Category Archives: Gaming

Note Taking and Books in the Modern Era of Education and Enterprise – a 7 year lifespan is why Apple will consistently sell me a new iPad

Posted on by
1

When you’re in a professional setting, what do you use to take notes during a meeting? Paper and Pen, Tablet (either with or without some type of peripheral input), or a Laptop? I have been in the tablet mindset since I purchased my first device in 2010 – the WebOS HP Touchpad. While I eventually hacked it and put Android on it, that was merely for ease of application updating, as well as to give myself a much larger app database to work with, as HP eventually gave up on the Palm product, and left a few years before they eventually made the source code open. In my mind, the tablet is the perfect device for any setting – they’re relatively light, in fact my iPad 3rd Generation, and iPad Pro are 1/2 the weight of what the Touchpad was, and they all can do a lot in such a small package.

When I graduated High School in 2012, I was really trying to figure out what to do financially about college textbooks – I was already taking out a massive amount of debt just to attend, did I really want to dole out a few thousand more a year just for books? I then looked into Apple’s Education platform that they were launching at the time – interactive textbooks? Active hyperlinks to videos from the publisher? In book clips, or pronunciations for foreign languages? Sold. Not just that, but a book that could potentially cost $300 for the print version and a CD to try and load on my lagging Windows computer, when I could have an interactive version literally at my fingertips for $170? That led me to sit down and do the math – If I’m saving $130 here, $50 there, $200 on that – I’m up to $380 in savings in my first semester by buying them digitally and getting a cleaner version that has updates as they’re published. It would be stupid not to do this.

Of course, being the Apple-holic I am, and after some research that is, I went with the top of the line at the time iPad – this was the 3rd Generation iPad, 64gb Storage, Retina Display…..but Just missed the boat on the lightning connector. Sure, I did research some other tablets, and was sold on the HP Touchpad as mentioned before but the reason I got one in the first place is that I was able to get one was that I purchased it for $50 as HP had decided to discontinue the device, and blow them out of every store. The other device I was seriously considering was the Toshiba Thrive tablet – 32gb of internal storage, however it has a memory card slot, full USB ports, Full HDMI, and was spec-ed pretty similarly to the iPad, however it was running Android. As someone who has been an (almost) consistent user of Apple Phones for the better part of the last 10 years (with a year and a half off in there to try out the Motorola Modular Platform), not to mention having used iTunes for all of my music since 2004, an iPad made the most sense for multiple reasons. Less than a month after I bought my device, Apple released a very similarly spec-ed iPad, barely anything worth noting, but it had their shiny new connector – which funnily enough would become the new standard I would need to use between devices…. and had to keep a stash of 30-pin connectors for the older iPad.

Sure, I took the concept of gaming into account too, I’m active in and out roof the gaming world depending on how busy I am at the time, as I’ve stated before, I have too many hobbies to count, and I’m adding in some more as time goes on (of course), but iOS, and any of the mobile platforms for that matter, have never really took off as quality gaming platforms. Companies like Aspyr Media have released ported versions of games like Knights of the Old Republic, but originally designed games for iOS (or Android) have kind of taken a back seat it seems. Things like Angry Birds, and Fruit Ninja have really been the best we could ask for. With the sudden explosion of Battle Royale games like Fortnite, and PUBG coming on scene, and adding all platform capability, and the success of such, I feel like we’re going to see a lot more of this in the future… but I digress…

That original iPad purchase was in August of 2012 – it’s now February of 2019, and I still have that iPad, and it’s still functioning… for the most part. The OS is well out of date for sure as the hardware will no longer support the software, meaning that a lot of Apps will no longer update, and that a lot of things that I would previously do from it I no longer can. It still is a great tablet that I magnetically mount in the kitchen to display recipes, or watch a streaming service while cooking, but 7 years and out of date software/hardware, that’s about it’s usefulness anymore. And that alone is longer than the life of any Windows computer I have ever owned to date – therefore I’m okay with that. And it’s also why I purchased a new iPad when I was looking for a new tablet to power use, I was looking for something to run Google Analytics, do basic Excel functions, as well as potentially do some basic graphic design (which if you have any suggestions on programs, I’m all ears!), and the iPad offered all of those features and more. If I can get the sam lifespan out of this device, and Apple can consistently provide on this, they’ll have at least one customer until they discontinue making the product for sure.

VR vs AR – Gamers, Enterprise, and Enterprising Gamers

Posted on by
Reply

I’m going to preface this by saying that I love VR. There’s something about video games that you can just get absolutely lost in such as Farpoint, or that singular Battlefront mission where every geek like me can live their dream of being an X-Wing pilot for about 20 mins that’s just absolutely amazing. Video Games, Movies, we all have out little escapes that we like that we can access right from the comfort of our own home. Then we have AR, Augmented Reality, which is a little more dicey, but it’s still really neat. Sadly the best experience that we have with AR it seems (for the moment at least) is still Pokemon Go. I would expect more over the next few years as it has only been a year since companies like Apple announced DevKits for AR.

But both of these technologies have way more to offer than gaming, could you imagine being an assembly line employee, wearing your MS Hololens, or Google Glass, and seeing exactly where, and how your part has to be assembled, step by step, with a holographic outline? Well, you don’t really have to imagine too much as the technology is already in play… at lease software wise. Boeing (in the previously linked article) is toying around with it a little bit, but the fact of the matter is that the data usage is astronomical using networked machines, needing quite a capable wireless access system, not to mention the computing power required. Sure, use within the manufacturing industry is going to be a lot less intensive than gaming, you’re not rendering full 3D, 360 degree worlds (180 at a time, but the other 180 has to be rendered as you move), NPC’s, and whatever else is needed for the particular game, however you will have to render a part, instructions, and likely text displays as well, which isn’t going to be a small task still. What I think of is the potential when it comes to training – you still have someone shadowing to demonstrate company process, tricks of the trade, etc., however with AR glasses, or even just utilizing an AR application on a phone or tablet, you’re able to be 100% walked through, with step by step instructions in front of your face, which should alleviate any question of the actual assembly process exponentially.

I think the real test for this technology is going to be the gaming world though, as a lot of things are. If you can win over the gamers with a solid design, reasonable price, and a peak performance, you’ll be able to win over most anybody else as the gaming community tends to be very meticulous when it comes to new computer technology, and perfection within it. AR maybe not as much – when the calibration of the Z axis within AR begins to finally remain in a stable location, and not continually drift, I think that’s when it will become fully accepted as a daily piece of technology, but until then, there’s still some work to do. When it comes to VR, I believe that technology will never fully get past gaming and entertainment. Sure, training videos could be a good idea with this, but AR is really where enterprise will thrive, VR is too disconnected. In the world that we live in today, eternally connected to one another, for someone to be able to put on a headset and be in their own separate world, it’s not personal enough. We interact day to day, minute to minute, either over the phone, or face to face – whether it be IRL, or via Skype, Lync, WebEx or what have you. We will use VR for our immersive escapes, or for photos, or videos of prior vacations we took, but never any more.

What do you think? Is AR the wave of the future for enterprise, or is that a technology that is going to lay down where it is too?