Tablet Wars, comparing Blackberry Playbook with the iPad and Motorola Xoom.

It seems that the tablet is all the rage these days. Nobody has been talking about any new computers or cell phones lately. But strike up a conversation about the latest tablet and you can get people talking all day long about their favorite. So I decided it was about time to review a couple and discuss what might make one better than the other. We will be talking about the Blackberry Playbook, Apple iPad, and the Motorola Xoom. These are the three major ones either on the market or due to hit the market soon.

Apple does one thing very well. They are great at managing their brand. And by being innovators within the market they continue to keep their brand on top even when it really isn't the best thing out there. Blackberry and Motorola are soon to invade the market with their latest products and the iPad should be worried. The iPad is sleek, skinny and does come with anti-fingerprint coatings. However it is the heaviest of the three. And for all the iPads innovation, they are forced to fight a battle that they will be losing simply because they came out first.

It is common for products that hit the market first. It is a trade off between early sales and giving your competitors time to see what you offer and beat it. In many cases that seems to be what happened here. Blackberry and Motorola did that in many areas.

The Blackberry Playbook will be coming out the first couple months of the year while the Xoom will follow shortly after. With the specs finally released for all three we can now see how they stack up. And after a close review of what they can do and watching a couple videos of the tablets in action, it's close but the Playbook does take the prize in this one.

Although it is close with the exception of a couple areas it may still come down to preference and price for many. Not to mention availability. The Xoom will be available exclusively through Verizon. So unless you can unlock it like you can a smartphone, you will not be getting a Xoom unless you have a Verizon account.

Lets take a look at what they can do. First the Blackberry Playbook.

• 7 inch LCD screen, 1024x600 (1080p) full multi-touch & gesture support.
• 1ghz Dual-Core Processor, 1gb RAM
• 2 Cameras (3mp front / 5mp rear) Full HD - 1080p recording
• Video playback - 1080p, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV / HDMI video output
• Audio - MP#, AAC, WMA
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
• Micro HDMI, Micro USB, charging contacts
• Open Flexible Application Platform, Support for WebKit, HTML-5, Full Flash, Adobe support, POSIX, OpenGL, Java

 And for the Motorola Xoom:

• 1ghz Dual-Core Nvidia Tegra 2 Processor
• 10.1 inch display. 1280x800 Gorilla touch screen
• 1080p video output, HDMI output
• 32 gb internal storage (software update required before it will support SD cards)
• 1gb DDR2 RAM
• 2 Cameras (2mp front / 5mp rear), 720p  recording
• Gyroscope, Barometer, E-Compass, Accelerometer
• Wi-Fi (n), Bluetooth 2.1
• Audio - AAC, AAC+, MP3, XMF, AMR, AMR WB, WMA

The iPad specs are similar in some ways. Well, the ways that matter that is. And by similar I mean close. The processor on the iPad is a 1ghz (that is what matters here) Apple A4. It is a custom processor made specifically for the iPad. It is a 1ghz chip but it is not a Dual-Core setup so it will suffer in benchmark tests. The iPad screen is about the same, 9.7 inches and is multi-touch as well. They also have an accelerometer just like the Xoom. The iPad loves to show off their capacity which comes in either a 16gb or 32gb model. However both the Xoom and Playbook have better resolution than the iPad as well as support for various audio and video formats.

All three generally have it where it counts. And each one is just a little better or a little worse in area that they comparable in. Let me tell you here what really matters. When you buy one of these your going to be using it to get on the Internet, play some videos, maybe run some spreadsheets or various little applications, among some other odds and ends. The Apple iPad can multi-task to a point. It starts to suffer from memory shortage after having two or three apps running and will start wiping them away. It may continue a download in the background, but that's about it. The only window working at full steam at that point is the one you have on top.

Here is where the Playbook shines. Blackberry has done a masterful job at OS implementation. The Playbook runs seamless even when multi-tasking. Out of the three pads the Playbook is the only one that can run multiple windows all fully. Nothing will run at half speed or half capacity when multi-tasking. So if you need a pad that can run multiple browser windows and still keep your stock ticker or streaming music running without a hiccup in the background this will be it for you.

The Xoom strives to get to the top using little features. Featuring multiple hardware functions such as a gyroscope and barometer it offers a future of possibilities. This plus the fact that their marketing heavily on Verizon's 4G-LTE to be available and supported on the Xoom. This means that for a mobile device you should have no problem either connecting to the Internet or becoming your own personal Hotspotsome cups and your all set.

I wont even get into the pricing because if you can afford one of these things, price does not matter. Personally unless your a business person always on the move and a laptop is a bit too bulky and cumbersome for your liking your really don't need one. Especially if you have a smartphone already. These are essentially underpowered notebooks. And that being the case, how many devices does one person need? Your on a business trip and you have a laptop, smartphone, and a tablet? There is a bit of overkill in that scenario. Can you guess where?

Either way these devices are nice and they do what they promise very well. The Playbook hits the mark a little better. But the Xoom is a close second and based on a preference you might have the Xoom can even be considered number 1. If your looking for sheer power and functionality and a device that can handle pure multi-tasking then the Blackberry is your machine. If you want a device that can give you enough power to handle normal functions of your day to day operations and still look nice playing a video on youtube then go with the Xoom.

Whatever you do, if you are in the market for one of these do NOT purchase an iPad. You will be wasting money much better spent on one of the other two. Your money will will go further with Motorola or Blackberry. Plus you will not have to deal with all the DRM that comes with iTunes and their overhyped and useless music service. Or better yet, save your money and upgrade your smartphone. Alot of those I am seeing today are falling behind the curve and some can do almost as much as a pad! So get a phone and save everyone, including yourself the headaches.

Controlling your impulses, electronically.

"Did you ever think that it would come to this?" Chris asks his friend.

"Of course not. But try as I might, I just can't control myself. I cannot stop from clicking on those buttons and visiting those distracting websites."

You probably know someone who does something like this, or you may not. You may think it does not happen all that often. Or you may think that it is a common occurrence. Truth is that it happens more than you might think. People everywhere visit places on the web that they probably shouldn't be going to during work hours, using a work computer.  Or maybe this other scenario is a more common scene in your circle of friends. The drunk texter or drunk caller. The guy or girl that gets lit, and later in the evening thinks its a great idea to send a text to an ex-girlfriend or better yet, give her a phone call.

Well technology is coming to the rescue yet again. There are a ton of apps hitting the market now as well as some that were released last year and the year before. These applications range from blocking shopping impulses to stopping you from making phone calls after a few drinks. Sure, the latter seems like it would be a no brainer. But surprisingly enough more and more people are downloading these apps. One such app reports having been downloaded more than 2000 times in 2010 for the Blackberry smart phone. Others that install on your desktop PC will block out either certain web sites or the Internet all together for certain periods of time. Some may say that this is not so different then when the IT department blocks the web from your office PC. Sure it is. Because what makes this so different is that these are apps being installed by the users themselves! People are stopping themselves from enacting this behavior and that is where the big change is.

We have come to a point in society where some of us are realizing that we cannot control certain urges and impulses and are taking steps to stop ourselves from acting upon them. A great example is the Breathalyzer locks that are installed in peoples cars after getting a DUI. I'm sure your familiar with them. You have a little plastic tube that sticks out of your steering wheel or gear shifter, there are many different models. But either way, there is a plastic tube that you have to blow into so that the machine can test your bodies alcohol content. If it is above the legal limit it will block the ignition to your vehicle and you cannot drive your car until someone who has not been drinking blows to activate the machine. Again there is a movement in the US of people voluntarily installing these machines into their cars and in some cases into their teenage child's car. Reports show that while it is moving slowly, there is a steady rise in sales and installations of these devices on a voluntary basis.

So as technology gets better and more and more intrusive, many people are taking it upon themselves to utilize this technology to help control the things in their lives that they feel they cannot control themselves. So here you have two sides of the coin. You have a group that claims these devices are signs that "big government" is taking control of our lives in ways that should be left in our own control. Then  you have the other side, where people are taking this technology and using it on themselves to help control things in their lives that they feel they cannot do on their own. The technology is everywhere. Look at any smart phone on the market and they all have applications that fit the bill. Likewise, any public domain PC software download site has a myriad of similar applications for free download. The choice is yours. Can you take control of your own life and your impulses and stop yourself from shopping for that hot new fashion while on the clock? Or will you have to admit to yourself that you have no control and install one of these applications? In an era which we have more choices than ever before we are given the opportunity to take those choices away. So what will you do? The question now becomes do you trust yourself or not?

Cloud Computing, The Future?

Everyone now is talking about it. You hear about it on the news. And when you see some new great computer or laptop being advertised, somewhere in the ad you will here the term. The term is Cloud Computing. But what exactly is it?

To be honest with you, everyone is basically using that method right now without even knowing it. When you turn on your computer, open up MS Office and load Outlook to check your email. Then you minimize that, get on Facebook to connect to all your buddies. You open another tab, connect to Linkdin to network with your work contacts and see if that big job your waiting for has opened up, you are in a sense Cloud Computing. For all intents and purposes Cloud Computing is connecting to a myriad of networks and programs through the Internet. But since people love to use buzz-words and add new acronyms to things Could Computing was born. And now with the coming advent of Google's Chrome OS, Could Computing will take center stage in what could be one of the most anticipated launches of an OS since Windows made the big leap from 3.1 to Windows 98! Remember that?

Google is taking advantage of this new buzz word because they are smart. Google has become Google for that simple reason. Some people think it is because their great search engine or their other great products, but basically Google is who they are because they are smart! They have a knack for releasing exactly what people need or want right when it is needed. And Could Computing is really no different. Like I said, we are already using this method right now. But Google's big brains have put a word on all this and added it to their new OS as if it was some great new app or something. And now that they have done that, the whole world will be grabbing a hold of this new way of doing things and giving Google all the credit. And in the end, it is Google FTW!

"So you still have not explained to me what Could Computing is."

"Really? I thought I did, oh well... ok.. I will try again."

Look, it is really simple. When you have the Internet that contains millions upon millions of servers. Each one running multiple apps and websites and anything else you can think of. And then you have mobile devices such as the current smartphone arena - Blackberry, Android (Google again.. hahah), etc.. Then you have the new thing.. the Tablet PC's (and everyone is jumping into this game too). Then don't forget all the laptops and notebooks. So here in this smorgasbord of technological devices that keep you connected to the world. All of these device rely upon the Internet if not for most of their applications, then at the very least for email and basically helping you to stay connected to people with general Internet browsing and social apps.

So when everything is connecting to the Internet, more and more developers are making applications and software platforms to rely on this connection to the 'net in order to fulfill their basic functions. So what you end up having is a complete connection to the net for every application you are running. And to take that one step further to the next obvious conclusion - just make all the applications (the your personal configuration, settings, documents, etc) run on the network. Now you have all your apps running on the net to the point where if you were to drop your laptop out of an airplane at 10,000 feet, you could grab another at the store, log into the "Cloud" and all of your applications and documents, emails, pictures, video, everything is instantly at your fingertips once again. Even though your laptop was disintegrated as it hit the ground in a blazing fireball from 10,000 feet! THAT is Cloud Computing. A bit extreme, but Cloud none-the-less.

So as you can see, we have been going this way for some time. I mean, most of the apps I use both at home and on my mobile device have some sort of link to the Internet. If not for the whole app, then some of the functions that the applications relies on are dependant on the Internet. So the Cloud has always been here. At least for the last couple of years. All it took was for one smart company to slap a name on it and put it all together.