Hi, I just changed the Blog design. The reason is that the Dynamic View (the cool tabs at the top and on the left side) is not a very good template for now. It loads slowly, and I could not display any widgets on the side. So I returned to more traditional view. Indeed, the design was cooler and simpler, but remember what Steve Jobs said, "Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works", and I found the traditional view works better overall.
Anyway, I still could not post any song cover because I still have no access to piano :( Now I am entering semester break and should post somethings soon (not sure about recording, probably some songs after I return home if I have time to record, One More Night and Missing Piece by David Choi (I put the video down below)) :)
If you have spare time, check out Wong Fu Productions on Youtube. They make love story videos. Yes, some are quite a generalization, but quite fun to watch :) Also, some of their comedies are funny. Beware! You will find a lot of Asians on their videos :)
There is no technology company in the world who has sold their HQ before they are out of business. So why would Nokia do it? The obvious reason would be they need cash.
Indeed the reason given was owning real estate was not their core business, but don't forget that every business needs an icon and a HQ is important. But that reason is acceptable. The problem is that the trouble ahead might be bigger. Firstly, as my mom always says, property prices would generally go up. They never go down unless under fluctuation or crisis. This is because in Economics (here we go again, school) scarcity drives price up, and as population and business grow, less space is available thus higher prices. This means Nokia would never be able to buy its HQ at the price they sold it. Secondly, the new owner of the HQ can really make big bucks. How? Just threaten Nokia that if they don't want to pay more, they need to get out. Unethical indeed, but that is the profit point of view. Would Nokia go out of their HQ? Most likely not, since every company must be proud of their HQ. Would they pay more? Most likely yes! What does that mean? They need to pay more whenever they need to renew the lease contract. This is true because as the property price goes up, the lease price would go up, too, because selling would be profitable thus if the lease price does not go up, it would be "unfair" to the property owner.
This is assuming the owner is really in the property business. Let's say the owner is a nice guy who just want to help Nokia. What if there are rival companies (you all should know) want to play the bad guys and offer a very high lease? If Nokia could not pay that much, they lose their HQ. If Nokia could pay that much, they just lose more money. Would Microsoft, Nokia's latest partner, help them pay? We would never know. So? I think the decision to sell the HQ is a desperate measure indeed which would only take place in times of danger, because it is quite irrational for the reasons above. Let's just hope Nokia stays in the game because they revolutionized mobile phone in the early mobile phone era, and we hope them to continue revolutionizing it.
Yes, the news is quite shocking. But there is a little part in there which says the OSes of desktop and mobile are converging. My point in previous posts exactly. That's why Android should take on the challenge as a desktop OS. Probably its adaptation to make desktop experience more engaging.
That was a very interesting article. Anyway, Apple seems to be continuing on suing, with particular focus on Google and Samsung. Google has been on the defense, as articles mentioned Eric Schmidt dislikes litigation as it deters innovation from continuing. Samsung, on the other hand, is on the offense, though it counterattacks Apple on another patents rather than on the patents Apple suing for. It's like you are arguing about A with your friend but he is arguing about B. Of course it would never end because you are talking about two different things in which both of you may be correct or either one wrong or possibly both wrong.
People sometimes need a taste of their own medicine. And yes, I believe Apple needs this, too. Notification bar is obviously not Apple's innovation, but there isn't a patent there in which some party should have patented it. If iOS 7 below really comes true, then isn't it obvious where the ideas come from? (Hint: Google).
Anyway, I believe Apple has lost its cutting edge in design as clearly the design of iPhone has not changed for years. Only slight change in iPhone 4 but the main idea is the same: rounded edges and the rest are straight. Yes, the best must be simple, but simple may not be the best. After a while, I am bored with iPhone's design. It may work with larger devices like iPad because I would care less about my tablet's design as it is functionality over design, but less so for phones as in the past, not-so-distant past, phone also serves as a fashion icon. "This phone looks cool". That's why I love my Galaxy SIII. the top and bottom part are not exactly round, but not straight either. Beautiful.
Currently, Apple news would most likely be litigation news, another device renamed/resized news, or copy pasting fails due to some manufacturing problems. There isn't any more hype to Apple news, except extraordinary sales from I-don't-know-who-wants-to-buy-the-same-thing-over-and-over-again.
And you know, I know a story, most probably a Chinese folklore (not sure if I use the correct term here) where an author copy another and the real author brings the matter to the King. I could not find the story on the Internet and I am not sure if everyone is familiar with the story. If I remember correctly, it is also in Ikkyu-San's book. Well, the story goes that both authors ultimately are put before the King. The King was then asked to judge who copies who. You know what the king did? There was a moment in Apple-Samsung fight in which the judge asks the Samsung lawyers to tell which one is iPad and which one is Samsung Galaxy Tab and the lawyers could not tell them apart at the distance the devices were shown to them. Well, close enough, but what the King did was asking both authors to continue the story. The real author is able to continue the story while the copycat obviously going dead soon. Anyway, probably to see where the copy litigation is going, we need to see who continues on the innovation. Apple stops innovating the phone design and the iOS' UI most of the time (except for the addition of notification bar which is not an innovation and the multitasking bar which is an innovation), while Google just adds additional quick settings in Android 4.2 and Samsung is back to business with rounded top and bottom phone.
I realise one thing that is important for a game. As long as it is not a colossal game like Age of Empire or Command&Conquer, it is better for the game to control a main character instead of clicking places. This can be seen between Harvest Moon and FarmVille. Probably it's just me, but anyway, I found playing Harvest Moon much more fun compared to FarmVille even when the objective is the same. Because I am controlling the farmer itself. Even if Harvest Moon has no finding spouse, no going to mine, no going to the mountains, just mending the farm, I still found enjoyment in controlling the character, although it means that going and farming around is much more tiring. But the first person experience I believe is rewarding.
After using Android for a while and downloading lots of games, I found that the current mobile games line up could not satisfy me, though it is limited to action adventure mobile games (the likes of God of War, Devil May Cry, Wild Blood kind of gameplay). Indeed, the addition of touchscreen to mobile phones (thanks to Steve Job for marketing it well) has revolutionized the way we play games on mobile phone, and games become a lucrative business with simple set up and probably relatively lesser cost compared to other business. But the way we play action adventure games in mobile phones has not changed. Those touchscreen are merely used to emulate buttons. Due to lack of space, the touchscreen gestures often used to change view or camera setting (pinch to zoom and swipe to look left and right). PS Vita probably took a wrong turn here, because its main advantage has always been those top notch mobile action adventure games, and since the touchscreen features are less used in those kind of games (well, probably for puzzle is better, but not for the core game mechanic itself), adding touchscreen features drain the battery more than needed to play those games.
Well, I just realised this. The different OSes in the market today have different focuses, but that is also why Chrome/Chromium OS would not strive, in which Android may be affected. Here is why.
Let us start with computer OSes. The big ones are Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu (Linux, but since Ubuntu is much more well known, so Ubuntu). Chrome/Chromium OS tries to get a place in there but it would be difficult. Why? Because its focus is mediocre, which is web explorer (at least from what I read because this is the only OS I have not tried among the aforementioned OSes). Windows has the focus of file exploring and document creation - amplified by Microsoft Office. This targets the white-collar workers. Mac OS X has the focus of media creation as amplified by GarageBand, iMovie and the likes. This targets the artists or artists wannabe (who are the youth and probably the reason Macbook is popular among the young ones besides simple design of the laptop). Ubuntu has the focus of command executor. This targets the real hard coder. So, where does Chrome/Chromium OS stands? Its focus is web explorer in which the other three OSes have as well. If you can have more than just web explorer, why don't you have so? Indeed, the focus is fast and fluid OS, but Mac OS X is fast and fluid from my experience (though I am not a Mac person myself, but I have to admit it is neat for users who don't meddle with experimenting in software). Well, there is more.
Now, let us look at the current or recent or soon-to-be mobile OSes. We have iOS, Android, WP8, Blackberry, Meego/Tizen/Joola, Boot2Gecko and Symbian. Again, their focuses vary. iOS focuses on being a media player. WP8 has extra functionality for document creation and being on the update through Live Tiles. Blackberry focuses on enterprises. Meego and its friends focus on simple phone functionality. Boot2Gecko is not out yet (:p). Symbian was on full customisation of themes and for those toying with software, a file explorer (the best at its prime time). Android. Android tries to be a media player as well. However, Google does not earn any money from the media. Android focus is to be a platform for the ads, thus its focus is making it attractive to buyers so that more ads revenue can be earned. (Note: I am an Android user myself now and loving it :)).
The problem here lies not in Android being a driver for ads revenue. You see, Mac OS X is a media creator (even for games, it has Unity who backs it up). Windows and WP8 connection is obviously document editor/creator. The rest except Android has no brother in the computer OS market. Chrome OS and Android? Their link is just ads driver, one driving on web and the other on apps. This thin line needs to be changed. This way, not only Chrome OS thrives, Android may as well get more fans. How?
That is the question to be answered by Larry Page. I cannot think of any solution. One solution that is not really gonna work is that Chrome OS should focus on web creation, since Android can be made to be an available port for web apps. But yeah, it may not work since the prime time of web is over. Now everyone is insane about apps. And as I suggested earlier, Android may worth to be a universal OS. One thing about Google is that it focuses so much on web/cloud solution (as evident of online document editor in Google Drive and online ads by Google AdWords, and Google itself as a search engine). Android, though looks like a big thing for Google, actually is out of the company's focus on cloud solution. Thus, either change the company's focus or change Android focus from being just another smartphone to a phone whose content is shared across devices on cloud system, whether it is game and its save data, apps, documents and so on.
*Update* Note: I forgot what I wanted to write so I lost some train of thoughts last night and it was after training, but anyway, here we goes.
The weak link between Android and Chrome OS is actually not a big problem. The problem lies in the fact that commonly computer OS and its respective mobile OS complement each other. For example, media created in Mac OS X (Unity for game, iMovie and GarageBand) is used in iOS, or even compatible in iOS to be edited. Documents made in Windows can be edited in WP8 so that you can have your document on the go in case of emergency, as in the video I embedded below (starts at 0:32). Android and Chrome OS? They don't make use of each other. That's what needed to be fixed.
You know, now that I am using Android, I remember the old days, 6 - 7 years back when the dominating OS was Symbian. Why? I found a lot of similarity between Symbian and Android; many apps and games and easily pirated, file manager, freedom to customise (although now at a different level in Android), sometimes awkward UI, blah blah blah. But more than that. What was Symbian's main rival? Sony Ericsson's OS which is simple, having dumbproof UI and not so customisable yet many games as well. What is Android's main rival now? iOS; simple, dumbproof UI, not so customisable and yet many games.
Is history repeating itself? Probably. Will there be a game changer soon, much like iOS on Symbian and Sony Ericsson's OS? We have Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry OS 10 coming, not to mention Boot 2 Gecko by Mozilla and Tizen OS, and the newly formed Jolla OS, a continuation of Meego OS. Any of them beating the top two? Maybe, maybe not. Let us see if life really just repeats itself.
