A Razor to Apple's Throat

I love Razer's Project Christine - a completely modular PC. 

There is a stand and you simply attach the components you want: Central Processing Units (CPU), Graphic Processing Unit (GPU), Power Supply Unit (PSU), Solid-State Drive (SSD) storage, and so on. 

By making the architecture open and plug and play--just jack in a new module-- and change out whatever you want, whenever you want. Obsolescence be gone. 

This is a challenge to pure standardization, and a way to make customization cost-effective.

The cooling is done with mineral oil that is pumped throughout from the bottom reservoir. 

At the top, you see a module for a command center for adding operating systems, adjusting configurations and settings, or monitoring performance. 

A subscription model is planned where for a annual fee, you can get the latest and greatest upgrades.


Project Christine PC is the epitome of simple, useful, scalable and beautiful.

Watch out Apple, you have a Razor at your throat--it's time to seriously up the innovation game. ;-)

A Razor to Apple's Throat

How Apple Is Losing Its Fans

Without a lift, Apple is already (and unfortunately) on the way down.

IDC reports that the recent quarter global smartphone shipments show Android with an almost 80% market share compared to Apple's flimsy 13%.

I've been a diehard Apple fan for years (and I still love them, but...)

Years ago, I converted all my Windows computers and even my old Android phones.

Apple was innovative, sleek, and intuitive to use.

But since Steve Jobs passed, the company has lost its mojo.

Siri was a bust and what else have they done since.

Google is leading the way with Glass for wearable technology.

Apple is disappointing its consumers, and their stock plummet from over $700 to the upper $300s (now in the mid $400's) shows investor sentiment.

Out comes the Samsung Galaxy S4 and I am salivating--the differences from the iPhone 5 make them "almost" not comparable.

Thought I'd wait for Chanukah, but the opportunity came early and so I am now a proud owner.

A couple of days earlier, a young women on the Metro was using the Galaxy and I asked how she liked it--she said she loved it, mentioned the big screen and all the free apps, and then went on to say that her mom also just switched over from the iPhone and loves the Galaxy too.

What is it about the Galaxy?

The larger 5" screen on the Galaxy versus 4"on the iPhone 5 is the first thing you notice--and yes, when it comes to doing email, reading news articles, or watching video, size does matter!

Also, the Galaxy has Corning Gorilla glass and a higher 2.85 resolution and 35.28% higher pixel density--so it is strong and sharp and images really come out looking like a beautiful work of art.

Also with air gesture, you can just wave your hand to navigate pages and not get fingerprints and smudges all over the screen.

The camera is another huge difference: the Galaxy is 13 megapixels compared to only 8 for the iPhone and if you like taking photos that don't look like they came from a smartphone, this is a better way to do it.

In terms of speed, the Galaxy again outperforms the iPhone, it has 2 gigabyte of RAM versus only 1 for the iPhone and its CPU is 2.46 as fast. I was able to transfer my entire iTunes music library in just a couple of minutes.

Finally, battery power is key and the Galaxy has 1.81x what the iPhone has--which basically makes it not necessary to get a heavy and costly Mophie external battery pack for it.

While there are many features I like better on Galaxy s4, the one thing I'd recommend Samsung improve on is the body, which is a cheaper plastic compared to the iPhones aluminum, but once you have a solid case on it, it doesn't really matter for the end user experience.

Overall, Galaxy has out-done the iPhone, and I think the venerable and cash rich Apple, without some major new technology leaps and advances in design is under very real threat.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

How Apple Is Losing Its Fans

Brain Sharing is Eye Opening

This is a neat video and idea from GOOD called "Brain Sharing" by Lincoln Schatz.

The idea...what if we could plug in to someone else's brain and see the world the way they do (for a period of time) or as they say in the video "swap CPUs"?

(This is a little reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek, where species are plugged into the Collective and become sort of one ultimate race or similarly in the movie the Matrix, where people are plugged into a master computer program that runs their world--although here it's not an ominous context.)

But back to the point--what a powerful concept.

Rather than see things the way we see them, and think that's the way it is, period; instead we temporarily plug into someone else's brain (bionic implants away!) and whoa, we have the opportunity to see the world the way others see it and process the world the way they do--that is eye opening!

All of a sudden, things are not quite so simple. It's not black and white, as they say, but lots of shades of grey.

Of course, I still believe that there is objective ethics and morality from G-d for us to live by and therefore we can distinguish right from wrong, which we are often are forced to chose.

However, when we are seeing choices through others persons eyes and processing through their brains, we may see the problems anew with different variables and effects as well as see new options for solving them that we didn't even see before.

That's a great thing about being a diverse society and bringing multiple views, vantage points, and brains to the table--we can innovate together beyond the limitation of any one of us alone.

This isn't necessarily a new concept, but still one that is very important, often forgotten, and one well captured in this GOOD video.

P.S. Maybe an interesting exercise is to think about make a list of whose brains you'd like to share for a while (if only you could) and see the world the way they do.

Brain Sharing is Eye Opening