I can't remember

You know, we've become victims of our own success. We've developed a culture of wanting more detail, more features, better graphics, more immersive experiences, and the cost... Memory. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to upgrade PC's that are running too slow because they don't have enough RAM installed. Also the number of 'new' devices that just don't work as well as they could because they are crippled by having a small amount of memory installed, or just plain bad memory management of the program that run on it. But take a case in point. I'm running a modest PC with a 2.4Ghz processor, half decent graphics card, but a game that graphically can run without any problems at all, is crippled by the system 'only' having 512Mb Ram installed when there's more than half a dozen objects on screen to render. This is on a system running Windows XP, which by Microsoft's own admission only needs 128Mb installed to run happily (you see why I haven't upgraded to Windows 7 or even Vista yet!). OK, I'm kind of lamenting the demise of a time where more memory simply wasn't available, where programmers had to put a limit on their imagination or come up with new and interesting ways of making the most of the memory they likely had available to them to achieve the results they were dreaming of. I'm also lamenting the fact that I've yet again come to the point when I need to cram as much memory into the slots available that this poor creaking motherboard can handle. Now we're all at the mercy of memory manufacturers who hold a world captive of a public whose demand for ever more gigabytes is pushing the cost of memory up, and older memory costs double or even triple what it would have when it was at it's peak.

These are probably the grumblings of a disgruntled PC user and Gamer frantically trying to keep up with the pace of progress. But you wonder how long this is going to be sustainable for. There's probably hardware and software developers working with platforms we can only dream about. And when the dream becomes a reality we're all left scrabbling to catch up!

TDK OLED See-Through Display and Film Display : DigInfo

I saw this the other day in my YouTube subscriptions and thought it was a great idea. I've already seen examples of wearable oled's and printable oled's that can be made into clothes, lamps, really innovative stuff. But a see through OLED would be great. Imagine, a Heads Up Display in your glasses for while you're riding your bike. An OLED layer in your car windscreen for real head up display technology without the bulky and expensive projection mirror systems.

Things to come

Hello all and welcome to my tech blog. Here I will post info about the tech I encounter and find out about on the web. I fully suspect one of the first items of interest will be the iPhone 4, as we're soon to get these at work. I'm currently not sure what my opinion of the whole iPhone phenomenon is. Initially in my opinion it was an overpriced, underspecced mobile phone handset clagged onto an iPod. But it was the first proper touch screen interface. And it was a real game changer as all the other companies rushed out their attempts at the now ubiqutous design. Even the app menu layout has been shamelesly copied by virtually every other mobile phone manufacturer. I have avoided the iPhone up till now, and it's main purpose for me is to be as a business tool. It perhaps hasn't got the headline specs of some other mobile phone handsets with only a 5MP camera and tied down to the apple interface with very restrictive customisation options. But what it does do, it does very well with Apple vetting the quality of every application developed before they allow it onto iTunes. I have had mixed experiences with my Symbian based phone when struggling to install and run Symbian apps that have been developed by open source developers. While I appreciate the benefit of an open architecture. The reliability of a closed architecture can't be denied.

I'll keep posting here with bits and pieces as I encounter them so keep this on your blogroll!