Top Bananas | Monthly Archives: June 2016

Italian Military Chooses LibreOffice Over Microsoft Office 365

Posted on June 30, 2016 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: LibreOffice is an open source office suite similar to Microsoft Office.

What’s cheaper? A free product or a product you have to pay for? The answer should be obvious, yet it’s not always straightforward. For example, LibreOffice is a free office suite that closely mimics Microsoft Office. However, Microsoft Office does offer some features that LibreOffice does not such as online collaboration and more robust spreadsheet functions. If you need the features that Microsoft Office offers, then it’s probably worth paying for Microsoft Office.

Yet the reality is that most people don’t need the features that are unique to Microsoft Office. The Italian ministry took a survey of its workers and found that only 20 percent of staff use PowerPoint, only 15 percent of them use PowerPoint and Excel, with just two percent claiming to deal with Microsoft Access database software. With so few users taking advantage of features unique to Microsoft Office, it doesn’t make sense to pay for features the large majority of users will never need.

That’s why the Italian military has decided to switch over from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. In addition, they’re making their official document format the Open Document Format that LibreOffice supports (and that Microsoft Office can read as well). One problem that governments have run into in the past (such as Munich) was that they switched away from Microsoft products but still relied on Microsoft file formats.

This inevitably caused problems so much that many agencies decided it was easier to switch back to Microsoft Office rather than deal with the incompatibilities inherent with other programs such as LibreOffice.

Yet all this could have been avoided if these agencies had simply switched file formats. That’s why the Italian ministry is not only switching to LibreOffice but also to LibreOffice’s open document format. This insures that government files can be read by any software in the future, not just Microsoft products.

For many people, switching away from Microsoft Office requires two major steps. First, they have to learn a new program. Second, they have to use different file formats. Since many people prefer not to change, it’s far easier to keep using what they’re already using, even if it’s costing them more money. To make any type of change, the advantages must be dramatically better than dealing with the disadvantages. It’s always easier to do nothing than to do something different, and that’s what keeps most people wedded to Microsoft Office.

There’s nothing wrong with Microsoft Office. There’s just few features that most people absolutely need that you can only find in Microsoft Office. If you’re adventurous, you might find you can replace many proprietary programs with open source ones. The only question is whether you’re willing to take the time to change and whether the open source options can do what you need.

For some people, the answer is no so they’ll need to pay for proprietary software. However for many other people, the answer is yes, but they’ll never know how much they could save unless they’re willing to at least consider making a change, and that’s the biggest barrier that stops people from doing anything at all.

The Importance of Gaming Engines

Posted on June 29, 2016 by admin Posted in Programming, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Gaming engines are software frameworks that take care of the physics of game play so game developers can focus on the specific details of a game itself.

In the early days of video games, developers had to create everything from scratch. That meant if two objects could collide or shoot something at another object, developers had to write the algorithms that described how everything worked. If a bullet could ricochet off a wall, then developers had to write code to show how this would work.

Not surprisingly, for simple games this was easy but as games got more sophisticated, this became overwhelming. That’s why programmers started to develop gaming engines. The idea is that the gaming engine takes care of the details of a game so developers could just focus on making the game unique.

Nowadays, new developers create video games without using a gaming engine. Trying to build a video game without a gaming engine is like trying to build a skyscraper without steel beams. Just as it’s easier to weld steel beams together to create a structure, so it’s easier to use a gaming engine to create a video game.

Gaming engines may seem useful just for gaming, but now gaming engines may soon become important for virtual reality as well. The idea is that rather than create algorithms describing virtual settings, developers could just use a gaming engine to do this hard work. After all, gaming engines are already used to create realistic animation for popular video games, so it only makes sense to apply this same technology to creating realistic animation for virtual reality.

Beyond virtual reality, gaming engines can also be used for simulations. After all, a game is nothing more than a simulation of reality such as a video game that lets you pilot an airplane or drive a race car. So gaming engines can be used by architects to design buildings to show clients. Now clients can walk through a virtual mockup of a building before any construction actually begins.

Gaming engines are not just for video games any more but for creating realistic simulations of any situation. Who knew that video games like Pong would eventually spawn an entire game engine industry that is moving out of the video gaming industry to other fields?

Game engines are ways to simplify mimicking reality. The next time you use virtual reality, you could be relying on a game engine.

Shooting a TV Show with an iPhone

Posted on June 28, 2016 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: One of the strongest features of the iPhone is its built-in camera for taking still images and video.

Although there are plenty of cheaper smartphones on the market and even more expensive smartphones that rival the iPhone in build quality, one feature that rivals have strived to equal has been the iPhone’s camera. Usually rivals focus on increasing the megapixel resolution of a camera, but increasing megapixels doesn’t always result in better quality images.

Since smartphone cameras lack the ability to attach a physical lens without additional equipment, most people simply aim and shoot with their smartphone cameras. That means smartphone cameras can never be as good as dedicated, high-end cameras. However, the real advantage of a smartphone camera is its availability.

Although dedicated high-end cameras take better pictures, the trade off is having to lug around so much equipment at all times, which is something even professional photographers have trouble doing. The average person will not carry a bag full of extra lenses and camera equipment just to take pictures.

So the camera in most smartphones is good enough for most people, but Apple strives to make the camera in the iPhone better with each new model. If you look at images captured by the latest iPhone, it’s nearly as good (or even better) than the quality of images captured by dedicated, high-end cameras of the past.

For casual users, any improvement in camera quality is just an additional bonus, but for professional photographers, that means you may not get the ultra-high resolution of dedicated high-end cameras of today, but you can capture great images with quality equal to dedicated high-end cameras of the recent past. For both professionals and casual users, the camera in the iPhone isn’t just a compromise but actually good enough to use on a daily basis.

During filming of a French talk show, the power shut off, turning off the dedicated cameras used to record the show. To keep the show filming going, the crew simply used iPhones. While the iPhone videos aren’t the same quality as the video images captured by dedicated video cameras, it was good enough.

In the early days, professional photographers rightly avoided smartphone cameras because the quality was too low. Now as the quality has improved and the convenience of carrying a smartphone makes lugging dedicated, high-end cameras less and less appealing, the iPhone camera has gotten to the point where it’s acceptable for the vast majority of uses.

Dedicated, high-end cameras will always exceed the iPhone’s camera, but beyond specialized needs, the iPhone camera is good enough and continually getting better. Many professional photographers have captured images with the iPhone camera and even filmmakers have shot and edited video on the iPhone camera.

While a handful of other smartphones offer quality, built-in cameras like the iPhone, not all of them do. Imagine the disappointment of someone buying a smartphone only to find that it captures poor images. When you buy an iPhone, you may not need a camera, but when you do use it, it will always capture high quality images.

The iPhone camera isn’t the main appeal of the iPhone, but just part of the quality that Apple strives for in most of their products. The camera is there when you need it but out of the way when you don’t need it. When you do need it, it offers high quality, and that’s what makes Apple products so appealing to so many people.

Quality is something you can only appreciate after you’ve been frustrated using cheaper products that compromise on details just to squeeze out a little more profit for the manufacturer at the expense of customer satisfaction. Would your other support a company that tries to make products that will delight you? Or would you rather save a little money buying a product from a company that puts your interests behind their own?

The Futility of Creating a New Mobile Operating System

Posted on June 27, 2016 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: Tizen is Samsung’s attempt to create their own mobile operating system.

When Apple introduced iOS back in 2007, they helped usher in a new era of smartphones. Because iOS was one of the first operating systems to offer a touch screen interface, developers quickly gravitated towards creating apps for iOS.

Later as Android grew in popularity, developers tended to focus on both iOS and Android. Developers liked the fact that Android had the largest market share but they also liked the fact that iOS users tended to spend more money buying apps.

The growth of iOS and Android helped kill former smartphone leaders such as Blackberry OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. When rivals tried to offer their own touch screen, mobile operating system such as Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft, it suffered from appearing too late and not offering anything different.

Today, few developers focus entirely on creating Windows Phone apps and most developers create iOS and Android apps long before they even consider a Windows Phone app. Now that Microsoft has abandoned Windows Phone 8 in favor of Windows Mobile 10, app developers are even less likely to support anything besides iOS and Android.

Although Android holds the largest market share, iOS is far more profitable. That means Android manufacturers have to keep lowering their prices to complete against rivals. Yet no matter how low their price their products, a competitor always seems to price theirs a little lower.

This race to the bottom means that Android manufacturers have no incentive to support Android updates because they’d rather sell you another phone. Android manufacturers also have the additional problem of trying to make a profit essentially selling the same type of smartphone as their rivals.

That’s why Samsung has been trying with using their own operating system called Tizen and Huawei is toying with developing their own operating system as well. The theory is that if Samsung or Huawei have their own operating system, they can eliminate Google and earn the lion’s share of the profits while offering a product that only they can sell to others.

In theory owning your own operating system sounds great, but in practice, it doesn’t work. Microsoft worked hard to make Windows Phone a viable mobile operating system, bur failed. The biggest problem is getting developers to create apps for any operating system not named Android or iOS.

Samsung has made Tizen open source so anyone can use it, but why would a Samsung rival use a Samsung operating system if the bulk of the profits (through services) goes to Samsung? Why would a Huawei rival use a Huawei operating system for the same reason?

The fact is that most smartphone companies are caught in a bind. If they use Android, they become just one of many commodity dealers who make little or no money selling Android devices and who send the bulk of Android income to Google.

If these companies develop their own operating system, it will lack apps that people are used to and it will likely offer no huge advantage over Android or iOS so there will be no reason for people to use them.

If you had a choice between a Tizen smartphone, and Android smartphone, or an iPhone, chances are good you’d choose either an Android phone or an iPhone because of the vast support both operating systems offer. You probably wouldn’t choose a Tizen phone for the same reason you wouldn’t choose a Windows Phone 8 phone due to the lack of apps.

So creating their own mobile operating system is simply a waste of time. Samsung sells the majority of Android devices so if they pull out of the Android market, another Android manufacturer can quickly step in and fill the void.

If Samsung sells Tizen smartphones, it will lack apps that will take years (if ever) to develop. Nobody wants to wait for apps when they can get the apps they need on Android or iOS, and nobody wants Tizen just because it benefits Samsung with no benefits to the consumer.

Samsung, Huawei, and other Android manufacturers have two losing choices. One, they can support Android and compete against dozens of other Android manufacturers while helping Google make money (while they lose money). Two, the can create their own operating system and then wonder why nobody wants it because it lacks apps and offers few compelling advantages over Android or iOS.

Anyone remember Amazon’s Fire Phone that ran Amazon’s custom version of Android? If flopped partly because it didn’t offer enough apps or a compelling advantage over the regular version of Android.

Anyone remember FirefoxOS, another mobile operating system that attempted to define the smartphone and tablet market. It too failed because it offered no compelling advantage over Android or iOS but plenty of disadvantages.

The time for another mobile operating system has likely passed, much like the time for another desktop operating system has long been over.

Expect companies like Samsung to continue selling Android devices in hopes of making a little money while they also try to market their own operating system like Tizen. Companies like Samsung hope that eventually Tizen will catch on and rival Android and iOS, which is like IBM hoping OS/2 will catch on and rival Windows and Linux.

It’s not going to happen. Tizen and other mobile operating systems are doomed to fail unless they offer something radically new. Until that happens, the world will be content with Android and iOS, just like they were content with BlackberryOS and Windows Mobile, until something better came along.

To read about Huawei’s attempt to create their own operating system, click here.

Dumping Old Technology

Posted on June 26, 2016 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple is rumored to be ready to dump the standard headphone jack on a future iPhone model.

One of the latest rumors that will likely come true eventually is that Apple may dump the traditional headphone jack and force iPhone users to plug a headphone directly into the Lightning connector instead. This would allow Apple to make the iPhone even thinner since the size of the headphone jack limits how much thinner the iPhone can get.

While the elimination of the headphone jack would likely cause short-term problems for many people, it’s simply the way Apple works. Apple tends to lead the crowd in dumping older technology. Remember the old days when ever PC came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive even though hardly anyone used 3.5-inch floppy disks any more? Apple was one of the first to dump the floppy disk and all the same cries and complaints about the lack of compatibility swelled up, until everyone realized they really didn’t need a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive after all.

Critics also complained when Apple not only failed to support Blue-ray discs, but dropped CD/DVD drives as well. That’s when everyone complained that being able to listen to audio CDs or watch movies on DVDs was critically important – right up until people realized they hardly used audio CDs any more or watched videos on DVDs either.

Apple was also one of the first companies to abandon Adobe’s Flash on mobile devices. That caused a gleeful response of Android manufacturers who claimed that their products offered full Flash support, even though Flash never ran well on Android anyways. Eventually, Android manufacturers stopped gloating about Flash support when Flash ran poorly on Android, and when Adobe stopped developing Flash, that pretty much justified Apple’s earlier decision to abandon Flash in favor of HTML5.

So the idea of losing the traditional headphone jack might seem like a drastic move, but it only makes sense. Whether Apple forces headphone users to plug devices into a Lightning connector or a USB-C port remains to be seen, but most likely Apple is looking to cut the cord altogether.

If you look at Apple’s keyboard, trackpads, and mice, they all used to plug directly into the Macintosh. Now if you look at the latest versions, they all work wirelessly. That avoids a tangle of cables and the nuisance of plugging in a device in the right port.

It makes little sense for Apple to dump the traditional headphone jack and replace it with a Lightning or USB-C port instead. It makes far more sense to drop the traditional headphone jack and replace it with a wireless connection to a headphone instead, such as through Bluetooth.

Now only would that avoid a tangle of wires, but it would also provide greater convenience for uses. Just as it’s a nuisance to plug in a keyboard or mouse to a Macintosh and have a wire stretched across your desk, so it’s a nuisance to plug in ear buds or a headset into an iPhone with a wire. Changing the traditional headphone jack to a Lightning of USB-C port simply replaces one type of wire with another. Dumping the need for wires altogether is a far more elegant solution.

Now you’ll be able to wear headsets or ear buds that won’t physically connect to your iPhone at all. Instead, you can just hear your music without the nuisance of a wire dangling from your ears to your iPhone.

So you can expect Apple to dump the traditional headphone jack eventually. Just don’t expect them to replace one wire connection with a different wire connection. do expect Apple to eliminate wire connections and extra ports altogether.

Simplifying designs is the future of the iPhone, and cutting the need for wires is just the first step to making the iPhone more elegant to use.

To read rumors about the loss of the iPhone headphone jack, click here.

The Future of Siri

Posted on June 24, 2016 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: Siri is Apple’s natural language interface.

In the old days, people gave commands to a computer by typing. Such interfaces were known as command-line interfaces where the most popular example of that was MS-DOS. The problem with command-line interfaces was that if you misspelled a command, the computer wouldn’t recognize it. That made using command-line interfaces frustrating and slow.

To solve these problems, the next step up was graphical user interfaces. This displayed commands and icons on the screen so you just needed to point and click on what you wanted to do. You needed a mouse to do this, but graphical user interfaces were generally faster and easier to use than command-line interfaces. The most popular graphical user interface appeared on the Macintosh and later on PCs as Microsoft Windows.

Like command-line interfaces, graphical user interfaces have limitations as well, namely requiring the use of a pointing device such as a mouse, trackball, or trackpad. This means you manipulate an item away from the screen (such as a mouse on a desk) so you can manipulate objects on the screen.

This effectively separates your physical movements from the actual items on the screen. While unnatural at first, it’s easy to get used to this to the point where moving your hand away from the screen seems normal. This is why so many people wrongly insist that the iPad can’t be useful unless you can use it with a mouse. That’s like saying graphical user interfaces can’t be useful unless people are forced to type in commands.

Apple helped usher in the next generation of user interfaces known as touch screens. Instead of moving an object on a desk to move an object on the screen, touch screen interfaces let you manipulate items directly on the screen. Sometimes this can be handy but sometimes this can be clumsy. Yet touch screens are best used when it’s not possible to lug around an additional pointing device, such as smartphones and tablets.

One problem with graphical user interfaces and touch screens is that you need to see the screen to use it. While it’s perfectly possible for blind people to use an iPhone or iPad, most people prefer using their eyes to see a screen. However, this limitation also means that you cannot use a smartphone or tablet easily unless you stare at it, which means you can’t use your eyes to do anything else such as driving.

That’s the beauty of natural language interfaces. Instead of looking at the screen, you can just talk to it. Talking is far faster and easier than typing commands or clicking on icons, plus it has the added advantage of letting you keep your eyes focused on anything but the computer.

So Apple’s next macOS version will include Siri on a Macintosh, which might seem a bit contradictory. After all, why talk to your computer when you can easily type or use a mouse to control it instead?

Most likely, Apple’s goal isn’t to put Siri on the Macintosh and stop there. It’s likely Apple wants data on how people interact with computers so they can improve the natural language interface. Already the next generation of Siri will understand context of previous queries so you can speak more naturally to Siri. This will prove immensely useful for CarPlay, Apple’s in-dash entertainment system that will appear inside car dashboards.

When driving, you cannot take your eyes off the road for even a second without putting yourself (and others) in potential danger. Driving requirers keeping your eyes on the road, but touch screen interfaces require you to look at them. So the eventual goal of Siri is to let people control devices completely through voice commands.

This will let you give simple commands to CarPlay such as turning on the radio or adjusting the heat. However, you can also get driving directions or ask Siri to help you find specific types of restaurants. When you think about how people use computers, they tend to use them in one of two ways:

To create and modify information
To access information

Creating text information is easy with a keyboard and creating graphical information is easy with a mouse or touch screen. Accessing information is much clumsier with a keyboard, mouse, or touch screen because you have to tell the computer what you want to find and then you have to repetitively shift through the retrieved data until you find what you want.

Siri’s ultimate goal is to make accessing information much faster. Just talk and Siri gives you the answer. If it’s not what you want, keep talking until Siri gives you the information you want.

Siri likely won’t be perfect at first but will get successively better over time. Eventually, Siri could be used to help people create text information as well by letting you dictate to the computer and have it type your words.

For people who dislike typing, such a natural language interface would be far superior than using a keyboard. Even for people comfortable with typing, dictating can be an option when you can’t use a keyboard such as dictating ideas while jogging.

One drawback with Siri is that you need to speak out loud, which limits its use to private areas. You might ask Siri questions in public, but you won’t ask Siri any questions in the middle of a movie or opera where your spoken voice will disturb others.

Siri won’t replace keyboard, mouse, or touch screen completely, but will compliment them. In some cases, Siri can replace traditional user input devices altogether such as in CarPlay.

Siri is just another way to interact with a computer in a faster manner. Siri and its competitors will just keep getting better over time until people will wonder how anyone ever used a computer without talking to it like a person.