Neat Net Tricks

Phillip Lenssen’s How To Access The Internet (A Guide From 2025) paints a humorous but not altogether impossible look at the Internet 15 years from now. Do you agree? Disagree? Don’t care?

OK, follow along on this:

ThinkGeek typically publishes an April Fools’ joke each year on its Web site. This year, they advertised Canned Unicorn Meat and called it “the new white meat.” Along with the joke was an illustration of the product, something red complete with sparkles. The National Pork Board’s lawyers jumped on that and sent ThinkGeek a cease-and-desist letter, since pork is known as “the other white meat”.

I suspect everyone knew it was a joke. Everyone but the lawyers, perhaps?

Now let me get this straight:  Some of the new iPhone 4 won’t perform well if held a certain way, so Apple’s “official” response is don’t hold it that way .

That sort of reminds me of the old saw.  You remember.  When I told my doctor that it hurts when I touch my body  a certain way, the doc advised me don’t touch it that way.

Well, I’m a little skeptical about the software reported here . It purportedly identifies bloggers who are depressed; at least, that’s what a panel of clinical psychologists said. I’ve been called a lot of things in the 14 years I’ve published Neat Net Tricks, but so far depressed is not one of them.

Back when I was a kid, I followed the perils of Dick Tracy in the comic strips, I marveled at the technology that made possible his two-way wrist radio. Of course, that was pure fiction and I doubted even then that such a pipe dream would ever be possible. Now, many decades later, a two-way wrist radio wouldn’t even warrant a second glance but I’m wondering again if old Dick would find new technology worthwhile in his pursuit of the bad guys.

With this one , cops use their iPhone to snap a picture of someone they have just apprehended. That photo is then run through some facial recognition software and matched against a database to provide the suspect’s identity.

Of course, if Dick had used an iPhone 60 years ago, we would have thought the concept of what an iPhone could do rather impossible as well. Sometimes I still do.

Wow, this report says that, worldwide, 22% of us are “engaging in social media” on the Internet, 75% of us visit a blog or social network when we go online, and our visits to sites such as Facebook have increased by 66% from what we averaged just a year ago.

Of course I don’t have the reason for all this, but maybe everybody is unemployed and need someway to pass the time?

In the past when conducting computer seminars, I often got disbelieving looks when I made a prediction: in a few years, we won’t need to defrag or back up our hard drives because we simply won’t need hard drives in our computers. All our stuff will be stored “in the clouds”.

Not everyone agrees, but there seems to be a majority who feel that’s where we’re heading, according to this survey .

Replace the keyboard, mouse, and computer screen with a 2×2 inch chest-mounted computer and camera to detect hand movements, then just gesture with your hands to get around your computer system. That’s not science fiction, it’s already a reality. Read about it here .

Here’s the pitch:  Create an avatar that is your digital twin, and it will live forever, long after you have shuffled off this mortal coil (with thanks to Mr. Shakespeare.) Your grandkids can then visit your avatar and learn more about what you were like in real life. Sound intriguing? Details are here.