Let the short sightedness continue...

The buzz after Google I/O has been all about Jellybean and the Nexus devices that utilize it.  And while the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is now banned in the US and the Nexus 7 is quite obviously the best 7" Android tablet to date, the Nexus Q is being decried as DOA by pundits such as Leo LaPorte from TWiT.  Why would such a misunderstood device be receiving such a poor reception?  I began to wonder this and chose to delve a little deeper into the philosophy and thinking behind the Nexus Q and came out with an interesting look into the evolution of home tech being brought to us by the geeks at Google.

My first step on this journey was to find out about what Google insiders said this device could do.

Old ideas?

It wasn't long ago that we used to buy devices for.org homes or offices that came basically as blank slates. Just.the basic template to put our OS on, No matter our preference. If you liked windows, that is what you would use. Prefer Linux? You had several choices. Or more interesting choices like like Mac or IBM, those were available too.
Now though, we have our powerful phones and fancy tablets that come with built in operating systems that we may or may not like. We could get our hands dirty, void our warranties, and mod our devices with something in an all too complicated, for some, manner. Hopefully not irreversibly bricking our device in the process.
Why haven't Microsoft and Google convinced manufacturers to make devices that the users can choose the OS? I personally have an awesome phone in with the Motorola Droid Bionic but I would like to give windows phone 8 a try. I do not want to have to buy a less powerful phone to do it. And why can't any phone be a nexus device that receives its OS updates directly from Google?

This is my plea to phone manufacturers. Free our phones from the oppressive draconian hold of the carriers and their backward thoughts of feature phone OS.

Bigger is better

In recent weeks there has been releases of top of the line video card

Too much power?

"Build it and they will come."

Copyright Universal Pictures

I don't know how many of you might remember this quote from "Field of Dreams" with Kevin Costner but the idea is a darn good quote for this coming generation of smartphones.  I have seen numerous accounts, online, where reviewers are discussing the idea of quad-core processors in the new smartphones, but their view tends to be, "I don't see any applications that could use this." 

Seriously???

That is how Intel got into computing so late.  When they were brought the idea of a personal computer way back when, so the legend goes, the only idea that could be thought of as a use for it was RECIPE STORAGE for the missus!!! 
And this isn't just with smartphones either.  AMD developed the first consumer true 8 core processor with it's "Bulldozer" architecture that offers some evolutionary leaps in computer processing.  But since software and hardware haven't been written to take advantage of this new architecture, benchmarks show the processor to be weaker than it's predecessors. 

As far as I know, developers like to make money.  And a good way to make money is to develop for the technology that is available.  Therefore, of course there are no applications that require or possibly even use quad-core processing!  But I guarantee you that once quad-core processors are out there, there will be applications that use, and some that will need, quad-core processing.  I even see foreshadowing of this since Google lifted raised the Android App Cap from 50MB to 4GB.  This is going to call for more powerful processing that what is currently available. (Android Developers Blog)

So the moral of the story is that just like Tim "the tool man" Taylor, we can always use more power. Ugh, ugh, ugh.