Wesley's Tool-Box

Everyone's talking about the much-rumoured, and now much-talked-about Apple tablet, the iPad. Let me have my take on the device, relating to how it'll play out in Korea.

1. The 3G-enabled version will cost you $30/month on AT&T's network

The deal includes free use of AT&T's WiFi hotspots as well. This means it could be used practically anywhere with persistent internet connection. Plus, the device is unlocked out of the box, and the deal does not need a contract. KT, which introduced iPhone to its cellphone network in Korea, should follow this model, and match or best the pricing, although the price range for unlimited data is strikingly similar to what KT already offers for its Wibro modems. Which leads to my next point...


2. Apple plans to roll out the 3G-enabled model internationally around or after June

KT had been rumoured to be in talks with Apple to bring out a new Apple device by June, and everyone speculated that it'd be iPhone 4G. Well, looking at this iPad's planned timeline, it seems that the device in question was really iPad, not iPhone. Talks about iPhone 4G should be taken over by how KT should roll out 3G-enabled iPad in Korea, namely what sort of data plan it should introduce.


3. Pricing and app compatibility shows that it's targeting the netbook market

The base model with WiFi and 16GB storage is tagged at $499, which is about how much a mid-range netbook runs for these days. Meanwhile, iPad chose to be compatible with iPod instead of Mac. Mac's presence in PC market is insignificant, but iPod/iPhone platform is the biggest player in PDA/smartphone application market, so it seems logical that Apple wanted to ride on that wave.

Netbooks rely on PC (mostly desktop Windows) apps, but because of the poor performance, they are mostly relegated to casual web browsing. But iPad will absorb the responsive and lightweight apps developed for iPod/iPhone, so the choice to forgo desktop apps will pay off well. If iPad was a tablet version of Macbook, they could never have made the price point, nor the battery life (iPad will run for 10 hours on single charge), making the device an odd man out, much like how the previous tablet PC attempts turned out to be.

Another thing I'm expecting iPad to be huge in Korea is this - with the introduction of iPhone, a flurry of internet banking, day trading, and online shopping apps are soon to come out for the platform. Due to the special nature of the 'Korean internet', those things have not been possible for the most part on Macs, and the platform was largely neglected. But iPad will ride on the back of the iPhone, realizing the dreams Korean Mac owners had for years.


4. iPad is touting a new form factor in portable game console market

This one is a bit ambiguous. iPhone has lots of games that make the platform a good competitor to Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. iPad can make use of those games, as well as new games targeted specifically for itself. But to play a game holding a tablet the size of an A5 sheet? I'm not completely sold on the idea yet. I hope the game developers will come up with some innovative ideas.


There you have it. Looks like I'll be getting one in half a year, after I sell my notebooks.

Point-and-shoot digital cameras have reached the end of the 'megapixel race' at around 12 megapixels, giving you a photo with the resolution of 4000x3000. One of the reasons for this peak is that the typical image sensors used in this class can produce only around 10 megapixels of actual data at best, and even less with internal post-processing applied. As a result, camera's 'actual' resolution will be far less than 4000x3000, even if the 'output' resolution is that large. Increasing output resolution any higher without better sensors would be no better than doing a digital zoom - bigger picture without more detail.

A smart shopper would therefore avoid blindly following the megapixel number on the spec sheet, and instead check the sensor size as well as the actual sample images posted in independent product reviews. In many professional reviews, an ISO 12233 Test Chart(partly seen above) is used to check the actual resolution of a camera. DPReview has been extensively using it.

So, why am I talking about this 'actual' and 'output' resolution today? I carry a nice compact digital camera - Kodak Z1085 IS - and an excellent smartphone - iPhone 3GS - with me at all times. The image quality is good for the given class, and they have the maximum native output resolution of 3648x2736 (10MP) and 2048x1536 (3MP), respectively. But I suddenly got curious as to what their actual resolution would be. Unfortunately, searching the internet did not come up with any resolution testing - it was time to do a little testing of my own...

요즘 폭설과 맹렬한 추위 때문에 전력수요가 무진장 올라간 상태입니다. 언론에서는 전력낭비가 심하다면서 절약을 종용하는 기사도 흘리고 있고요.

하지만 여러분은 전력수요 폭등에도 딱히 뭔가 전기를 쓰는데 느껴지는 게 없을 겁니다. 정전이 되는 것도 아니고 말이죠. 그건 저희 회사에서 전력수요에 따른 공급량을 정신없이 맞춰주고 있기 때문입니다.

이게 잘 되려면 '버퍼'에 해당하는 '예비율'이 있어야 하는데, 지금 그 예비율이 사상최저로 떨어진 상태입니다. 그래서 비상이라는 것입니다. 보통 10% 이하로 떨어지면 안 좋게 보는데 어제 6.1%까지 떨어졌습니다.

Rain and snow tend to slow down the traffic a bit, so I need to be prepared for that. I headed out to the bus stop about an hour early just so that I can beat the snow that's been falling since early morning.

Well, it seems that the massive snow blizzard effectively stopped all traffic in the nearby area. I waited about an hour in the freezing weather, but the cars on the road won't budge. My bus had been coming around a few hundred meters up, but never made it to my bus stop, as far as I was concerned. I reported the situation to the workplace and filed a half-day leave.