It’s less than two weeks until The Force Awakens hits the theaters. The promotional team has been doing a bang-up job of building advance buzz, with everything from product tie-ins like two flavors of ice cream to getting Pentatonix to do a medley of Star Wars music alongside a 75-piece orchestra at the American Music […]
Tag Archives: sci-fi
Book Review: The Martian, by Andy Weir
Saturday, September 26th, 2015 – 1:28 pm
In something of a departure from my previous themes of web/software development and political/cultural issues in tech, I’m doing a book review. Given that it’s The Martian, it is something that that’s likely of interest to geeks… but as time goes on, I may branch out even more. What I’m saying is, this coyote’s tracks are […]
“That’s So… TwenCen”
Saturday, October 27th, 2012 – 4:23 pm
A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work, my attention was caught by the SF Examiner‘s headline, about a local political scandal. It seemed like something out of The Front Page. Alternative weeklies still seem to have a place (though I can’t put my finger on why), but I suddenly looked at the institution […]
Portable Computing UI Redux: Editing Photos While Walking Downtown
Saturday, April 21st, 2012 – 11:50 am
One thing Instagram’s done for me (or to me): It’s made me much more prone to editing images on my phone. Which means I now have more data on the real-world equivalent of Charles Stross’ speculative incident in the beginning of Accelerando: [Manfred is] standing in the plaza in front of the Centraal Station with […]
Before You Can Talk About the Singularity, You Must Define It
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 – 8:56 am
If you think about technology, and where it may be taking us, it’s impossible to ignore the idea of the Singularity. But if you’re going to talk about it at all, it’s best to start off by defining just what it is you mean. Different people are using the term for a few different concepts […]
Easy Restarts Are a Security Feature
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 – 7:09 pm
The more stuff you have open (or habitually leave open) in an application, the more it becomes part of your consciousness, an extension of your mind. For many of us, the question “What are you doing right now?” could best be answered by, “Here’s a list of the tabs I have open in my web browser.” […]
Augmented Reality vs. Low Tech — Ready? Fight!
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 – 9:18 am
I’ve written before about augmented reality, Sixth Sense, and so on. Here’s a question: Is this really augmentation? As augmented reality takes hold, we’ll have more and more people wandering around looking at their smartphones’ screens rather than what’s actually in front of them. The smartphone delivers some extra information, of course, but it imposes […]
What Would an Ideal Portable-Computing UI Look Like?
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 – 10:51 am
Right now, the question of what you need in a mobile computing platform is most often phrased in terms of “Do you need a netbook or a full laptop? Or perhaps one of the new high-end smartphones will manage?” I think the question isn’t one of capabilities as much as it is a question about […]