Location, location, location

Cheap and accessible GPS technology has been around for the past few years, and has made life easier in a host of ways. Initially a military system it's been available for civilian applications and is a key technology in the burgeoning field of location-based commerce.

Now Europe is getting in on the game with its own satellite navigation system, albeit not for over a decade. There's a Russian system called Glonass as well, but it's much less accurate because it has fewer satellites to triangulate signals.

And accuracy is vital, because we're all going to be relying more and more on GPS in the coming years. It's already key to car navigation, ship positioning and a host of commercial applications, and there are some very exciting devlopments coming down the line.

Having a back-up system is no bad thing for something so important. Particularly since the current provider apparently reserves the right to turn it off occasionally.

December 16, 2004 at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Is that a mobile in your pocket?

As we have observed, there are disturbing parallels between the ostracism of smokers and mobile phone users.

Although it's pretty much impossible to get by without a mobile these days, there's still an etiquette gap in their use. Some people seem happy to broadcast the most intimate details of their private life, much to the annoyance of others.

Various ideas have been tried, varying from the draconian to the elegant. But a new idea takes a more low-tech solution.

This combination of politeness and biting sarcasm appeals, but I'd think twice about handing out a slip if the source of the annoyance looks inclined to violence.

Alternatively, you can just become a Luddite although speaking personally you'll have to pry my mobile from my cold, dead fingers.

December 15, 2004 at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that

Save us and preserve us. Those clever folks down the road at the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc) have had a vision. The scales have fallen from their eyes and they have seen the future.

Tomorrow's world, according to Parc, centres on an all-pervasive next-generation super-network which, chillingly, will be designed to bring unobtrusive computing into all aspects of our lives.

Yikes.

As yet details of this Matrix-like world of ubiquitous networking and computing which Parc will create with its new joint venture buddy Fujitsu are unclear. But the vision is to place computers at the centre of our lives.

This may all sound a tad outlandish, but taking a long view we can't help making comparisons with Parc's Last Big Thing: the Wimp interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers).

There were many who said this would never replace the trusty command line as the ubiquitous computer interface, but Bill Gates was not one of them.

The lessons of history do not favour placing odds on Parc's parent Xerox being the company that commercialises this idea of computing ubiquity, but stranger things have happened.

And if it doesn't, there's a very good chance that another firm might. Remember: there is no spoon.

December 14, 2004 at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

To boldly go ...

There's nothing like space research to make you feel old. Nasa is finally putting in for a nuclear powered mission to Neptune, but it won't get there until I'm past retirement age. Still, it'll be an important boost for getting craft across the vast reaches of space a tad faster.

But why slog all the way there yourself when you can just have a look around using the Hubble telescope. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended a shuttle mission to upgrade the ageing machine and it looks like it might be heeded.

Space nuts like myself get a bit soppy about the Hubble. We've got more hard science out of it than any number of trips to the airless rock we call the moon, and it's been relatively cheap in comparison.

December 13, 2004 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

A quick trip into the world of the patently silly

Here in the Valley we like to think of ourselves as inventive folk who have turned out a few good ideas including LSD, some of the first home computers, Ethernet networking and Windows (the original Xerox GUI, not the rip-off version from that upstart Gates).

But we are obviously missing a trick when it comes to inventiveness. A quick trawl through our fellow blogger's excellent and poetical site Patentlysilly.com reveals some amazing inventions. And some silly inventions. And some downright frightening inventions.

You may or may not know that Mr Rudolph Chi Wai Yip of Hong Kong has invented a multimedia shower head which allows an electronic media device to be inserted in a sealed chamber within its construction.

So far, so good. But what about patent number US 6824508, which is described as a micro robot for internal examinations within the human body. In the interests of not frightening the horses we refuse to elaborate on how this device gains entry to the examination subject.

Then there's a patent for technology designed to restore circulation in dead people, or the telescopic putter mounted to a headband which is unlikely to do anything for your handicap.

As Patentlysilly.com astutely points out: "Necessity is the mother of invention, but the father is unknown."

December 10, 2004 at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)