Technology

Now this is pretty cool.

I came across this device in some random web browsing.  It’s a device that can read RFID chips (tiny microchips that contain ID codes – think digital barcodes) and perform certain actions.

What you do is attach an RFID chip to something, and when the sensor (they give it the unfortunate name Mir:ror) recognizes the ID chip, it does what you’ve told it to do.

From the site:

Examples of use are limitless: show your umbrella to a Mir:ror and it will give you weather forecasts; wave your keys on top of Mir:ror and it will send an email to your loved ones saying that you are back home safe; put your pill box on Mir:ror and it will recall you when you last took your medicine! (their exclamation)

This current product is perhaps a little clunky, but it’s a pretty good idea.  Picking up an umbrella and getting the weather report is a lot easier than launching a browser, entering a website, etc.,

Now if only I could figure out what those figurines are for..

After a bit of a delay, I’ve finally gotten around to posting some images from my trip to Germany earlier this year.

In September, just as I accepted an offer for a new job, I took off to Germany for two weeks.  The trip started in Munich where I met up with Erica, a former coworker from my Intuit days.  Erica, Kathleen (Erica’s sister) and I then spent a few days hut-to-hut hiking in the Alps.

After an overnight train to Berlin, I met up with my father and the two of us visited some old friends throughout Germany: Eta in Berlin; Dieter in Bavaria; and Bill in Ludwigshafen.  We had a great time.

Another in a great series of podcasts..  This one from the Commonwealth Club and a talk given by Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.

Schmidt talks about the opportunities that exist when looking at green technologies.  It is incredibly encouraging to hear him speak – to see business leaders embracing the true opportunities that are out there.  He’s not talking about the environment, he’s not talking about climate change, he’s talking about money and opportunity – language the will resonate with even the staunchest old-school industrialists.

And by the way, it helps the environment, national security, job creation, the economy and so many other concerns that cut across so many American demographics.

Could we see this kind of innovative thinking coming to fruition in the near future?

Listen to it here or subscribe to the commonwealth club on iTunes

One of the trends in software that I’m not that excited about is the contstantly-updating,  minor patch-releasing, weekly pop-up rendering annoyances of modern applications.

Among the worst offenders (in my mind) is Adobe’s Acrobat PDF reader for Windows.  It seems like it’s always downloading something.  Microsoft would be at the top of the list, but it is the operating system, and I recognize the need for windows to keep its security profiles up-to-date.

I prefer the option to check myself for updates and decide myself whether I want to install it.  I’ll do it at my own convenience thank you (especially if it requires a restart).  And for that, I appreciate the option to do it on my own time.  This is how I’ve got Windows set, and any other application that gives me the option.

And so it was, with this attitude, that I finally decided to get around to updating my website photo management software (Gallery).  Ahh, such naivety.  Did I really think that I could simply backup all the files on my website, and the database, and clear the caches, and deactivate the plugins and modules, and upload the new application files, and install them, and configure the installer, and actually get the site working?!

Needless to say it didn’t go so well.  It took me an entire day to get through the whole process of updating the website (oh.. and backing out all of the changes and getting the site back to the state it was in before I started the whole process).  Painful indeed.  But thankfully it was a rainy, nasty Saturday so what else did I have to do?

So once I had the site back to normal, back to the way it was before I tried to update, what did I do?  Oh, of course, I tried again!  Ugh.  Fool me twice…  Thankfully I was a little better prepared the second time (and I made sure my backups were truly backups, not just mocking, incomplete similarities to the original files) and it only took a couple of hours to go through the grating process of upgrading and downgrading the site.

Suddenly, the version of the software I’m using looks just as good as it did the day I first installed it.  What new features could I possibly need?  I think this version will suit me just fine for at least another year, until the pain of this experience has worn off sufficiently for me to try again.

This is pretty wild.  When this originally aired I was still at work so I didn’t have the appreciation of seeing it live but if this YouTube clip survives the piracy police then enjoy.

It’s a clip from CNN where the anchor in the studio (in Atlanta, one would assume, though perhaps New York) is talking to a reporter in the field (in Chicago).  The reporter is being projected into the studio as a 3D representation (basically like a holographic image) rather than onto a video monitor.  It allows the anchor to interact more realistically with the reporter.

I guarantee this will take off.  Yes, it’s currently expensive and requires a large setup, so it’s not viable for any significant in-the-field reporting (I mean, why does the reporter need to be ‘in the field’ for this kind of report?  She could just as well be standing in the studio).  But as the technology improves it will be interesting to see how this will be implemented in other forms.

There are many examples of this kind of new technology being adapted for different uses – one of the better ones is the ‘Matrix’ effect (multiple still cameras around the subject all linked and timed to take photos for that cool avoiding bullets in slow-mo look) being used for professional sports – seeing the quarterback’s viewpoint from around the stadium is pretty cool.

I could easily see this hologram effect being used throughout the news media but think about international meetings or protected witnesses in a courtroom.  What about the medical field (think micro-cameras).  The uses of this are pretty interesting to contemplate.

I’ve never been one of those “Macs are stupid” or “PCs suck” kind of guys.  I’ve always had an appreciation for the Mac design ethic but I’ve also never really appreciated that the way they keep their systems so ‘easy’ is that they so adamantly control every aspect of the user experience.  This in particular has always struck me as a little contradictory – I mean, Apple launched the Mac with an anti-Orwellian campaign and yet here they are keeping a tight fist on the Apple experience.

That all being said, The main reason I’ve avoided Apple products in the past is their price.  For the same price as a Mac desktop or Laptop I was able to build a screaming PC – for $100 less I was able to get a Creative Labs MP3 player with the same specs as an Ipod.

But eventually I caved and got an Ipod and of course loved it.

So, when it came time to buy a laptop computer, I decided on a MacBook Pro.  This is actually the first laptop that I’ve ever owned (the rest being company machines) and I really like it.  My main reason for buying the Mac was that I figured if I get another computer through work someday, it will more-than-likely be a PC, so I might as well supplement that experience with the Mac.  But since loading up photos, music, applications, and preferences, I’ve really started to like it.

.. So much so that I decided to go whole hog.  I’ve spent the last few days converting all of my files over to my new Apple Time Capsule – which acts as my wireless network router and backup storage device.  I can’t believe how well it works!  I’ve never – NEVER been able to get two computers in my apartment to talk to each other before – until now.  So now I can easily transfer files between machines – and even share a printer.  And having the disk drive in the system means that I can wirelessly access my files from anywhere in my apartment (thus negating the limitation of the 200gb laptop hard disk).  But of course, being Apple, it doesn’t stop there.  I can access this hard drive from any internet connection – meaning I can keep just the files I want on the laptop (read: the files I have room for) and know that I can still access anything as long as I can connect to the internet.

It’s going so well in fact, that I’ve also got Apple TV running on my stereo/television.  Again, this solved a problem that I’ve been toying around with since I bought an Audiotron so many years ago. I can now stream my music (in good quality) easily to my Stereo – but in addition I can watch photo slideshows on my TV.  And I can even queue up podcasts (audio or video) and try to stay better on top of all of that content that I’m downloading…

I never thought I’d dive in so fully to the Mac experience, but I’m glad I have.  iPhone here I come