Who? What? Why? Where? When? and How?
Lack of HP source H
Steve Rogerson’s round-up of last month’s news and events, including some that may have slipped under the radar
ewlett-Packard is in my bad books this month. To understand why, one has to go back many years to when
I was first introduced to Palm and its excellent range of PDAs. I was hooked and I bought one. I adored the device, I loved the desktop interface. It did everything I wanted from a PDA.
So when Palm went a stage further and integrated the PDA into a mobile phone, I bought one of those too, and I bought a full-price unlocked version as my service provider didn’t offer the Centro, as it was called, in its packages, such was my love for Palm.
Then Hewlett-Packard bought Palm, but that was OK as it planned to keep the line going, and with the new replacement operating system Webos. I must admit I was a little worried about Webos as Palm Os was one of the main attractions of Palm, but I was willing to give it a try. So, in June this year, I decided it was time to upgrade my now dated Centro for an HP Webos phone. However, I was a little unsure about making the transition from Palm Os to Webos and some of my questions didn’t seem to be answered on the HP site, so I emailed the questions to their tech team, and received no response. In desperation, I then emailed HP’s PR
officer and asked if she could get them to answer the questions. And all credit to her, she tried, and she tried, and she tried, but could not get a peep out of them nor an explanation as to why.
Then, in mid-August, it all came clear. The evil that is Hewlett-Packard decided to scrap Webos after its shiny Touchpads didn’t sell very well. If its tech team had answered my questions, I might have bought one – they looked nice. So now what do I do? I have an outdated Palm Cenrtro and all my contact and scheduling data wrapped up in Palm Os. Does anyone know of a good Smartphone with a desktop interface similar to Palm Os and for which there is an easy way to transfer all the data across from one to the other? I also use a Mac, by the way.
On the subject of electronic gadgets, I was sad to read that they are now more popular than I-Spy when it comes to keeping kids amused on long car journeys. According to Carhiremarket, 51 per cent of Brits use electronic gadgets to keep their children quiet while only 46 percent opt for a good old game of I-Spy or similar. I used to like the legs and heads game – each time you spot a pub sign, you get points for how many legs and heads it has, so, for example, the Red Lion would score five – four legs and one head. How possibly could an electronic gadget beat that for entertainment?
50 September 2011 Rather more worrying was a survey
from Popcap that found that parents were using smartphones to bond with their children. And it also found that children as young as two years old were becoming proficient at using smartphones and tablets. I feel old. On the other hand, it appears that Moshi Monsters Magazine, launched in February, is already the UK’s best selling children’s magazine. OK, I know it is based on online stuff, but it is made of paper and there is something nice about keeping paper alive with all these e- books around these days.
A friend of mine, knowing how much I
like reading books, has been trying to convince me that an e-reader of the Kindle ilk is what I really need. My problem with them is aeroplanes. I always take a book with me on aeroplanes and the time I most often read it is during take off and landing when you are strapped into your seat and can do nothing else, and that is exactly the time that you are not allowed to use electronic gadgets, so I will stick with paper for a while longer. Maybe I should ditch my Centro and replace that with a paper based system. What could I call it? I know, a pocket diary.
Now, I confess, I am not the best photographer in the world but I can often get a few usable snaps when I go on press trips. And I always try to remember the golden rule of studying at the background as well as the subject to make sure the photo will not look as if there is a tree or something similar growing out of someone’s head. Apparently, nobody told the rule to the person who took the above photo for Hitachi. The photographer has managed to get not one but four poles, one for each person, apparently impaling their shoulders. The occasion, by the way, is Hitachi’s display products group in Maidenhead awarding four of its distributors for their achievements in the past year.
Molex to power UMsolar car on 1,800 mile Australian outback journey
Molex solutions has announced that it is to support the University of Michigan Solar Car team in its bid to win the 2011 World Solar Challenge. The UMsolar team’s car, named Quantum, features several electronic components from Molex, as well as a variety of solderless terminals. With a number of Molex interconnect
products being deployed on the Quantum solar car Mark Rettig, Director of Global Marketing at Molex said that the company was “pleased to have the opportunity to empower and support the next generation of innovative design engineers.”
A student-run organisation, UMsolar designs and builds solar-powered vehicles, and is widely recognised as one of the most successful teams in North America. Since its establishment in 1990, the team has built 10 vehicles and is the current reigning champion of the North American Solar Challenge, a race it has won three times in a row. The World Solar Challenge is a biannual event and this year, the week long race starts on the 16th October and
Components in Electronics
runs from Darwin to Adelaide, putting the solar-powered cars through their paces over the 1,800 mile (3000km) journey through the Australian outback. Molex is chronicling the UMsolar team’s progress on YouTube, with video instalments posted on World Solar Challenge 2011.
In preparation for the Australian competition, the UMsolar team conducted a mid-July mock race to simulate race conditions and refine their race action plan. The 1,000-mile, 4-day practice traversed Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, making five stops along the way.
www.cieonline.co.uk
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