That Tony Hawk plastic peripheral skateboard elicited groans from people who didn’t want yet another plastic controller in their living room, but you know what? Suck it up, because they’re the future.
There’s a principle in human psychology that promising something and then taking it away is a bigger disappointment than not knowing about it in the first place. Vapourware is the epitome of this for us.
A few months ago, I sat in a think tank with a group of distinguished digital camera experts. We were talking about the future of cameras, what was to come.
iTunes, Netflix, Amazon and even PSN are all pretty good at distributing downloadable movies and music. But all of these data files, as easy as they are to buy, make for a crappy gift.
I, Mark Wilson, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do declare this to be my last gadget Will.
Despite the new HTC Magic, the Sony Ericsson Idou, and Windows Mobile 6.5—which is still not Windows Mobile 7—the Mobile World Congress was a bag of lame. Some blame the economic crisis. I don’t.
This may sound weird, but maybe the children—the future engineers, programmers and techs of our world—deserve crappy gadgets as presents this holiday.
There’s a completely BS article by Fran Foo over at Australian IT today about Google Chrome’s “failure to shine in its first 100 days”. Apparently, according to Nielsen Online statistics, less than one per cent of visitors to Fairfax and News Ltd websites in Australia use Google Chrome. For a start, since when is News.com.au or The Age a reliable metric for how a browser “shines”? I might just go out on a limb and say that the reason 70% of their audience still uses IE is because in many cases they’re completely ignorant about the superior alternatives, while many workplaces also restrict which browser can be used.
Then there’s the line, “Some argue Chrome’s languishing figures could be bolstered if it were pre-installed in computers.” Now, I don’t pretend to speak for Google at all, but considering they have 10 million active users worldwide after just 100 days, I don’t think they’d be describing Chrome as languishing. Seriously, I thought The Australian was meant to be objective.
If there’s one thing that makes me vomit in my mouth, it’s plastic gadgets painted silver.
I’m no memory or brain expert, only barely having the necessary equipment, but this perfect episodic memory post on BoingBoing got me thinking about memory and how technology will alter it in the future.
