The world needs an new PayPal

The recent hacking of a gizmodo journalist has brought the issue that password protection is not enough. It should be managed by an authorized third party such as Paypal that checks credentials. It should no longer be a basic question such as your city of birth or your favorite pet. It could involve physical retailers like RiteAid and Walmart who check one's identity to confirm their account with a photo ID.

Some recent attempts with Google's text-messaging password protection is too complicated. It does not address the entire community. It is a step in the right direction, but more is needed.

Spring came too early this year

Last week was really pleasant. Who would ever imagine you could go outside in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops to take your dog for a walk in the middle of March. In the past few years, we have had major snow storms in March which shutdown local airports since they were not prepared to deice their planes. This is the first year when spring break actually feels like spring.
The only problem with an early spring is the effect it has on farm crops. Since winter is not fully over, frost and cold temperature can harm or kill plants that have started to bloom. Farmers have tried to protect their plants with warm patches and heating elements.
It was nice to have an early spring to see flowers blooming and I hope it has an minimal effect on our gardens and farms.

Wow, Nokia is making a come back

Nokia has done something amazing over the last few weeks. They have launched a product with a marketing campaign that actually makes sense since the launch of the iPhone. The lumnia series are well engineered mobile devices, and the marketing campaign really wants you to join the movement to be part of the "amazing everday" experience. Too bad I have a HTC windows phone device, but I'm hoping more US carriers trend to pick up the lumnia series. It is already a major hit internationally with the release of 710, 610, and 800. Nokia has been doing an awesome job, I hope it goes viral.

The current tablet wars

If we consider this to be Specs race, then the Motorola Xoom is winning. Motorola was right, they are the current tablet that supports LTE 4G. Facetime is great, but you can't do it on 3g, so it is waste. The HP Touchpad is now feeling old, and it reminds me of last years HP Slate. The hardware of the iPad 2 is great, but iOS is still lacking. Honeycomb and WebOS offer a better tablet interface. You can't say that there is 100 apps on honeycomb, since the platform last launched last week, and the iPad didnt have many apps when it launched. Also, honeycomb tablets have not launched in full force yet. It was launched in the US, but the global launch is still going on with Samsung & LG. So it is too early to call the winner, but I think this time next year we can probably say who is the winner. I have a strong feeling it will be Android and iOS.

Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7, we have been hearing about it for over a year, and it is only on one carrier (The Dell Venue hasn't launched for T-Mobile yet). I don't understand why it hasn't truly made its way to T-Mobile and Sprint, where the true windows mobile fanboys are. Of course the sales are low right now since they are selling it to the wrong people. Just like android, at first it was only sold to T-Mobile customers who at the time weren't embracing data plans at that time, but once it launched on verizon people were craving a feature-full smartphone

Zune HD

I have a Zune HD, and I'm loving it. It is an awesome MP3 player without the Apple Branding. I would highly recommend it to someone how is serious about listening and organizing their music.

The Oil Spill

The Oil Spill is the story of the summer which seems like it is never going to end. It is an important story, and vastly complicated. There are many stories regarding the Oil Spill from different points of view ranging from people working on the Oil Rig to President. The news is lacking the view point of the engineers who designed the rig. The Oil Spill is actually an engineering failure. As a former chemical engineer, most of design is done by mechanical and chemical engineers. The current problem is most chemical engineers are not in universities how to deal with Oil Rigs, they solve other problems that relate to smaller scales and other devices. Even though there is much blame on BP and the President of United States, some blame has to put on the Engineers since there was a design failure. Engineers are not perfect, there have been mistakes before ranging from the Apollo Space Ship Shuttle accident to collapsing bridges. The live video stream showing the leaking oil is a sign that this is truly an engineering failure.

Another point that the media is avoiding is the discussion of alternate energy. Just a year or two ago, the price of oil was sky rocket high. People were talking about using biodeisel, and fuel cells. There were small companies that would take used cooking oil and would recycle it into biodiesel. The topic of alternate energy has been avoided greatly during the media coverage. Is it the oil companies are influencing the media not to cover the new technologies? The oil spill is due to our dependence on crude oil, if Americans were using natural gas, or biodiesel to power our cars, there would be less need to have oil rigs in the ocean. There has been the discussion of cost of alternative energy is expensive than crude oil, but now consider the cost and expense of the oil spill. It is thousand times greater than the cost of using alternative energies, and most of damage at this point may not be repairable. My suggestion is to stop playing the blame game on the CEO of BP, and the President of the United States, but to move forward to clean up the oil spill, stop it from leaking, and become less dependent on oil, by using alternative energies.