What is going on with these ‘Smart Meters’. Technology is a wonderful thing, but after you watch this video, you may be scratching your head and asking yourself why anyone would want to force you to use a wireless device that could be hazardous to your health.

Here’s an interesting discussion from CKNW about smart meters.

I have had my Motorola Atrix dual core processor for over one week now, and I must say that I have been bitten by the ‘Android’ bug. Through the coming blogs and video casts, I will be sharing my personal opinions about the Atrix hardware, cases for the phone, software, experience and practical real world applications that my wife and I are actively testing. Yes, she got one as well, and that means we can have a great time playing with all of the mobile technology that is now at the forefront of technology. (That means that the tech we’re talking about now will probably be obsolete in a matter of weeks or months)

So, lets start with the story. I was ready to upgrade my Iphone killer (snicker snicker) Hey, that’s what Samsung called it. It was a Samsung instinct, which didn’t kill the Iphone. Heck, it didn’t even give it a cold or the sniffles. The Instinct is a boring feature phone with very limited access to everything. Keeping in mind it’s about the furthest thing from a smartphone that you can get. So, I fully intended to get an Iphone. I really appreciate what Steve Jobs has done with the Iphone. He makes a beautiful, classy well designed device that gives the user a very safe, fun and exciting user experience. Here’s where I started to do ton’s of research, and it confused me for several months. This is my mental step by step process that I used to find the product that I literally fell in love with.

Apple VS Android: Their both great, and you will never be disappointed with either platform, but there are some distinct and thought provoking concepts that may confuse you the same way it confused me. I had my credit card out, and was drooling about buying the Iphone 4, when a friend of mine said ‘why would you want an Iphone when you can do more, spend less and enjoy Android much more’. That was a comment that stopped me dead in my tracks, and I said ‘please explain yourself’, and he did.

He started to tell me differences like: On an Android device, you can update or change the battery within seconds. With the Iphone you have to send it to Apple, and its expensive. I found an extended life battery for my Atrix on the internet for sixteen dollars. The Atrix Android combination can be hard on batteries, and the Iphone is excellent for battery life, but I tend to charge up my cell phone every day anyway. The battery for the Atrix promises to last at least 500 charges, so that’s very near to one and a half years average battery life. For sixteen dollars every 18 months for a battery, I can live with that.

On the Atrix running Android, you can increase the storage on the phone by 32 Gigs. The phone comes with 16 gigs to begin with, so when you put the 32 gig chip into the phone, you now have a total of 48 gigs of space, and for a blogger, that was a huge selling point. With an Apple Iphone, what you buy is what your stuck with. 8, 16 or 32 gig models simply do not have the ability to upgrade memory at any time.

If you need support on the Apple device after one year, you have to pay $35.00 per call for any kind of technical support. With an Android device on the Bell network, technical help is completely free for as long as you own the phone. Three major points that showed an advantage in his first sentence. Then, he started really getting into the other areas that are very different.

Anyone who uses Gmail knows how powerful it is with a word processor, calender you can share with friends and family, rss readers and much more works perfectly with Android because Google who owns You Tube also owns Android, and makes sure that their products communicate with each other both in the hardware and software realm. Another consideration is that Android is open source, and that means that it actually invites competition to drive more aggressive technology markets. Guess who has more apps and widgets now? Android. And Android is activating millions of new devices per week. Sure you can buy a bad mobile device with over 80 handsets to choose from, but you also have the opportunity to do some homework and get a great smartphone that you don’t have to upgrade for a few years.

Android, coupled with the right hardware is fast, and I mean screaming fast. Here is what really turned me to Android and Atrix. Steve Jobs is a genius. Of that there is no question. However, Steve has built his kingdom on his opinion, his personal designs, his dream, his walled garden experience. He protects his property with a vengeance, which he should, but his Iphone is really limited to only one hardware platform for a mobile phone. It’s very proprietary in nature. I ran into this phenomenon when I was working on IBM equipment some 12 years ago. At that time, IBM had what they considered was the best computing platform on the face of the earth. It was called microchannel architecture, and it bombed big time. I’ts because IBM released a product into the marketplace that was so proprietary (meaning that only that company creates, designs and builds the hardware or software) that it died on the vine like a rotten strawberry.

Apple is one of the leaders in usability and intuitive design, but let’s not forget that over 90 percent of all businesses in the world are still run on the Windows and PC platform. Apple will undoubtedly continue to grow and prosper, but have you noticed that the Apple price point is always far above its competition? Some folks would say that it’s because Apple makes a better product, but have you noticed that the Iphone is still made in China just like all the rest of the competition.

Lets talk about Itunes. If you own an apple device, you are going to run into a situation that forces you to use Itunes, period. There is no choice. Itunes can take up allot of room on your hard drive, mobile device or other computer platforms and I have found that Itunes is not that intuitive or elegant to use. You have to import anything you want to listen to or view into your library, then put it into your folders, whereas Android wants to be open about music and video collections and for me, are much less work to use and administer.

Atrix, coupled with Android is a match made in heaven, and I will be telling you much more about this winning combination in the future. Right now, I have to go play with my new superphone. Yak at you later, Uncle Ricky.