Monthly Archive:: February 2012

Take this as a sign of things to come in the land of convergence. Yesterday, Ubuntu announced Ubuntu for Android. This new product basically allows you to run the entire Ubuntu Linux distribution on your Android smartphone connected to an external display and keyboard and mouse.

So, Microsoft Office for the iPad is supposedly coming, dressed in a Metro user interface. Fun, since running a fresh Metro application (like the XBox Live one) on the iPad accentuates just how outdated and archaic iOS really looks and feels next to Metro. An Android version is supposedly not in the works, but that's to be expected - Apple and Microsoft have long been best buds (although this is still a total and utter surprise to some, which is kind of precious in a Bambi's-first-steps kind of way).

"A group of researchers has fabricated a single-atom transistor by introducing one phosphorous atom into a silicon lattice. Through the use of a scanning tunnelling microscope and hydrogen-resist lithography, Martin Fuechsle et al. placed the phosphorous atom precisely between very thin silicon leads, allowing them to measure its electrical behavior. The results show clearly that we can read both the quantum transitions within the phosphorous atom and its transistor behavior. No smaller solid-state devices are possible, so systems of this type reveal the limit of Moore's law - the prediction about the miniaturization of technology - while pointing toward solid-state quantum computing devices."

"The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the US. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. Thankfully some politicians recognize this, but the federal government seems to be going in the other direction. With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the US government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the US is not safe for internet startups." Not an issue today per se, but if the US government keeps this up, they do run a risk of lobotomising their technology sector.

Microsoft has officially unveiled the new Windows logo, and unlike the several previous Windows logos it's no longer a flag, but actually a window. Which is weird, since Metro doesn't have windows. Love this bit: "It does not try to emulate faux-industrial design characteristics such as materiality (glass, wood, plastic, etc.)." A well-deserved jab at Apple's inexplicable obsession with skeuomorphic My First Operating System-esque interfaces.

Well, this is a surprise. Several websites have a preview up of Apple's next Mac OS X release - it's called Mountain Lion, and continues the trend of bringing over functionality from iOS to Mac OS X. Lots of cool stuff in here we've all seen before on iPhones and iPads, including one very, very controversial feature: Gatekeeper. Starting with Mac OS X 10.8, Apple's desktop operating system will be restricted to Mac App Store and Apple-signed applications by default (with an opt-out switch), following in Windows 8's footsteps.