A Brick Path Laying Machine
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Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
Future Tech is already here.
Here are 17 amazing ways technology is changing our world:
The Ratheon XOS 2 is a second generation exoskeleton design for US army use. It allows the wearer to enhance his strength to carry heavy equipment much easier and for much longer.
The world's first virtual shopping center opened in Korea . All the products are just LCD screens that allow you to order the items by touching the screen. When you get to the counter, your items are already bagged and ready to go.
A cell phone you can bend as much as you like and it will still do everything a smart phone does.
Your personal computer ring can play music, check your email, give you alerts and even allows you to browse or chat with others.
This man is demonstrating the ability of his prosthetic eye, which has a camera installed in it.
No longer using the camping stove just for cooking, a new line of camping stoves use the heat energy to power up lights and charge your phones or anything else you can charge by USB cable.
This trash can follows you around and calculates where to stand to catch your thrown garbage!
This motion tracking table morphs its surface to mimic your movements, allowing you to control objects from the other side of the planet if you so choose.
This windowed door turns opaque whenever you lock it.
This incredible app translates signs from video and in real time!
The new 'Google Fiber' has started deploying, and will offer users an internet connection that is about 100 times faster than what they are currently using.
When did car panels start looking like this advanced?
A stop sign using water to project the image
An example of the new E-Ink in action. An ink that stays flat on the page and can be printed but still moves on the printer page.
All of the functions these items that we used 20 years ago...
Are now done by a single smartphone.
New casts can be printed with a 3D printer, are lighter, more comfortable and just as strong.
Bionic hands are now so advanced they can perform even delicate and complex movements.
And it just keeps coming!
The Ratheon XOS 2 is a second generation exoskeleton design for US army use. It allows the wearer to enhance his strength to carry heavy equipment much easier and for much longer.
The world's first virtual shopping center opened in Korea . All the products are just LCD screens that allow you to order the items by touching the screen. When you get to the counter, your items are already bagged and ready to go.
A cell phone you can bend as much as you like and it will still do everything a smart phone does.
Your personal computer ring can play music, check your email, give you alerts and even allows you to browse or chat with others.
This man is demonstrating the ability of his prosthetic eye, which has a camera installed in it.
No longer using the camping stove just for cooking, a new line of camping stoves use the heat energy to power up lights and charge your phones or anything else you can charge by USB cable.
This trash can follows you around and calculates where to stand to catch your thrown garbage!
This motion tracking table morphs its surface to mimic your movements, allowing you to control objects from the other side of the planet if you so choose.
This windowed door turns opaque whenever you lock it.
This incredible app translates signs from video and in real time!
The new 'Google Fiber' has started deploying, and will offer users an internet connection that is about 100 times faster than what they are currently using.
When did car panels start looking like this advanced?
A stop sign using water to project the image
An example of the new E-Ink in action. An ink that stays flat on the page and can be printed but still moves on the printer page.
All of the functions these items that we used 20 years ago...
New casts can be printed with a 3D printer, are lighter, more comfortable and just as strong.
Bionic hands are now so advanced they can perform even delicate and complex movements.
And it just keeps coming!
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Web's About To Get Faster
You may not have heard of Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2, but it is going to make your internet experience a whole lot faster.
HTTP is the protocol used to power the World Wide Web by defining how hypertext (the code in webpages) is to be formatted and transmitted and how Web servers and browsers should respond to those commands. A URL typed into a browser, for example, becomes an HTTP command to the server telling it to retrieve the given Web page.
Currently, the most common version of HTTP in use is HTTP/1.1. The HTTP/2 standard is expected to speed up loading of Web pages by transporting data between browser and server.
The new protocol is backward-compatible with the older protocol, so existing webpages will work just fine. HTTP/2 speeds up web browsing by carrying more data in a single pass with each request to load the requested Web site. This is especially important for smart phone access, which now accounts for about 33 percent of all Web access, up from 25 percent a year ago, according to statistics from StatCounter.
Once the new standards are published, sites and hosting companies can choose to start implementing them.
Google, which was a driving force behind the new standard, will begin implementing it in the Chrome web browser next year. Google developed the network protocol known as SPDY ("speedy") for transporting content over the Web with reduced latency. SPDY serves as the basis of HTTP/2.
HTTP is the protocol used to power the World Wide Web by defining how hypertext (the code in webpages) is to be formatted and transmitted and how Web servers and browsers should respond to those commands. A URL typed into a browser, for example, becomes an HTTP command to the server telling it to retrieve the given Web page.
Currently, the most common version of HTTP in use is HTTP/1.1. The HTTP/2 standard is expected to speed up loading of Web pages by transporting data between browser and server.
The new protocol is backward-compatible with the older protocol, so existing webpages will work just fine. HTTP/2 speeds up web browsing by carrying more data in a single pass with each request to load the requested Web site. This is especially important for smart phone access, which now accounts for about 33 percent of all Web access, up from 25 percent a year ago, according to statistics from StatCounter.
Once the new standards are published, sites and hosting companies can choose to start implementing them.
Google, which was a driving force behind the new standard, will begin implementing it in the Chrome web browser next year. Google developed the network protocol known as SPDY ("speedy") for transporting content over the Web with reduced latency. SPDY serves as the basis of HTTP/2.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
It may just be everything that Windows 8 should have been
Windows 8 was a bold re-imagining of Microsoft's operating system, but the Start screen proved contentious. The colorful Live Tiles offer useful notifications and information, but they were designed with touchscreen devices in mind: much of the work we do in Windows involves keyboards, mice, and large displays chock-full of windows and apps.
Windows 8's Modern apps demand a full screen's attention, oblivious of our need to multitask. The new Windows 10 Start Menu gives us the best of both worlds.
Boot up a PC running the Windows 10, and you'll be dropped off at the oh-so-familiar desktop. The taskbar and its icons sits on the bottom, and the recycle bin sits in the upper-left corner. It looks, at first blush, like Windows 8 all over again.
But press the Start button, and you'll be greeted by the return of the Start menu. It's a proper Start menu too, with your most frequently used apps are stacked in a column. Press the "All Apps" button and you'll find the endless column of nested folders we've all been scrolling since Windows 95, though they're now grouped alphabetically. Sitting alongside that column are Windows 8's animated Live Tiles, endlessly serving up news-bites and social network updates.
[Read it all.]
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The Dangers of Vertical Video Syndrome
Even if you know how to shoot video on your mobile device, you need to watch this. Plus, it's funny.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Windows PCs See Steepest Decline Ever
Readers of this blog will remember that I have been issuing negative predictions about Windows 8 ever since I first saw it. PC Magazine Columnist John C. Dvorak now seems positively prescient with his June 2011 column, "Will Windows 8 Kill Microsoft?" There is growing evidence the negative predictions were right:
Microsoft continues to labor under the impression that instead of listening to what customers actually want, or even what computer experts think computers should actually look like, they can make design decisions based on what business and marketing experts tell them they should be selling.
Let me add a note to all PC manufacturers: PC users don't want to touch their screens! It is one thing to wipe the fingerprints off my tablet once every couple of days. I would really hate to have to clean my laptop or desktop PC that often. And the best way to interact with data on a screen is with a mouse or trackpad.
So let's hope that Microsoft comes out with a replacement for Windows 8 as quickly as they replaced Vista with Windows 7. And, while Microsoft is rethinking its mistakes with Windows 8, it might want to rethink that "ribbon interface" in Office as well.
I have been saying for a decade that I could run Microsoft better than Steve Ballmer. So if anyone in Redmond is reading this, I'm available. Call me.
The market for Windows-based PCs has declined faster than anticipated. According to two independent reports, PCs fell off 11.2 percent to 13.9 percent in the first quarter of 2013 — the steepest decline in the history of the PC.
A 'Worrisome' Decline
According to market research firm IDC, worldwide PC shipments fell of 13.9 percent in the first quarter (versus 1Q 2012) to 76.3 million units worldwide, significantly greater than IDC's previous forecast of a decline of 7.7 percent.
IDC pointed to the launch of Windows 8 as a contributing factor to the hefty decline.
"At this point, unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market," said Bob O'Donnell, IDC program vice president, clients and displays, in a prepared statement. "While some consumers appreciate the new form factors and touch capabilities of Windows 8, the radical changes to the UI, removal of the familiar Start button, and the costs associated with touch have made PCs a less attractive alternative to dedicated tablets and other competitive devices. Microsoft will have to make some very tough decisions moving forward if it wants to help reinvigorate the PC market."Microsoft keeps blowing it with desktop operating systems. Remember Windows Vista? It was supposed to drive new PC sales just as Windows 8 is supposed to now. Only instead of driving PC sales with a new operating system that people wanted to upgrade to, Microsoft tried to force new PC sales by selling an operating system that couldn't run on the PC's that anyone currently owned. People rebelled, and the result was a relatively quick roll out of Windows 7.
Microsoft continues to labor under the impression that instead of listening to what customers actually want, or even what computer experts think computers should actually look like, they can make design decisions based on what business and marketing experts tell them they should be selling.
Let me add a note to all PC manufacturers: PC users don't want to touch their screens! It is one thing to wipe the fingerprints off my tablet once every couple of days. I would really hate to have to clean my laptop or desktop PC that often. And the best way to interact with data on a screen is with a mouse or trackpad.
So let's hope that Microsoft comes out with a replacement for Windows 8 as quickly as they replaced Vista with Windows 7. And, while Microsoft is rethinking its mistakes with Windows 8, it might want to rethink that "ribbon interface" in Office as well.
I have been saying for a decade that I could run Microsoft better than Steve Ballmer. So if anyone in Redmond is reading this, I'm available. Call me.
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