August 19, 2009 12:37 PM PDT
What Netbooks are doing to the OS business
Apple, Google, and Microsoft are facing some dilemmas about what to do with their OSes when it comes to Netbooks.
Adam Richardson is the director of product strategy at Frog Design, where he guides strategy engagements for Frog's international roster of clients, envisioning and creating new products, consumer electronics, and digital experiences. Adam combines a background in industrial design, interaction design, and sociology, and he spends most of his time on convergent designs that combine hardware, software, service, brand, and retail. He writes and speaks extensively on design, business, culture, and technology, and he runs his own Richardsona blog. Adam is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
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About Matter/Anti-Matter
Tim Leberecht and Adam Richardson both work for Frog Design, a consulting firm specialized in designing innovative products and services for Fortune 500 clients. On the Matter / Anti-Matter blog, they engage in a debate around questions they face day-to-day in their work, using convergence/divergence as a lens through which to look at the pressing issues in business, culture, and technology. What makes a successful convergent product or a successful divergent innovation? Is convergence a myth that users don't really care about, or is the current state of convergence just not satisfying enough for them to embrace? How much divergence of innovation is good, and when does it just become confusing? How do you stay on top of people's ever changing needs and wants?
They are members of the CNET Blog Network and are not employees of CNET.
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Matter/Anti-Matter topics
- How do I listen to music, watch videos, view photos, edit documents, etc. from any of my devices, without constantly having to sync/copy files between devices?
- How do I back everything up, when data/media is spread across multiple devices?
- What happens if a device is lost/stolen/broken? Now I have to restore everything on a new device...assuming I remember what was on it.
Web apps have the potential to solve this, in the most user friendly way:
e.g.
Music: A service like Spotify allows me to listen to music, create playlists & save music for offline use on any device. No more copying/syncing music between devices.
Video: Blockbuster/Netflix/Hulu/YouTube/etc. will ultimately allow on-the-go video viewing, from any device.
Email: GMail/Yahoo Mail/Hotmail/etc. already allow access from any device.
Photos: Picassa/Flickr/etc. allow photos to be uploaded & accessed from any device.
Documents: Google Apps/Zoho/Office Online/etc. will ultimately allow documents to be viewed/edited, from any device.
Games: WebGL/O3D have the potential to enable browser-based games that compare in performance to desktop games.
General File Storage: Lots of online options for this, these days.
A personal media server with streaming, etc. is certainly another option, but most people won't have the technical expertise, to set one up. Plus, they will have to be maintained (software/hardware upgrades, backups, etc.) AND they will constantly consume electricity, since they will always be running.
Using a USB 2.0 Easy Transfer Cable, it provides the fastest way to get data on or off your netbook, far faster than an Internet connection or home Wireless connection. You can quickly synchronize gigabytes of movies, music, or files using the included Easy Transfer Cable. Plus, there are no network settings or firewalls to deal with. It costs $39.95 for the full software and cable, and this includes free shipping.