Mary Meeker’s famous annual Internet Trends report from this year’s Code Conference
Month: May 2014
Thanks to Jane Hart – an interactive graphic that shows how quickly data is generated on the web.
The Big Think discusses Wearables, and the article hit the nail on the head for me. They are not transparent – they are constant work. They are “more a flashback of your worst Tamogotchi nightmare.” Technology really should only require our attention when necessary, and wearables are certainly not what the article calls a “Calm Technology.” “Wearables only work if you keep wearing them, and studies have found that most people don’t. Half of American adults who own an activity tracker no longer use it, and one third who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. Obviously the reality of wearable computing isn’t as compelling as its promise.”
via Wearable Computing is Not Calm Technology, Yet | Capitally | Big Think.
Ubiquitous technology is here, and it is not confined to computers and smartphones. Prices of radio chips are falling, and its getting possible and affordable to connect things in every day life. Sewer pipes, trash cans, HVAC. Has it gone too far, or are we just beginning? MIT Technology review sees both sides of the emergence of everyday and workplace Internet of Things. “The technology industry is preparing for the Internet of things, a type of computing characterized by small, often dumb, usually unseen computers attached to objects. These devices sense and transmit data about the environment or offer new means of controlling it.”
via How the Internet of Things Will Change Business | MIT Technology Review.
Didn’t realize we’d already come so far. I can’t quite imagine this on the East Coast, but it will be interesting to see. From TechCrunch. “Come September, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will begin granting licenses to select driverless cars and their human co-pilots, which will make it a bit less legally iffy as to whether or not they’re actually allowed to be on a public road.”
via California Will Start Granting Licenses For Driverless Cars In September | TechCrunch.
Many can identify with this – the way plans are made/not made and broken now that we do everything with phones. From Mashable. “The video shows how easily one plan can bleed into another, and identifies three kinds of flaky texters: latecomers (who are perpetually “10 minutes away”), no-shows (who ultimately want to reschedule) and optimizers (who try to wheedle information about an event from the person suggesting it, to determine whether it’s worth their precious free time).”
From Open Culture – an article about a new feature on NPR’s blog. There are so many famous commencement speeches….good opportunity to take a look and see them all in one place instead of searching on You Tube. “On NPR’s blog, they’ve highlighted some of the key takeaways from the long history of commencement speeches: Be kind, dream, remember history, embrace failure, don’t give up, etc. Right above, you can see NPR’s new animation featuring former Clinton and Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett at Pitzer College’s commencement.”
via NPR Launches Database of Best Commencement Speeches Ever – | Open Culture.
For people who haven’t been fortunate enough to try a 3D printer, who just can’t grasp what it will do, or who just want to see some cool ideas, TNW shares some really interesting things that can be printed with a 3D printer. “Here are 10 cool things already being printed in 3D”
via New dimensions: 10 amazing things being printed in 3D – The Next Web.
Vox’s explanatory journalism piece about the new Microsoft Tablet Pro, introduced today. They are, in fact, just making a super slim PC. “But Microsoft’s vision is wrong. Tablets aren’t PCs. Indeed, iPads and Android-based tablets have succeeded precisely because they ditched the complexity of traditional PCs. Microsoft’s determination to make “tablet PCs” is a sign that the company doesn’t understand the economic forces behind the mobile computing revolution.”
via What Microsoft doesn’t get about the tablet revolution – Vox.
TNW profiles one of the newest “Internet of Things” connected home systems. Smart Things want to be very open, but very easy and offer different levels of certification, which = interoperability. “SmartThings founder Alex Hawkinson said in an interview that the company’s vision is to make every home a smart home by creating the easiest, most accessible experience for customers while maintaining an open platform. With those objectives, the startup has its hands full, as ease of use and openness don’t always go together.”
Workplace Learning in the Digital Age 