionality when used with the company’s Pogo Sketch ($14.95) stylus. The Pogo Sketch is designed to add stylus control over touchscreens, and that includes the MacBook trackpad.

While Inklet ($24.95) is designed to allow drawing into programs that accept such input, it also leverages the handwriting recognition built into OS X to convert handwritten input into text. The program has palm rejection to prevent inadvertent input when the palm is resting on the trackpad. To appreciate what Inklet can do, have a look at this video:

It was with amusement I ran across the rumor that Sprint is looking at putting WiMAX towers in Walmart stores to get the coverage that is so desperately needed for the roll-out. This makes so much sense that it would be one of the smartest business deals in recent memory. How smart would it be? Take a look at this statement I made way back in 2005 given news that Walmart was opening 300 stores:

I think the easiest way to roll out WiMax in the US is to put the transmitters in every WalMart store.   I have seen it published somewhere (I can’t remember where) that over 90% of the population of the US lives within 20 miles of a WalMart store.  Add these nearly 300 new stores and that number can only go up so think about it.  No matter where you move in the US you’d know you had broadband available and you wouldn’t even have to switch carriers.  Sign me up.

Now the rumor only deals with Sprint putting towers in Walmarts, but I believe they should carry it all the way and partner to become a 4G ISP. In one fell swoop Walmart / Sprint could become the #1 Internet Service Provider in the U.S.

We’ve been dealing with the Apple tablet rumors for far too long and I can’t wait any longer. I find myself getting fidgety the closer we get to the rumored announcement of the tablet (or slate). We don’t know for sure what Apple is going to offer us, but we can be sure it will be the best mobile gadget ever made. How could it be less, given all the hype and posturing that has taken place? It does have the folks behind it who gave us the Mac, after all.

As we get closer and closer to the big announcement, whenever it will be, I’ve not been wasting any time. I have positioned myself to take advantage of whatever greatness Steve Jobs is going to offer me. I have cleaned off my desk, and I now have two prominent spots ready. One place for the slate, a prime piece of desk real estate in front of me so I can gaze longingly at it all day. The other spot on the desk is to be ready in case Apple makes a dock the slate can sit in while doing amazing things. Oh, that thought makes me giddy.

I know that such great technology, whatever it might be, can’t be cheap, so I’ve taken adequate steps to insure I am ready to grab one of the very first ones. First up, I sold my car. Heck, that decision was easy, I’m not going anywhere once I have the perfect device in my hands anyway. I’d have to put it down to drive a car, and that’s not going to happen. I also cashed in my kid’s college fund. He’ll learn more by watching me use the slate, anyway. It will be able to tap into all the world’s information, and I’ll pass on that to the kid. One day I might even let him use the slate, but that won’t happen for a good while. Maybe never, given how special I will feel the entire time I use it.

I don’t know what the slate will be like, I can only imagine. It is going to be wonderful, I know that for certain. It will make everything I do much easier than before. It will open up new doors I never even imagined existed. It will take me to places I could not go otherwise. It will make me a better person in every way. And I’ll look cool doing it. Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for whatever you’ll offer up. I’ll pay it gladly.

Note: no devices made by Apple’s competitors were harmed in the writing of this piece. Hopefully anyone reading this will understand that it was all in jest. Hey, I’m still exhausted from CES week.

It’s Tuesday and that can only mean it’s time for our weekly feature, the BlackBerry Buzz. The CES is not a big show for smartphones, but Research In Motion had a big booth and I spent some time walking through it looking for new phones. Unfortunately, all I found were lots of existing Tours, Curves, Bolds and Storms. They didn’t have any new phones on display that we haven’t seen before. There were plenty of accessories, but nothing of note. They did have the Presenter that was announced recently, but that’s about it.

You may have seen a viral marketing piece that Microsoft has been running for Office 2010. It’s pretty funny but what does it have to do with the BlackBerry? If you look closely, the actors are using them in the ad, not Windows Phones. Oops.

We have been long-time fans of Xobni — “Inbox” spelled backwards — the Outlook add-on that adds a lot of power to the program. We previously deduced that Xobni would be coming to the BlackBerry, but nothing for a while. I didn’t see them at the CES, but others found the Xobni folks touting the BlackBerry version of the app that will be coming Real Soon Now. Outlook users should check it out when it’s available.