Tech

I was recently reading over at Engadget about the new Sony OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TV’s that will be going on sale later this year. While these first models will be small (only 11″ screens) and I’m sure VERY pricey, they represent the future of television as we know it. These screens boast a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, are only 3 mm thick, and have as wide a viewing angle as a normal CRT television. In other words, a TV that can reproduce life-like images that can be hung on the wall like a picture frame and can be seen from any angle equally well. This my friends is amazing! Here’s a couple pictures to give you an idea of what this first model will look like (click them for a larger version):

Notice how clear that picture still is on that second picture even though the viewing angle is horrible. No other HDTV today can reproduce that kind of picture at that angle! This is a huge selling point for me since I hate nothing worse than the fact that I can’t see my living room HDTV from the bedroom any longer due to the angle whereas I used to be able to see my old CRT screen just fine.

All hype and cool tech aside though, OLED TV’s do have a couple of downsides currently. First, they are extremely expensive to make at this point in time which means they will be even more expensive to buy. Secondly, the life of an OLED screen is only 4,000 - 5,000 hours… which means if you watch TV for eight hours a day then the screen will last just shy of two years which is pathetic. Now both of these caveats will be resolved in time with new manufacturing processes but until then it would definitely not be a wise investment unless you have money to burn in a big way.

That said, OLED really is the future of television in my opinion. In 3-5 years when the technology matures and can be mass produced cheaply and effectively, we’ll all finally get those huge, life-like TV screens that we’ve seen in so many future-set movies! I, for one, can’t wait!

P.S. For those of you interested in reading more about OLED TV technology, THIS is a great link to read up on it. Also, I just received an email about another OLED info site that might benefit those craving more reading material.

The web has been awash of rumors that two new Microsoft Zune MP3 players are on the way later this year. Personally I never really saw the appeal of the Zune (or the Ipod for that matter) but I guess to a fan this would be huge news assuming it’s not a complete hoax. Now don’t get me wrong, I own an MP3 player like everyone else… but I’d never buy a Zune or an Ipod due to the stigma that comes with them. What stigma is that you might say? I’m talking about the stigma of being a trendy, cool person who uses their MP3 player as a status symbol of some kind. Yep, that’s how I feel about you Ipod lemmings! Besides, why would I spend more money on a Zune/Ipod when I can get more features for less money elsewhere? I’d rather pay for good tech than a name brand I can show off at the gym.

That said, I am entering the Zune contest over at John Chow’s blog. If you don’t remember John from my previous posts, he’s best known for his blog which teaches you how to make money on the internet. Apparently John has a Zune he won recently but has no desire to use (can’t blame him there), so he’s giving it away to one person who will be picked randomly at the end of the month. Why would I want to win a Zune? Honestly, I don’t… I’d just sell it on Ebay or Craigslist most likely. What I DO want though is a link to my blog on the front page of John’s blog if I’m announced as the winner of the competition. I value traffic from his site more than I value a overpriced MP3 player. Here’s hoping I win!

As you may recall from yesterday’s post, a late night of drinking and partying lead up to one decision come this morning: Do I really want to attend the 8:30am keynote or not? The answer was no, I didn’t… I was not only too tired but I had some work that needed to be done anyway. Luckily for me the keynote speaker was Joel Barker (a motivational speaker of some sort) and not a real tech speaker. A good tech speaker I’ll go out of my way to hear… but I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on a motivational speaker, let alone get up early after a late night to hear one ramble on about shit for an hour and half. With that decided, I settled down at the desk in my hotel room around 8am to do some work before I had to get ready for my 10:30am session on BI (business intelligence) options in GP (Great Plains) 10.0.

After my 10:30am session and a second day of rather lackluster lunch food, I had two more sessions to attend on general Microsoft BI products and MS SQL Server 2005 SRS (SQL Reporting Services). While both of these sessions were informative overall they were definitely a little boring at times which made me regret my late night last night even more. Fortunately I just had to make it through these two sessions and then I’d be out for the day so I could catch a little nap before we started the festivities for the evening, i.e. more drinking on a vendor’s dime. By 4pm I was back at my hotel with some time to kill before I was to meet up with my fellow Cincinnati attendees for dinner in the Gaslamp District again, so a decided to take a quick nap for a bit. I was soon roused from my slumber by a call from Kevin (my GP partner) who needed me to download some drivers for his laptop that had died on him. After going through the process of finding the right drivers, downloading them, and dropping them on a USB flash drive for delivery I was no longer tired and just decided to browse the web for a bit before my 6:30pm dinner date.

I met up with my friends down at a little Italian restaurant in the Gaslamp district who’s name I’ve forgotten already but who’s food I will remember fondly. The lobster ravioli there was fantastic although there wasn’t enough of it (only six ravioli for $28!?!)… luckily the bread was tasty as well. After dinner several members of our little group went back to their respective hotel rooms since they were still tired from the night before (I know… pansy-ass bastards!) so it just left four of us going to the Rock-N-Rave party at The Shout House. The bar was only a short walk from the restaurant luckily but alas we still arrived too late get a seat so we ended up spending the night standing around drinking as it truly was “standing room only” in there it was so crowded with wall-to-wall geeks. Drinks were drunk, songs were sung, and fun was had by all! The night ended with me stumbling eight blocks back to my hotel around 1am after which I promptly collapsed on my bed and passed out. Fun times!

Tomorrow I fly home to Cincinnati unfortunately but this was a great trip. I learned a lot at the conference and still managed to have more than my share of drinks and fun. I can’t wait to attend next year’s conference in Orlando, Florida!

Today was my first official day at Convergence even though I arrived yesterday (too late to do anything since I didn’t get into San Diego until after 6pm PST). I attended the keynote presentation by Doug Burgum and Satya Nadella who told us about all the things to come over the next few days as well as the big topic of the conference… Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 (that’s Great Plains for those of you not up on the new naming convention)! While I was excited to see the new look and feel of GP 10.0, I have to say that overall I’m unimpressed with the lack of new functionally that will really make it worth upgrading. I’m sure we still will upgrade at my company given the new BI (business intelligence) stuff they threw in 10.0 but I honestly see no other real benefit from it. After the keynote I was supposed to attend my first learning session of the day but alas work called and I had to skip it to work on a GP issue back at home. Luckily I finished up the work in time to head back to the convention center in time for lunch which was, as usual at these events, nothing more than filling and wholly unpalatable if it weren’t free. After lunch I attended two more learning sessions (one on SQL Server 2005 and BI, the other on the new GP 10.0 user interface) before I headed back to my hotel to drop off my stuff for the evening. It was time to party!

I headed down to meet some people I know from Cincinnati who are also attending Convergence here and had dinner at a great little restaurant called Lou and Mickey’s down in the Gaslamp district. The food was pretty good overall (I had the jumbo crabcakes and garlic mashed potatoes) but nowhere near good enough to justify the bill for our dinner that night which came damn near $500 for seven people! After dinner we headed out to a vendor party at Jimmy Love’s where we spent the rest of the night drinking free beers and talking about business way too much. LOL The bar was small and crammed with people upstairs so we headed downstairs where things were more laid back (horrible red velvet couches, pool tables, a small bar area covered in some sort of faux black leather material, etc.) and ended up staying here the rest of the night. By 12:30am (3:30am Cincinnati time) we were all pretty tired and drunk so we called it night and headed back to our respective hotels. The real question was this: who was actually going to make the 8:30am keynote the next morning? Stay tuned to find out!