Wired Magazine posted an online article yesterday focusing on the many patents that Apple owns. One of Apple’s new patents is a system which creates a vacuum that sucks the glass screen down tight against the hardware when the device’s accelerometer senses that the iPad is in free fall, which helps protect the glass screen for shattering upon impact.
This is great and all, those Apple engineers are amazing, but could Wired have used a less creepy finger in their publicity photo?
The other day Karin and I went to Chili’s for dinner. Once we were done perusing the oversized menus which were plastered with pictures of their popular offerings (I’m guessing so the illerates can point and say, “I want this one”) and had placed our orders with the over-exhuberant waitress, I excused myself to go wash my hands.
It turns out that the restrooms at our local Chili’s are equipped with all manner of “automatic” hardware, so all one has to do is wave their hands in front of the devices to activate them. At least that’s the theory.
Standing in front of the sink, staring at a mirror badly scratched by repeated keyings, I waved my hands under the faucet and…nothing. “Hmm, I must be doing this wrong,” I thought, and proceeded to wave my hand underneath the spigot once again, then both hands, then angling my hands, undulating them up and down and back and forth. Still nothing.
But finally, with a bit of luck and abnormal contorting of digits was I finally able to cooerce that fickle sink to turn on and give up its watery goodness.
With hands washed I turned to the grab a paper towel, only to discover that it too was automated. I waved my wet hands in front of the device but nothing happened. I waved them underneath, and still nothing. Perhaps the sensor was on the side? Nope. What if I waved one hand on the bottom, one of the top, and whistle the them song to The A Team while jumping up and down on one leg? Nope, still no paper towel.
I then muttered a curse under my breath, bitterly admitted defeat, and wiped my hands on my pants on the way out the door.
Nothing makes me feel less like a human then being ignored by restroom accessories.
Some people might consider trawling the internet for hours on end to be a waste of time, but I beg to differ. The internet is a bottomless trove of information, and I’m constantly amazed at how much knowledge the human mind is capable of retaining and regurgitating at a moment’s notice. With so much information at our collective fingertips I firmly believe that we’re on the crest of a wave that, when it eventually breaks, froths and merges with future technologies, it will usher in a state of near-enlightenment for all mankind.
Before the advent of the internet most of us were forced to hunt down information in places called “libraries”, where one was force to “check out” books and return them within one week or pay a “late fee”. Oftentimes the required books were not on the shelves, whereupon you would beat a hasty retreat to a “book store” in hopes of purchasing the needed reading material. If the “book store” didn’t have what you were looking for you could order a book at the counter then wait for days before your order arrived. When it did arrive you then had to drive back to the “book store” to pick up your book.
Cumbersome, I know, but that’s how we rolled back in the day.
Nowadays the internet can answer just about any question from the comfort of….well, just about anywhere. No need for a Dewey Decimal system. No concerns about not being able to check out the “referrence” books from the library. Need to know who won the Battle of Hastings, what the Proclamation Line was all about, or even who was victorious at the ’94 World Series? A quick Google search and you’ll instantly have your answers.
The amount of information online is intoxicating and addictive. So addictive in fact that I find it difficult to go an entire day without logging in. Again. And again. And again. I feel a sense of disconnect when I can’t get online, like I’m missing something, and that’s probably a sign of sickness. But, like a junky, I can quit any time I want…just not today. I need just one more fix.
I find it hard to imagine that my son will grow up not knowing a world without the internet. The internet will be ingrained into his life, it will open doors for him that I never could have expected, and it will help to make him smarter than I could ever hope to be.
In fact, it will be so ubiquitous that I’m sure some day he’ll even be able to identify all of the memes that there ever was at a glance:
The Navy has been zeroing in on one of the most feared and sought after weapons of all time. Long the staple of video games and movies, the railgun is one step closer to becoming a reality.
Instead of using explosive or chemical propellant, the railgun is powered by an electromagnetic current that spins an object around an enclosed course, then releases it when the desired speed is met.
With this test, the Navy has proven that they can accellerate a slug at MACH 7 (8,000 km/h or 5,000 mph), and can now hit a target more than 100 miles away:
Current railgun technology can launch a 1-ton object 13 miles. With this new test, imagine the force of a 1-ton object moving at 3,300 miles an hour and you can imagine the amount of damage that can be caused.
My one question, with all of this new military technology being worked on is, where is my hover board?
