To heck with industrial robots, or dancing robots or any other kind of robots! What we need is something that will take care of all those chores around the house that no one want to do.  As a first start, a Spanish furniture company called OHEA has created a "smart bed," a bed that can make itself. If the embed code (pun!) works, here's the video ( Read more... )

There are times that reality catches up with science fiction, sometimes in a bad way (think atomic bombs), but other times in a really good way, as in this video on the Washington Post site where a quadriplegic is able to manipulate certain objects using her thoughts. I think this is a fantastic development and a wonderful use of technology. Truly ( Read more... )

A while ago, the folks at Corning glass released a video called A Day Made of Glass in which they illustrated some near-future technology (all using glass!) that they saw us using. It was a pretty cool video and got them a fair amount of attention, but of course, reality catches up with near-future predictions, so they've made a new video called ( ( Read more... )

Recently jongibbs did an excellent post on the cost of ebooks titled “ How much should an ebook cost?”  His post included a poll and elicted his usual plethora of comments.  Between the poll results and the comments, it was clear that what people will pay for an ebook varies tremendously from person to person and from book to book.

But that's okay, because ( Read more... )

Technology is not the only thing that drives change. A lot of it is dictated by economics. eReaders didn't really catch on until they were fairly cheap. Cell phone companies have learned that charging for monthly usage means they can subsidize the cost of the phone, and sexy new phones mean new customers.

The more people get used to digital reading ( Read more... )

Well, because my dog's name is Darwin (for the HMS Beagle! cute, huh?) and this post is about the evolution of computers. The IBM supercomputer known as Watson just beat the pants off of Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in a two-game Jeopardy tournament, mostly because it/he (I think I will say he because IBM gave Watson a male voice) was super fast on ( Read more... )

I just realized I haven't posted all year. Okay, I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Same thing in this case. Actually, I have been sick for over a week with a horrible cold. I thought I was fighting it off successfully, but this past weekend my immune system ran up the white flag, and my body is now occupied territory at the mercy of a ruthless ( Read more... )

In science fiction we often write about the future in ways that show humans triumphing over the limitations nature imposes- living virtually forever, cloning animals and people, leaving the planet, traveling to the stars. And indeed, technology today has advanced enough that it's difficult to remember how far we've come. I certainly remember life ( Read more... )

I meant to blog last night, but instead I am posting this on my lunch hour at work. That's because unlike my house, my office has power. I have to say, going to work is a much more attractive proposition when the alternative is sitting in a house with no AC or lights. Yesterday's thunderstorm/possible tornado hit the DC area hard, and Montgomery ( Read more... )

A couple of interesting things happened recently. For one thing, Amazon, not given to revealing sales data except when it suits them, announced that for the last three months they have sold 50% more Kindle books than hardcover books. No mention was made of how either total compares to paperback books, however ( Read more... )