John’s Blog-o-Rama

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!! The Steelers lost to the Patriots once again in the AFC Championship game, denying them a trip to the Super Bowl. That’s makes it 4 out of the last 5 AFC championship games the Steelers have lost, at home no less. For some reason they just can’t get good QB play in the championship game. I used to think it was because Kordell Stewart and Neil O’Donnell sucked, but Big Ben blew it this time also (the defense didn’t play well either). If we could just get a QB to have a good game, we’d trounce all these teams. Hopefully Ben will do the job next time (next year). Or maybe we can trade for Brady??

Semi-interesting article in the news: Motorola and Oakley are working to create glasses with a built-in bluetooth headset. I mention this as only “semi-interesting”, because this will probably be so overpriced (like all other Oakley eyeglass products) that it won’t be worth buying. However, along with the Thump, Oakley and Motorola shows that some people may finally be understanding the true concept of wearable computing: technology that actually integrates seemlessly onto someone’s body and into a their daily life, rather than just strapping a piece of technology to the body and calling it wearable.

The next step will (hopefully) be further integration of the headset and glasses to give people a heads-up display to display information directly onto the glasses. If someone can figure out a useful multi-modal interface (combination voice recognition/facial expression/body movement) for such a wearable system, this will be the true “killer” app that all of the mobile phone/camera/mp3 player/FM radio/browser/email/toaster convergent devices aren’t: real mobile devices that have a useable display and simple interface.

Two interesting articles about the current state and future of bionics: this story about war amputees getting high-tech arm and leg prosthetics, and this article about scientists trying to create artificial muscles that convert chemical energy to mechanical energy. In the next 10-20 years, bionics should become a HUGE industry, not just to replace lost arms and legs, but to replace lost hearing, eyesight, and even memory and neural functions. Once brain-machine interface technology matures and becomes more commonplace, the sky will be the limit for what lost human functionality can be restored, and even (gasp!) augmented.