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Geek on the Cheap #120:
CES 2010′s Best New Tech

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

The 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took over Vegas this past week and unveiled some mouthwatering tech, most of which will be available by the late spring or early summer. This is the technology directed at you, the average consumer, although much of it may be farther in your future than manufacturers would like due to price and already existing options.

If you want to see a sampling of tech from the show, check out the “best of” lists by CNET and PC World, while the Huffington Post has a nice roundup of eReaders. The most interesting of the bunch is the so-called “Kindle Killer,” the enTourage eDGge. It has a 9.7″ eReader/eInk screen on one side and a 10″ color screen on the other. Can’t wait to see it.

Of all the exciting technology at CES this year, however, my favorite soon-to-come devices are:

Lenovo Ideapad U1 Hybrid: Netbook + Tablet

The Lenovo Ideapad U1 Hybrid combines a netbook with a detachable tablet. This is possible because each piece has its own processor and battery; the LED screen works for both devices. To use the computer as a tablet, you simply undock the screen from the chassis and start writing on it or using it as an eReader or watching a movie on it.

I think I’m in love.

I’ve been using (IBM) Lenovo ThinkPads as my mobile computer for about ten years now and have always been satisfied. This time, I’m expecting to be bowled over. At the very least, this device ups the ante for all netbooks. Accordingly its price is expected to be a bit richer ($999) than the average netbook.

Zomm: Never Lose Your Cellphone Again

ZommZomm is a gadget the size of a chubby poker chip that you hang from your keychain –- a wireless “leash” for your cellphone.

Whenever your keychain (ostensibly you) with its Zomm is more than 30 feet away from the cellphone you’ve synced it to, the Zomm sounds an alarm. You’ll never leave your cellphone in a hotel room again! The Zomm can also be used as a speakerphone. And lastly, it can be used as a personal security device — if you hold the button down for 9 seconds, it will automatically dial 9-1-1.

Best of all, the Zomm was invented by a mom who kept hearing people complain about losing their cellphones. What did she do? She came up with a solution. (Got to nip that whining in the bud.)

Keep an key out for the Zomm this coming summer at a price of $79.99.

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Geek on the Cheap #119:
WiFi and SciFi Go MacDonalds

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

SyFy: Imagine GreaterMacDonalds isn’t on my radar unless I’m roadtripping because a small vanilla milkshake is almost always necessary for the driver.

But now I might stop and sit a while.

As of this January, MacDonalds is providing wireless service for free in 11,000 of their 13,000 U.S. locations. Before now, it cost $2.95 for everyone except AT&T customers. To see if it’s available where you want it, check here. Hey Starbucks, pay attention! You’re way behind the curve on this.

The second reason I’ve been thinking MacDonalds lately is the fabulous blog post “SF Goes MacDonald’s: Less Taste, More Gristle” by Athena Andreadis. I found out about it through a reposting on the Huffington Post and I have to thank the HuffPo for familiarizing me with Andreadis, whose discussion of American’s “disdain for all expertise” brought on by our political/cultural shift to the right mirrors my own concerns. One of the consequences of this attitude shift is the increasing dearth of real science in science fiction.

Why does it matter? Because, as Andreadis says, “if science disappears altogether from SF or survives only as the gimmick that allows ‘magic’ plot outcomes, SF will lose its greatest and unique asset: acting as midwife and mentor to future scientists. ”

Like Andreadis, I was one of those kids who read science fiction and it certainly “shaped my life and personality” in ways I’m probably not even aware of. I imagined hopping a space ship to another planet, traveling back and forth in time, MacGyvering my way out of sticky alien planets with eco- and political systems both uncannily alike and stubbornly unlike our own. Putting science in such a context frees it from the research bench and opens young minds to the thrills of discovery, altruism (putting society before oneself) and resourcefulness. Science has provided and will continue to provide a better life for humans and our planet.

Which makes it all the more depressing to be part of a culture that distrusts science so. Another recent example of this is the December 24th New York Times review of a book on Darpa. The reviewer, William Saletan, sees such technology as that enabling limb replacement not as revolutionary or emotionally miraculous, but as a frightening scenario with “humans being reconfigured for the machine.” What?! I wonder if his attitude would change if he suddenly lost an arm. Would he prefer a carved wooden replica to a “computerized arm that reads the body’s electrical signals”? I doubt it.

Are fears such as those voiced by Saletan the chicken or the egg? I don’t know. But as a result of the political policies of the past decade and as Andreadis notes in her blog post, “the US is no longer the uncontested forerunner in science and technology and its standard of living is dropping accordingly.” Bill Gates has been harping on this problem for the past several years: we’re turning out fewer and fewer engineers/scientists every year. This is not just an intellectual but an economic issue.

But I refuse to believe that Americans will continue in this downward spiral. As our political situation has turned in a new direction with Americans electing a person considered an intellectual, maybe so will our attitude toward science. And if, as Andreadis says, “science fiction is really a mirror and weathervane of its era,” maybe we’ll see this first on our literal or virtual bookshelves.

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Geek on the Cheap #118:
Why Can’t the Past Become the Future?

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Professor Richard Feynman,

With the New Year just a few days away, I’m thinking about time. Why must time move in one direction — forward? Why isn’t it reversible? Why can’t the future become the past? Because it just can’t, you say impatiently, already bored by the naiveté of the question.

And yet…

The fundamental physical laws of nature such as gravity, electricity and magnetism are reversible. Even molecular collision is reversible. So why aren’t the phenomena that happen according to these laws of physics reversible — the phenomena that constitute our perception of time?

How do we resolve this paradox?

In Richard Feynman’s lecture, “The Distinction of Past and Future,” he explains how the laws of physics do not have a obvious relevance to the world as we experience it. Don’t know Feynman? He’s a professor famous for a series of lectures taped by the BBC at Cornell University in 1964. Last July, Bill Gates made these lectures publicly available through a Microsoft Research initiative called Project Tuva.

But let’s get back to the question of time: How can it be that our experience of time is so different from the fundamentals that constitute it?

To me, this is similar to the false intuition that a heavy object should fall more swiftly than a light one. It doesn’t. (Gravity, unlike your mother, is blind to how much something weighs, though it might agree that you look fat in those pants.) If you drop a book and a fork, they’ll hit the ground at the same time, even though you might think the heavier object — the book — should hit first. I’m always guilty of thinking this way. I was reminded of my wrong intuition recently as I was reading about Newton’s Second Law of Motion in The Great Equations. (At least Aristotle was wrong, too.)

Why do we get these things wrong? Because, as Feynman explains at the end of “The Distinction of Past and Future,” the world is both fundamentally simple and tremendously complex, “to stand at either end and to walk out off the end of the pier only, hoping out in that direction is the complete understanding, is a mistake.” In other words, maybe our (incorrect) intuition that heavier objects should hit the ground first comes from the fact that they hit the ground harder, and we connect this to the idea of velocity, which takes us around to the idea of heavier falling faster. Makes sense, but it’s wrong. We’re standing at the wrong end of the pier and can’t see what’s really happening.

As for time, what phenomenon could be more straightforward: a simple line of actions connected dot to dot, the single constant in our lives, irrevocable. So why do we wonder and wish to make the past the future — to jump backwards, branching out in a new direction? Because our knowledge of time is complex, our understanding of what could have happened instead as real to us as the memory of what did.

Remorse and regret, hope and aspiration — these complex thoughts and emotions spring from our perception of time passing. They are as real as the law of gravity and sometimes so heavy they sink you into a hole, other times so light you feel as if you’re floating. At this time of year, it’s nice to be reminded that there’s always the other end of the spectrum; it exists all the time. You don’t have to wait until next year for things to turn around because in some way they already are.

But enough of this. All I really wanted to say was Happy New Year! Simple.

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Geek on the Cheap #117:
Top 10s for 2009

Monday, December 21st, 2009

PopSci.com’s Robotic Jellyfish (photo: Kai-Uwe Knoth)

I’m jumping right into the year-end top 10s. Here are four (five eluded me — I kept finding a possibility then ditching it); so here are four lists to peruse while you’re recovering from December’s shopping hangover:

  • lifehacker: Most Popular DIY Projects of 2009
    Love lifehacker, love these projects. I have several favs including the inverted bookshelf, under-the-cabinet kitchen PC from an old laptop, and the monitor stand from door stoppers (a version of which will soon be atop my desk).
  • PopSci: The Year’s Most Amazing Scientific Images
    The brain array (image 2) is a silicone mat of 32 electrodes that sits directly on the brain (not on the skull, which is what I initially thought when I looked at the photo). What an amazing and (sort of) noninvasive neural interface, which could help those with brain disease or injury.
  • Technology Review: Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2009
    In TR’s annual list of the 10 technologies that may change the way we live, my favorite is Michel Maharbiz’s biological machines, such cyborg beetles. Imagine the possibilities!
  • O’Reilly Radar: The Best and the Worst Tech of the Decade
    No, no, no — this isn’t that O’Reilly. James Turner’s list is a nice roundup of tech and I must say I wholeheartedly agree with his choices. In additional to the technical, he covers the social implications of the technical.

For those of you on vacation over the holidays (and especially for those of you stuck at work), hope you have the time to dream and build. Humans are makers — go out and make something!

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