NASA Concludes Attempts to Contact Mars Rover Spirit
Spirit
Jan. 3, 2004 - March 22, 2010
R.I.P.
I thank our gallant military this Memorial Day. But I also thank the tech that has gotten us where we are today.
Hug a Vet. You know they deserve it.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Google Wallet and the new economy
New Google Wallet Will Face Stiff Competition
End of Cash? First blog in a series examining the pending doom of minted coins and printed banknotes
The links above are from Singularity Hub and Communities Dominate Brands, respectively.
So, what is Google Wallet, anyway? In uninformed layman's terms, your cellphone becomes your primary source of making payments for anything you purchase in a brick & mortar store. But as Singularity Hub points out, Google isn't the only company attempting this. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and the rest are all jockeying for position. Google just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and got the ball rolling.
So what can it do for me? I've seen the future, folks. And it's not as scary as you may think! I'll offer an extreme case scenario, which I've also mentioned in comments on both the above links. With your phone now acting as your source of payment, you have opened up a new world of possibilities. Many of us play online games now. Either via XBox, Playstation, Wii, or good, old fashioned browser based gaming sites. And we rack up points, rewards, virtual cash, or any other digital bits that have an agreed upon value in physical reality. I'm speculating that Google will eventually offer to keep track of that value for us in it's Wallet program. So what? Ah, then life happens!!
You need to get a loaf of bread and a quart of milk from the local corner grocer. Your total comes to $6. But you know you only have $2 in your bank account. BUT! You have 15,000 points from your game playing. You have 2500 credits from the local casino. You have 2500 in gold from WoW. And you have $L3000 from Second Life. Your phone becomes your currency exchange, and instantly calculates the value, and debits each account accordingly when you tap your phone. You've paid the $6 to the cashier just that easily, and go home to have lunch!
This is life changing, folks. Yes, it's not going to happen instantly. But it doesn't need to. Automation is slowly taking over our jobs. So we've been building up massive amounts of points in gaming in our own downtime. By the time that robot comes knocking at your own employer's door, the wallet system will have been established. That will give us the extra cushion to tide us over until our next jobs.
Virtual coupons. Loyalty card programs. And gaming points. The American dollar might be tanking, but that doesn't mean that we have to go down with the ship. You can buy Euros, gold certificates, or any number of viable globally recognized monies, and deposit them either physically or virtually in your bank. It all gets sorted out via the Wallet system.
As for me? I'm heading to SL after this post. I need a loaf of bread!!!! :-)
End of Cash? First blog in a series examining the pending doom of minted coins and printed banknotes
The links above are from Singularity Hub and Communities Dominate Brands, respectively.
So, what is Google Wallet, anyway? In uninformed layman's terms, your cellphone becomes your primary source of making payments for anything you purchase in a brick & mortar store. But as Singularity Hub points out, Google isn't the only company attempting this. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and the rest are all jockeying for position. Google just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and got the ball rolling.
So what can it do for me? I've seen the future, folks. And it's not as scary as you may think! I'll offer an extreme case scenario, which I've also mentioned in comments on both the above links. With your phone now acting as your source of payment, you have opened up a new world of possibilities. Many of us play online games now. Either via XBox, Playstation, Wii, or good, old fashioned browser based gaming sites. And we rack up points, rewards, virtual cash, or any other digital bits that have an agreed upon value in physical reality. I'm speculating that Google will eventually offer to keep track of that value for us in it's Wallet program. So what? Ah, then life happens!!
You need to get a loaf of bread and a quart of milk from the local corner grocer. Your total comes to $6. But you know you only have $2 in your bank account. BUT! You have 15,000 points from your game playing. You have 2500 credits from the local casino. You have 2500 in gold from WoW. And you have $L3000 from Second Life. Your phone becomes your currency exchange, and instantly calculates the value, and debits each account accordingly when you tap your phone. You've paid the $6 to the cashier just that easily, and go home to have lunch!
This is life changing, folks. Yes, it's not going to happen instantly. But it doesn't need to. Automation is slowly taking over our jobs. So we've been building up massive amounts of points in gaming in our own downtime. By the time that robot comes knocking at your own employer's door, the wallet system will have been established. That will give us the extra cushion to tide us over until our next jobs.
Virtual coupons. Loyalty card programs. And gaming points. The American dollar might be tanking, but that doesn't mean that we have to go down with the ship. You can buy Euros, gold certificates, or any number of viable globally recognized monies, and deposit them either physically or virtually in your bank. It all gets sorted out via the Wallet system.
As for me? I'm heading to SL after this post. I need a loaf of bread!!!! :-)
Monday, May 23, 2011
ART FROM INNER SPACE - Descartes Wheels
Occasionally I find something that really throws me through a loop. Art From Inner Space is today's ringer The piece is called Descartes Wheels. Specifically? The end line "He thinks, therefore I am." I need to grab something to drink and crunch that one for a while.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Robot vending machines, again!
I must be ahead of my time. Here's a link from SingularityHub.com about Pepsi Cola's newest social vending machine! Yeah, a social vending machine! Here, I've been ragging about Coca Cola doing this, and Pepsi sneaks up on me and does this. It doesn't talk, per se, but it's a HUGE step in the right direction! At least somebody is listening to me. (I think).
Thursday, April 21, 2011
What if...
I'm an eternal optimist. I still like to tinker around with online 3D worlds. You would think that after being burned, I'd stay away from the stove. Yet the allure of Virtual Reality tugs at my curiosity. My newest attraction is IMVU. I'm still learning it, of course. But I'm also reacquainting myself with Second Life, Moove, Active Worlds, and 3D Planets. Not to mention Gaia Online, and Neopets. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. If I was into quests, I'd probably be doing WoW and Entropia, as well.
All this sudden activity got me to thinking. Wouldn't it be great if people could just create a single 3D home that all of the virtual sites could access? It would probably be a base portal for any world you wanted to go to. But it would be game/platform independent. It can be as big or as small as you needed. One room or a dozen. And the best part would be that it can be accessible in mixed reality. Put on your HUD, and the home is sitting where ever you put it in physical reality. Most likely, in a public location specifically zoned for AR applications.
It kind of gives a new meaning to the term "home page".
All this sudden activity got me to thinking. Wouldn't it be great if people could just create a single 3D home that all of the virtual sites could access? It would probably be a base portal for any world you wanted to go to. But it would be game/platform independent. It can be as big or as small as you needed. One room or a dozen. And the best part would be that it can be accessible in mixed reality. Put on your HUD, and the home is sitting where ever you put it in physical reality. Most likely, in a public location specifically zoned for AR applications.
It kind of gives a new meaning to the term "home page".
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Life Happens
It's been a busy world since I last posted. Egypt ousted its president, Muammar Gaddafi has been shooting up his citizens in a civil war, and of course, the earthquake and terrible tsunami in Japan.
In local news....
I probably shouldn't joke. Life happens. I have some things going on with myself right now. Other than to say that, I don't need to go into details. Everyone experiences problems occasionally. It just happens to be my turn. At my age, I've been in rough spots before, so I know I'll get through this.
In local news....
I probably shouldn't joke. Life happens. I have some things going on with myself right now. Other than to say that, I don't need to go into details. Everyone experiences problems occasionally. It just happens to be my turn. At my age, I've been in rough spots before, so I know I'll get through this.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
AR comes another step closer.
I'm usually a week behind in most news, so you may have already read this press release. Vuzix has demonstrated it's latest HMD glasses, called "Raptyr". Here is a news story with a picture showing the prototype. What makes these special, is that they're finally achieving true see-through functionality.
Right now, the tech industry is in a mish-mash of hardware offerings. The biggest buzz right now is 3D television. So all the research is going into making eyewear that you can watch 3DTV with. As far as I know, Vuzix is the only company that is still actively pursuing augmented reality eyewear. But what concerns me is, ironically, that the TV industry is trying to get away from using glasses! It's not a bad thing, but that just makes Vuzix that much more a fish swimming upstream.
Another thing that concerns me, is enthusiasm has already peaked for augmented reality. It's a mixed camp. The majority of people that were early adopters on smartphones have reached the "ho-hum" point. Some have already written it off as "just like that dumb VR stuff". Granted, I've been critical of the pace of development of HMDs. But if the tech is to mature, I think the companies that have been in the forefront of AR need to throw some support behind Vuzix. They at least have the momentum going forward to get us where we want to be.
Right now, the tech industry is in a mish-mash of hardware offerings. The biggest buzz right now is 3D television. So all the research is going into making eyewear that you can watch 3DTV with. As far as I know, Vuzix is the only company that is still actively pursuing augmented reality eyewear. But what concerns me is, ironically, that the TV industry is trying to get away from using glasses! It's not a bad thing, but that just makes Vuzix that much more a fish swimming upstream.
Another thing that concerns me, is enthusiasm has already peaked for augmented reality. It's a mixed camp. The majority of people that were early adopters on smartphones have reached the "ho-hum" point. Some have already written it off as "just like that dumb VR stuff". Granted, I've been critical of the pace of development of HMDs. But if the tech is to mature, I think the companies that have been in the forefront of AR need to throw some support behind Vuzix. They at least have the momentum going forward to get us where we want to be.
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