Someday...

 At an imaginary press conference X years into the future:

    "Ladies and gentlemen, the chairman of the FCC."

     "I know you have all been waiting to hear the details of our newest regulations and I appreciate your patience as we ironed out the final details.  I'm going to give a quick run down of the major changes that will be occurring and an overview of what the intentions behind and effects of each new change.  A full copy of the regulations will be provided to you as well as being made available to the general public through our website.
     The first major change is that we will be creating an official speed rating for all wireless and wireline carriers.  Instead of measuring the theoretical maximum transmission speed under ideal conditions, as is the current industry standard, the speed for each network will instead be determined by averaging the connection speed for a cross section of customers in a given market during 'peak time', at the modem or end user cellular device.  We are considering 5pm to 10pm local time to be peak time for each market.
...
     Yes?
...
     No.  The FCC does not have the authority to enforce advertising standards.  The hope behind this regulation is to create more transparency in actual speeds the average consumer can expect to receive from each wireless carrier or ISP.  This would open up companies who have large gaps between their actual speed and their advertised speed to false advertising lawsuits.  We will provide a preliminary measurement to each company 30 days prior to the official measurement to allow lead time to either change advertising or perform necessary network maintenance to bring the speed up to match advertising.
     Our second major change is that no premium charging for data will be allowed.  In other words, neither wireless carriers, nor ISPs will be able to charge an 'overage fee' for customers passing a certain usage threshold in excess of what that data costs as part of the currently purchased plan.  If you are paying $80 for 10GB of data, then an additional GB beyond that may not cost more than $8.  Additionally, the unit used to increment the monthly charges may not exceed 10% of total monthly allotment under the current plan, which means if you have a 10GB plan, the company cannot increase the total you are billed more than 1GB at a time.
...
     Yes, companies are still allowed to terminate customers for 'excessive network impact', but we will require that this term be precisely defined, and that a customer must be informed of the definition of 'excessive network impact' prior to when they are required to adhere to it.  A company also cannot change the timespan over which a customer is measured until the end of the span under the current definition is reached.  To simplify, in order to terminate your service for using more than 250GB in a bill cycle, they have to tell you that's a possibility before the bill cycle starts, and if they decide the new definition will be 10GB in 24 hours halfway through your bill cycle, you cannot be held to that standard until the end of your current cycle.
     They also cannot make the standard for 'excessive network impact' below their maximum available plan.  This means that if they offer a 100GB per month plan, they cannot terminate a customer if they do not exceed that for a given period.  They can divide that total down to whatever unit of time they like, so they may use the definition of 3.33GB per day in this case, but whatever limit, timeframe, and standard of measurement they choose must be the same for all customers, regardless of plan.
     The last regulatory change is that companies engaging in business in multiple markets are no longer allowed to vary pricing from market to market without demonstratable proof of higher network maintenance and/or operations cost.  There is a provision in this regulation to require 'apples to apples' comparison of pricing as well.  What this boils down to is that if company 'C' charges $20 a month for the 6Mb speed tier in a market where their maximum available speed is 100Mb and they have 3 competitors, in a rural market where they are the only provider and they offer 6Mb as the maximum speed, they must prove that it costs more to operate or maintain the network there in order to charge more than $20 a month and the increase cannot be more than the additional proven cost.  We intend to be very strict in reviewing the submissions of extra costs.  This will not apply to non-recurring charges only.
...
     We have considered that and we do have provisions under what constitutes 'maintenance and operations costs' for network improvement and build out.  The way we will determine how much of that cost can be applied to the specific market it is occurring in and how much must be applied to the whole customer base is complex and would be more detail than we intend to go into during this press conference although it will be available in the full brief provided to you.  The major points are that the improvement and/or build out must generally demonstrate that it is in excess of what is required or being implemented in other markets, and it must have set, objectively measurable goals that are met in a reasonable timeframe.  Simply put, they can't only increase pricing in a rural, monopolized market to allow them to rollout fiber optics there if they are doing the same thing in several other markets where the price is NOT being raised, and they can't raise the price in a single market to roll out fiber optics if most of their customer base will not receive it for a decade or more.
     That is unfortunately all the time we have today.  Please direct any further questions to our correspondence office, and refer to the full policy brief, thank you."

I can always hope...

What Phone Should You Buy?

     Let's say you're looking for a new cell phone!  Which one should you buy?  Short answer: ALL OF THEM!  Long answer: this post!

     First things first, what kind of OS are you looking for?  Each of the big 3 has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

     Windows Phone has two big things going for it.  First, it's easy to use.  I would say it's nearly as easy as iOS.  The interface is very simple, and if you've used Windows before, it's going to have a lot of familiar icons.  I frequently hear people complain that they've used an iPhone before and adapting to Windows takes a time, so it's not very easy.  My response to that is that the first time I used iOS, the standard by which easy smartphone is set, it took time to adapt to it.  You can learn the basic ins and outs of a Windows phone just as quickly.
     Second, it's lightweight.  Microsoft has had the advantage of entering a developed smartphone market.  They already knew where the pitfalls were and how to avoid them.  The raw specs of the most advanced Windows phones are relatively modest by Android and iOS standards, but almost all their devices run everything smoothly and get close to the top end of smart phone battery life.  This is a very polished OS that both looks and feels nice.
     The downside to Windows Phone is what gives it a lot of its advantages: it's arriving late to the game.  That means that as far as app selection goes, it's going to lag behind its well seasoned competitors quite a bit.  Sure you won't have any issues getting the Facebook app, or downloading the newest entry in Rovio's emotionally unstable poultry series, but if you want to do something a bit more unsual (like scan for hidden wifi networks), you may just be out of luck on that.
     As far as brands go on this, Nokia has far and away the widest selection available, including some specialized models with very nifty features, most of which can be had for free with a two year contract on the the carrier of your choice.  If you'd like to get a very powerful phone with the Windows experience and upfront cost isn't your primary concern, I'd look into the HTC One M8 Windows version.

     Next up is iOS.  This is the go to OS for most new smartphone users.  While I would personally argue that Windows phone is just as easy to pick up, it doesn't yet have the reliability and built in reputation of iOS.  One of the main things this OS has going for it, is that it's very gradual in it's changes most of the time.  It has grown quite a bit as an operating system, but it's still something you could pick up and use in the most recent version jumping straight from one of the much older versions.  It's also extremely secure and stable and runs very well on it's hardware (mostly because the software is designed by the same people manufacturing the phone) without much lag, even if you are running it on a several generations old iPhone.
     These two things are also the main detractors for this OS.  Both Microsoft (Windows Phone) and Google (Android) are always looking to keep the interface looking new and up to date.  If this means that they need to move the buttons around, or even change how many there are, they'll do it.  Apple wants to make the new version as close to the previous as possible, which means that it's easy to adapt to, but won't get a lot of groundbreaking innovations either.  The other downside to their upside is that you don't get a lot of customization options.  Apple has a very firm idea of what features on the phone you should be able to mess with, and you aren't allowed outside that box unless you jailbreak the phone.  And if you're going to all the trouble to jailbreak the phone, you may as well go with Android.
     If iOS is your  choice of OS, you have your pick of manufacturers as long as you pick Apple.  Unless you have a need for the newest features that are exclusive to the newest model (and there is always at least one, so be sure to check) I actually recommend going one model down.  It will still perform very well with the newest iOS release and you avoid having to throw as large a pile of money at it.  There is usually a free iPhone option with two year contract, but I would advise against that (since it's usually two or even three generations old) unless you have very low needs out of your phone's performance, otherwise you'll find yourself desperately wanting to update less than a year in.

     Android, Google's brain child.  Android currently has the largest chunk of the smartphone market running their OS, and with good reason.  The Android OS is very flexible and powerful and has been around a long time.  If you can think of something your phone's hardware should be able to do, someone has almost certainly written an app to let it do that.  Also, nearly everything can be customized on an Android phone with just the standard software, and if you want more access (and are technically inclined or know someone who is) you can load custom designed versions of the software onto your phone.  Google's general philosophy is "Forbid Nothing."
     As with the other two, it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness.  The very open platform and ease of customization can leave the phone vulnerable to malicious software.  The number of customization options available can also lead to a bewildering number of ways that some feature you like can be disabled or one you hate could be enabled.  Some users prefer to give up a little bit of freedom on options to avoid having to mess with those options.
     Android's other downside is that for quite a while, it was very hard on hardware.  The newest phones ran the newest Android version just fine, but the older phones could barely limp along, and even the newest phones would sometimes need a battery charge two or three times throughout the day just from the amount of things Android did in the background.  Both of  these problems are fading out or at least becoming less severe with the newer versions of Android.
     Android is also the OS where you will have the greatest selection of brands and models in phones.  Samsung has built up quite a name for themselves over the years, but the downside of that is that they know it, so their phones tend to be nearly as expensive as Apple's (although they exert less price control over the cell carriers so you can usually still wind up cheaper after a two year contract is thrown in).  HTC has shown themselves to be a quality manufacturer and on their newer phones even offer a free screen replacement should you break it in the first 6 months after purchase and I am personally a fan of the front facing speaker design which is great for music and movies.  LG is also a strong contender, turning out high quality phones with comparable specifications to Samsung for a significantly lower price.  Finally, Motorola is going be the brand to get if you want a mostly unchanged experience from the Android that Google envisions with the greatest options for customization, since Motorola was recently purchased by Google.  The extra advantage Motorola gets with this is faster updates from Google; the less that's changed, the less that has to be adapted after the update comes out.

     So if you're aiming at a new phone this Christmas, you now have a pretty good starting point for your selection.  Don't be afraid to jump between brands.  The modern age of cloud storage makes it pretty easy to jump back and forth with a minimal loss of data.  Regardless of whether or not you get an Android, Google is your friend for figuring out your new phone, or even picking one out.  See what reviewers think of the one that's caught your eye, and see if anyone else can give you a tip on increasing the delay of the stupid screen lock.  My last and most important piece of advice is exclusively for new smartphone users.  If you don't know what phone to get, get the same one a friend has.  That way you at least know someone to give you a hand on figuring out all the quirks.

TO INFINITY! AND BEYOND!!

OMGIMSOEXCITEDHAVEYOUHEARDABOUTTHENEWREACTIONLESSDRIVENASATESTEDWECANTOTALLYGOTOSPACEIWANTMYOWNSPACESHIPCOMMANDTHISISTHEBESTMOSTEXCITINGTHINGEVERIWILLQUITMYJOBTOGODEDICATEMYLIFETOTHISRIGHTNOW!!!!!

Deep breaths!  Deep breaths!  I'm going to hyperventilate if I don't calm down!  Give me just a second!

     Okay!  Let's take it from the top.  NASA has recently published a paper detailing their recent experiments conducted with what is currently being called the Cannae drive (Hi Scotty!) or QDrive.  Here's the theory: a weirdly shaped chamber has microwaves bounced around in it.  Because of the way the chamber is shaped, the microwaves bounce around in such a way as to generate thrust (measured in micro newtons, i.e. a very small amount).  Should the device work as described, it would mean a reaction-less drive had been achieved.  NASA tested the thing under some extremely strenuous conditions (although as has been pointed out by others, not identical conditions to space), and to the surprise of many, the damn thing actually worked!  So how and why is this a big deal, and what actually happened?  Let's take a look!

     First, a reaction-less drive is a type of engine that would generate thrust without any need for an outside force or net momentum exchange to produce linear motion.  In plain english, you move without pushing off of something else.  That doesn't sound that complicated but literally every form of movement we use currently does this.  Note I didn't say every form of engine, I said every form of movement.  Walking, we push against the ground to move forward, swimming we push against the water, planes push against the air, boats push against either the water or air (propeller engine or sailboat), cars also push against the ground, and rockets (once they're in space) push against their own fuel.  More accurately, they move by releasing matter (usually a gas because it can be compressed so maximizes how much you get for the space it takes up) in one direction pushing the ship in the other.  Space makes this a bit more complicated because there's nothing around the vessel to slow it down once it gets moving, so every time it wants to change course, it takes fuel to start moving and the same amount again to stop moving.
     This really complicates space travel as it's currently done because a huge portion of the mass of our current rockets (something around 90%) is simply the fuel to get them into space.  To give you an easier to visualize mental picture, to get an 18 wheeler into orbit you'd need a Boeing 747 made entirely of rocket fuel.  If the goal is to get somewhere further than orbit, we have to build enough fuel into the part of the ship that survives getting out of the atmosphere to get the ship pointed at the destination, accelerate towards it, stop when it gets there, and if it's a manned ship, it would need additional fuel to point the ship back at Earth, accelerate back, and slow down prior to reentry.  The amount of fuel that can be carried is finite, and the issue of dimishing returns starts to come into play at some point since approximately 10lbs of feul to get off the ground has to be added for every pound of fuel that will be used in space.
     A reaction-less drive would solve a lot of problems for getting around past orbit.  Lets say the drive weighted as much as the aforementioned 18 wheeler.  That means that you only have to come up with the one rocket fuel 747 to get to the moon or to get to Proxima Centauri since you don't have to add additional fuel to go a farther distance.  The other advantage is the possibility of continuous thrust for the trip.  I'll get into what that means more specifically a little later though.  The big problem with a reaction-less drive is that it violates a few laws of physics based on our current understanding, which makes developing one a bit of a problem.

     "Well how could they have developed a working one if it violates the laws of physics?" you ask.  The short answer is, we don't know yet.  There is quite a lot of data that NASA released, and aside from some short speculation, there isn't a lot dedicated to trying to explain the why.  Although it's very important to point out that no serious scientists involved with the project are suggesting its actually reaction-less (they just aren't sure what it's reacting with and how), the important part at this stage isn't actually why it works.  By everything they have observed, it does work.
     The really interesting part of this is, however it's working, it doesn't work in the way that it's inventor thought it was going to.  There were two models tested.  One was the one the inventor designed that included some slots in the reflection chamber that were integral to generating the thrust he theorized would be created.  The other was the same design, minus the slots.  In the experiment that was conducted, both seemed to work equally well.  The scientists running the experiment just have theorized that something about the device is interacting with quantum vacuum virtual plasma (as I understand this part, basically particles that aren't quite real in the physical sense but nevertheless exist everywhere even in space), and is pushing against that to generate the measured thrust.

     "Even if it is somehow working, what's the big deal?  The thrust is in micro newtons!  Space shuttles weight tons!"  That's where the unique environment of space actually works in our favor.  Let's stay you give your car a push on a flat street to get it started rolling and after a few feet it comes to a stop, and may have gotten up to 1 mile an hour.  In space, that push that gets the ship up to 1 mile an hour will keep it going at 1 mile an hour without any further thrust until it hits something.  So while you would have to keep pushing that car on Earth just to maintain the speed, if you keep pushing it in space you add to the speed.  If each second you are pushing it increases the speed by 1 mile an hour, after 1 minute the ship is going 60 miles an hour.  After two weeks the ship is traveling at around 1.2 MILLION miles per hour.  You can see how even a small push, as long as you can keep it going indefinitely, can add up over time.  This is why a drive that can continuously produce thrust for a very long period without having to carry a large amount of fuel (even if it's only a small amount of thrust produced) is such a huge advancement in space travel.
     The other thing to consider about the push the Cannae drive is producing is that the drive tested was a small model built solely for the purposes of this test.  The hope is that by scaling up the device, you could also significantly increase the thrust produced.  This is also the part where understanding how it's doing what it's doing would be useful.  If you know how something works, you can figure out how to make it work better.

     Overall there are still a few hurdles to jump.  The device will probably require a lot more testing on Earth.  At some point, one will have to be shipped up to the ISS for testing in actual space.  After that, a Cannae drive would have to be built strong enough to actually push a ship.  All of this also assumes that the drive is actually working and the motion is not caused by some other unforeseen anomaly.  I am very hopeful, though.  We could all have been born at the narrow window in human history to see the birth of interplanetary space flight.

Now if we can just get FTL travel solved with a warp field and subspace transmissions I can finally get my own starship...

Wireless Telecoms: A Lightning Rod

     Friends, countrymen!  Lend me your eyes!  And read this thing I wrote!  A bit melodramatic I admit, but I really didn't have a better way to kick this off.  Today we're talking about people blaming cell phone companies for one few things that aren't their fault.  Let's get started!

     Wireless Telecoms (short for Wireless Telecommunications [professional speak for Cell Phone Companies]) are different from almost every other business out there.  I get the feeling from everyone I talk to that most people don't really notice how unusual it is.  Let me illustrate this: ask yourself, "What am I paying my cell phone company for?"  Here's the mind blowing part: if your answer was anything other than, "To provide signal to my cell phone," or had any other things thrown in, it was wrong (unless you actually have extra services on your bill, like cloud storage or music subscriptions).

     I can see (metaphorically) that some of you are confused.  Let's back things up to the inception of cell phones and cellular technology.  Many moons ago, cell networks were just starting to take off.  You could actually get a cell phone plan that wouldn't cost you over $100 dollars a month for a single line of voice only service plus $4.75 a call (That's where we started!  Look it up!).  The problem was, cellular devices, henceforth know as cell phones, cost a lot.  So if you're an owner of a newly formed cell company, you have a great service that will be fantastically useful, but there's a high investment cost to get started as a customer for something that the customer isn't sure they'll use yet.

     Then someone somewhere who was pretty good with numbers crunched some and came up with a great idea.  The Cell Provider could just give the customer a phone so they wouldn't have to put down a huge amount up front, and over the course of about two years, the company would make that back through service revenue!  Now, there is the worry that after they have the phone they would just leave, but if a financial penalty is written into the contract they sign to recoup the loss that worry is taken care of, too.  People started getting cell phones, started using them, and realized how amazing they were.

     It's at this point that European cell carriers began being heavily differentiated for the American ones; people knew what cell phones were and knew how useful they were, there was no need to risk money to incentivize demand.  The vast majority of phones purchased in Europe and Asia are bought at full retail with little to no discount, and correspondingly, no contract.  People will frequently buy or order phones directly from the manufacturer.  Meanwhile in America, continuing on the path they started on, someone had the brilliant marketing idea to offer that new line of service discount option to anyone that wasn't still working off their initial 2 year contract and call it a 2 year upgrade.  After that came the 1 year, not as deeply discounted upgrades, and most recently, the full price of the phone billed in installments plans.

     Over the years, this pricing structure has created a sort of bubble.  The wars between carriers, especially in the case of Big Red and Big Orange, has been one of device line ups, deals, customer service and coverage areas here in the States and it's put strange ideas in peoples heads.  Many are flabbergasted that the actual price for a new smartphone is usually $400 or more, for the cheap ones.  The price difference between what people usually pay and what an off contract device costs is vast.  People almost always buy devices through a carrier (and in fact there aren't a lot of options available if you don't want to do that), so they return to the carrier for support for that device.  When that device gets broken, they call and request that they get a new phone for a discount or free, and if they aren't eligible for the discounted price, and can't get an exception made, they take their business to another carrier.  All this being demanded from a company that is only being paid to provide a wireless connection.

     If you don't see what makes that so different and strange compared to every other industry, imagine if the state Departments of Transportation worked the same way.  If you agree to use Tennessee roads exclusively for the next two years and pay your taxes to them instead of another state, TDOT will sell you a Porsche for $12,500.  You agree and when something goes wrong with your Porsche after a few months, it never crosses your mind to call anyone other than TDOT to get it fixed.  When you wreck your Porsche, you ask the TDOT to replace it for just another $12.5k.  All of that despite the fact that what you're actually paying TDOT for is just the use of the road.

     I'm certainly not saying we need to feel bad for the cell giants currently dominating the industry.  In fact, I'm of the opinion that the top two could probably cut into their vast profits a bit and start offering unlimited data again, although maybe not for the $29.99 price it was originally.  I'm just a little irked when I see people on forums complaining that their Blackberry has poor battery life, or that their Android phone that was 2 years old when they bought it 18 months ago is running slow, and then blame the service provider for it.  The phones aren't manufactured by the carrier.  They aren't designed by the carrier.  When you get them swapped out by the carrier for a warranty issue, your cell carrier is just mailing them out to the manufacturer anyway.  There are many reasons to be mad at your cell provider, but the fact that you bought a crappy brand of phone that none the less retails for $500 and can't get it replaced free after 6 months, is one of the few things that you can't lay at their feet.

Thank You For AT&T, Google.

     Recently AT&T announced that they would be bringing their new Gigapower service to the Nashville metropolitan area.

First things first, YAY!!!

     However, in our rush to congratulate ourselves on our good fortune of now having not one but two fiber based internet providers setting up shop in Nashville, let's not forget that we have Google to thank for this.  Sure, AT&T had U-Verse available around here already, but while it's great and all, it's no competitor for Google Fiber.  AT&T didn't even have a Gigapower service until recently.  That new higher tier of speed 'mysteriously' started appearing in markets where Google Fiber was either available now, or coming soon.  Even though I distinctly remember an early press release where AT&T stated that they weren't just now releasing Gigapower as a response to Google Fiber, that's pretty clear that's exactly what's happening.  However they want to spin the project, I'll be happy to take advantage of it.  There's not a lot of specifics, but I can wait for now, since they are slowly but surely making good on their promised expansion.

     AT&T has officially gotten Gigapower up and running in Austin, TX.  It's a pretty big jump when, for a short period, there was a lot of speculation that there would not even be a Gigapower.  AT&T had sent out a flurry of press releases about the many areas they would be expanding this amazing service to, but showed no signs of investing any capital into network infrastructure in those areas.  True, what they've delivered so far is not the 1Gbps that both the name and AT&T themselves promise it will be yet, but progress is being made.  I have seen and heard a lot of people giving AT&T flack for not hitting the ground running with the Gigapower service delivering, well, gigapower.  To that I say, at least some effort is being made, unlike Comcast.

     Comcast seems content to stick their head in the sand and continue to try and strangle every last dollar out of their customers before their business model collapses in on itself.  No doubt in a decade or so, we'll see the company fall apart much like Enron did, leaving the board of directors with well lined pockets living in houses serviced by Google Fiber and the rest of the rank and file scrambling to find a job and rebuild their 401ks.  Comcast is trailing along behind with their highest tier offering up to 108Mbps, about one third AT&T's official starting line with Gigapower and about one tenth of Google's best offerings.  On top of that, they are now introducing data caps top out at 300GB on all their plans, including the aforementioned 108Mbps.  This means that if you actually get the speed promised on your plan, and you were to max that speed out, you could blow through your entire month's allowance in a little more than six and a half hours.

     Bashing on Comcast aside, I have one last thought I want to share about broadband.  It's great that Nashville and Austin are getting some great internet options thanks to Google dragging our country's internet forward kicking and screaming into the 21st century.  A lot of our country is still living in the dark ages of the internet, though.  I want to send a message out to the city councilmen and mayors of the smaller metropolitan areas and townships (whom I'm sure all eagerly await my blog updates): throw money at this problem.  This is one situation I advocate lots of government spending.  Creating a high speed internet infrastructure can bring tech businesses into the region and means a lot of local people can remain local with telecommuting to increase their income.  Higher income means more service based businesses to cater to that income which means more tax revenue flowing in.

     Telecoms want the network to be profitable immediately, and who can blame them?  They aren't in this game for charitable reasons.  A government subsidized utility can afford to take a loss here, when it can result in significant gains elsewhere, and doesn't answer to short sighted investors looking for quick returns over long term viability.  Don't let big companies bully you with threatening to pull out.  Call their bluff.  If they do pull out, that just means increased subscription rates for the municipal network.  Chattanooga has their own internet provider and it's working great for them so far.

     So let's all thank Google for entering this highly uncompetitive market and shaking things up, but let's make sure we're doing what we can from our side to shake things up.  Remember, nothing says your opinion louder than where you spend your money.

Update:  Apparently, since I originally wrote this Comcast, Time Warner, and Century Link have all announced plans to roll out increased speeds.  None of which is to try to keep up with Google Fiber of course.  It's just a coincidence that they are starting their massive speed increases in areas where Google is currently operating or has announced that it will be expanding.  Also coincidence: that they have all started these plans after Google Fiber took off.  They were all totally planning this before now.

Why Does Sony Hate Money?

     I've determined that Sony must genuinely not want to make money.  That's the only explanation that makes any sense to me.  What am I talking about, you ask?  (Of course you ask, otherwise the blog can't move forward.)  Why I'm talking about the PS Vita, of course!
     Way back in the early 2000s, I bought a Nokia N-Gage.  It was the first phone geared towards mobile gaming.  It was terrible, but I loved the idea.  I quickly moved on to a cheap candy bar phone.  At the same time, I also picked up a PSP.  It's like a PS Vita but with physical game discs.  As far as phones went, I kept moving.  I got one of the windows based PDAs, then moved on to an international version of the LG Env2 (I was with Big Orange instead of Big Red at the time, so I needed one that would take a SIM) then to a cheapo candy bar again after my LG went swimming, and finally to one of the first real smart phones, the iPhone.  During that entire elaborate phone swapping and changing, one thing stayed the same: the PSP.
     It would play my music, it would play my movies, it would play my games and it would browse the internet.  It did everything that I wanted out of a mobile device, except text and make phone calls, but I begrudgingly carried a phone for that.  Once I finally laid hands on an iPhone though, that all changed.  Now I had a single device that would do everything!  It was so much more convenient to just carry one device!  As I used my PSP less and less because it was so much more convenient to just carry around one thing, I thought more and more about selling it.  One day I finally pulled that trigger and dumped all my games and the system.
     Jump forward to Christmas time, 2011.  I've just made the jump from iOS to Android with the Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket.  Then the PS Vita is announced!  No more discs, you download the games directly!  It also comes with a 3G antenna built in!  Is this what I've wanted since 2003 and did I make a horrible mistake changing over instead of waiting?!  Will I finally have a gaming phone that will play actual games?  Specifically games that don't suck terribly and maybe even allow me to play classic games I love on the go without having to run an emulator?  As we all now know, the answer to all these questions and more was a resounding NO.
     Then another year came and went and the Xperia Play 4G popped up on my radar.  Ok, now we're talking!  It runs Android!  It has a slide out controller instead of a keyboard!  It runs something that sounds a lot like the Playstation Network out of the box!  A good gaming phone at last!  Only, lolno.  By the time I had my hands on it, it was running Gingerbread in a world where all the new phones where loaded with Jellybean.  I ran with it for awhile, and it was great for my SNES and NES emulators.  Sadly, it was never powerful enough to run an actual PSX emulator, and it was depressing to look at the tiny catalog of PSX~ish games offered.  As software updated, it eventually became unusable as anything but a backup phone, and thus again the dream of a gaming phone died once more.
     Here is where we talk about how Sony desperately doesn't want to make money.  I loved the idea of the Xperia Play.  A phone with dedicated controls for gaming, but a touch screen for interaction with the phone OS.  You know what else fits that description?  The PS Vita.  It retails for $199.99 as of the writing of this blog entry.  The OS for it is unique, and the design is unlike anything else on the market (phone wise).  Why is this not a phone?  It can clearly support a cellular antenna, since it was initially offered with one.  They don't have to make it Android based.  Just add a phone dialer app, sms/mms app, and an email client (for contact sync as much as anything else) and boom, it's good to go!  Hardware wise, all that needs to be added is an earpiece speaker and a cell antenna.  It even has a microphone already built in; it would just need to be moved to accommodate using the device in the cell position.
     Let's say when all is said and done, the total cost per unit for the cell phone ready version went up by $200 dollars; total price, $399.99.  Right now Big Orange, Big Red and Big Yellow all have phones for at least $100 more than that completely free with a two year contract.  I think it would be much easier for kids and teens to talk parents into forking over $0 for a new game system than $200.  77% of kids ages 12 to 17 have a cell phone.  More than 50% have a handheld game console.  Even if we assume 100% overlap between the two groups and no growth in the percentage with cell phones, that's potentially 25% of a highly lucrative demographic that could be added to the handheld market without parents (the actual source of the majority of the money being spent) having to invest a single extra dime.  You would also have more games being bought due to PSNs crossbuy feature netting potentially 3 games for the price of one: one for a home console, one for a handheld game system, and one for a phone.  Not to mention that this would hardly preclude the continued manufacture and sale of the PS Vita classic non-phone version.  Just leave out the cell antenna and earpiece to save on manufacturing costs and keep selling that one as is.  They could probably both be built on the same assembly line.
     What about the functionality that would be lost by creating a phone with yet another mobile operating system?  Well that's the great part; it doesn't have to be a new mobile operating system!  Instead of trying to build an Android based gaming phone that will interface with the PSN or garner 3rd party developer support for a whole new mobile OS, why not just build an Android emulator that could be downloaded from the PSN onto the Vita phone?  Android 4.4 and up are all built to have 100% of the interaction done via the touchscreen.  The three buttons (or more depending on which custom build your device runs) are part of the screen itself, so no extra buttons would be needed.  Running it as an emulation may not give Android the power to run high end games, but you've got the whole PSN catalog available if you want that.  What it would do is give the Vita phone the ability to interface with two already huge online marketplaces, giving it a huge boost in functionality without requiring a large investment of time or money on either Sony's or the developer's part...

Although they might still want to look into adding some of the more popular social media apps.  I hear that Facebook thing is pretty big...

Update: Apparently Sony is dumping the whole "make this vast preexisting store/gaming platform available in any way form or fashion to the vast mobile device gaming market" idea.  Why do you hate money so much?

A Breakup Letter to Windows 8.1 RT

     I wanted to love you, Windows 8.1 RT, I really did.  I tried hard to make this work.  After all you're the productivity emphasized mobile/tablet platform, and with the possibility of college classes back on the horizon, we should have been a perfect match!  After all, I already love regular Windows 8.1.  It's just that it's too high maintenance for me.  I don't have the finances to try to support full 8.1, so was thinking of settling for your more realistically priced hardware.  But it was wrong of me to try to get you to live up to the love I have for 8.1 Full.
     Let's backup and start from the beginning.  I let someone set us up for our first serious meeting by borrowing the Nokia Lumia 2520.  It's supposed to be one of your more attractive hardware configurations, and it certainly lived up to that promise.  Sleek and relatively lightweight but still solid feeling.  Things were going good.  I looked forward to our lunch rendezvous excitedly and did a little background checking before hand.  Hey, you can't be too careful these days.
    First things first, let's find some gaming software.  Steam is definitely beyond you and your hardware, but I wouldn't mind a PSX emulator.  Oh, it seems that one isn't available.  Well that's fine.  I mean, you are a relatively new mobile platform, so it's to be expected that I might not find some of the more obscure apps I might see on an OS with more experience.  And, hey, there's a nice little Charm compatible SNES emulator.  That's cute!  And you even sync right up with my Bluetooth controller!
     Let's see how we line up productivity-wise!  Now before I continue, I should apologize, because my past relationships with other OSs may have left me with what you consider an unrealistic expectation of our relationship.  KitKat and I are both fine with something more open.  After all, I can load OneDrive, Outlook, and Xbox Music with it.  So I went looking for Drive, GMail, and Music with you.  But alas, I found none of them.  Well, as long as I can load Chrome, I can do all of those just through the browser!  Oh, you don't have Chrome either...
     Look, I see what you're trying to do.  After all if I'm gonna be with you, you'd like me to get along with your family as well.  And that's fine!  I just don't think its fair to demand that I give up all my friends who aren't related to you also.  Or even demand that I don't see them while I'm around you.  That kind of possessiveness drives people away.  And you can't force popularity.  Just ask Google+.  No matter how well connected and beloved your parent is, it still won't guarantee success on your part.
     Look, we had a good run!  I haven't lost much of my time or money in this relationship.  And you'll meet other people who will love you for your RDC and Office suite, instead of thinking about what you're missing.  That person just isn't me.

     TL;DR: Windows 8.1 RT is great if you haven't invested heavily in any ecosystem already or if you're invested in Microsoft.  But steer clear unless you want to migrate to all MSN services for your stuff.  Still like Windows 8.1 Full though.