Author: Johannes Ernst

  • iPad and the End of Paper Books

    Kindle started the trend, and with the iPad now it is clear that books are gradually going electronic, just like music before them. A few months ago, I banned all music CDs from our house, because all they did was collect dust. We had not touched a CD for years as iPods and iTunes took…

  • When Amazon Competes With Dell

    This is not about 2020, but about right now. I remember the first story I read about Amazon 10+ years ago. How Jeff Bezos moved to Seattle, set up shop across a bookstore, and sent people across the street to get the books that were ordered on www.amazon.com, so they could be mailed. Today, Amazon…

  • Input Devices

    So how are we going to interact with all of those screens? Let’s first list what won’t work: keyboards: we’re not about to have a keyboard underneath each picture frame in our houses. mice: same as for keyboards. There also won’t be a table surface in front of each screen. tiny little buttons on the…

  • The House Of 1000 Windows

    Perhaps the rate of technological change is indeed accelerating. One can’t even make a few outlandish predictions any more (as I did on this blog last week) without being passed on the right by actual events. Take the past week’s CES: On the subject of 3D TVs, I’ll just note that the world’s software developers…

  • High-Resolution Screens Everywhere

    [As I’m writing this post, the news comes in that Skype HD videoconferencing will be built into TV sets starting this year. This is exactly what I’m talking about in this post as opening up all sorts of new possibilities.] Let’s compare some prices for flat-panel displays (from Dell, cheapest available alternative chosen): August 2004…