One of the great things with Web browsers is that they’re everywhere, so we can use them to compare the performance of widely varying devices, such as a computer and a smartphone.

Of course, it’s not the perfect test. Some browsers are more optimized than others, etc. But it gives you a very good idea of the performance difference between devices, especially since Web browsing is one of the activities we do the most on these devices.

For this test, I have chosen to compare my Samsung Galaxy S (SGH-T959D), my BlackBerry PlayBook and my work computer which runs on your average Core i5 with SunSpider only.

The results are nonetheless fascinating, despite being limited. Perhaps more fascinating is how unexpected some of these are. I’ll let your read on for the surprise.

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An article about how Google is FUBAR recently appeared on ExtremeTech. In typical sensationalism, whenever companies change anything, and more so when it’s self-serving or when it concerns privacy, people go wild, as if business was illegal.

What I’m going to do here is explain my point of view which is that Google’s new privacy policy is not making them “FUBAR”, it’s making them ready for the future.

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Android will dominate the general consumer computing industry and will exist in various forms from refrigerators to superphones everyone will be using and docking into tablets and other form factors such as multidisplay super high definition setups for professional work.

Apple will hold a minor but highly lucrative high margin part of the consumer market, just like it does now with the Mac. iOS will be its only operating system.

Computing will have migrated in large part to the cloud, where Microsoft will be making its primary business with highly integrated cloud systems and tools for Android. Windows for desktops will have ceased to exist.

Computing in general will have been highly simplified and automated. The engineering required to make such platforms work will now be relegated to the likes of car engineering and other high education sectors difficult to access.

The apps phenomenon will have subdued. Excessively fast Internet access and highly integrated services will have rendered them useless the use of apps. Except for informative websites and games, mostly everything will have been replaced by services for use in integrated fashion on Android.

Due to Government intrusion into Google’s business for monopoly practices, much of the services on Android will not be run directly by Google. Microsoft will play a major role, along with Amazon, in running many of these services.

Apple will be close to launching a new disruptive device based on optical peripheral technology; see interactive wearable glasses. Google will have tried to market the technology but will have failed doing so.

A new company from China will be doing the same thing with the interactive optical technology market than what Microsoft did with PCs in the late 90s and what Google did with touch devices in the late 2000s.

Much of the tech discussions will be centered on this new company and Google’s plan for survival.

The problem with Windows Phone is MS’s keeping the hardware requirements low to make it cheaper to produce, while charging high for licenses.

In and of itself this is actually good for both manufacturers and Microsoft. They get to make more money of the OS directly, the hardware manufacturers like Nokia can sell their handsets at much higher margin because they don’t require revolutionary hardware.

It’s bad for consumers though. Inevitably, if you buy the upcoming Nokia Lumia 900, you’re buying a phone with hardware technology dating back from 2010.

Yes, it works. The OS was made to work on this hardware better than anything Android has currently achieved, but ultimately, this is severely limiting for developers.

As Android gets more open and more fragmented, powerful 2012 quad-core beasts like the upcoming Galaxy S III from Samsung are going to offer more development opportunities and a better platform for mobile computing, especially with the improvements seen in Android 4.0.

Win32 is a set of APIs for Windows, also called the Windows API officially because they refer to 16-bit and 64-bit architectures of Windows as well. With Windows 8, this API, which is central to the development of apps on Windows, is going to be replaced by WinRT (Windows Runtime).

This new set of APIs is designed for tablets and touch-first devices and will work with both Intel’s x86 and ARM microprocessors. Essentially, Win32 is being phased out and will probably disappear in versions following Windows 8, just like DOS eventually did. It’s already confirmed Win32 will be missing from the ARM version of Windows 8.

What this means is that we are right in the middle of a huge migration in computing. And with migrations like these often comes the rise of certain to the demise of others. Such was the case for Microsoft when the computer-in-every-home revolution happened. But will it be the same now?

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Edit: After announcements of policies regarding the publication of Metro-style apps that use the new WinRT API, some of the things originally written in this article no longer apply as it is clear Microsoft is looking at Windows 8 in a different light. Edits are added in italic.

I have heard multiple times now, especially from Mac users, that a hurdle Windows 8 will have to overcome is getting rid of its classic interface and legacy software. Apparently that is a problem in Windows 8.

My take is different. I believe the classic UI and legacy support is core to the success and brilliance of Windows 8. That Microsoft is ameliorating Explorer and the Task Manager is not bad news. It’s simply brilliant.

According to Steve Jobs’s own words, the current PCs are trucks, and it’s time to create compact cars for the majority of the population. If the PC is a truck, then the iPad is a compact car, and Windows 8 is a crossover SUV, although is it clear from the looks of it that this is clearly not what Microsoft intends. Rather, I think Microsoft is looking to make a variety of cars with Windows 8, rather than just a compact car, but certainly not trucks, SUVs or even crossover SUVs.

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With smartphones and tablets taking the computing industry by storm, the talk of operating system war has never been so hot. Like in the early 90s, we’re again seeing a plethora of platforms trying to grab the crown, from burgeoning new comers to aging oldies, in a ruthless fight.

A lot of talk goes into the merits of the individual platforms, but at the end of the day, it’s a fight of ecosystems. The platform’s success is not directly dependent on its merits, such as its ease of use or features, but moreover on the ecosystem of software and hardware that supports it.

For example, it’s difficult to explain the success of Windows by simply outlining its features. After all, when Windows first became popular, it was in a lot of ways inferior to competitors. Yet, it managed to grab market share and leave behind everyone else, mainly because it supported a larger ecosystem than its competitors. There are many reasons this happened, but in general the ecosystem factor is largely a domino effect. If you’re in the right place at the right time with the right combination of factors, you’ll create a domino effect that’ll push every other platform in obsolescence in a very short amount of time, regardless of external factors.

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In an effort to enhance the knowledge of the video-making community, I have compiled a list of all true 16:9 video resolutions, including their associated standard when applicable, as well as when the resolution is dividable by 8, which is useful for limited video encoders. The table goes up to 1080p and includes the common resolution for 27 inch 16:9 computer monitors and Super Hi-Vision.

If you’ve ever worked with SD content, you’ll notice that no resolution in here fits the DVD standard. That’s because DVDs were originally made to comply with the NTSC broadcasting resolution, which is a non-square pixel standard using the resolution of 720 by 480 pixels, stretched to accommodate either 4:3 or 16:9 content, never producing a true 16:9 resolution.

Interesting Mathematical Observations

While every simultaneous multiple of 16 by 9 generates a true 16:9 resolution, those dividable by 8 are only generated every simultaneous jump of 128 by 72 pixels, which is the lowest true 16:9 resolution to be dividable by 8.

* Stats from StatCounter
* Some numbers are rounded for purposes of clarity

Looking at Web browser usage statistics over a year gives very interesting insight on what the landscape of the Web may be in a few more years.

For example, the following statistics can be observed:

Over a period of one year, Internet Explorer has been losing an average of 0.755% market share per month, to end at 45.44% market share in February 2011. If the trend continues, by 2014, Internet Explorer market share should have dropped to only 18%. Continue reading →

Back in March of 2010, you might have been reading The Man in Blue’s post on Flash vs HTML5 performance with quite a bit of disappointments, with news that even Flash 10.0, the current release at the time, was as much as twice as fast as HTML5′s latest.

Read-on to see if this is still the case

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