Stormy's Corner

Family tree social networking

This family tree application looks really intriguing - you get to enter in your family tree and as your relatives sign up, they can add to it. Not only can you see all the relationships, you can contact them.

While I don't usually worry too much about privacy on the web, this one actually seems a bit scary. All my relatives and their birth places on the web. And anyone can add the info. I could add it for my whole family without them even knowing. Note that you can keep the information private - it's not necessarily published for the whole world.

iPhone is replacing laptops, not phones

I've been waiting for my cell phone and my laptop to merge. I want something much more powerful than my cell phone but much smaller than my laptop. Devices like the Nokia n80 and the iPhone are coming close. So I found this curious: a new study says that the iPhone is replacing more laptops than cell phones. A third of iPhone owners carry a cell phone too! Many of them Blackberry owners who like the Blackberry keyboard to send email with. The study implied that those iPhone users read the mail on the iPhone and answer it on their Blackberry. That sounds a bit crazy to me - definitely an opportunity for either the iPhone or the Blackberry.

Most importantly for seeing where the iPhone could go - a quarter of iPhone users no longer carry their laptop with them.

Shure headphones

I really liked my Shure headphones that Frank got me for Christmas a few years ago. However, when they broke - or rather just stopped working - I decided to just go back to the default iPod headphones. Not a good decision. The background noise on the BART train and on the airplane yesterday were so loud that I couldn't hear my podcasts at full volume! (I managed to listen to one of my audiobooks on the airplane at full volume - I guess it's no wonder my ears are ringing now.) So I'm buying a new pair of Shure headphones.

These are in your ear, fitted earphones that are noise isolating - meaning they block out external sounds. (Not always safe for running outside but great for noisy gyms, airplanes and airports. At the gym, I can actually listen to my own music and I don't hear the music on the stereo speakers at all.)

They now have earphones that connect to both your audio player and your cell phone. Since I'm in the market for a headphone for my cell phone, I looked into that, but the reviews were terrible.

The earphones come in different levels of quality from 1 to 5. Since I'm not an audiophile and I mostly listen to books and podcasts, I'm getting the 1 version (SE110). (The price difference is substantial.)

Cheap mini-laptop

I bought an ASUS Eee PC last week. I was looking for a very light-weight and yet inexpensive laptop for travel that could run Linux well. I love it. My shoulder loves it.

After having used it on a business trip, here are my initial pros and cons.

The good:

• It's light. Only 2 pounds. I will carry my laptop around more now. (I carried it to dinner when normally I would have gone back to my hotel room to dump it off.)
• It's cheap. I got mine for $350.
• It's small. It doesn't take up any room in my bag and it's easy to carry one handed.
• It runs Linux out of the box. (And for those not familiar with Linux it has a nice graphical menu to launch common applications.)
• It comes on IMMEDIATELY. Hit the button, it's on. (Well, maybe 5 seconds later.) For travel, when you want to take a quick note, or check an itinerary, this is really nice.
• The power cord is also very small and light.

The not so good:

• The screen is small. Like really small. Like my Dell Inspiron 700m screen now seems huge. I didn't really have any problems with it - it just takes some getting used too. I did have to use the mobile version of Google Reader as the regular one was not usable on the small screen.
• The battery only lasts two hours. Luckily the power cord is small so I just carried both and plugged in where ever possible.
• The keyboard took some getting used to. (It's small.) For me the biggest problem was they put the up arrow to the left of the right shift key and shrunk the shift key. I kept hitting up every time I tried to hit the shift key. If you don't like small keyboards, you'll hate this. (Frank doesn't even like my Inspiron.)
• The wireless didn't automatically connect me to anything. I had to manually connect every time I opened the laptop.

I'm enjoying it. For a second computer for travel, it's great. Note that Asus is coming out with a version with a larger screen for an unknown price.

Excellent Digital SLR article

If you are interested in digital photography and have wondered just what those digital SLR cameras are all about, then A Rookie Guide to Digital SLR Cameras is a must read!  I learned a lot.  But beware.  The article managed to do what Frank has not been able to do for years now: it convinced me that we need a digital SLR camera.  The author even recommended the camera and the equipment, so when I have a spare $1600, I know what I'll do with it.  (After I buy my Kindle and iPod Touch.) 

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much on My Man's Man about Frank's awesome meals is because I can't take good pictures of the food.  The exposure and the flash mess them up.  With a digital SLR camera I could get some much better shots.  (I won't say awesome, but much better for sure.)  So here's what I added to my wishlist (at the recommendation of Mike, the author of the article above.)  The links are his:

• Nikon D80 camera: $760
• Nikon 50mm 1.8f lens: $105
• Nikon 18-200mm VR lens: $700
• Hoya Circular Polarizer: $30

Technology enables art - technology doesn't kill art

Reading The Bookman's Wake I stumbled across this passage where the main character is talking about a hand printing press:

Here he had practiced his voodoo, making wonderful things on quaint-looking equipment, just like this.  I felt a strange sense of loss knowing that someday we would attain technological perfection at the expense of individualism.

Just the opposite is true.  Technology enables more people to practice "their voodoo."  A hundred years ago, if I was interested in publishing I would have had to find a publisher, one willing to teach, travel to them, give up my life, apprentice to them, ... just to learn one trade!  Now if I'm interested in publishing, I just google it on the web and in a few minutes I have a ton of information and a lot of free tools to try my hand at it.  Most of us who are interested in publishing and typesetting will probably remain mediocre - mostly because we aren't interested enough in it to pursue it.  But a few will be great.  Same with photography.  Because of cheap digital cameras and photo editing software, we can all try our hand at photography.  Most of us will be mediocre, but many will be good and a few will be great.  Just look at Flickr.  In the days of film and manual photo developing, few could afford to dedicate enough money and time to photography to see if they like it.  Technology enables people to explore lots of art worlds, to try them out and for those that love it, it enables them, it doesn't hold them back.  Technology opens the doors to more potential artists.

Computer display on a contact lens

Part of my dream computer is becoming reality.  (I really want a computer that's part of me like Peter Hamilton dreams up.)

Today researchers have shown that you can add an electronic display to contact lenses. 

In the future people will be able to see a display hanging in the air - just like in the science fiction books.  Nobody else would see it.  Although it will first be used for things like cell phone caller id but could eventually be used for everything you normally see on a computer screen.

You can read more about the initial research on the University of Washington website.

More megapixels is not better

It turns out that more megapixels are not always better in a digital camera.  If you are looking for a compact camera, six megapixels is ideal.  More than that and you get more "noise" since the sensor isn't really capable of collecting that much more info.

Read all about it: Best picture quality with 6 megapixels!

Flickr's new uploader rocks!

If you follow my pictures on Flickr, you know that I'm a bit sporadic about uploading them.  I just uploaded a bunch today with Flickr's new Uploadr 3.0 and it worked great!  Much, much better than the old one. 

• Faster.  Faster.
• You can edit titles before you upload.
• You can edit the tags and privacy settings for pictures individually.
• Once you hit upload, you can immediately start working on another set of photos.
• It didn't drop me once!
• You can work offline.
• It's open source.  (This doesn't immediately buy me anything but it's cool and it means if anything really bugs me, I could fix it.)

The one thing that bugged me is that when I selected pictures to upload, it never remembered what directory I got them from.  Every time I selected pictures I had to navigate to my pictures' directory again.

A quick tip to speed up your computer

A tech support guy gave me a quick and easy tip to make your computer faster:

Remove all the icons on your desktop.

Each time you start your computer - or any application - Windows reads all the icons on your desktop.  If you have a lot of icons, that takes a long time.  All of those icons are probably shortcuts to applications you can also find on your Start menu.

Merry Christmas!

To my regular readers ...

About the ads and anything else you might find annoying on this website ... As you've probably noticed, I use this website to play around with things.   If you love or hate anything in particular, let me know!  If anything interferes in your reading, definitely let me know!

A whole new you with Photoshop

Ever wondered how much a picture could be changed by Photoshop?  Well, enough to lose 100 pounds ...

Lose Weight In Photoshop (makeover) - video powered by Metacafe

Drinks that make themselves cold

We are one step closer to living in a science fiction world.  Coca-cola is supposedly coming out with a Sprite that chills itself when you open it.  The ice is made out of the drink itself so that you don't get a watered down drink.

Bill Gates' thoughts on why we don't give more to charity: we don't know what to do

Bill Gates' graduation speech at Harvard is well worth reading.  He uses it as a call to arms.  As his mother said, "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."  We all need to work on the world's inequalities.  In his opinion the biggest obstacle to giving is complexity, "To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact" and we can't see the solution and when we do we don't measure the impact.  It's not that we don't want to help the dying children of the world - we just don't know how to save them.

Market forces aren't going to solve the world's inequalities - we have to do it.

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it.   We asked:  "How could the world let these children die?"

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

His advice is to spend a few hours every week learning about a problem, meeting others who want to fix it and working on solutions.  So - go save the world! 

How to make your own website with Squidoo

I found yet another cool web service.  This one lets you create your own webpages: Squidoo.  The idea is that you can create a "lens" or a webpage around any topic you want.  They make it easy but allowing you to add lists of links, lists of Amazon products, text, or pictures.  If the website makes money, you get to say what you want to happen with the money.  You can take it in cash or donate it to any number of charities.  Mine is currently going to the Covenant House, a shelter for runaway kids that I volunteered with.

Squidoo did make it really easy to create a web page that looked pretty good.   It was a bit slow though - my first "lens" doesn't have everything on it that I wanted on it because I lost patience!  Check it out, it's on audio books:  Listen for Fun.  Then create one of your own!

Videos of the kids

Here's a video of Caleb trying his bouncy swing for the first time! 

I finally started playing with the video function on my camera and Anita has helped me with editing them.  So here's my first video blog post.

How to share a video on a blog

Here's how to share a video on a blog:

1. Capture a video.  I use the video function on my camera and then upload it just like I do my pictures.  One tip: make the video twice as long as you think it needs to be.
2. Edit the video.  Anita uses Windows Movie Maker that comes free with Windows XP SP2. You might need to:
   1. Shrink the video.  Anything larger than 4-5 MB will take a long time to upload.
   2. Rotate it.
   3. Combine videos.  The one of Caleb in his bouncy swing is actually three videos.  (If you watch closely, you'll see him bonk his head on the door frame and then it cuts to the next video!  He didn't get hurt - it didn't faze him at all - but it worried me enough to stop video taping!)
3. Upload it to YouTube.com.  You'll need an account.
4. Once you've uploaded it, YouTube will give you the code to paste in your blog.  Under "Edit Video Information," at the bottom of the page, there's some code in the box called "Embed HTML."

See the Pictures on Craigslist

For those of you that like to shop on Craigslist, ParentHacks pointed me at a great new website called Listpic.  On one page, it will show you a picture of all the items for sale.  For example, if you look up boats for sale in Denver, you can see at a glance what type of boat is listed in each ad and just click on the ones you are interested in instead of having to read them all.

For those of you not familiar with Craigslist, it's an online classified ads site.  It's taken over the newspaper for the best way to find out what's for sale around you.

How to get others to tag your inventory

There's a really interesting post on the LibraryThing blog about tags and Amazon.  (Actually the post is about why there are so many more tags on LibraryThing than Amazon.)  I really think it boils down to the reason that resonated with me: you spend the time tagging things you own.  Amazon won't let me see my library (even though they want to know which books I own), much less sort my library or my tags or even my favorites, so why spend time tagging an entire building of books if my tagged books just get mixed in with everyone else's?  On the other hand, LibraryThing, and del.icio.us for that matter, let me tag my books or my web pages.  I can then go back and search through my library or bookmarks by my tags.  I have no problem sharing my tags with the world if they are helpful but I tagged them for me.  So I win because I get sorted, searchable books and LibraryThing wins because they get a searchable library for everyone.  (This is different than reviews.  Amazon's reviews have been successful because people like to share their opinions, get credit for them and have their reviews read by others.)

Things I tag: my books (in LibraryThing), my web pages (in del.icio.us), my posts (in Technorati.)

Negative Google Ads Associated with YOUR Name

I ran across something interesting yesterday.  If you search for "Joe Vitale" (the author of The Attractor Factor) in Google, the top two sponsored ads are extremely negative:

• Joe Vitale Sucks www.RichJerkWebsites.com      Don't buy anything from Joe Vitale until you read this.
• I was scammed 37 times Dannys-Scam-Review.com      These websites are absolute scams I will show you the ones that work

Now these are sites that paid to be put at the top when someone searched for "Joe Vitale."  They didn't show up when I searched for Vitale.  Nothing on their websites mentions Joe Vitale and nothing I found anywhere suggests that Joe Vitale is either a jerk or a scam artist.

A couple of salient points come to mind:

• Obviously, these people have found it financially advantageous to buy ads for the words "Joe Vitale" - they are assuming people that have read his book or heard about it might think he's a scam or at least have enough doubts to read their websites.  (I did.  I thought, wow, is he a scam artist, and I clicked on the link and looked for information and couldn't find any but in the meantime I read their website and saw all their ads.)  So these people drive traffic to their website by picking names that people might believe are scam artists.
• Poor Joe Vitale.  These people are making it look like he's a scam artist and as far as I know, there's nothing illegal about it.  The second one doesn't even say anything about Joe Vitale - it just says "I was scammed 37 times" when you search on his name.

I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified.  Luckily when I search on my name there are no sponsored links, good or bad.

Computerless email

As many of you know, I'm a big Ceiva fan.  Ceiva is a digital picture frame that all your friends and family can load pictures into from the web - a perfect gift for someone without web access who wants to see all your digital pictures.  Now they've got another device which sounds just as good.  This new HP device, Presto, is a standalone printer.  People can send email or pictures to it and it automatically prints it out.  I would send my Grandma a lot more letters if I could just email them to her! 

Supervising Kids Online

This article talks about how to keep your kids safe online: Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 11 Steps to Online Parental Supervision of your Children.  It's main point is that you should be actively involved, read your kids blog or web page, comment on it (so they know you read it) and in general watch and participate in what they are doing.

iPods for babies

I love my iPod.  Maybe I should buy these iPod speakers for Caleb. :) Too bad my old iPod quit working.  Picture is linked from Gizmodo.

World Sunlight Map

See what the world looks like right now based on current sattelite data: World Sunlight Map.

Cell phones & kids or is it Technology & Kids?

There's a lot of interesting dilemnas around kids and mobile phones.  When do you get one for them?  Is it ok to track them with a GPS?  (It's definitely tempting!)  But the one raised by this article, the fact that kids might feel dependent on phones, didn't ring true with me. Mobile phones for children: Do we want them? - Crave at CNET.co.uk.

Some day your mobile phone will turn off or will lose a signal, but fortunately for you there was a time when you didn't have one so you won't completely freak out. What about the next generation?

I'm sure there are a ton of things in my life that I take for granted that I might "freak out" if we didn't have.  Here are some things that I realize I take for granted that I'm sure my grandparents didn't:

• running water (ours got shut off for a day with no warning and it was a real pain - at least we could go to the gym to take a shower!),
• electricity,
• air conditioning in my car,
• cell phone (ever left the house without it and then "really needed" it? or better yet, had your SO leave the house without his and not been able to call him?),
• ATMs (the one near my house wouldn't give me any money one day and we almost didn't get Mexican food for dinner!),
• cable modem (I walk around the house lost when it quits working),
• Google (I'd be seriously upset if Google search disappeared),
• Google maps,
• telephone numbers on the web and/or 411 (I tossed all the phone books),
• credit cards, (how would you buy online without them?)
• ...

Yet I've coped without all of these things, a great hardship!, and I'm sure our kids will be able to handle not having a cell phone that works no matter how much of a pain they think it is.

Data and Privacy

Since AOL shared all of its users search data, there's been a lot of discussion about privacy and what we can do at the legal level to protect it.  Laws to protect are privacy are very important.  However, of more immediate concern are the decisions we make everyday that affect our privacy.  I use Google search engine and Google desktop everyday.  Not only is that data saved, but I count on it being saved because I like going back to searches I made earlier.  However, I wouldn't want it shared!

I use del.icio.us as a bookmarking tool.  It's more commonly used as a social bookmarking tool where people share the cool sites they've found and tagged.  Being the first to find a cool new site has a certain social coolness associated with it.  There are tools to share your del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog or with your friends.  However, if I shared mine, you'd have known I was pregnant before anybody but Frank.  Just from reading my blog.  And you'd have known every concern I had.  And every parenting problem I've thought about with Jacob.  And every competitor to my employer that I've researched.  And the answers to all sorts of interesting, and very personal, data.  Lots can be gleaned from someone's searches and bookmarks.

Yet the power of many of these tools are the fact that you can share them.  I rate books on Amazon because then it recommends other books that I might like rated by other users.  The privacy question comes in when I decide what user login to use on Amazon and Amazon decides how much of my data to share along with the rating.

Privacy is an issue that shows up not only in our courts and legislature but in product design and everytime a user signs up for a new service.

Fly with Google Maps

You can use this online flight simulator to actually fly over satellite images of the world.  Goggles :: The Google Maps flight sim. (You can also just scroll over them in Google Maps or Google Earth, but for some reason, this is cooler.)

Google Earth images

Google Earth images are updated every 12-18 months - that's the answer to Why isn't Beirut burning in Google Earth? | News.blog | CNET News.com.

New Digital Camera! Canon PowerShot SD450 Reviews. Digital cameras Reviews by CNET.

I got a new camera!  I've had it for about a week and I love it.  I ended up buying the Canon SD450.  It's about the size and weight of the Panasonic I was looking at but without the extra zoom (it has 3x zoom) and with a viewfinder.  Now that I have it, I realize that with such a nice screen on the back, I'm not likely to ever use the viewfinder.  So next time I don't think I'll make a viewfinder a requirement - that way I could have gotten more zooming power.

What's nice about having a Canon is that all the menus and buttons work pretty much like my old Canon so it was really easy to get up and running.

If you are interested in how long it takes digital cameras to actually take a picture (remember I was looking for a camera that took the picture when I hit the button, not 5 seconds later), CNET has the best reviews.  Click on Review and then on Performance.  Remember to check how long the camera takes to come on, how long it takes to take a picture without the flash and how long it takes to take a picture with the flash.  (A friend of mine has a little Fujifilm and he's really proud of how fast it turns on and takes a picture, but if you use the flash, it's really slow.)

Canon PowerShot SD450 Reviews. Digital cameras Reviews by CNET

Digital Cameras

I've been talking about buying a new digital camera for years now and it's time.  However, comparing the all of the features is difficult.  My primary requirements are:

• Small.  The smaller the better as I'm much more likely to actually carry it around and take pictures.  (If my cell phone camera were better quality it would work great.)
• Fast pictures.  I want to hit the button and have it take a picture right then, not 2 seconds later.

Nice to have would be:

• Easy to use.
• Lots of optical zoom.
• Lots of presettings, like outdoor, close up, etc.

So far I've found two:

• Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z850: Digital Photography Review.  Very small.  Fast shutter speed.  Can take three pictures in a second.
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1: Digital Photography Review.  Small (but twice as heavy as the Casio), fast, and it has all my "nice to haves" but NO VIEWFINDER!  And I always look through the viewfinder. Could I live without it?

Comments?  Suggestions?  Other cameras you like?  Other places to look for reviews?

Sharing calendars: Google Calendar Screenshots

If you are as anxious for the Google Calendar as I am, you might enjoy these screen shots of the Google Calendar, TechCrunch � Exclusive Screenshots: Google Calendar, allegedly leaked by a Yahoo employee who was a beta tester.

I am looking forward to a calendar that allows me to easily share my schedule and invite people that don't use Outlook to events that I plan.

New GMail Features?

The latest rumors say that GMail might get voice mail, Evite integration and a calendaring system.  The one I'm most excited about is the calendar!  I hope it has good sharing capabilities and good integration with existing systems.

� More code foreshadowing perhaps? | Googling Google | ZDNet.com.

Your past through searches

Google recently added a bunch of reports to its search history.  Now I can go back and see what sites I most commonly visit on Saturdays or what things I searched for the most in September.  Oh yeah, in September I was looking for sailing shoes for my sailing class.  Pretty fun stuff.

Google - Search History

Science Friday: Awesome Podcast

My favorite podcast is Science Friday: Making Science Radioactive.  I listen to it (free) for several hours each week.  They talk about everything from embriotic stem cells to genetic testing to apes to hurricanes to string theory.  I always finish wanting to buy the guest speaker's book to learn more ...

Constant Interruptions

There's an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about how interrupt driven our lives are, Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times.  One interesting concept was that we like the interruptions because the make us feel needed:

This can actually be a positive feeling, inasmuch as the constant pinging makes us feel needed and desired. The reason many interruptions seem impossible to ignore is that they are about relationships - someone, or something, is calling out to us. It is why we have such complex emotions about the chaos of the modern office, feeling alternately drained by its demands and exhilarated when we successfully surf the flood.

The article went on to talk about the ways computers could help us deal with the interruptions by figuring out when we were busy (and therefore should not be interrupted) and when might be a good time to deliver all our email.

There was also a study that said that having a bigger computer screen where you could see all your active tasks might decrease your stress and allow you to finish tasks 10-40% faster than on a small screen!

del.icio.us: Another cool tool

Sometimes I think I'm the last one to hear about some of these tools and I wonder how you are supposed to find them all.  Del.icio.us is a website that lets you store all your bookmarks online so that you can access them from any computer. You can also share them with others (anonymously if you want) and search other people's bookmarks by keyword or popularity.  If you use more than one computer it's a lifesaver!

My top web tools right now are:

• Bloglines - a tool I use to read news and blogs
• Flickr - for sharing photos
• Del.icio.us - a tool for keeping track of all your bookmarks in one place
• Gmail - email
• Amazon - books: information, reviews and recommendations

Frustrated with customer service ... again

Maybe I should get a job as a T-Mobile rep.  I know more than the folks that answer the phone.  I called T-Mobile today to ask what roaming cost in the BVI and Puerto Rico.

The first guy told me calls from BVI would be free.  The web said $2.99/min.  So I called back and it took the woman 10+ minutes to confirm that yes it was $2.99/min.  (Took me less than 30 seconds to find it via Google.)  Then she told me text messages were free.  I asked her to check because I thought they were 35 cents/message, and she confirmed, "oh, wow, yes they are 35 cents each!"   (If for any reason you want to check it out yourself, here's the web page: International services.)

Reminds me of the time I was talking to a United rep and he was trying to convince me that the longer trip was better because it had a shorter layover.  (Like I want to sit on an airplane any longer than I have to!)  I finally asked him in frustration if he'd ever flown on an airplane and he said no, he hadn't!

Great Idea but Not Yet: Froogle Mobile

I can't tell you the number of times I've been in a store and wished I could get online for just a minute to do some price comparison or review shoppiong.   Froogle Mobile makes that possible from some cell phones.  Unfortunately, I don't think mine is one of them yet.

Subscribing to Flickr via Bloglines

I just discovered that two of my favorite web tools work together.

I read all my news and blogs via Bloglines.  I share pictures with my friends via Flickr.  Both great tools.  Flickr in particular has a lot of potential.

Now, all my friends and family's new pictures show up every morning in Bloglines when I read the news!  So along with my daily news I also see the most recent pictures of my friends' trips to Oregon and my cousin's birthday party.

Here's how you do it:

1. You can go to any Flickr page (I went to "Photos from Friends and Family") and at the bottom right there is an RSS feed.  Copy that link.
2. Go to Bloglines, my feeds, and "Add a Feed", use the link where it asks for the RSS feed.
3. Then presto!  I can now see all the new pictures my friends add in Bloglines!

Way cool.

Google Earth & Cool Apps

If you haven't yet downloaded Google Earth or been to Google Maps to find something, you are really missing out.  Here's a page that will show you some of the cool things you can do with it, Google Map Directory.  One that I like is Colorado Future, a listing of all homes for sale in Colorado with maps and satellite pictures of the house.

Cultures & Cell Phones

People in Madrid and Paris have been spotted kissing their partner while talking on their cell phones - Londoners?  Never.  People in Madrid don't use voice mail.  (That doesn't surprise me as when I lived in Spain nobody had an answering machine.)  For those and some other cultural insights to cell phone usage, read A mobile tale of three cities - Technology - International Herald Tribune.

Email Cultures

This article talks about how email styles and habits vary between Europe and the US,  Euromail - What Germans can teach us about e-mail.  One thought sums it up: In the States email has replaced the phone; in Europe email has replaced the business letter.  Maybe some day we can find a happy medium ...

Virtual Girlfriends

Tired of searching for the perfect girl on Match.com?  Now you can just sign up for a virtual girlfriend.  For a low monthly fee you can have conversations with your virtual girlfriend, see pictures of her on your phone and send her virtual flowers and chocolates.  For a fee of course.

The New York Times > Technology > Sad, Lonely? For a Good Time, Call Vivienne*.

This did remind me of one of my favorite science fiction books, The Diamond Age, about a little girl who finds a book that becomes her teacher.  The book is really a very complicated piece of technology that adapts and changes to the girls' needs.  I've always wanted a book like that.  Maybe some guys have always wanted a girlfriend like that.  A secret friend who's always on your side.

Talking through Brainwaves

The ability to control computers via brainwaves has made big news in the medical field as it allows people with paralysis to communicate better.  I think this technology also has huge potential for the entire population - it will change the way we use technology.  Imagine having your iPod, Google and wikipedia in your brain, available anytime you had a question.

How To Talk When You Can't Speak - Communicating with unconscious minds. By Clive Thompson.

A way to save on your heating bill

Glass that blocks heat when the outside temperature rises.

USNews.com: Next News: Glass that can sense the temperature outside (8/19/04)

Netflix, Open up or die… - Features - Engadget - features.engadget.com

A great article about how Netflix could be more successful as an online business.

Netflix, Open up or die… - Features - Engadget - features.engadget.com

Get email when your dog leaves the yard

Attach the collar to your dog.  Define the area you think your dog should stay in (i.e., the backyard, Chase!) When your dog leaves that area, you'll get an email that says he's left AND the location where your dog is at the moment.  If this is going to work for Chase, it better send an update every thirty seconds.

The device is supposed to be out by the end of the year and will cost $300 plus a $13 monthly fee.  As to what this means if applied to children is a topic I will leave for another time.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > What's Next: For the Fretting Pet Owner, a Wireless Distress Signal

Robot Vacuum Cleaners

Here's a humorous but informational review of Roomba, the automated vacuum cleaner.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Just Browsing: Self-Propelled, With a Mission: Clean House

Japan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips - News & Technology - CNETAsia

Yikes! Japan and Disney World are starting to tag kids. Anybody who has lost a kid in a crowd, will understand the sentiment behind this. Anyone who imagines wearing one of these things and making their location information permanently available to anyone (parents, spouse, employer, retail stores, government, etc), can imagine how scary this could be.

Are there any rules or laws about tagging kids with electronic tracking devices? Can they get rid of them when they are 18? How would your life as a 16 year old have been different if you knew your parents could tell exactly where you were at all times?

On the other hand, are you more technology saavy than your 16 year old? How would parents get them to buy into this? Lock it to their ankle? Or only provide a cell phone that comes with tracking?

(Note, I know RFID isn't up to universal tracking but the technology to do so is out there.)

Japan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips - News & Technology - CNETAsia

Teleporting becomes reality

Scientists are finally doing the impossible, teleporting, moving an object from point a to point b without actually moving the object, and yet they conclude by saying that teleporting a human is impossible. "I cannot imagine it. As far as I can see, it's not going to happen." You're telling me that people that made the impossible, possible, think that further impossible things are unachievable? Thank goodness for science fiction which will never stop believing the impossible is part of our future.

The New York Times > Science > Scientists Teleport Not Kirk, but an Atom

Wireless at Texas Roadstops

When driving through Texas you will soon be able to check your email at any rest stop.

TxDOT News Release

Smart clothes

Researchers build what they envision as wearable computers

"In the future, such an outfit could diagnose diseases and deliver medications to the wearer, monitor heart rate or blood pressure, deliver interactive games and other forms of entertainment or function as a wearable computer. " And you could download new colors and textures just as you download ring tones for your phone.

How to make a digitial picture frame from an old laptop

Channel9 Wiki: JunktopRevival

Virtual Real Estate

I've been reading a lot about online gaming. The worlds are so real to people that they not only spend hours playing but they spend real money buying objects, homes and even land in the virtual world. You can check out the exchange rate for the gaming currencies on Ebay. Money in Everquest or Sims Online is worth real US dollars!

This article in USAToday, Virtual real estate boom draws real dollars, talks about virtual land in Second Life that goes for $550/acre!

"Your Next Computer", Phone or laptop?

In a recent post I talked about how I think tablet PCs and handhelds like Blackberries and iPods are going to merge. Some day in the future we'll all carry around a small device that is our only computer/music player/organizer. This Newsweek article, Your Next Computer, theorizes that your cell phone will become your next computer.