A multi-touch color screen touchpad using the same touchscreen as the iPhone? It could replace the OS X dock and provide a whole new method of interacting with your computer! Fingerprint security device, electronic signature pad, an electronic sketch pad for better photo editing accuracy… the possibilities are endless!
It looks like all those Sci-Fi books that talk about life on Mars are becoming more realistic. If there is one thing that never ceases to inspire awe, it’s life on Mars and the idea of standing on another planet exploring places where no other humans have stood (at least not in currently known history).
That feeling of awe is what I experienced when I saw this news headline this morning: Water found on Mars, Nasa scientist confirm.
Sure, there still isn’t one hundred percent scientific proof that water has been found on Mars, but the scientists feel sure enough to confirm it. They saw a white substance, which was present a few inches underneath the surface, “melt” away over the course of a few days. That confirmed the substance wasn’t salt or CO2 ice (CO2 ice would take hours, not days, to melt and salt wouldn’t melt at all). Of course there’s a chance that the substance isn’t water either, but something unknown to scientists. I hope not.
Finding water on Mars would swing the door wide open to future human trips to the planet and would make setting up a base on the planet a whole lot easier. One of the biggest problems with human space travel is the need to transport our water supply, something that is both heavy and very costly. Having a base on Mars with access to water would not only allow astronauts to explore Mars, but also use it as a refill station for other exploration.
I just hope that near-future space exploration is not hindered by other events on this planet. We seriously need to fix our energy problems (by fixing our political problems) and stop turning our only home into a dumpster. Recycle!
Mexico is like the wild-west of the United States. There are gambling rules, but you’re allowed to gamble with “credits”. There are no privacy rules; if you use your phone to play an SMS game, your phone number and information is collected and sold to the highest bidder (but spamming is not allowed). The government encourages businesses to figure out ways of tracking people using technology (again, no privacy laws). Individuals, not businesses, own buses and they must individually get permits from the local towns where they want to run a route. Gas is subsidized by the government, so there is no gas competition. A lot of people live day to day buying food for one or two days because they don’t have enough money to buy food for the week.
I just finished watching the WWDC 2008 Keynote Address and I am fully convinced that the iPhone, along with the developer tools Apple is providing, will lead the way for a new generation of mobile devices over the next few decades. The applications they demonstrated, particularly in the medical and social networking fields, just blew me away.
If you have some time, watch it and tell me what you think.
What happens when the virtual world becomes more important, more interesting, and more popular than the real world? How many people do you know who would rather own the domain name google.com or myspace.com than own the entire Empire State Building or the entire state of New York? Will the value and popularity of real things decrease as more and more of the world becomes aware of the Internet’s potential?
Worse yet, will we as a society forget what it means to be human? Will we slowly evolve into this creature that yearns for a connection to the net because our brains have adapted to rely on the instant availability of a vast source of information? If technology continues to evolve new ways to interface with that source of information (Wiimote, iPhone, RFID, GPS, Google), what will come next? How will the people of 2208 interface with the Internet?
