Stephen Wolfram, on the legacy of seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey when he was eight years old: It’s hard for me to believe it’s been 50 years since I first saw 2001. Not all of 2001 has come true (yet). But for me what was important was that it presented a vision of what might… Continue reading 2001 remembered
Tag: IT
Surfacing
Microsoft are clearly very proud of the Surface Hub 2, which looks all shiny and ready to suck up every byte of bandwidth that your network connection can offer to power all those pixels it wants to deliver. No question about it, it’s a handsome beast of a device. I work in an office where… Continue reading Surfacing
Mini-NeXT
This miniature of a Raspberry Pi in the body of a NeXT Computer replica might just be the cutest monument to old tech ever. [Via The Tao Of Mac]
Kindles and touchscreens
I had no idea that my post earlier today was going to be eclipsed by a much better, deeper take on the whole topic of how touchscreens make for a user-hostile interface, this one from Craig Mod: I’ve been using Kindles on and off ever since they launched. Our relationship has been contentious but I’ve… Continue reading Kindles and touchscreens
Reasons why touch interfaces are terrible as tools for discovering new features, part 89
From Federico Viticci’s post 11 Tips for Working on the iPad: [Here’s…] a list of my favorite long-press shortcuts in Safari. 9: Tap and Hold in Safari Safari Reader (text icon on the left side of the address bar). Display settings to always use Safari Reader on the selected website or for all websites. Considering… Continue reading Reasons why touch interfaces are terrible as tools for discovering new features, part 89
Fribo
The idea behind Fribo seems to me to be much more palatable than the prospect of every household getting an internet-connected microphone that broadcasts details of everything within earshot to a central server: When a Fribo in your home hears a noise that it recognizes, it sends a message to another Fribo in your friend’s… Continue reading Fribo
‘Smart’ Homes, Dumb Users?
I meant to post a link to The House That Spied on Me, a Gizmodo story that looked a little deeper into just how much data a ‘connected’ household is leaking, when I restarted this site a few weeks ago: Our 1970s apartment building did not offer enough electrical outlets for this 2018 smart home,… Continue reading ‘Smart’ Homes, Dumb Users?
Driving tools
Who would have imagined that increased use of automated navigational information could have a down side, with more widespread use of automated mapping serving to push individual drivers into a nominally less busy route that turns out to be anything but if everyone else is getting similar advice about how to avoid a traffic snarl-up… Continue reading Driving tools
PDF forever?
The Portable Document Format, or PDF, is everywhere. But it’s still a format that causes headaches for the average person. […] It’s not often, of course, that the PDF gets this level of notice. The PDFs origin story is a bit more boring than that of the MP3, which was built around the contours of… Continue reading PDF forever?
Speaker-to-Animals speaks
Paul Ford is at it again in Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, explaining Bitcoin (and why the notions that lie behind it are simultaneously batty and beguiling to those who may be susceptible to Engineer’s Disease) to civilians. [note]Or should I say, given the nature of Bloomberg Businessweek’s audience, to wannabe managers.[/note] [After a basic explanation of… Continue reading Speaker-to-Animals speaks