It's War!!

Never mind the events in Libya, there is a bigger war going on all around us, a war going on in the world of mobile computing, a war with no apparent boundaries, a war with millions of dollars at stake. I am of course talking about the ongoing patent case between Apple, the makers of the iPad, and Samsung, the upstarts from South Korea who brought out the Galaxy Tab. It seems that Apple, perhaps buoyed by the sympathy vote after the tragic demise of their founder, are suing the pants off of Samsung, because Samsung have dared to release a tablet computer that resembles the Apple iPad2.

Injunctions have been issued in several countries stopping Samsung from selling its products. Counter injunctions have been fired by Samsung aimed at the latest half baked iPhone version. It is all very ugly, just like a real war. And like real wars, there are plenty of innocent victims. And these victims are the consumers.

Because of all this corporate skirmishing, the consumer, that's you and me, folks, cannot choose for themselves which tablet computer to buy, in some countries such as Germany and Australia. Their right to choose has been stripped from them by lawyers and corporate suits.

And this is a crime, because the result is a restriction of choice. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is every bit as good a tablet as the Apple iPad, in some ways better, because it can connect to a laptop with its own dock, plus a supplied USB cable. You cannot do that with the iPad without purchasing all sorts of dodgy third party pieces of hardware. Also, the Galaxy is cheaper, and wifi and 3G options are bundled together. Why should I buy a more expensive product just because of the large number of apps available to the iPad?

That just makes me want to reach for my pills, because quite honestly, I do not care if Apple thinks Samsung has violated its patents by producing a similar machine. All I care about is having the choice of which tablet to buy. That is my right, and it is the right of all those German and Australian consumers who have been denied choice because of legal fiat.

Apple accuse Samsung of stealing the design of the tablet from its own product, and admittedly the two tablets do look and feel suspiciously similar. However, tablet computers featured in movies and TV long before the iPad came along - in 2001 a Space Odyssey in 1968 and Star Trek the Next Generation in the 1990s. The design idea therefore has prior provenance. Consequently, suing Samsung for producing a similar product to the iPad is as logical as Mercedes Benz suing BMW because the beamer has four wheels and a powerful engine.

So I bought a Galaxy tab, before Apple stops it being sold here in Malaysia. And I haven't regretted it so far...

A day well spent

A day well spent is a day helping someone with serious problems. Today, my missus and I spent the afternoon with a friend and colleague who has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Now before you jump to conclusions, no, she doesn't smoke, nor does anyone else in her family. Neither does she live next door to a cigarette factory, as far as I know. But lung cancer it is, though fortunately (!) it is stage 1. Now, as you may or may not know, my wife had breast cancer four years ago so she is in a great position to offer advice and help to her friend, and so armed with some edible and drinkable goodies and a present, we went over to her lovely house outside Kuching.

I won't bore you with the details of our conversations, but it became obvious that one factor was shared by my wife and our friend - stress. Both of them have experienced a great deal of stress in the last few years and much of it has in fact come not from demanding work environments, but from demanding and draining families! Now I am not saying that families cause stress all the time, nor am I arguing that stress necessarily causes cancer. But many people suspect, doctors included, that psychological factors may have a correlation with certain types of cancer.

It was enormously satisfying seeing my wife and her friend sharing some of their secrets which we have not been able to share with anyone for so long. The sense of a heavy burden lifting was palpable in that living room this afternoon. But the stress will not go away that easily, especially if you have demanding and stressful families.

Many people struggle through illness, even though their families make unfair demands on them, physically and mentally abuse them and treat them as if nothing is wrong. All I can say is that such families are toxic. They do not or cannot care whether you live or die. But you have a choice. Don't let them get you down, as they say. If you need help, read a book, pray, play Angry Birds, anything. But most of all, find refuge in a good friend. A good friend will never cause you stress, and will never be toxic...

Back Again, again!

Oh bugger it! Why not! Let's start the old blog up again and see what happens shall we? It's been so long, and so much has happened since my last post which was, oh, last year! I've got into Facebook, but that doesn't satisfy me enough. I've got into Twitter, but length really is everything! So, I've returned to the medium I love best. Continuous prose where you don't have to be careful how many words you type.

Of course, it doesn't mean I will stop using social media, oh no. But blogging is really where it's at for me, it's what crumbles my cookie, what dings my dong! There's nothing like the real thing, as they say....