Technology
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Your Robot Sucks: The State of Robotics Today
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on April 25, 2010 by admin in Technology
Sunday, April 25th, 2010At last, technology has enabled us to create a robot with the reasoning and communication skills of a two year old that walks like a ninety year old man trying to limbo.
It was Arthur C. Clarke that said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Which somehow shines a light on how much we’re all like spoiled little children when it comes to our expectations with technology. If it isn’t free and relatively glitch-free (like, you know, the internet and stuff), we’ll be submitting our negative reviews in a nanosecond. A truly revolutionary and amazing device like the iPad is created, and before it’s even available to purchase, we discard it as “nifty, but not quite good enough”, like Goldilocks sampling the porridge. I’m more guilty of this behavior than many people I know; just read my Disappointing Technologies Part I and Part II to learn what a whiny baby I really am. My latest technological ennui was caused by trying to look into the state of robotics today. We’ve touched on the Uncanny Valley and cool robots a few times over the last couple of years, so I thought it would be exciting to revisit things in 2010. Well, I’m not the only one yawning. Don’t get me wrong, I have some understanding of the incredible research, engineering, and testing that goes into creating a robot that can’t talk, listen, or reason at the level of a human two year old and walks like a ninety year old man trying to limbo. It’s just that I don’t care. I want my lifelike human companion with encyclopedic knowledge and advanced shoulder massage skills, and I want it now. Below is a video roundup of the cutting edge in android technology today. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Facebook Over?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 18, 2010 by admin in Technology
Sunday, April 18th, 2010There are still no animated sparkly unicorns saying “THANKS FOR THE ADD”, but it IS “gettin’ all MySpacy up in that biach”
I was a little surprised – especially given the recent launch of Buzz – that Google didn’t seem to think so. Doing some quick googling, I found a lot of two and three year old pouty blog posts like this and this that seemed to reflect the writer’s ennui or desire to be ahead of the curve more than anything else. Or articles from the Washington Post or New York Times that likewise seem more a reflection of a narrow demographic’s hip intellectual consumer restlessness, always wanting the next big thing before the current one has run it’s course. Personally, I think the fact that the 35-54 crowd on Facebook grew 276% in 2009 is a resoundingly loud answer to the question “is Facebook over?”, at least in terms of being hip. The first person who friended grandma should get a special award as the vanguard of the paradigm shift. But is Facebook “over”? I hardly think so. It managed to pull off something we don’t see too often in the tech world: it became a utility. If your network of friends is anything like mine, Facebook managed to dislodge e-mail, texting, and casual phone calls for informal communication in pretty short order. What I have seen in terms of user exodus though, is a certain type of person (myself included) that exhausted the “classmates.com” aspect of Facebook that helped us re-connect with old friends, and then grew tired of the “fun” sort of communication that Facebook engenders. We’ve found most of our old friends, we figured out which ones are worth reconnecting with, and now we’d like a better platform for staying in touch. As anecdotal evidence I’d offer the several dozen LinkedIn requests I and my friends have received over the last couple of months. I secretly hope that the Facebook crew will recognize this, and figure out how to retain users like us. Because although there are still no animated sparkly unicorns saying “THANKS FOR THE ADD” it IS “gettin’ all MySpacy up in that biach”, as a friend joked recently. Mostly thanks to all the late adopters who only recently figured out why no-one had friended them on MySpace for a year. Facebook isn’t going away any time soon, but I’m looking for a change if it doesn’t evolve in the ways I need. What about you? Read the rest of this entry »
Please Notify Kin’s Next Of Kin
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 12, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, April 12th, 2010The marketing of Microsoft’s new KIN may miss the mark in about a dozen ways, but at least it got the tech press talking about something other than the iP… PHEW! That was close.
Because even though it was born just today, we’re not sure how long it has to live. It’s rare that I’m utterly dumbfounded by the release of a tech product. But if you’re as perplexed as I am regarding what to think about Microsoft’s Kin, perhaps we can learn something together as I try to dispel my ignorance. There has been a quiet buzz about the product’s release for some time now (as codename “pink”), but today was the official rollout. Such as it was. According to available press materials, the Kin is targeted at “social networking-savvy teens and twenty-somethings”, but if you were aiming at this market, wouldn’t you want to roll your product out by having somebody like Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers pitch it, as opposed to a guy with a pot belly in a form-fitting shirt who – if you are a twentysomething – probably looks like your dad? The video below from Microsoft’s own press site blows it six ways to Sunday. It’s embeddable, but uses Silverlight; it’s presented by two fortyish guys who keep talking about their proposed market as “they”, sounding most of the time like their proposed market is a demographic they made up based on their ignorance and then created by looking for certain results; and it’s…well, BORING. I don’t think the device and related concepts are so far off the mark; I’d LOVE a phone that eases my transitions from social networking to web and e-mail to phone. And I mean one that isn’t the iPhone. But the promise of this sort of thing is inevitably so interwoven with the service that makes it work that I can’t imagine the Kin’s partnership with Verizon delivering all of this at a useful price. If you find the actual Kin site as annoyingly “hip two years ago” and cryptic as I did, Engadget has an expansive and thorough roundup of the product that puts all the pieces together. Which I think bodes poorly for the Kin, you really should be able to explain a product in a sentence or two if you’re marketing it to attention-impaired millenials. Read the rest of this entry »
Up Shit Creek Without An iPaddle
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on April 5, 2010 by admin in Technology
Monday, April 5th, 2010The tech blogs are being pretty hard on the iPad, but it’s an amazing device and probably has dozens of alternative uses that no one has even DREAMED of.
Poor, poor iPad. I was just joking the other day that ephemeral internet micro-celebrity Chris Crocker (of LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! fame) should do a new version on behalf of the iPad. Well, that didn’t take long. Anyway, I explained early on why I won’t be buying one, and assembled an extensive list of iPad alternatives for you, but I don’t HATE the thing; in fact, if I had more money and less work to do, I would totally buy one. It’s a fun and amazing device, and I’d love to have one for travel. Or bedtime. Or the bathroom. But try telling that to the tech/business press. They’ve only found one use for the thing – mopping the floor with it in their articles. Yesterday, Business Insider’s Jeff Jarvis shared that he really hates what apple is trying to do with the ipad (the headline’s different today, but look at the URL). He talks a lot about how it’s a retrograde, choice-limiting device (a common sentiment amongst techblog influencers), but he also has a great insight about how publishers like the New York Times are only on board because they “are deluding themselves into thinking that the future lies in their past”. Which probably IS one of the bigger problems it faces, because it’s almost certain that no one wants the expensive newspaper apps it offers. Besides, the irony of paying to read this NYT piece about how books are greener than the iPad might make your head explode in a sort of Hasselhoffian Recursion. So regardless of the negative spin the poor little iPad is getting in the tech press, it probably has a lot more potential than we realize. Although it can’t be used for feminine hygiene, it will change the world of fashion. And since it’s blendable (and cheap), you could buy two and make daiquiris with one, while using the *other as a serving tray , ala Pee Wee Herman. More images and clips below. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes It’s The Little Things – The REALLY Little Things…
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 30, 2010 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Software Catastrophes, Cosmic Rays, Nanotech & Your Fleeting Memories
 The ISO warning sign for ionizing radiation is probably scarier than the radiation itself |
…like neutrinos, nanoparticles, and your failing memory. No, I’m not referring to the fact that because of your ongoing stimulation overload that you’ll immediately forget most of what you’ve read in this article and the links it contains. I’m referring to things like cosmic rays, nanotechnology, and data loss. It used to be that things like soft errors in your computer caused by things like cosmic rays or math errors in Intel processors would only make your rocket crash or oil rig sink or something, but now, it’s getting personal, and affecting the accelerator in your car. Either that or Toyota is getting desperate. Which in any case got me thinking about how we think of digitally stored and manipulated information as somehow perfect and eternal, when nothing could be farther from the truth. As well as the the aforementioned catastrophes (see more here) there’s the fact that your memory isn’t what you think it is. Your digital memory, that is. Aside from the occasional hard-drive crash (if you’ve never experienced one, I’m happy for you) there’s the rather limited longevity of CD’s and DVD’s. Although we think of them as a very reliable form of long-term data storage, the discs you burn probably only have a reliable life of 2-5 years. And although commercially burned discs have a much longer predicted life expectancy, even they are prone to disc rot and decay. And with device makers moving away from hard disc drives to solid state drives, the longevity of your personal computer’s data will diminish a bit too. At least the data will be a little easier to tote around while it’s dying. So you may as well enjoy the moment, because as cosmic rays help your data decay, they may be slowly killing you as well. Never mind the 50 trillion neutrinos passing through your body every day, it’s the gamma rays you have to watch out for. Or the nanoparticles. Or if you’re Arthur Firstenberg of Santa Fe, there’s the neighbor’s wifi to consider.