Archive for Technology - page 4

…or a fad.  This movement has been evolving for centuries.

For many people, myself included, the concept of wearable technology – wearables for short – is taking things a little too far.  Do we really need “smart” watches so we can post to social media at any second?  Is Google Glass essential to function in business or socially?  Today, I say “NO”.  But what will be my answer in 2,3,5 or 10 years from now?

For some proper context, let’s go back in time (no pun intended) and look at the early, if not the first wearables: pocket watches.  Precise timekeeping was not commonplace before the medieval period, and I’m sure people got along just fine by observing the position of the sun.  But as clocks became  more and more prevalent, so did timekeeping assume a more predominant role in aiding commerce and organizing a growing and more complex society.  As society progressed, punctuality became not just desirable but inceasingly essential and the pocket watch evolved into the wristwatch.  A person wearing a wristwatch was making a statement that they were a serious, modern, productive person.  Perhaps even a moral person.

So the question may be, does a need drive the technology, or does the advent of the technology reveal a need?  Or indeed create a need?  Certainly in the middle ages when the first bells tolled to mark the hours, someone said “what do we need that for?”.  Then, “why could anyone possibly need to carry (later wear) a watch?” Now fast forward – I know that when cellular phones began to be common in the 1990s, I was a doubter.  Yet today everyone including our children view them as a neccessity.  And so it will likely be with smartwatches and wearable computers.

But didn’t we become slaves to the clock?  Many have argued so.  Have our smartphones evolved from capable servants to unrelenting masters?  The epidemic of people unable to ignore the devices even for a few minutes to concentrate on important tasks such as driving suggest it may be true.  Then what of our newest “toys”?  What hell do they have in store for us?  And what about future as yet undreamed of technology?  What price will we pay for them?

So the new fad isn’t a fad or so new either.  And though I find myself once again skeptical of the new technology, I will no doubt be sporting it myself in a few years.  But must we be damned to losing another little slice of our soul to each succeeding generation of technology?  Sadly, I think this is one question to which I can answer “yes”.

Cross posted at Men Out of Work Blog

Obviously, it’s just a bunch of machines, right?  I mean, what else could it be?  Here’s an article at Wired.com with some pictures of the inside of a large data center in Spain and…yep.  A bunch of machines.  I feel kind of ripped off.  Like the feeling I have when I realize the jet packs and flying cars I so looked forward to when I was a child not only don’t exist, but probably won’t in my lifetime.  Rrripped off.

Of course, I suppose a bunch of machines and wires is better than what might be in store for us if the movies are any predictor of the future.  These hollywood machines run the gamut from murder and mayhem to simple senility and incompetence.  Kind of like me on a Monday.  Let’s look at a few shall we? *Mike levels the .38 and pulls the hammer back*

There’s HAL 9000, the red-eyed murdering monster that knows better than you from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

2001!!  Were they wrong!  In 2001 I had a Packard Bell PC with a 500MB hard drive and a dot matrix printer.  I could easily have kicked it’s ass.  But I digress…In Rollerball we have the less malevolent but rather disorganized and forgetful Computer Zero, where the Corporations that rule the world of the future have hoarded All The Information:

Yeah..try calling Tech Support when that thing springs a leak.  More recently from I, Robot we have VIKI, another violence prone misunderstood do-gooder who (which? that? whom?  Never mind) could be much more efficient if there weren’t so many bothersome humans around:

Probably just angry since she isn’t taken seriously because she’s been given a female name.  *Mike sets the .38 down on the desk*  So I guess we are safe..for now.  But you have been warned!  For in the future…Xbox Kinect plays YOU!

I’ve been reading lately about something called “The Internet Of Things”.  If you don’t know what that means, it refers to the increasing interconnectivity of devices that is  happening today, devices other than typical ones like your computer, smartphone or tablet and your printers.  Some examples that currently exist are your household alarm system, your household thermostat, one or more of your major appliances.  Other examples bandied about for the future are clothes, medical devices and cars.  The interconnectivity of these devices is ostensibly to make your life easier, save energy or save you money.  Or we might say to enhance your life’s “user experience”.  Will having an interconnected world make your life better?  I have my doubts.

According to the Wired Magazine article, “Why Tech’s Best Minds Are Very Worried About The Internet Of Things”, tech’s best minds are..umm.. very worried.  Some of their worries are valid from my viewpoint;  concerns over security or privacy, for example.  Other concerns are PC handwringing in my opinion – developing countries might be left behind!

The Internet of Things is coming. And the tech cognoscenti aren’t sure that’s a good thing.

For years, the prospect of an online world that extends…into wearables, thermostats, and other devices has generated plenty of excitement and activity. But now, some of the brightest tech minds are expressing some doubts about the potential impact on everything from security and privacy to human dignity and social inequality.

And I’m pretty sure if we ever find a cure for “social inequality” (hint: we won’t), it won’t come from the tech community.  Wait a sec…if in the future all human reproduction was done by cloning and all humans came from test tubes and had identical appearance and genetic makeup, that would be technical, wouldn’t it?  Still wouldn’t work.  Never mind.

It is quite possible that in the quest to simplify our lives, we will overcomplicate them.  I can see it coming – I’ll use the example of “the kitchen of the future” since that’s something people of my vintage can relate to.  Antique stores these days are full of kitchen of the future kitsch.

Sales Brochure: In the All Digital Kitchen Of the Future, your appliances are members of the appliance universe!  They talk to each other – they talk to other appliances like them all over the world and learn how to serve you better.  You’ll never run out of butter again!  You’ll never forget to run the dishwasher!  

Sounds dreamy.  In reality, on Monday morning your toaster goes offline and you have to make toast with a bic lighter.  The coffee maker refuses your login request and the password reset email never arrives.  The grocer delivers 200 cases of dill pickles that your refrigerator ordered.  Then you come home from work to find that your auto-chef range has made Lutefisk for dinner.  No thank you.  I’ll stick to analog.

Hey! you kids!  Get your internet off my things!

UPDATE!: Red Button Flaw Exposes Major Vulnerability in Millions of Smart TVs.  Just great!  In the home of the future, TV watches YOU!

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

I haven’t written lately about the diappearance of the Malaysian Airline Boeing 777 for awhile since there was really nothing new to report.  As of my last post, the plane was presumed crashed in the Indian Ocean, with all passengers and crew lost even though not a trace of wreckage has been recovered.   The presumtion of a crash and also the presumed crash location (vague as it may be) have been inferred by analysis of communication signals between the plane and  a satellite done by the satelite’s owner, British telecommunications company Inmarsat.  Authorites have based their search on the assumption that the plane was somewhere within a large area of the Indian Ocean where no possible landing could have occurred when the signals stopped and this assumption was based on the sattelite data analysis done by Inmarsat. Since no trace of the airliner has yet been discovered, outside experts are attempting to confirm Inmarst’s analysis – and they are finding inconsistencies which call into question the accuracy of the analysis that all investigative assumptions have been based on so far – mainly the assumtion that the plane took a southern flight path over the Indian Ocean instead of north toward Pakistan.

Apparently since I am over 50, I am a dinosaur as are most of my family and acquaintances.  I know this is true because when I tell people I know to read my blog, they say “what’s a blog?”  I am so screwed – since I don’t write about Beyonce or Justin Bieber no one under thirty will ever read this and no one over thirty knows what a blog is.  So let me tell you a little bit about how I found out about blogs, became a reader of blogs and then went on to blogging.

I have never thought of myself as an early adopter of technology but I have been using the internet since the early 1990’s.  Thinking about it now, it was the dawn of time.  My chosen portal: AOL, now just a footnote to history.  I started out reading what they called “newsgroups” which were kind of like discussion boards where someone would post an article or website adress, people would read and discuss.  Usually I would “lurk” in these newsgroups, a term that means to look in, read the article and discussion but not participate – if you don’t speak up, no one knows you’re there.  This evolved into general web surfing and a few sites helped fuel that, mainly The Drudge Report (which started out mainly as movie industry news and gossip) with it’s many links to news stories.  Another was Lucianne.com founded by Jonah Goldberg’s mother, Lucianne Goldberg.  It’s still around.  Finally, sometime in the early 2000’s a Radio Talk Show host I listen to named Hugh Hewitt began talking about this new thing on the internet with a funny name.  Blobs?  No, that can’t be it.  BLOG!  That’s it – internet lingo shorthand for weblog.  Weblog = weBLOG = BLOG.  He wrote a book about it.  Anyway, the amount of information and perspectives on information available to me online took a quantum leap with that revelation.  There are blogs about everything you can think of.  I zeroed in on politcal blogs mostly, but also branched out into Law, and Science as well as general interest.  Many bloggers write about other subjects in addition to their area of expertise if they have one.  When 9/11 happened, I started reading the military blogs or MILblogs.  Yes, the blogosphere has covered the War on Terror.  Over the course of years, I came to admire some of these bloggers (whom I have never met, nor communicated with) and at some point decided that imitation would be the best form of flattery.  On the sidebar to the right you will see a heading that says “Some Blogs I Like”:  Click on any of those, they are worth your time.

The subtitle of Hewitt’s book sums up the what Blogging is to me and why I decided to become a participant instead of just an observer:  “Why You Must Know How The Blogosphere Is Smashing The Old Media Monopoly And Giving Individuals Power In The Marketplace Of Ideas”.  I have decided to exercise my power and transform my exploration of life into a creative exercise – and to invite you along.  If you are lurking here, your journey has already begun.  Step into the light, introduce yourself and we can all continue our journey together.

I write about anything that happens to be of interest to me, and the subject matter is varied.  The posts are  in chronological order, the newest at the top – you can keep scrolling down to the bottom of the page and keep going back to view older  posts, all the way back to the beginning of time…err.. when I started this blog in February of 2014.  If you like what I write about some subjects but don’t care for others, look on the sidebar to the right.  You will see “categories”.  All my posts fit into one or more of these categories.  Click on the category you are most interested in, and you will see only posts in that category.  Simple.  Within my posts I often link to additional information and/or another blog or article that inspired the post.  When you see a word in red text, that is a link to additional information.  Click on it and the link will open in a new tab.  Any pictures within a post can usually be viewed in a larger version by simply clicking on the picture.

Please comment! To the left of the title you will see a box with the date and below it a box that says comments.  Click there and a dialogue box will open where you will be able to write comments on the article. This is how I know you’re reading and I welcome all feedback on my writing. You will be asked for your name and e-mail adress but don’t worry!  You can use an alias if you don’t want to disclose your name and your e-mail adress will not be displayed, nor will I spam you.  I moderate all the comments so I will see your comment.

Thanks! and Enjoy!

…Aaand that’s the good news.  It appears to some observers that the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) may have wanted to obscure that fact from the public.  The San Francisco based engineering firm URS corp. was tasked with preparing a revised cost estimate, and complained that they had been “instructed” by the CHSRA to hold estimates to a baseline established in 2012.  URS said in their March report that the new estimate of $7.13 billion, an increase of $.94 billion was accurate and that “in their professional opinion” CHSRA was incorrectly assigning cost increases to a contingency account.  In response, the Rail Authority sent a letter to the firm asking it to revise it’s report, stating that the estimates were “misleading and not accurate”.  That settles it then.

“The  ultimate cost of the Central Valley segment will be determined by many factors not yet known, …which may explain why URS produced a higher estimate”...”It is noteworthy that over the life of a project, as design progresses, there will be several estimates,” the authority said. “A change in one estimate does not necessarily result in a change to our budget.” – CHSRA Statement

Ahh…the “Living Breathing Budget” theory.  The California taxpayer may now rest easy.

….it could also be the last”.  D’oh!  In an article published yesterday in The Independent, Steven Hawking (et al.) lay out some of the benefits to be reaped from the development of Artificial Intellligence (AI) and some potential downdsides:

One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.

It’s a short article and worth your time to click over and read the whole thing.  Go ahead, I’ll wait….back? OK, good.  It seems that some very serious thinkers believe there’s a possibility that if AI is developed, human beings could become second-class citizens to it.  Subjugated by a servant of our own creation – that’s some serious irony right there. But…I wanted to tie this into our earlier discussion of “what makes humans human” and “do animals have rights”?  The answers to those questions are usually decided by “the biggest kid on the block”.  Right here, right now that means humans, people.  What if we get knocked down a notch and are no longer the deciders?  Because in a possible post AI future, machines might be asking the question: “Do living things (humans, “organic beings”, “meat machines”) have rights?  Are we going to like the answer?

I’ll bet this is how it goes down

Dinoasurs like me who have an affinity for muscular cars powered soley by our long deceased dinosaur cousins will have to get used to the fact that the sports cars of the future are going to be driven at least partially by electrons.  Of course, those electrons are still produced by our long deceased dinosaur cousins.  But I digress…

Now BMW has unveiled it’s new plug-in hybrid sports coupe for 2015, the i8.  Gone are the days when a BMW’s model number would tell you the specifics about the car – engine displacement, body style, etc. – apparently this one was named after an Interstate Highway?  No matter.  Autoblog gives us a complete and thorough road test of the $130,000 plus coupe which is powered by a 129 horsepower 96 Kw electric motor up front and a 231 horsepower turbocharged 1.5 liter 3 cylinder gasoline engine in the rear.  My guess is they took the venerable 3 liter six and lopped it in half.  A computer decides whether you get gas powered rear wheel drive or electric powered front wheel drive (or a combination of both) based on settings chosen by the driver and the heaviness of the driver’s right foot.  The tandem power plants deliver a combined 362 horsepower and 420 pounds feet of torque which will propel the i8 from 0-60 in a non-hybrid like 4.3 seconds.  This is due in large part to the coupe’s miniscule curb weight of 3,285 lbs. which translates into a horsepower to weight ratio of a shade more that 220 hp/ton.  Not bad.  And looks – wow!  Like a concept car.  I keep asking where are the flying cars that futurists of the sixties promised us – this one doesn’t fly, but looks like it could (or should).

Impressive design, impressive engineering and impressive performance.  I would expect no less from BMW.  However… as deep as it is in design, engineering and performance, it comes up short in convenience and practicality.  There are no cupholders for the occupants of the front seats (!) and with an engine in the front and the back, there is no trunk for your junk.  BMW has yet to release economy figures.  $130K + seems like a stretch unless you’re just trying to out status the neighbors.  I still think for the money I’d have an Audi R-8.  Screw the environment.

Cross posted at the blog: Men Out Of Work

I write about anything that happens to be of interest to me, and the subject matter is varied.  If you like what I write about some subjects but don’t care for others, look on the sidebar to the right.  You will see “categories”.  All my posts fit into one or more of these categories.  Click on the category you are most intersted in, and you will see only posts in that category.  Simple.  Within my posts I often link to additional information and/or another blog or article that inspired the post.  When you see a word in red text, that is a link to additional information.  Click on it and the link will open in a new tab.  Any pictures within a post can usually be viewed in a larger version by simply clicking on the picture.

click on the picture to see it larger

Please comment! To the left of the title you will see a box with the date and below it a box that says comments.  Click there and a dialogue box will open where you will be able to write comments on the article. This is how I know you’re reading and I welcome all feedback on my writing. You will be asked for your name and e-mail adress but don’t worry!  You can use an alias if you don’t want to disclose your name and your e-mail adress will not be displayed, nor will I spam you.  I moderate all the comments so I will see your comment.

Thanks! and Enjoy!