are electric cars a failure?

Last month, the electric-car industry passed a small but important milestone. There are now more than 100,000 electric cars on America's roads, including those that operate as plug-in hybrids. That's happened in just two and a half years, as electric-vehicle sales have only been tallied independently since the last month of 2010, when a mere 345 were first parked in customer garages.

Despite this milestone, there's plenty of pessimism to go around regarding the adoption rate of the plug-in EV, which have thus far made up only half of 1% of all cars sold in the U.S. this year. My fellow Fool -- and resident Foolish auto expert -- John Rosevear offered a succinct overview of that pessimism a couple of months ago, which I'll sum up as this: There's no charging infrastructure, and the batteries make EVs cost more than is justifiable.

Does that mean EVs are a failure?

The American auto industry effectively began in 1896 with a 13-vehicle production run at the Duryea Motor Wagon plant (or garage, as the case might well be). Three years later, just before the start of the 20th century, there were roughly 8,000 cars on what passed for American roads -- virtually nothing was paved for vehicle travel. There were 8,000 EVs on the road after eight months of tracking. That's not really fair, though, because there are more than three times as many people in the U.S. as there were at the turn of the 20th century. Adjusted for population growth, there should have been 33,000 EVs on the roads after three years. That happened after 19 months, and we're now approaching three times that number midway through the third year of tracking.

Why compare EVs with the earliest cars? The "motor wagons" of the late 1800s faced similar challenges to those often attributed to EVs: minimal supporting infrastructure and a high price tag relative to the dominant (horse-drawn) transportation of the day.

The first gas stations wouldn't even be built until almost a decade after the Duryeas built the first 13 cars in America, and they had no drive-up pumps -- that innovation didn't arrive until 1913. There are already more than 6,000 publicly accessible EV charging stations in the country. This doesn't count interesting infrastructure developments such as Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA) battery-swap stations or its growing network of "superchargers" scattered across the United States. It's also worth noting that EVs, unlike early internal-combustion vehicles, can get recharged in most owners' garages.

EVs have to overcome an entrenched culture, just as early motor wagons did -- but today's car culture is far more deeply embedded in the national psyche than horses ever were. There's one automobile on American roads for every 2.3 Americans today, compared with one horse for every 3.5 Americans in 1900. The average person traveled about 340 miles per year in 1900, compared with 16,000 miles per year in cars and airplanes today. Despite facing one of the most entrenched opponents in the history of capitalism, EVs are already outperforming the puttering internal-combustion pioneers in terms of market penetration, price, and infrastructure deployment at a similar point after introduction.

Will EVs continue to outperform the original auto pioneers in the face of stiffer competition? I can't say. However, early results are indeed more promising than many pessimistic commentators would you like to believe. Just as autos replaced horses en masse once their technological superiority was undeniable, EVs will have to be objectively better than internal-combustion vehicles to justify widespread adoption. There are bound to be some bumps and bankruptcies along the way. After all, more than 1,000 automakers of all sizes were founded between 1896 and the mid-1920s. How many of them are still around?

*** [8/28/13]

Why aren't there more electric cars? (the conspiracy)

Google game console?

Google Inc. is developing a videogame console and wristwatch powered by its Android operating system, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Internet company seeks to spread the software beyond smartphones and tablets.

With the game machine and digital watch, Google is hoping to combat similar devices that Apple Inc. may release in the future, according to the people.

Google is also preparing to release a second version of an Android-powered media-streaming device, called Nexus Q, that was unveiled last year but not sold to the public, these people said.

The Internet giant hopes to design and market the devices itself and release at least one of them this fall, they added.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

The hardware plans are the latest sign of Google's determination to build on the success of Android, the software it launched in 2008 that powered 75% of all smartphones and 57% of tablets shipped globally in the first quarter, according to the research firm IDC.

Games that run on Android software have proved particularly popular, and they are growing more quickly than games made for the big-name consoles supplied by Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. The appeal of such games has prompted the development of new devices aimed specifically for Android by other hardware companies.

Sony and Microsoft have recently unveiled new versions of their PlayStation and Xbox game consoles, which are expected to go on sale later this year. Together with Nintendo, sales of the games for these devices accounted for most of the $24.9 billion spent world-wide last year on console games, according to market researcher PwC.

The people briefed on the matter said Google is reacting in part to expectations that rival Apple will launch a videogame console as part of its next Apple TV product release.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Google has also been watching the efforts of Ouya Inc., a startup that this week began selling a $99 Android-based console and game controller, one of these people said.

Ouya

Last year, Ouya raised almost $8.6 million on Kickstarter to develop a gaming console powered by Google's (GOOG +0.86%) open-source Android operating system. Now the product is flying off retailers' shelves.

According to Mashable, Ouya was sold out Tuesday on Amazon.com (AMZN) just hours after it went on sale in the U.S., Canada and U.K. The consoles were temporarily unavailable Wednesday, too. Consumers were also out of luck if they tried Best Buy (BBY +2.02%) or Target (TGT -0.01%), according to their respective websites.

What's the fuss about? 

First is the price. The Ouya console sells for a rock-bottom $99. In contrast, Best Buy is taking preorders for Sony's (SNE +2.16%) PlayStation 4, which isn't going to be released officially until November, for $399.99. Microsoft (MSFT) is taking preorders for the Xbox One Day One Edition for $499.99 ahead of its planned on-sale date later this year. (Microsoft owns and publishes moneyNOW, an MSN Money site.)

Although Ouya games aren't as complex as those offered for the PlayStation and Xbox, they may be good enough for many gamers, particularly casual ones, according to some reviews. Games, which can cost as much as $70 on other systems, are all free to try. Thousands of people who donated to the company's Kickstarter campaign got a free console as well.

Early reviews have been mixed, though a few have been scathing. Tech Radar's Alex Roth said Ouya won't become the "third superpower" alongside PlayStation and XBox, but it "has a good shot at carving out its own niche market amongst atypical systems like the Wii U and Nvidia's (NVDA) Project Shield."

The CBC's Peter Nowak complained about the system's poor responsiveness. "In just about every game I tried, there was a noticeable lag between pressing the button and seeing the corresponding action on screen," he wrote. At PC Magazine, Will Greenwald wrote "unless you're dedicated and technically savvy, it's just not worth it."

Of course, Ouya is still in its infancy and may get better over time. Then again, its rivals probably will as well.

Dumb Ways to Die

Saw this was the app of the week on Apple Byte on CNET.

It's kind of fun even though I'm not very good at it and haven't even figured out how to tie the string to the balloon.

The youtube video has had over 50 million views.  So I suppose it's popular.

Oh, that's how you do it!

dwarf planets

In 2006 the organization responsible for classifying celestial bodies, the International Astronomical Union, decided that a new class of objects was needed. The solar system's erratic ninth planet, Pluto, was assigned to the new “dwarf planet” category along with four other bodies, all tinier than Earth’s moon. Some astronomers expect there may be as many as 50 dwarf planets in the solar system.

-- via BrianK

The Five Most Important Tech Breakthroughs of the last five years

The following list will take you through five of the top new technological breakthroughs that have become the biggest hits with consumers. You'll probably be familiar with them all, but the sheer speed at which they've captured the public's imagination (and its spending money) might surprise you.

5.  Electric cars
4.  Motion sensing
3.  Tablets
2.  Android
1.  Apps

antennas for free TV

In my quest to simplify, one day I want to get rid of cable TV and put up an antenna to catch free TV over the air.

[If it's supposed to free, why don't they just broadcast it over the internet?  Free TV was supported by advertising, so I would think you would want to widen your exposure to attract advertisers.  That's why I don't understand why they cut out the commercials on the few live signals you can see over the internet.  Like Bloomberg TV or Hawaii News Now for example.  Must be some legal thing.  I would think the advertisers wouldn't complain.  So who's doing the complaining?]

Anyway I remember seeing a full page advertisement in the staradvertiser last week (I think) for a Clear Channel antenna.  Googling, I see the ClearStream2 Antenna gets good ratings from lifehacker and amazon.com.  Don't think this was the same antenna that was advertisers.

There's also this pieplate antenna I saw on youtube.

Not sure if I can get a signal in my location, because I remember I tried to help Mr. Fong across the street with his antenna from Radio Shack (or was it Best Buy?) and it didn't get very good results.

The FCC has a pretty neat site and the TV stations in your area.  Other sites are TV Fool and AntennaWeb.

Maybe I should just downgrade to the basic cable which is pretty cheap and I'll get the over the air channels plus a bunch of others in standard def.  The major drawback of cutting the cable is no ESPN and in my case no OCSports (for UH Sports).  Or TNT or NBA-TV (for NBA in HD).  Or NatGeoWild.  Now if KFVE or somebody gets back the rights for UH Sports, then I might start thinking twice.

Then again, it's not like I can't afford the $3 or so per day for cable TV (for now anyway).

TWIT

stands for This Week in Tech and is a cool tech talk/news show on the internet.  It was started by Leo LaPorte (who started with the Atari 400).

The site also has a bunch of other interesting shows too.  It's also available on the Roku with its own channel as well as on Nowhere TV.  There's a few differences between the Roku channels with Nowhere TV still carrying some of the older shows but not some of the newer ones.  The Roku channels only carry about 10 of the most recent episodes of each show.  The web site has them all.

The (vast majority of the) shows are also available on youtube.  The shows used to all be on the twit channel, but now they all have their own youtube channel.

Here's a list of the shows (and whether they're on NowhereTV and/or the dedicated Roku channel)

Active Shows
All About Android                N  R
Before You Buy                   N  R
Floss Weekly                     N  R
Frame Rate                       N  R
Ham Nation                       N  R
Home Theater Geeks               N  R
iFive for iPhone                    R
iPad Today                       N  R
Know How                            R
MacBreak Weekly                  N  R
NSFW                             N  R
OMGCraft                            R
Radio Leo
Security Now                     N  R
Tech News Today                  N  R
The Giz Wiz                      N  R
The Social Hour                  N  R
The Tech Guy                     N  R
This Week in Computer Hardware   N  R
This Week in Enterprise Tech        R
This Week in Google              N  R
This Week in Law                 N  R
This Week In Tech                N  R
This Week in Youtube                R
Triangulation                    N  R
Twit Live Specials               N  R
Windows Weekly                   N  R

Retired Shows
Abby's Road
Current Geek Weekly
Dr. Kiki's Science Hour          N
FourCast                         N
Futures in Biotech               N
Game On!                         N
Green Tech Today
Jumping Monkeys
MacBreak
MaxWell's House
Munchcast
net@night
Roz Rows the Pacific
Science News Weekly              N
Tech History Today
The Laporte Report
this WEEK in FUN
This Week in Radio Tech          N
Trey's Variety Hour              N
TWIT Photo                       N

So as you can see, the standalone channel has all of the active shows (except for Radio Leo which sort of shouldn't count since it's just the audio portion of his video shows).  In comparison, the Nowhere channel is missing of few of the recent shows while retaining a number of the retired shows.

transferring photos from RZR to computer

I still use a Motorola RZR V3 phone.  Works fine for me.

But now t-mobile is shutting down their album service at the end of this month.  So I figured I better transfer my photos from my phone to the album and then download them to my computer before the time was up.

However, when I go to the album, I get a blank screen.

I figured maybe it's blank because they removed my photos from there and if I send the photos again from my phone it would appear.

But when I tried to send the photos, I got a failure message.

So how to get the photos off the phone?

Well, this site says I could use a usb cable or bluetooth.

Well, I don't have any usb cable that fits my phone.  The one for my camera doesn't fit.  And neither does the one for my printer.

Then I tried using bluetooth, which I have never tried before.  Turned on bluetooth on my ipad mini and then fiddled around and turned on bluetooth for the phone.  The iPad actually saw the phone for a little while but then said the connection was not compatible or something.

So I was about to give up.

But then while looking at the photos, I noticed a send option.  This is normally to send to another phone.  There's was an option to create new email address.  So evidently you could send it to an email address.  Well selecting new email address did nothing.  So what I did was create a phone entry for me with just my email address.  And then I sent the picture to that entry.  And it worked!

I could even get the picture on my ipad that way.  Sending it to the camera roll actually send five images which are headings and junk, so you need to delete the extraneous images.  But it works!

Well, one picture worked.  I'll do the rest later as my battery was low and I had to recharge it.

blogger errors

For a while, I kept getting error messages when accessing or creating posts on blogger.  But the error codes kept changing.

After a while, I noticed that it happened on only some of my blogs.

It appears that the problem occurred with the blogs that used the old template.  So what I've done is update to a new design (which loses the hand-coded customizations) then revert to the old template (which restores the customizations).

So it still looks the same (as far as I can tell), but without the error messages.

Stanley and Harriet's HDMI

They keep getting problems with their HDMI hookup.  It works for a while, then they have trouble.  And wind up swapping their cable box.  They have a Oceanic HD DVR hooked up to a big screen Sony LCD TV.

This time, it was working until a few days ago.  The HDMI wouldn't work though it would work via the coax out going to channel 3.

I confirmed that it wasn't working.  Even after resetting the box, switching HDMI ports, switching the HDMI cable.

However in the process, I did get an HDCP not-compliant message.  Not sure if that's coming from the TV or the cable box.

Called Oceanic.  Told me to turn off the cable box and turn off the TV.

But I pulled out the power to the cable box instead.

Took a while to boot up and get the time back.

Still didn't work and noticed the response was rather slow.

The tech guy asked why I had both the coax and the HDMI plugged in.  Told him in case one don't work.  But I pulled out the coax anyway.  Nope, still don't work.

Then he asked if I had another HDMI cable.  So I swapped it.  Nope, still don't work.

So he said it's probably the cable box and to swap it.

But then suddenly it started working.  The configuration was the original (not the Oceanic) HDMI cable plugged into the HDMI4 input.  And the cable box was more responsive.

Don't know what happened, but I'm not going to touch it if it's working.

We'll see how long it lasts this time.

I got a feeling that their Sony TV is marginal with HDCP outputs (despite this statement).

[9/7/15 update] after having sporadic problems with their cable box hooked up to their Sony TV over the last couple of years, the Oceanic tech hooked them up via component some months ago.  Problem solved.  The picture might not be quite as good as HDMI in theory, but it's hard to tell the difference.

Windows 8.1

Microsoft  (NASDAQ: MSFT) launched Windows 8 last October with radical ambitions in mind. The Start menu was gone, and in its place was a tile-based interface that was a dramatic departure from what Windows users had grown accustomed to over the past 17 years, dating to the introduction of Windows 95.

Anytime you overhaul the user interface of something as long-lived and pervasive as Windows, there will be loud user complaints. Some level of users will always be resistant to change.

However, the steep learning curve on Windows 8 has made it a difficult transition, especially for larger companies whose users are accustomed to older versions of Windows. With the company looking to release a major update named Windows 8.1 that should be released later this year, let's take a look back at Windows 8 to date and what should be expected from Microsoft's major overhaul of the operating system.

Microsoft's reasoning for the dramatic changes to Windows was simple: Past versions of Windows didn't translate well to the touch-based devices such as tablets that are exploding in popularity. By creating a tile-based interface, the company could make Windows relevant for both PCs and tablets, rather than create a separate version for tablets.

To date, results have been middling. At the start of May, Microsoft announced that it had sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses, but little traction has been gained in tablets. More painfully, the slide in consumer interest around PCs continues. In the first quarter, PC shipments declined more than 11% according to industry tracker Gartner.

As CNET notes, Microsoft's Windows 8.1 update will come with a "Start Tip," which sits in the lower left corner and allows users to return to a Start screen. This won't return you to the Start menu you're familiar with, but the Start screen will be customizable in a way that allows users to create a listing of applications that's similar to the Start menus of past Windows versions. 

For the most ardent critics of change in Windows 8, the 8.1 update is delivering something long-clamored for: an option to boot directly to the desktop. The fact that current versions of Windows 8 forced users to boot up in the tile-based interface has been the subject of much of the Windows 8 controversy.

Will Windows 8.1's changes be enough to satisfy most dissatisfied users? Probably not. The tile user interface remains at the center of the experience, even if booting to the desktop is now an option. Moreover, many of the changes to make Windows 8.1 feel more similar to Windows versions rely on customization. With many users complaining about a "steep learning curve," making users customize the experience doesn't exactly scream of simplification.

However, the changes could go a way in getting more adoption of Windows 8 in a key market: corporate users. While consumer interest in PCs has been cratering, corporate PC buying has been a far more steady force. Enabling options like booting to the desktop could lessen headaches for IT departments and persuade them to begin using Windows 8.

*** [9/7/13]

Windows 8 was released just more than a year ago, evoking a collective groan from IT professionals and users alike. While much of the rumbling was due to the restyling of the interface, there were several outright bugs.

Microsoft has announced a new version of Windows 8, cleverly dubbed Windows 8.1, due next month. While many organizations have resisted taking the leap to Windows 8, it is apparent that Windows 8.1 will be a viable platform, ready for adoption by all.

The biggest complaint about Windows 8 was that the most basic components of the interface changed. In fact, most complaints were about old features that were eliminated (or masked) as opposed to the new features that were added.

Of course, we are talking about the elimination of the "start menu" and replacement of it with the "start screen." This is somewhat humorous, given the old joke that "only Microsoft would have you go the ‘start' menu to shut down your computer."

This probably would have been a reasonable change if Microsoft had provided a way to still use the old start menu. After all, many of the functions of the old start menu are still accessible by using the "windows-X" or "windows-W" key combinations. Bowing to pressure, Microsoft has announced that the start menu will reappear in Windows 8.1, dashing the get-rich-quick hopes of many software developers who came up with alternatives.

In fact, whether in classic Windows 8 or Windows 8.1, there are many ways to customize the interface to look similar to Windows 7 or even Windows XP. While this is fine for the individual user, it can be a pain in the okole for larger organizations to propagate these changes to hundreds or even thousands of computers. As such, many businesses and government agencies have stayed away from Windows 8.

Regardless, Microsoft and its hardware partners have been force-feeding us Windows 8, making it difficult to buy the latest hardware with Windows 7 loaded. Windows 8.1, however, is a free upgrade, akin to a major service pack. If history repeats itself, it should be a relatively simple upgrade. If, however, you are doing more than a handful of upgrades, you might want to hold off any purchases until 8.1 is actually shipping, pre-loaded.

With all the hubbub regarding Windows 8, one thing has been overlooked. Most software applications developed for Windows 7 run on Windows 8 with no issues! Coupled with "compatibility mode," a feature that allows applications specifically designed for older versions of Windows to run under Windows 8, this eliminates one of the major concerns when upgrading operating systems.

———

John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 20 years of information technology experience. Reach him at john­agsalud@yahoo.com.