Toshiba made the call to drop their HD-DVD business a few weeks ago, and good on them. They learned from Sony’s mistakes.

For those in the dark, Sony pulled a similar move starting back in the 1970s. Back in 1975, Sony released an innovative new product called Betamax. Previous to the Betamax videocassete, the dominant format for movies was film. Film has it’s advantages, but portability and ease of use ain’t them. Betamax tapes were extremely portable, easy to use, and most importantly, a commercial success with home consumers. Continue reading →

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I only have a few abilities that I am confident enough to brag about. One is my foosball-playing skills, (I have never played anyone that I can’t beat) another is my astounding memory - it trumps that of an elephant - and thirdly is my Sudoku prowess!

For me it started about 2 years ago while a co-worker of mine and I stumbled through a newspaper sudoku together during lunch. After that I went through a few of the cheap Sudoku books and grew in speed and skill. I’m to a point now where I can pretty much finish any sudoku thrown at me by logicking my way through it. I used to think you HAD to guess when the puzzles got harder, but I have since reformed.

I now own an Electronic Sudoku. It’s supposed to look a bit like a Palm Pilot. It has the cute little stylus and everything. I think it’s great! You never finish all the puzzles and have to go buy another one, and you don’t have to remember to take a pencil around with it. Ah yes, this must be love. One feature I love is that it times you. Sometimes the puzzles set on hard take me 7 minutes to complete. Sometime they take me 50 minutes.

If you like Sudoku, spring for the electronic kind, (you can get them for pretty cheap) there’s no going back.

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We had some interesting stuff happen this week. For me, the biggest thing was the Android phones debuted at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but there was other stuff happening too:

• The mobile phone tradeshow in Barcelona was swarmed by Androids - I already posted my thoughts about the new Android-based phones starting to be shown. Suffice to say, I’m less interested in the phones themselves, and more interested in what industry changes the phones are indicative of.

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I’m writing this from my laptop, which is plugged in. When my laptop was new, it used to be good for about 3 hours or so unplugged. Gradually that time has diminished, and right now it’ll only give me enough juice for about an hour unplugged. Admittedly, I could change my power management prefs to dim the screen, I could turn off the wireless card, mute the sound, get a new battery, etc., but it used to give me three hours, and now it gives me one.

That old chestnut Moore’s Law has proven true for the last 40 years or so. Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors that can be placed on a chip relatively inexpensively will double every 2 years. The number of transistors on a chip correlates directly to the usefulness and flexibility of the chip, so computers, telephones, gadgets, and so forth have been getting more and more powerful and flexible over time. Unfortunately, all this new power requires more power. I mean, more computing power almost always requires more electricity. More transistors need more juice. Continue reading →

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I’ve decided to start a new feature here on The Daily Fuzz. We’ll call it the Weekly Fuzz, and it’ll be a quick rundown of what’s happened in the technology world in the last week (as well as a little of my own color). That said, here we go:

• The space shuttle Atlantis managed to heave itself off the launch pad - As of right now, it’s apparently docked with the ISS, and they’re gearing up to install a new science lab module to the space station. It’s really a shame to me that we as a nation let the loss of the Columbia freak us out so much. I mean, we should certainly take all prudent safety measures, but traveling outside the earth’s atmosphere is an inherently dangerous proposition. All astronauts are aware of the dangers, and willingly confront them. If the astronauts themselves are brave enough to put their lives on the line in the name of research or science or whatever, I think we as a nation owe it to them, and ourselves, to move forward. Learn what we can, fix what we can, and move on. Anyway, I guess we’re doing that, I’m just frustrated with how much time, effort, money and energy was spent wringing our collective hands and pointing fingers. Read more here.

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Whether you just got a new computer or you have many computers and one just isn’t used anymore, you have untapped potential in it. Believe me, it is more than an expensive doorstop/paperweight. As long as it still runs, it has life. Here are some suggestions for reviving the dinosaur computers out there:

Back up and Reinstall - Your computer probably has some of your personal files still on it. Copy those files to another computer or put it in storage. By storage, I mean burning it to CD or DVD, using a home network (if you have one), or even use an external hard drive. Just get the stuff you want to keep off of the machine. Continue reading →

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