Predicting the future

It's easy!

Here's the new iPad pro from 2014.  it's a 'new' A4 form factor.
It was made available with TouchID, 32-256 Gb memory, 4Gb internal RAM, and a 64-bit A7X processor.  With a starting price of $999, the range now overlaps with a basic Macbook Air.
There was some controversy over whether Apple would launch a new keyboard to complement this product.

One step closer to replacing the trad paper document.  Although in many uses, an eink display (as used by Sony's A4 gadget) is much nicer.

(A4 is a paper size used everywhere in the world* because of it's magic property of maintaining its aspect ratio when folded in half.)

* excluding USA.  Where I think they also still have capital punishment, too.

Incomplete ontology

I'm no good at maths. But Kurt Goedel was. As far as I remember he said something about the proof of a formal system always lying outside itself. Incompleteness.
 I was always interested in Anselm's ontological argument, too. Its says something like this: God must actually exist because it's better if He actually exists than if we just made Him up. And because He is by definition perfect, and so "better", then he must actually exist.
OK, not a lot of people find that convincing. I did once read a book by Alvin Plantinga on a many-worlds version of the same idea. But that was a long time ago.
Anyway, it turns out that if you put together Goedel's incompleteness with Anselm's ontology, formalize it and run it through computer software than analyses stuff like that, there's really no problem in asserting that God must exist.
According to these guys, anyway... Link to Cnet article

Prezi service

This is excellent work. I must try creating with Prezi some time.

Hypervisor dreams - or what you can do with 64 bits

Long ago, in a processor far away, there were two parallel sets of registers.  By the magic of EXX, you could hide the current register set in a safe place, and work using another set.
I haven't looked at an ARM instruction set recently, but I expect there's something similar.  Probably working by switching the high and low 32 bits of a register around.  So each 64 bit register becomes a set of two, 32-bit registers.
So what could be achieved by doing this?
In the old days you could do interrupt processing.  When an interrupt happens, the current working registers are switched out, the interrupt is processed, and the registers switched back.
Or you could run two 32-bit apps at once by switching between 32-bit register "sets".
Or the OS could use one register set, and the app another.  Now that would be useful.  Is this what Apple are doing in iOS7?
These are variations on a hypervisor theme.
They are deep mysteries, the answers to which even iOS developers are not privy.

Why the Commodore 64 was 64

Many years ago, I used to program 8-bit computers.  The first thing to know about them is that they were 16-bit computers.  Sort of.  The Z80 inside the ZX Spectrum had 16-bit registers (the things that actually do the work inside the processor), and a 16-bit address bus.  A 16-bit address bus means you can specify any one of  65536 RAM (memory) locations to store or retrieve a number.  65536 is commonly approximated and abbreviated to 64K.  Hence the name of the Commodore 64.
Similarly, 16 bit registers mean you can work with numbers (integers) in the range 0-65535.  This is a very useful range of numbers for most things you'd want to count.
But then along came 32-bit processors, allowing a number range of up to 4 billion.  Not many calculations need to use numbers that big.  (And anyway, FPUs came in about the same time allowing you to do calculations with non-integers for things like calculating the national debt down to the last penny.) 32 bit processors can access 4 billion memory locations, today known as 4 Gigabytes. Smartphones like the iPhone5S currently have less than 4GBytes of RAM anyway, so 64-bit addressing is irrelevant.
But people have more memory than that in desktop computers, so the next step up was to go with 64 bits. Which is really overkill for almost everything.  (48 bits would have done the trick for real-world amounts of RAM.)
As far as the registers in the processor go, there's not a lot you can do with 64 bits that you couldn't do with 32.  Unless you can swap the high and low ends around.  Which effectively gives you more registers. This is a good thing because the more registers in the CPU, the less you have to access memory.  Memory access is slow, which is bad.
So Apples's new A7 processor basically has twice the CPU internal memory of the A6.  Which makes it faster.  If it's used.  Which it probably won't be.  Unless...

Must stop thinking about Apples

Can't help thinking that Apple have really messed up with the iPhone 5C. It would have made sense had it been about $100 cheaper than it is. But pricing it only about two monthly payments short of the S is just dumb. Wall Street seems to think so too. I really hope it's not just plain greed.

And what are those 'croc' cases? Jony spends a whole video explaining how nice the plastic is. Then they decide to cover it up? And the holes aren't even in the right places! Apples logo hole? iPhone wording hole? No.

It all smacks of "committee" to me.

I hope the 6 will come in bright plastic colours, with the fingerprint sensor too. And NFC. And a bigger screen.
Sad to think Apple may have totally lost it by this time next year. They really need some innovation this October.

Après apple September 10

Hmmm. Pleasantly unsurprised at the new fingerprint scanner. But that's all they had to show. Doesn't really add up to a years's worth of innovation. More bits in the processor is nice but who will notice a difference on a screen that small?
I'll just have to hope the motion processor has something to do with a forthcoming iwatch.
Somehow I don't think I'll be paying the £250 fee (to upgrade my iPhone5 a year early) just for that fingerprint sensor.

2013 September 10 apple event

It's three days before Apple hold an event to announce what they've been up to. Innovating, hopefully. But the signs aren't good. Despite Samsung and others releasing smartwatches, they probably haven't got round to that yet. So what will they announce?
A couple of new "colours" for iPhone 5s. Boring.
Fingerprint scanner? I'd be pleasantly surprised. iPhone 4S introduced Siri so they'll have to do something like this. Obviously, some spec numbers will also increase but no one really cares.
iPhone C model - C for colour/China/Cheaper. A plastic back in actual colours sounds good to me. I had much better signal from my 3 with a plastic back than either my 4 or 5 with all the metal. But no one is talking about what other differences there'd be in a cheaper iPhone. Internally it's likely to follow the iPad2 precedent and be an iPhone4. But no one wants that teeny little 3.5" screen.

And one more thing.

Would be nice. But I can't see what. Upgraded Apple TV etc. And iOS 7 date. About time. Yawn. Sad thing is, that's actually what I'm most looking forward to.

Phones

The iPhone was a product I'd been waiting for.  And then some.  Carrying around a colour touchscreen PDA and a separate phone was one box too many.  Being able to carry music and videos around with a decent browser was a bonus.  So I got one when I could afford one.  By this time, they had GPS too.  And I've had one ever since.
I got the 5 last year (the fifth one they made, since counting starts with 0).  I saw it in a shop when my contract was up, and I didn't notice.  It was the same as the one I had, except with a slightly bigger screen.  Totally underwhelming, really.  The extra screen is needed due to my failing eyesight.
And so, the world waits in eager anticipation for new iPhones to be revealed in a couple of weeks' time.
Except that few people are really bothered any more.  The evidence to date suggests there will be a gold coloured version.  And some plastic ones in different colours - which I applaud.  (Black and white are so boring.)  And the plastic will improve the appalling radio signal reception.  Maybe it will have fingerprint recognition.  Hardly a reason to rush out to buy one.  I would like NFC personally, but Apple don't.
It's a shame really.  I hope Apple amaze everyone with something revolutionary  But I won't be surprised if they don't.

Tablets

I'm not really a fanboy, but I do keep a close eye on Apple.  Ever since the iPhone showed they had the right idea.  The trouble is, they don't seem to be doing much at the moment.
I got a new iPad this year.  To replace the original one I had.  I'd been saving up for the first one for some time (well before it's actual existence was admitted.)  After two years it was unusably unstable.  This was due to not having enough RAM in the first place.  So Apple abandoned it.  I couldn't find any better tablet though, so I had to replace it with the current model iPad.  Which had a higher resolution display.  Though my eyesight had deteriorated so much in the same time period that I couldn't tell the difference.  Sigh.
I seriously considered a Microsoft tablet.  But the Pro model was too expensive, and the RT model was a pointless exercise in trying to copy what Apple had done with iOS.  Poor Microsoft.  They had the right idea, but still messed up.  And now their boss is leaving.
Maybe I should have bought an Android one.  Or a Kindle.  The trouble is that I am so deep into Apple's ecosystem now that it's unlikely any one product will be enough to make me bail out.  Even given the inferiority of iPhones nowadays...

Leap Motion

Here's my Leap Motion controller.  It's new.  So new, in fact, that it doesn't work very well.  Yet.  It comes with an awesome introductory application.  (I rarely use 'awesome').  It lets you wave your hands around in the air and do things like make pretty patterns on the screen.  Or draw colourful pictures.  Or, theoretically, control your computer.  I trust that the software will work.  In time.  

I hope it will one day recognize the sign of the cross. But then that's probably just me.

Technology. And a little theology.

Technology.  And then theology.  Odd mix maybe, but that's been my life.  
I blogged when I had the time, back in 2011, but I'm missing it so much that I decided to continue.  Occasionally.  When there's a development.  Which happens often in technology, less so in theology.  Science and God.  One is temporary, one is eternal.  One is always changing because it is wrong, one is never changing because it is right.  
OK that's enough pseudophilosophical intro.  What's happening?  I need a picture...