Quick Apple Prediction....

[Because, why not?]

My weird prediction is... Apple will NOT be making an Apple branded iWatch.

I believe that they will partner with different watch companies and help them make a watch themselves. It will be Apple inside (interesting logo idea for that...) but not Apple branded.

I think that Tag Heuer will have their own Apple Watch for a start but they will not be the only ones. Maybe Swatch, maybe even Rolex will be able to make the outside and help design the face.

While Android has techie branded watches with generic faces, I think that Apple will show the world a different way to do things. They will be the platform for the old school watch companies.

We'll see later today. :)

My previous prediction - No Nexus 5 was totally wrong. But maybe just a bit ahead of its time... the rumours are that the Nexus 6 will be the last Nexus.

What If There is No Nexus 5?

There has been a lot of rumours going around about what the Nexus 5 may look like.

Quick history lesson for those who are not Android Gurus...

Google make Android. They released it to the world and it was used by the likes of Samsung, HTC et al as base operating system for their phones... but... Android in the past was not very feature-full so all the phone manufacturers added features and pretty much changed all their phones from the "pure Google Android experience". Then the phone carriers added their own software.

Google then decided they wanted a phone that would be pure Google Android and they also wanted one that would be slightly ahead of its time with full capabilities and would be able to show off every feature of the latest Android release.

So, they got HTC to make them a phone which they called "Nexus" - The Nexus One. It came out at the same time as Android 2.1 (Eclair) and was designed to showcase that version of Android.

Next Google got Samsung to make the next Nexus based on their Galaxy S phone. This was when Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) was released. Samsung also got called in to make the next Nexus phone (Galaxy Nexus) at the time of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and then it was time for LG with the Nexus 4  and Jelly Bean.

Now that KitKat has been released - who is going to make the Nexus for this one?

I think there will be no Nexus 5.

And here is why.

1. It would be too politically dangerous. Google now own Motorola so giving them the ability to develop the first device to run a new Google operating system would not go down well with anyone really. Especially Samsung, LG and HTC who are Motorola's competition and Google's partners. 
2. It wouldn't make sense to Google to give it to Samsung because they are so powerful and that would kill off Motorola's attempts to get back into contention. Likewise, LG and HTC.
3. All of the major cellphone manufacturers have just released arguably the best handsets possible - Samsung Galaxy S 4, HTC One, Motorola Moto-X and LG G2.
4. It would be either difficult for a Nexus device to compete with the above devices or unfair for it to be singled out by Google at this point. It would have to be amazing in every way and have something more. And then a little something more. 
5. All of the above phones also have a semi-Nexus version anyhow.. they all have Google Editions which are essentially Google Nexus phones. 

So there is no point in Google releasing a Nexus phone and it would be a bad idea.

All the above is true except for 2 things: 

1. None of the Google Edition phones run KitKat. 
2. There is no Google Edition phone of the LG G2. 

And there you have it. I believe that within a few days LG will release a Google Edition G2 (it may be model number G820) and following that release, Google will announce no Nexus 5 but that all Google Edition phones will run Kitkat.

This would be good for Samsung, LG, HTC and especially Motorola but without being too good for any one brand. The only it would be bad for is Apple who would be facing a 4 pronged attack from 4 amazing phones with a new amazing (we hope) operating system. 

The rumours that the new LG would be the new Nexus and that it wouldn't be the new Nexus but a copy of the G2 would be right and right. It would be the last piece in the puzzle before Google can release Kitkat and a number of Nexus devices - or rather - Google Experience devices. 

Time will tell if I am right or not. 

Oh... whats this?

Just dusting off this blog to post things that are not security related.

As always, security stuff will be covered in my Security Thoughts Blog.

Cheapest Electricity in the World Got a Whole Lot Pricier

So, I have no idea how accurate these stats are. They are like estimates built on estimates, multiplied by guesses.

"pws80" (who seems to be an accountant as far as you can tell on a social media site) gives the following list:

2004 - 24.52c
2005 - 26.46c
2006 - 27.81c
2007 - 29,45c
2008 - 39.52c
2009 - 50.04c
2010 - 72.56c
2011 - 105.21c
2012 - 152.55c

It is, according to his calculations, the price per Kwh of electricity now as charged by Eskom.

So, what are the prices of electricity elsewhere?

According to a blog of an ex-UK guy living in Australia:

"Therefore England equals 8.49p per kWh.
……And Australia equals 17.13c per kWh."

and 

"In the USA, a kWh is 11.86c (USA)"

 Quick conversions of currency with Google:

UK: 95c
OZ: 110c
US: 85c

So, next year, even with the 45% increase, we will still be beating (slightly) the UK, Australia and the US in cheapest electricity. The year after that we will be pretty much in line with the developed world in terms of electricity prices. The next year - we will be about 50% more expensive.

These are rough figures but it would be nice to know at what stage we can take "South Africa has the world's cheapest electricity" off our "Reasons why we love South Africa".

It would be fun also to compare the prices above with "% of average salary"

Drowning in a sea of Web 2.0

Web 2.0? I've done it.

Blog, got.
RSS, taken care of.
Social? You bet - Facebook, Twitter, whatever.

But now the question is - what for?

I love my Blog and enjoy posting to it (when I can) and I enjoy commenting on other people's blogs.

I like to track things. I like to interact with people online.

But I think it has come to the time when I work out exactly how to do it properly.

My last step in this project will be to have a site www.elucidate.co.za that has everything done by me - comments, statuses, blog postings, etc. And it will be done in a style of my choosing. And it will be tracked by Twitter.

It will be the canonical Allen Baranov.

I started this page about 14 years ago when the Internet was fresh and web pages were made by Real Men with angle grinders and angle brackets. I have updated it from time to time when new technologies came about that made me excited.

Most recently - RSS feeds, Atom, jQuery, Web App APIs.

But now there are online services that can do this kind of thing for me with very little coding (maybe even none!) and I will find one that serves my needs.

The problem with Web 2.0 is that there is usually 2 or 3 of each service and finding just the right one is not so easy.

My quest is to find the right one.

Quick Thoughts About Service

There are two Vodacom stores in Sandton Central.

One is in Nelson Mandela Square and one is in Sandton City.

I know where the Sandton City store is so I phoned them up to see whether they had something in stock. It was a done deal - I wanted the "gadget" and the price was right. The phone just rang. I tried their other number - it too just rang.

I gave up and phoned the Nelson Mandela Square store and the phone was answered quickly. The lady on the other side was helpful, courteous and a pleasure to talk to. She confirmed that they did, in fact, have what I was looking for.

So, I went to that store and bought what I needed for my phone. While I was there , the staff came up to me and offered help. I felt like a king. I spend a bit more time in the store than I had planned and saw something else that I wanted, at the price that I was prepared to pay. I bought it.

I also looked at a cover for my phone. While there, one of the staff came over, opened up the box that I was looking at and showed me why it was such a good deal. (And it would have been, but they didn't have the cover that fitted my phone.)

On the way out, I popped into the other Vodacom shop and was totally ignored. I walked out.

So, well done to the Vodacom shop in Nelson Mandela Square and not so well done to the one in Sandton City.

If I ever get arrested...

... I hope I have enough money and power to arrange myself a "medical condition".

Shabir Shaik [1] was referred to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban in April, after he spent two months at a prison infirmary, and 83 days at St Augustine's hospital.

Sheriff Baka sent little Miss Hilton home after about 2 days in jail [2] saying that: "The problem here is that there is a medical issue and it isn't wise to keep a person in jail with her problem over an extended period of time and let the problem get worse."