This, That, And The Other Thing

First things first...

You will recall that in an earlier post I railed against the utter foolishness that is bottled water.  Bottled water is a great choice if you are doing aid work in the Sudan, but here in the United States filtered tap water is better, is approximately 2000X less expensive, and is much less of a burden on the environment. In defense of my point, there is a news report out today that grades more than 170 different varieties of bottled water.

"According to a new report released today from Environmental Working Group (EWG). 'Bottled water companies try hard to hide information you might find troubling,' says Jane Houlihan, senior vice president of research for the Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy group. EWG analyzed the labels of 173 unique bottled water products and company websites to determine if companies disclose information on where water comes from, how or if their water is treated, and whether the results of purity testing are revealed. The nonprofit also looked at how effective (and advanced) any water treatment methods are. Researchers followed up by calling dozens of bottled water companies to find out which ones willingly tell consumers what's in their bottles."  Not surprisingly, the most popular brands from the biggest conglomerates are among those receiving the poorest marks.The results of the study can be accessed here. 

Okay, let's move on. 

I am a gadget guy.  No secret there. I always love the first week of January because this is when the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held in Las Vegas.  This is the  industry confab that is the electronics equivalent of Fashion Week.  Although the show is not open to the public, the event nevertheless attracts upwards of 2000 companies and more than 100,000+ people each year, all of whom come away goggle-eyed after spending days drooling over the newest gizmos under the several million square feet of display space at the convention center. It is nerd nirvana. 

This also is the week when Apple usually gives us a glimpse of what it has planned for the coming year.  Apple was once a CES participant but pulled out of the show several years ago so that it would not have to share the spotlight with other technology companies.  Today Apple officially unveiled its App Store for Mac.  You may not be aware of the consequences of this, but believe me when I tell you that this is going to have wfar-reaching implications for the entire technology sector.  Apple itself states that "with the Mac App Store, getting the apps you want on your Mac has never been easier. No more boxes, no more disks, no more time-consuming installation. Click once to download and install any app on your Mac."  How great is this?  It's brilliant, it's eco-friendly, and moves us one step closer to the "cloud."

Many of you are familiar with the concept of "cloud computing" and may already be benefitting from it.   Do you have a Netflix account?  If you do and have streamed a movie to your Wii, PSP, XBox, AppleTV, laptop, or desktop, then you have experienced "cloud" technology.  Instead of downloading the movie to your hard drive and then watching it, Netflix stores the movie for you and then streams it to you wirelessly when you want it.  It is a totally disruptive technology.  Ask Blockbuster.  They will tell you.

Once again Apple appears to be at least one step ahead of everyone else.  Your computer soon won't need an expensive and delicate hard drive because flash memory will be more than adequate. Do you or your kids own one of these?

This is the doo-hickey that you plug into your computer's USB port to download and store documents for transfer to another computer. This is flash memory.

Hard drives are among the most expensive, bulky, and fragile components of any computer. When your hard drive fails––as it inevitably will––you lose everything you have stored on your computer unless you have backed your data up to an external hard drive. On the other hand, flash memory is solid-state (has no moving parts), is smaller, is cheaper, and is considerably more durable.      

The Macbook Air is a glimpse of your computing future. The Macbook Air is smaller, lighter, and faster than other laptops because it has flash memory and no hard drive. 

Initially, this was seen as a shortcoming but now the tech world is catching up to Apple's vision.  The advent of the cloud and its ability to quickly and seamlessly deliver to you whatever it is that you need means that you just don't need a hard drive anymore.  Using flash memory instead still gives you the ability to save information to your computer while also improving your computing experience, increasing the lifespan of your computer, and reenforcing the notion of your computer not as filing cabinet but as a media consumption device, something which Apple has been working toward for most of the last decade.

The CD? Dead.  The hard drive?  Dead.

Welcome to your new, more portable future.