techNOcool

James and I had a conversation last week about how things have changed over the years. He was looking at the world Sydney and Jay are growing up in, technologically speaking, and comparing it to the environment Louise and Tom grew up in, or he himself grew up in. We thought it would be fun to have some online conversations about this.

So I'll start things out with a confession.

And here it is: I have a track record of being extremely shortsighted when it comes to predicting future technology. The examples I will present of this are mostly from my very young days. Maybe now I have enough life experience and wisdom to be more farsighted. Maybe.

Example #1: For twenty or thirty years I have been agreeing with predictions that one day our entering college students would not be able to read an analog clock. That hasn't happened yet, and at this point I'm not sure it ever will. But it still seems like it should, given how few young people wear watches these days, preferring to use their cell phones to keep track of time.

Example #2: Back in sixth grade, we were having a discussion about the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention". It occurred to me during that discussion that all the inventions had happened already and that there were no more to look forward to. After all, we had electricity, cars, indoor plumbing, heat. What more did we need? I thought this was sad, that I wouldn't be witnessing the dawn of any big inventions.

Example #3: Back when "Get Smart" was a new TV show, I used to enjoy watching it for all the outrageous gadgets. But one gadget was just SO over-the-top that I had trouble suspending disbelief whenever it appeared. It was the Shoe Phone. Oh, the fact that a phone was in a shoe I could handle. But there was NO WIRE. And it would ring when Max was ON THE STREET. I knew that could NEVER happen.

So there you have it. Proof that I stink at predicting future technology. But that won't stop me making more predictions.

Care to join me? Where do you think things are going in the next ten or twenty years?

Posted by Susan Fenton at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I recently read some reviews regarding electronic pen devices, and in a fit of fiscal flippance, went out and bought zPen. (I insist on referring to zPen as zPen, because it's made by a French company. The irony is awesome. I wonder if zName was given to zPen knowingly....)

zPen is pretty cool. There's a USB clip that clips on to any old standard paper tablet. You turn it on and then use zPen like a normal pen, writing on the actual physical paper. When you need to turn the page, you unclip the clip, flip the page, and then re-clip. This tells the clip you've gone to a new page, which is a great feature.

It comes with viewing software that just prints or saves to pdf. It also comes with handwriting recognition software that is an admirable attempt, but handwriting recognition is always a neat idea in theory, never in practice.

I've fiddled with both pieces of software and the viewing software is probably all I will use. However, it will allow me to store my hand-written notes on my PC as pdf's. That's freaking cool, and that's why I bought it. I NEVER refer to hand written notes. This, I might use. The handwriting recognition works surprisingly well, if I write neatly enough. I'll explore that and maybe report back if I change my mind on handwriting recognition.

Plus, the thing doubles as a 1GB USB drive, so what the heck.... It's just replacing the pen and drive I was carrying around in my pocket anyway...

Posted by Jason Ramsey at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The other day my daughter wanted to play with the marble on my desk. The marble was actually a mouse ball. So when she dropped the 'marble' on the walk home it chipped. As she never saw a marble chip so easily she asked why it happened. I tried to explain what a mouse ball was. That didn't go so well cause none of the mice we have at home have them.

Is a balled mouse the new rotary phone?

That being said I thought I would share this goolgle search for obsolete technology.

I particularly like the wired article's section on telegraph. STOP

Posted by James Fadden at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)