Tag Archives: tablet

Asus Transformer Prime Enters the World of Amateur Astronomy

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Here is a story of how a Transformer Prime owner used his tablet to take images of the moon.  I also have a Prime and use it to control my mount for astrophotography using this great program from Souther Stars SkySafari Pro (both fro iOS and Android) and the Blutooth adapter that they also sell.  There are a lot of other astronomy programs, both free and for pay, that are available.  Also, there is a great program that will allow you to control your Canon camera from your phone/tablet.  This combined with SkySafari equals a portable astrophotography setup that is hard to beat.  Let me know if you have a favorite tablet/smartphone astronomy program.

– Ex astris, scientia –

End of the App Lock-In?

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As I was perusing my favorite technology blogs regarding, various smartphones, I was interested in the new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) Nokia Lumia 900 reviews.  I noticed that every article mentioned how fast it was on a single core device.  The constant reference to the single core brought out the attorney in me, so I did a little investigating.  It seems that there is no multitasking for applications in WP7.  Not a terrible limitation by any means.  However, I personally have looked at the Nokia and other WP7 phones along with Windows 8 and have no desire to have a Duplo/Lego phone that does more to annoy me than accomplish my work.  Your mileage and preferences may vary so don’t hate me because I don’t like your phone.

That being said, it dawned on me that if the new processors in phone and tablets were powerful enough, there is the opportunity to provide virtualization.  Virtualization on a phone or tablet would allow you to run multiple operating systems.  With the right set of hardware and software, a smartphone or tablet could run all the different segregated Apps.  This would mean a user would be able to run iOS , Android, Blackberry, WP7 apps on a single platform.

Just think one OS to rule all them all.

Is this the wave of the future, buy one, run all?  Or is this just a pipe dream.  Cast your vote in my poll.

If you have any software, hardware or Internet questions, please contact me for a free consultation.