Good Tech, Bad Tech, Cool Tech

Last week the annual Consumers Electronic Show happened in Las Vegas. As usual, there were thousands of whizzbang gadgets that will never hit the store shelves. Car makers were out in force with devices to tech-up new cars and take our minds off of driving. Hundreds of toys, games, bots, and tablets were on display, but almost no PCs. The buzz is that PCs are so yesterday.

According to Cisco, 1 trillion devices will be connected to the Internet in 2013. Interesting note that Apple iPhones only made a bit over 14% of smartphone shipments during the last quarter of 2012. How far it has fallen from leader of the pack.

TVs - Of course, there was a plethora of 4K and OLED TVs that are amazing in clarity (4k is four times the definition of your HD TV, OLED is same definition as current HD, but much better quality), size (up to 100 inches), and price (up to thirty+ thousand dollars). Only thing small on them is the width of the screen at just 23mm. Samsung introduced a TV that can display two shows simultaneously. The 3D TVs that were supposed to be the next best thing to sliced bread last year were said to be dead on arrival this year.

Here are a few of my other observations:

Bad Tech, iPotty 

This is a training potty for youngsters with an ipad to distract them while they are supposed to learn what to do on the potty.

Cool Tech, Papertab - a tablet as flexible as paper and has a 10.7in plastic touchscreen display

It is as thin as a piece of paper with a fully interactive plastic touchscreen display. The tablet is powered by a second generation Intel Core i5 processor and aims to replace the need for paper. A few phones and pads will have bendable screens in the not too distant future. This technology has been discussed for a number of years, but finally has reached the demo stage and it is impressive. Samsung, who has been outselling Apple three to one has this 'Youm Flexible Display'. Awesome!

Dumb Tech, HAPIfork - This little device starts to vibrate if you are eating too fast.

Good Tech, Leap - My personal favorite (and I will be getting one when they come out in next few months) is a $69 sensor from Leap Motion that enables full control of PCs or other devices using hand and finger gestures.

The 3D motion control technology has the ability to track the movement of the user's hand (including all 10 fingers) at 290 frames per second, tracking movements to 1/100th millimeter. It will make any screen react as if it was touch screen, so you do not need to go buy a touch screen.

My observations and prognostications for the next few years: ubiquitous wireless everything, smartphones getting larger toward the 5 - 6 inch sweet spot, smartphones as the universal controller for everything from TV to stoves to robots, Apple needs a new device to remain competitive, the mouse will begin to go the way of the PC as new technologies, like touch screen and Leap become more common, personal privacy is dying faster than the rotary dial telephone, devices controlled by the mind are progressing beyond games and will continue to go mainstream, smaller proved to be not better as we went too small with phones, thinner is the new 'better'.

Wordology, Junkie

Early heroin users supported their habits by collecting and selling scrap metal, hence the name ‘junkie’.

Happy Birthday to You

AOL Time Warner owns the copyright of “Happy birthday to You” and will do so until 2030 when the copyright expires. For this reason movies often use different songs, which are not in copyright or are owned by the studio for birthday scenes. AOL Time Warner earns over $2 million per year from royalties for the song.

Three Types of Burn Relief

Milk is an excellent compress for minor burns. Soak the burned area in milk for about 15 minutes or apply a milk-soaked cloth to the area. Whole milk's fat content soothes burns and promotes healing. Of course, rinse your skin and the cloth in cool water after or the milk will begin to stink.

A less known option is to use Preparation H, the hemorrhoid treatment cream for treating minor burns. Pat it on the area and you can reduce a few days off the healing time. This is because it contains a yeast derivative that speeds healing.

The most common option is to use cold water to soothe a new burn. However, using ice water can risk making the burn worse, because extreme cold can kill just as many skin cells as extreme heat. Cool water will stop the burning from spreading through your tissues and will act as a temporary painkiller.

Pantone Colors 2013

Pantone has chosen Monaco Blue as the top fashion color for spring 2013.

Other shades listed on the Fashion Color Report include: Emerald, Dusk Blue, Tender Shoots, Lemon Zest, Linen, Poppy Red, Nectarine, African Violet and Grayed Jade.

Wearable Drums

Here is an interesting concept bound to upset all those around.

It is a functional drum set built into a t-shirt. The drum pads on the front of the shirt let you tap out a beat using your fingers. The shirt also comes with a mini amplifier that clips on to your pants. It is cheap way at $29.99 to irritate everyone in close proximity. The one redeeming feature might be to start drumming when the irritating person next to you starts loudly talking on their phone. LINK

Happy Friday

"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

It is common for me to have an uncommonly Happy Friday!

New Moon

With the first new moon of the year coming today, January 11, here is an interesting moon fact. Have you ever wondered why the Moon looks bigger on the horizon? Well, it turns out it’s not because it is closer to you or anything of the sort. It’s an illusion, known as the Ponzo Illusion. What’s happening is actually something that your brain does all the time. The lines are the same width, but the converging lines trick our brain to make the further line appear larger.

Think about what happens when you see one of your friends on the horizon. Although they appear to be really small, your brain doesn't     actually interpret them as being that tiny. Something similar is going on with regards to the Moon. Your brain inflates the size of the Moon to make it appear larger than it really is. Don’t believe it? Next time you’re looking at an over-sized moon, block everything else out with your hands and watch it shrink.

Dead as a Doornail

Many years ago, doors were built using only wood boards and hand forged nails, the nails were long enough to nail the vertical wooden panels and horizontal stretcher boards securely together and protrude out the back.

By pounding the protruding point of the nail over and down back into the wood it was almost impossible to pull out and said to be dead. It was called dead, because it could not be used again. This technique was called clinching the nail.

So the saying dead as a doornail became to mean can't be undone. Also clinching something means finishing it.

Shampoo Myth Debunked

Speaking of dead as a doornail, hair products, like shampoo and conditioner are mostly useless and cannot physically change your hair. The hair that is visible on the human body is dead hair and live hair is beneath the surface of the skin. Nothing you add to the visible hair can actually make it healthier. Also, no hair products can repair split ends.

Some hair products may add the artificial appearance of shine or color and for most, that is sufficient.

Computer Generated Books

The first book completely written by computer was published in 2008, in Russia and was a love story.

Now, Philip M. Parker, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD Business School, has created a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes. The patented algorithm has so far generated hundreds of thousands of books. Amazon lists over 100,000 books attributed to Parker, and over 700,000 works listed for his company, ICON Group International, Inc.

Although his work is more of a compiler rather than writer, the end result is written and published books. The book categories include specialized technical and business reports, language dictionaries, rare disease overviews, and crossword puzzle books for learning foreign languages. They are automatically generated by software.

The system automates this process by building databases of information to source from, providing an interface to customize a query about a topic, and creating templates for information to be packaged.

A US patent was issued in 2007. The invention provides for the automatic authoring, marketing, and or distributing of title material. A computer automatically authors material. The material is automatically formatted into a desired format, resulting in a title material. The title material may also be automatically distributed to a recipient. Meta material, marketing material, and control material are automatically authored and if desired, distributed to a recipient. Further, the title may be authored on demand, such that it may be in any desired language and with the latest version and content.

To avoid copyright infringement, the system is designed to avoid plagiarism, but the patent aims to create original, but not necessarily creative works. In other words, if any kind of content can be broken down into a formula, then the system could package related, but different content in that same formula.

I looked at a number of the (expensive) books and they follow the same formula of headline lists followed by scores of reference sites. The problem is, as with all printed material the content is static as the world moves on. Think of the books as Google searches as of a specific date and time.

Wordology, Idiot

This word has its origins in the ancient Greek word idiōtēs, meaning a private person, a person who is not actively interested in politics. The word is now commonly used to mean someone of relatively low intelligence.

It seems to have come full circle from its original meaning. Because of the word’s negative connotations, ‘idiot’ slowly changed how it is used today. Ironically, many people now use that word to describe politicians, who are always interested in politics. 

Third World Countries

They are not primitive, underdeveloped, or poor, as many believe. A third world country is just a country that is not considered a capitalist country (first world) or a communist country (2nd world). The terms “first world” and “second world” virtually disappeared from usage after the fall of the Soviet Union.
 
The terminology came about just after WWII with the “first world” countries that were aligned with the United States common political and economic structure (capitalists). Second world countries were those that aligned with the Soviet Union in terms of their political and economic structure (communists and socialists). Third world countries were the rest that were not aligned with either, whether poor or not.

Correct term to refer to poor or underdeveloped countries is “Developing World”.

Pacemaker Origin

Wilson Greatbatch was working on a device that would record human heart beats when he accidentally inserted an incorrect resistor. It ended up perfectly mimicking the heart’s rhythm and led to the first implantable pacemaker.