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I’m not a great fan of cloud computing. I can see how it is useful and how easy, and cheap, it will be for the users but what I don’t like is the lack of control and/or accountability. Maybe it is just because I am a control freak.
Here is a case of 5,000 photos being deleted from Flickr, a cloud storage photo album.
Google mail, Yahoo and the like. great when everything is going great but get reported for something and you get deleted and lose all your data with no comeback at all. In many cases you cannot even contact them to discuss the situation. Of course I would expect better service if I paid for the service but even then, as my ISP has proven, they have rules and they just follow them with no common sense.
This sounds like a good step forward for our society. Biodegradable mice. Just think of the number of old computers, keyboards, monitors, mice and printers currently in landfill. Waste seems to follow our society.
Now it seems that the mouse isn’t completely biodegradable but most of it is. That coupled with the previously release biodegradable keyboard, 45% biodegradable, also from Fujitsu is a step in the right direction as far as we are concerned.
Just to confirm, I do not believe the Global Warming/Cooling Scam. I believe that weather changes over time and that is what we are seeing and that AGW is just a money grab by politicians and unscrupulous scientists. However, I do believe we should recycle what we can, we should develop new technology that relies less on fossil fuels and we should reduce our waste.
Now we need biodegradable computers and printers. I would envisage that the printers would be the most difficult part of that.
Although I think all this is going in the right direction for our society I actually wonder what sort of timescale these items biodegrade in. It would not be good if they started to degrade while the system was still in use because we just end up buying new ones and the waste would be about the same while the manufacturer’s profits grew.
What we really want is that plastic eating bug that was talked up a few years ago. It would be added to landfill and away it went. What happened to that?
I still think Smart PDA type phones are the way of the future. There are many applications out there that show they are leading the way on innovative new ideas to make life easier for us.
Take this new application, iCar, that acts as a car cam and allows you to record what is going on. Although these car cams have proven useful to plod, only recently disproving allegations made by a muslim woman on racism charges, we have found them to be of benefit to the general public themselves. Plod footage mysteriously disappearing when a member of the public claims that plod beat them up or abused them. Although in the cases where the public do have footage sometimes they play it backwards to show plod helping the victim up from the ground. (Bill Hicks) With this app we can start a new show Plod, Fixup and Bookim.
Although, I am disturbed that all the best apps seems to be coming out for an iPhone. I don’t want to have to put money in Steve Jobs pocket. I don’t want to have my system under the control of a controlling and overbearing company. Where are the Android equivalents?
I believe the future is electric. I see us moving away from gas, oil and coal as providers of energy because, quite simply, it is the right direction to go. In saying that it needs to be done in a controlled manner, causing us the minimum impact possible, i.e. no impact, and as cheap as possible.
There are several speed bumps in the road to this future and one of the main ones is portable energy storage. Car, Bus, train, plane, motorbike, etc. batteries. They just take too long to charge. Making them hot swappable is just not feasible if we are all on them and even in the UK, which is relatively small compared to anywhere in the US, you cannot travel from one end of the country to the other without several stops. It is just unfeasible to do so and so few people can use them.
Some smart minds, not climate change scientists so you can relax, are looking at this problem and already there are steps toward a solution being implemented whilst second generation solutions are being developed.
One which is of interest is UltraCapacitors which I have heard mentioned before but don’t know much about. This steps away from chemical battery storage and allows fast charge and recharge rates although, at this stage it has a lower capacity than chemical batteries.
Going down a different path is one thing that we seem to do as a last resort, when all options are exhausted, because it is an entirely new way of thinking and we, or should I say the funders, don’t normally like to do that unless clear results are available.
However, in this case, safe power, no chemicals, fast charging, easy storage. I suspect we could have a good way forward. It will be interesting to see if this makes its way onto the racing circuit. After all, they don’t have any range or fuel station issues.
Here is a proposed solution to everyones problem, except for the government of course, a new green fuel which directly replaces petrol. We will love it, a direct replacement for petrol at $1.50 a gallon (remember them). Greens will love it (or should if they were interested in facts) as it is a Green fuel, the government will love it because it will help them meet their totally irresponsible green targets but, for them, it is also a bit of bad news. With this they won’t be able to impose so many green taxes on us. Sad ready.
I can’t wait to see how this works out and is handled by our green friends.
I like books. I like to hold them and read them, make notes in them and put little bits of paper in them to mark the interesting passages and they can be put down within reach for easy reference. As far as books are concerned I’m a Luddite and I’m happy with it.
However, there is no denying that eBooks are better in several ways. They can be held, as in the reader, they can have notes made in them and passages marked for future reference and can be copied and stored as we want for our convenience. However, the biggest advantage of the eBooks is that you can have your entire eBook collection on one device and so every book is with you when you need it. Of course, with everything there are disadvantages and with eBooks it is DRM and the fact you need a power source to read your books.
Now here is a device that enables you to scan your entire book collection and store it on your eBook reader for your perusal anytime. As you scan it yourself there will be no DRM and no fancy add-ons or anything to stop you reading them where you want and how you want. Only the power issue to resolve now and that is being worked on.
I want one. But, I still like holding books and I will keep them. Just in case of a power outage or something.
Seems like a technique created for food may be applicable to medical use. Scientists are proposing that the technique used to preserve sushi can be used on human organs. Making longer term storage viable.
Normally, when something is frozen ice crystals form and as they form they expand, rupturing the cell walls and destroying the tissue. This new technique fast freezes them and stops the crystals forming. Thus making their restoration viable and opening the way for long term storage and, eventually, a bank of replacement organs where you could search for organ compatibility. Viable tissue will now be retained for future use and not discarded as medical waste.
From what it says I suspect that this process could also be used to cryogenically freeze people near death and restore them when a cure comes along or viable donor tissue is available. I wonder if someone is looking for a dying volunteer to try this in the near future. If it works then it opens up a new way for us to treat people and one that isn’t just for people like Walt Disney.
Couple this with the new methods they are looking at to dispose of bodies and you can see a scenario where at the scene of an accident they freeze you. Either preserving your body for recovery, for spares or for disposal. Frightening really. I wouldn’t like my slightly injured frozen body to be subject to the whims of a doctor looking for spares for Cameron or someone like that.
It seems that my search for a modern toilet has gone down the pan.
Instead of finding a tiolet that analyses your waste and monitors your health at a price we can all afford I find this. Toilet games.
What is the betting that these will make it into pubs and clubs and become affordable while the health monitors remain the expensive and exclusive.
And we wonder why we seem to be stalling as a society?
It seems that the government is unable to steal enough from the poor public and the corporations to keep its IT funding in the way they have become accustomed.
Even though government systems have always been rubbish, poorly specified and managed by too many rules it seems that they have been designed with the money is no object philosophy. That surprises me as anyone that has ever had to use government system knows how pathetic they are in performing the task they are used for. Now it seems that they will just have to be ‘good enough’ solutions. Amazingly enough, the same standard that most non government projects work to. They don’t want to spend any unnecessary funds because they have to go out and earn it and they know it doesn’t grow on trees like government funding.
Now although non government systems are developed ‘good enough’ they also seem to work great. Any issues are fixed and, usually, the service is much better although in my experience the bigger the company the worse the service gets and the staff has less flexibility to deal with the issues.
I dread to this what service we can expect from the DWP, DVLA, HMRC, Plod, the NHS, among others when they have to use what they are thinking are sub standard systems. Not what they want.
I’ve said before how wonderful nature is. Some things are beautiful but deadly such as this cancer.
Some things are ugly but beneficial such as this Axokotl.
We discover new things every day that make us wonder and we learn from them. Medicine seems to be one of the biggest areas of interest and we discover treatments here all the time.
Here is a new treatment path for one of our biggest killers, Cancer, from our Axolotl. Let us hope it leads to some new discoveries. We need them.
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Head in the clouds
I’m not a great fan of cloud computing. I can see how it is useful and how easy, and cheap, it will be for the users but what I don’t like is the lack of control and/or accountability. Maybe it is just because I am a control freak.
Here is a case of 5,000 photos being deleted from Flickr, a cloud storage photo album.
Google mail, Yahoo and the like. great when everything is going great but get reported for something and you get deleted and lose all your data with no comeback at all. In many cases you cannot even contact them to discuss the situation. Of course I would expect better service if I paid for the service but even then, as my ISP has proven, they have rules and they just follow them with no common sense.