Personally I enjoyed the show as sort of light, escapist end of the world fantasy.  I’m not sure how much longer they could have carried it off though, with the reconstruction of the USA coming into play.  Something more along the lines of Damnation Alley is more my style.

Technorati Tags: scifi, jericho, television, fans, culture, geeks, a boy named skeet

AG: When your development team moved from concept to a beta product, how much emphasis was given on green computing versus functionality? Where there any sacrifices that were made in the name of power consumption?

Gregoire: Our team works creatively and diligently to develop the optimum technology solution for our target market. By selecting the VIA chip set, we got an amazing low-power platform that uses less than 10% of the electricity consumed by a traditional PC. With open-source, we were able to really optimize the software for our specific hardware platform. The conclusion is that we can provide a very compelling environment with all the applications consumers needs and they work perfectly well.

AG: I imagine that this product has brought in a good deal of interest. Are you seeing interested parties from the open source side as well as home consumers and non-experts?

Gregoire: Yes, we are seeing a tremendous level of interest from the open source community as well as home consumers and non-experts. The open source community appreciates our effort in leveraging their labor of love to benefit a wider population. In return, we have sponsored a few open-source projects.

The consumers appreciate our effort in providing an affordable, hassle-free, and eco-friendly computing experience, which also appeals strongly to educational institutions, small and medium businesses, and environmentally responsible organizations.

AG: The toughest sell with this may be ownership. In the past people have viewed their computers like they view their cars – as their own, where they control how much computing power is available and keep their files locally. How are you addressing ownership and privacy?

Gregoire: Zonbu customers own their Zonbu PCs and their files regardless of where they are stored. We don’t sell a rent machine. We sell a service.

And we think that customers are more and more used to pay for monthly recurring service such as mobile phone, Tivo box, Netflix subscription.

As for the privacy, before backing up their files on the online servers, Zonbu encrypts them with the strongest encryption algorithm. We also think that consumers are more and more ready to store their files in the cloud because they value the advantage they can get from it: they can access them anywhere anytime.

AG: This is clearly a good product for those families or individuals looking for a second or third computer. How do you feel about the growing trend of computers in almost every room of the house? Do you see this or future products playing a major role in this?

Gregoire: Zonbu is committed to satisfying our customers’ needs and wants through nonstop innovation. We definitely plan to offer products and services that support the growing trend of multiple computers in a home.

Our recent addition of a built-in WiFi as an option for Zonbu Mini is a clear example of us supporting this trend.

AG: With a desktop pc now available from Wal-Mart for $200, how do you plan to keep Zonbu competitive? Are you looking at adding additional services through your subscriptions in the future?

Gregoire: I think that it’s worthwhile to take a closer look at the $200 Wal-Mart PC:

- First, I’m not sure that it’s as green as they claim. How can you be a low power machine if you use a noisy 300W power supply? Do they have any EPEAT rating so far? Do they have a take-back program?

- Secondly, I’m skeptical about the innovation they offer. This PC seems to me like an Ubuntu distro with a green background and two GMail/Youtube shortcuts on the desktop. I would be very happy to see which innovation they have introduced, which patches they have sent upstream to the open-source projects, how they thank Canonical (the editor of Ubuntu) of doing all the work for them.

- Thirdly, this OS is mentioned as an alpha product on their website, so I’m wondering about the true stability of their product.

That being said, this move enables to pull a few interesting conclusions:

- Open-source is reaching the mass market and it will certainly grab a significant share of the desktop market.

- Everex (the hardware manufacturer of this PC) is once again at the leading edge of the market by offering a low-cost Linux system.

Our positioning and mission are a little bit different. Affordability is important but we also want to tell to our future customers: “with Zonbu, you get a fully managed PC for a small monthly fee. We are ready to take care of the hassle of managing your PC. You don’t need to worry any more about all those problems. And we are providing a full set of unique features like remote access and collaboration.”

Thanks to Gregoire for his time and to all the folks at Zonbu for their hard work and for putting out a product that’s open source, Earth friendly and fun as all get out to use.

Technorati Tags: zonbu, zonbox, linux, green computing, gregoire gentil, linux, open source, hardware

Back in June I reviewed the Zonbox from Zonbu.  This neat little solid state computer was energy efficient (read: green) with a solid subscription service.

Now you can get one of your own!  Here’s where you can purchase them and choose from a subscription plan.

While the books not due out until later in the summer (I can’t wait, by the way) I thought an interview with one of the authors would help to keep the hoards of Lego fans satisfied until this book is available for general consumption.

Without further ado, I bring you an interview with Ulrik Pilegaard, one of the incredibly nice guys who wrote Forbidden Lego.

What was the first interesting creation you made from Legos that didn’t come with a set of instructions or from a kit?

I was crazy about building cars with front wheel steering and rear wheel suspension. That was before LEGO made a spring so I remember I used rubber bands to make the rear suspension work. Later I found out that a spring from a ball point pen actually worked great when sitting on a LEGO Technic cross axle. So when I started at LEGO I just had to build a mega 18 wheeler with steering on front and rear wheels, air-suspension all over and a giant trailer to carry whatever I was going to build the week after. I think it was about 3 ft. long.

What would you like to see built entirely from Legos that no one has ever attempted before?

I like everything mechanically clever and since the book has a paper-plane launcher I would love to see a machine that can fold a plane out of a piece of paper…maybe I should try to build that myself!

Have you ever personally been injured by Legos? I only ask because my daughter has recently discovered my Lego stash and I find myself navigating a mine field of Lego bricks.

Sure! Growing up with tons of LEGO sets my mom even took into account when picking a carpet for my room that it should be relatively easy to see LEGO pieces on it! Steeping on small parts is not fun! Working at LEGO I have had some close encounters with cross axles when cutting them with pliers! That’s pretty dangerous.

Do you use any sort of computer program or CAD/CAM when creating your designs?

Only for the building instructions. When coming up with ideas I use pen and paper first to sketch some concepts down and when I have a solid direction I start to build. If you isolate the different functions and try to solve them one by one you’re going to get to the goal a lot faster. Then there’s a phase of combining every subassembly in a clever way at the end.

If I were to acquire a small swimming pool filled with little, detached Lego people heads, could I coax you to dive in?

Sure! Since I know how it feels to stick my hand in a bucket filled with LEGO parts I’m sure a pool filled with small heads would be quite therapeutic, I might want to wear goggles though.

How much time did you and Mike Dooley spend on writing Forbidden Lego? I’m hoping there will be a follow up book, can you give us any hints as to whether there will be or not?

Coming up with all the models and projects in the book probably took about 3 months, the text evolved over 4-5 months and the graphics was done in a couple of weeks. The most time consuming part of the book was definitely the building instruction. That does not explain the 5 years the book have been on its way though. That’s a whole other story. J

I would love to make another book and since LEGO recently came out with a new Technic motor set it’s not unlikely at all.

Do you prefer to design and build your Lego creations in silence or do you have music on in the background? If you do, what type of music do you listen too while you create?

When I was working at LEGO every builder had their own radio and we luckily agreed to the same station. So as you can imagine it was kind of loud everywhere! I like a lot of different stuff all the way from classic rock, lounge, and jazz to heavy-metal!

Are you a Windows, Mac or Linux user?

I have been using Mac for the last 15 years since there was a time when the Mac was the way to go if you where doing graphics and using certain vector based programs. Now I am using a Windows machine at work to run CAD programs. At home I have 2 windows machines and one Mac.

Could you ever see Legos falling in to the wrong hands, perhaps an evil genius, who would use them as a cheap way of manufacturing an army of Mindstorm robots to conquer the world? If so, do you think any of your projects featured in your book would be used? Would you be willing to design some Lego counteroffensive devices for the world if that were to happen?

Ha ha! Doctor Evil…well, he would have to withstand the power of the HVALP-D project from the book. It will dispense LEGO plates at a rate no evil genius can cope with! The name is kind of funny; High Velocity Automatic LEGO Plate – Dispenser. We named it HVALP because that means puppy in Danish and seemed like a fun internal joke at the time. <grin>

Technorati Tags: lego, forbidden lego, no starch press, interview, swimming pool full of disembodied lego heads