Arthur Clarke Turns 90

Arthur C. Clarke, who really needs no introduction, turned 90 yesterday (Sunday, 16 December). Reuters has a story about this and he's posted a 90th birthday message on YouTube as well:

If you're interested, also check out the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

[P.S. I so love Windows Live Writer. To embed this video, all I had to do was paste the YouTube URL in the body of this blog post.]

Tablet PC Benefits: Annotating Slides

Tim Berry, CEO of Palo Alto Software recently blogged about why he likes his tablet PC. In fact, he gives five reasons for it. It's a good article that echoes what a lot of other tablet PC enthusiasts have said about the benefits of this form factor.

For me, one of the biggest benefits of using tablet PCs -- i.e. being able to write on Powerpoint slides mid-presentation -- became very clear very quickly when I was first exposed to this technology in the classroom. This was thanks to John Asker who taught us Managerial Economics at MBS. John conducted his class lectures using Powerpoint slides on which he took notes (with a stylus) using his Fujitsu Lifebook convertible tablet PC.

Doing this was especially useful when explaining, for example, complex ideas that involved diagrams and areas under the curve. At the end of each class, John would save those annotated slides and then post them onto the course website as PDF files.

Here's an example...and you can imagine how much harder it would have been to explain the concept presented here without either lots of whiteboard work or more complex Powerpoint slides:

One of John Asker's slides from class

The same is true for the following slide, except that this one is even more complicated (and even harder to explain on the board...unless you used multiple colours, of course, though even then it would probably be harder to do):

One of John Asker's slides from class

In the study term that followed this one, we took a course called Economics and Public Policy that was, basically, a course on managerial macroeconomics. In that, everything was taught using the whiteboard and, at times, that got really difficult to follow. I remember thinking back than how much better the course could have been had the professor been using Powerpoint slides and a tablet PC. Oh well. Widespread adoption takes time.

[Article via GottaBeMobile.com]

Farhat Haq Weighs in on the Emergency

As I mentioned earlier on this blog, an FIR [1] was recently lodged against Farhat Haq, a professor of political science at Monmouth College, Illinois. She has been charged with "writing inappropriate things about the government" with chalk on a wall in Lahore. Had the government actually checked before issuing the FIR, they might have noticed that Haq was actually in Illinois at the time of the alleged misdemeanour. Haq wrote an article about this in Dawn and it's been posted on The Emergency Times blog.

[1] FIR = First Investigation Report. Basically, the first step in a police investigation since this officially opens a police investigation.

2 Good Articles: Cover Songs, Will Smith

I read two fun articles (via Digg) today.

The first is a list from the Onion's A.V. Club called 'Let It Die: 23 Songs That Should Never Be Covered Again'. Excellent article. Very spot on.

The second is The Deadbolt's interview with Will Smith which is, among other things, about his upcoming movie, 'I Am Legend'. I'm really looking forward to watching that movie and will write about it as soon as I do. Smith is one of my favourite actors and is also one of my favourite people-I've-never-met. I like him particularly because, despite all his success, he's still an honest to goodness, real down to Earth guy.

Dell Latitude XT Launched

The specs for the newly launched Dell Latitude XT have finally come in...and it looks pretty darned interesting.

For starters, it has a WXGA display (1280x800) which, when optionally backlit, gives us 400nits of brightness. That's more than the Fujitsu T2010 which, till now, had the brightest display (in the 300nit range, I think). It also has a capacitive touch screen which means you can use it with your finger as well as the stylus. And the 'capacitive' feature of the touch screen gives it the ability to tell the difference between a finger press and a palm press, which is really cool. Also, it doesn't use the lightweight Intel mobile graphics chipset like the rest of the tablet PCs in the market do: it uses the ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 system which is, apparently, better than the Intel one.

Then, it has both a trackstick and a touchpad, which should make it appeal to the widest possible customer base. And finally, though its standard hard drive is an 40 or 80GB 4,200RPM one, you can upgrade to either a 120GB 5,200RPM one or a 32 or 64GB Solid State Device (SSD) drive. Yes, that's an SSD drive. A drive with no moving parts so, in theory, its as fast as your RAM is!

Of course, all of this comes at a cost, with the XT's basic configuration costing $800 more than the Toshiba M700's (and almost $1,000 more than the Fujitsu T4200's). And we don't yet know how much more the additional features (like the SSD drive) will cost. Another negative is that it has a low-powered processor, with a 1.2GHz Core2 Duo being the highest you can go.

So, while it does beat the rest of its competition in some areas, it is slightly underpowered and is does cost quite a bit more. Lets see what the soon-to-come full hands-on reviews say about it. Who knows, all these additional features might just be worth their cost.

[Sources: Reports from Engadget, GBM, CNET, Tablet PC Review; First hands on review from Engadget]

The Toshiba M700?!

Having eliminated the Toshiba Portege R400 from the running early on (fabulous looking but too underpowered and way too expensive), I wasn't expecting much more from the Toshiba camp in the tablet PC space. Boy was I wrong!

Toshiba has just launched the Portege M700 which, when you do a side-by-side comparison, slightly edges out the Fujitsu Lifebook T4220 that I had decided to buy in spite of its hard drive speed limitations. Yes, not only can you upgrade the Toshiba's hard drive to a 120GB 7,200RPM drive, it has a more powerful processor (2.6Ghz), a higher screen resolution (WXGA at 1280x800), Turbo Memory, and a built-in 1.3Megapixel camera. The best part? It costs only a few hundred dollars more than the Fujitsu does.

That said, the Fujitsu had a couple of things going for it as well, such as the modular bay that could house an extended battery, a combo optical drive, or a weight saver. Fujitsu also seems to have best customer service, production quality, and delivery times among the other tablet PC manufacturers. I don't know where Toshiba stands in either of these two areas (though the Portege is in its 9th generation so I'm sure quality, etc. will be great). I guess we'll have to wait for GottaBeMobile.com to do a hardware InkShow for us to find out.

Oh, one more thing. Much like the wireless dock that is unique to Toshiba, the company is introducing yet another new and unique feature with the M700: "Sleep and Charge" USB ports. These are ports that let you charge your attached mp3 players or mobile phones even when your laptop is off!

Exciting times, eh? Especially with the Dell being launched today as well. More on both of these as the reviews come in.

Quick Tablet PC Update

Okay, so I did some more research on the HP 2710p and its original elimination from my list of potential tablet PCs stands because it's too underpowered and the design is too form-over-function for my taste. That is, you can't upgrade to a faster hard disk (so you're stuck with the 4,200 RPM one) and, in an effort to make it simple to use, a lot of power features are missing from it (evidenced by how button-less it is when you're in tablet mode). Such is life.

On the other hand, its extended battery, docking solution, and wide screen display are really cool. Oh well.

Amanullah, Other Activists Arrested

As the protests against martial law continue across Pakistan, ten people were arrested outside Justice Shahid Siddiqui's house in Lahore on Thursday. These people, among many others, have been staging a peaceful sit-in outside Justice Siddiqui's house because he, along with the other judges who refused to sign the PCO, have been forcibly "retired" and asked to vacate their official residences. Many other people have been arrested, baton-charged, threatened, harassed, and released over the last few weeks, of course, but this group is of particular interest to me since, among the people arrested, are Amanullah Kariapper, a good friend and a classmate from LUMS, and Saima Khwaja, a LUMS faculty member.

You can follow the full story on the FASTRising and other blogs but, basically, they were charged -- without their lawyers being present with them in court, of course -- with disturbing the peace and have been remanded to two weeks in jail. They have since been removed from the jail and detained at a different location but they have been allowed to phone home and talk to their families. Their bail application hearing, meanwhile, is scheduled for this morning in the Lahore Cantonment civil courts before Magistrate Farhan Nabi. Protests for their release also continued over the weekend.

I've been out of touch recently -- I'd logged off from the wired world as I took a couple of days off after my exams -- but I'll keep updating this blog with, er, updates as I get them.

Rest in Peace, Marc Orchant

Marc Orchant -- a technology journalist, blogger, and writer whose work I enjoyed and regularly read on the Internet -- passed away in Albuquerque, NM yesterday. He'd suffered a massive heart attack on the 2nd and had been in the CCU since then. He never regained full consciousness and, considering the circumstances, passed on peacefully. Details maintained by Oliver Starr. Love and prayers to the Orchants at this most difficult time in their lives.

The Latest from the Tablet PC World

I haven't written anything about tablet PCs for a while. Among the many developments in that world, these three are the most relevant to me and my interests, so here's a quick update.

First, the much anticipated Dell tablet PC is about to be released on the 11th. There's been a lot in the press about this tablet recently, including its users manual getting leaked online, so it's safe to say that people are dying to get their hands on one. Let's see how it matches up against the rest of the competition. I'll update this blog once the results are in.

Speaking of competition, though, Lenovo is giving a 20-25% discount on its ThinkPad laptops (including the X Series Tablet) and accessories for Christmas (that is, if you order before 17 December). Now if only I had a spare $3,500 lying around...

Finally, as more and more people claim that the HP 2710p has the best tablet PC experience out there, I guess I might as well take a better look at it. I still think it's too underpowered for my needs, but it sure does look good, doesn't it? Oh well.

Dammit...

Here I am, working in my Negotiations take-home exam when what I would really rather be doing is protesting alongside my friends, family, and fellow activists in Islamabad.

They protested, over a thousand-strong, at Aabpara Chowk yesterday. After the usual games with the police, things turned a little ugly when the police started targeting female protestors. The crowd retaliated and there was a scuffle but, fortunately, things didn't get very much out of hand. You can read about it in the eyewitness account on the Emergency Times blog. You can also find photos from the protest there.

Meanwhile, LUMS has been surrounded by police who have barricaded the front entrance and are checking everyone who goes in or out. All that in an attempt to keep students from attending the Student Action Committee protest meeting at the Press Club in Lahore.

And in the usual, funny twist of events that occurs in situations such as these, the police issued FIRs [1] against LUMS students and faculty members, most of which are quite funny (again) as reported by the Emergency Times.

And while all this is going on back home, I am here working out strategies for collaborative negotiation.

Dammit.

[1] FIR = First Investigation Report. Basically, the first step in a police investigation since this officially opens a police investigation.

Science Fiction Film "Babes" on Flixster

Ah, the science fiction "babe". An elusive creature, if there ever was one -- though that trend finally seems to be changing in film and on TV (thanks, Joss!).

Still, Flixster recently posted an article called 'Science Fiction Film Babes Through Time' that lists five decades worth "babes" in order of "babe-itude". It's a fun read. And though I don't know a couple of the women listed there, in my opinion, their list is pretty accurate.