Less than one day since Google released their Project Glass video, everyone is talking about it. The objective is met. People talk about augmented reality, immersive apps, wearable computing… People even make fun videos of it.

Since Google wants to start a conversation, here are my views:

- Shades form-factor first. No matter how many photos of pretty models you show, even early adopters will hesitate to go out with that thing on their faces without disguise. One of the glasses killer apps is to ‘secretly’ remind you the name of the person you just bumped into — but it has to be ‘secret’, you need the privacy of sunglasses! By the way,  you would mostly wear them while walking in the street, just as you do with shades.

- Spoken commands are a show-stopper. How many people do you see in the street talking to Siri? I can imagine people having a chat with Siri in the car, far less while walking. You need Thought and Eye control to go mainstream. Didn’t IBM say we are not that far from that?

- Only measured by the interest raised, Google, please pursue by all means! You will get there!! And you will get people to finally upload to G+!! (just kidding)

Once more, Google, you have captured our imagination, just as you did with your self-driving car. Awesome! Thanks for inspiring us into the future.

Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com, according to the quarterly results just released.

• For every 100 paperback sold, Amazon sold 115 Kindle books
• For every 100 hardcover sold, Amazon sold 300 Kindle books
• The Kindle store has over 810,000 ebooks
• 670,000 ebooks are priced at $9.99 or less

In just 3 years, Amazon has taken the eBook from nothing to mainstream. Amazon has managed to take the book transition to digital without suffering the pain the music labels went through with mp3. How did they do it? First, with a great device, the iPod of the ebooks. Second, no fear to cannibalize their own business. Third, force publishers to accept the $9.99 price policy. Same recipe as the iTunes ”take it or leave it” $0.99 a song.

Amazon and Apple set the example of companies taking advantage of technology to drive new business models that are changing industries. The Netflix $7.99 a month all-you-can-stream is another bold proposition for consumers, that is shaking the Pay-TV industry.

The right offer for digital content at the right price is not only changing industries in US. It is also driving piracy down. Meantime countries like France, UK and Spain struggle with nonsense laws that not only are useless against piracy, but that are also stopping the development of a legal digital content market.

Legislators in Europe should stop making laws to preserve the status quo. Else US companies will have total domination of digital media by the time old Europe reacts.

The chart posted under the title Android Phones Will Sell Well This Holiday Season might have been done to show that consumers still buy more computers than iPads and more smatphones (non-iPhone) than iPhones. But think twice…

Are you saying that 18% of people will buy an iPad vs 20% buying a computer? Almost as many iPads as computers! many of which will be Macs!!
Are you saying that 13% will want an iPhone, vs 19% any other phone, when the iPhone is only available in one single carrier in US?
Are we comparing the iPad to the total consumer computer industry (which includes a healthy portion for Apple)?
Are we comparing a single phone model in one carrier to the rest of smartphones across all carriers?

How far are we from complete domination by Apple?
How far are we from an Apple world, just like 1984, guided under our beloved master Steve Jobs?

I would not be surprised that in a few years kids start asking why we named a fruit after the name of the maker of the iPad.

The moment came when Apple surpassed Microsoft in Market Cap [*].

A few numbers:

Market Cap: Microsoft at $219 billion – Apple at $222 billion (yesterday)
Revenue: Microsoft at $58.4 billion – Apple at $42.9 billion
Net income: Microsoft at $14.6 billion – Apple at $5.7 billion
Cash: Microsoft at $39.7 billion – Apple at $23.1 billion

Microsoft is still has bigger earnings, but Apple has the momentum. Apple still sells computers, but twice as much revenue is coming from hand-held devices and music. And smartphone sales are growing faster than PCs.

Worse for Microsoft, analyst perceived that “The battle has shifted from Microsoft against Apple to Apple against Google,” as said Tim Bajarin, a technology analyst following Apple.

Google has a market cap of $151 billion.

Read original NYT Article: Apple Passes Microsoft as No. 1 in Tech

A few days before the iPad is out I am ready to make my bet. It  will be a revolution.

The iPhone was a revolution for mobile handsets.  Nokia laughed at Apple when they launched a new phone in what was a “mature” market. Now, no one doubts that Steve Jobs was actually right when he said  ”Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone” in January 2007.

David Pogue’s review of the iPad is worth reading. “It is basically  a gigantic iPod Touch”, it could not be described in less words.

I would take from his review the insight that the iPad is no substitute for a laptop for tasks to create content, like writing docs, presentations, coding software, not to mention any more sophisticated content like photo or video editing. But it IS a great device to consume content, like reading, web browsing, watching video or gaming. And for that purpose, the experience is even better than a laptop.

The lack of Adobe Flash is an issue, but  looking at the speed that video sites  and video platforms like Brightcove or Oolaya are preparing for the iPad, it might not be a show-stopper; specially if Hulu launches an iPad application as rumored.

If after reading Pogue’s review still in doubt, BBspot.com offer a decision flow chart. Not that I agree with it, but it’s funny…

TechCrunch announces more reviews hitting the net.

Finally it’s here. The much rumored Apple Tablet came to life as the iPad.

The iPad is an iPhone “on steroids”. Same look, same great multitouch user interface, but a bigger screen make web browsing, reading ebooks, gaming or watching video so much better.

The price, starting at $499 is a great (good) surprise, and it aims at killing the revolution of 2008: the netbook.
Amazon Kindle, is the other suspect under threat, with the only advantage of the e-ink “not-hurting-your-eyes” for heavy readers (as well as cheaper ebooks…)

The only missing thing ont he iPad: lack of flash will not let you enjoy Hulu and other online video. Else, it could have even been a great potable Set-top-”pad” (not quite set-top-box) to bring online video to the TV set, as a secondary use.

Now, let’s wait for what Google and partners will bring to counter-attack later this year…

If the rumors about Apple’s upcoming “iPad” are true, prepare for the next revolution after the iPhone. Jeremy Horwitz says the iPad could have a 10.7″ screen with an iPhone 3G-like design, runs iPhone OS, will come in two flavors with and without 3G, 720p resolution and with all media, gaming, eBook and web functionality of the iPhone.

As the rumor goes, Apple would announce it in January 2010 and ship in May-June.

Why would the iPad be revolutionary?

Ever heard about Multiscreen? So far the media industry talked about Multiscreen referring to “the Three Screens”: TV, PC and Mobile. Even Nielsen, the reference company for audience measurements, publishes its quarterly ” Three Screens Report”, tracking media consumption on TV, PC and Mobile. The latest report coincidentally highlights the increase in ¨multitasking¨, that is, web browsing while watching TV (57% of consumers does it at least once a month).

An iPad would be a device ideal for “multitasking”, where the multiscreen concept shifts to multiple screens at the same time, enriching how media in consumed. Expect some apps to turn the iPad into a Multimedia Remote Control, where you can navigate through the Program Guide (EPG) and choose what to see. Zapping could be done on the iPad, previewing the channels without annoying all the family changing channels on the main TV. Broadcast of live Sports events are also ideal to have the iPad as a secondary screen to access stats, classification, players profile, replays  or multiple view angles, with simple finger controls. Not too mention interactive TV applications, with much richer interaction on a tablet than on any current form of remote controls.

The iPad is also an ideal portable screen for video, for web browsing, for home automation remote control and as the eBook reader that Amazon must be scared about.

More on the iPad:
Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time) – O’Reilly Radar
IPad Rumors Abound! Apple To Announce On January 19! Device Shipping In May! – TechCrunch
The coming tablet wars – TechCrunch

It has been almost a month of holidays in Spain with my family. It has been the month where Google has announced its Chrome OS, attacking Microsoft where it really hurts, on its Windows licenses. Microsoft success with its new search engine, Bing, reinforced with the Yahoo deal, has finally triggered Google to strike with a move that could take Linux mainstream into the desktop at last, as we dreamed and begged before.

Although rather than desktop , we should say laptop… How much more life do you think desktops have before being totally displaced by laptops? True, that desktops might evolve into Media Centers or PC2TVs in the living-room, but today’s families start to have one laptop per family member rather than one desktop per family.

This summer break was the first time we were travelling with two laptops, one for me and one for my wife. And it is also the first time that mobile operators (Telefonica, Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo) all offered wireless broadband with a HSDPA USD-modem on a prepaid basis, targeting the large number of tourists that visit Spain in summer.

This was also the first holidays that I did not carry any book, I mean, any paper book. With the Kindle fully loaded with eBooks I also avoided the tough decisions of what book to take on the plane, or which one to the beach; I always had all of them with me.

I love the Kindle experience when reading books, but surprisingly I found the eBook readers for the iPhone (eReader or Stanza) very convenient when you are really on the go. In fact, I ended up taking only the iPhone to the beach and not the Kindle. Another great use case for the iPhone eBook readers is to read in bed when your wife is sleeping and you do not want to disturb her with the lamp lights on, or with the Kindle “next page” button clicks. The iPhone is totally silent to turn pages, and with the background color in the reader turned to black, the back-light will not bother your sleeping partner either.

This was also the summer of the 40th anniversary of the first man on the Moon, and I have really enjoyed the way Google celebrated it, making the Moon available on Google Earth. Absolutely stunning. If you have not tried yet, go for it and take your own tour to the Moon (see more on the clip below).

Apple tablet has been much anticipated and rumored, but Mike Arrington and TechCrunch are creating something quite cool! Read more.

An these kind of new devices will have some impact in the way web apps are developed, with emphasis in multitouch features.

I guess that by now, all music labels have already realized that music downloads and subscriptions are the only way forward to distribute music. CDs are dead, and rightly so.

Maybe because we just finished unpacking the shipment from KL in our new home in Shanghai, I just happen to realize how I hate CDs. I have hundreds of CDs purchased before the MP3 era, and while unpacking them, I could only feel  how useless was the task of putting them on the shelves in my study room.

For my next move I only hope I will have already got rid of all the CDs after ripping them all to my music library, (or alternatively legally download private copies of them with Bittorrent).

I do not think I will ever buy a Music CD again. The last music CD I bought was played only once while ripped to my library. 

R.I.P. Music CDs.