WEEKLY TECH VIEWS BLOG – “Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.”
For the week of July 27 – July 31, 2015
The nation’s focus may have been on Nerdtacular 2015 this week, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of tech news. Let’s butcher some.
Windows 10 was released on Wednesday. In other news, Winfan4ever’s Ebay store still has plenty of “Life is fine with Windows 9″ t-shirts and mouse pads available.
Google Translate can now translate 27 languages. Their goal is to have the next update, a video camera filter, available in time for the first Republican primary debate so we’ll know what the hell Donald Trump is talking about.
Amazon is proposing a multi-tiered super highway in the sky for drones (Amazon–Making Your Jetson’s Dreams Come True!). It’s going to be novel and exciting the first time we point to the sky and say, “Look, a delivery drone!” and admire the technology that resulted in that lone electronic marvel silhouetted against the bright blue sky. Then, as they become more commonplace, we’ll barely notice them, like traffic on a nearby street. As prices fall and everyone can utilize them–thanks for ordering the raw opal/organic hemp koala brooch from our Etsy shop; our hand-crafted drone will have it to you this afternoon–“Sky Neutrality” debates over who gets the fastest lanes and most direct routes will ensue. Meanwhile, tanning salons abandon strip malls and move into luxury office buildings as the industry booms due to the lack of natural sunlight available through the drone-clogged atmosphere. On rare occasions, when drone traffic aligns just right, we’ll point to the sky and say, “Look, the sun!”
But I will get my 100-count box of sandwich bags a day quicker.
You can now mute Periscope broadcasters. “Finally! I can barely hear myself think with everybody Periscoping this, and Periscoping that,” said Meerkat.
The Apple Watch is going on sale at 100 Best Buy stores, to be expanded to 300 stores by the holidays. Critics question diluting the exclusivity factor, saying that being able to get one while grabbing printer ink and a ream of paper lessens the perceived value of the watch. But they also say that the weakest part of the strategy is Apple’s belief that 300 Best Buy stores will exist by the holidays.
Nintendo sold its 10 millionth Wii U last week. Elsewhere, as it’s bar code was scanned in a Des Moines area Wal-Mart, the 25 millionth PS4 to be sold said, “That’s cute.”
Emails were discovered indicating that the Motion Picture Association of America had devised a campaign to discredit Google, calling them an enabler of movie piracy. The campaign would allegedly include paying for false anti-Google research and a story on the Today Show. We’re not sure The MPAA had their heart in it though, as unconfirmed reports indicate the fake research was just a Silicon Valley script where the name Google was substituted for Hooli and the Today Show story was being assigned to Hoda and Kathie Lee. There was a brief scare that a Google exec woke up to find the head of an Oscar statue in her bed, but it turned out to only be one of her daughter’s stuffed Minions.
The Shield tablet was recalled due to the threat that the battery could overheat and be a fire hazard. “If nothing else, we dodged that bullet,” said the Amazon Fire Phone PR team.
In order to update customers’ vehicles and protect them from the exploit that allowed hackers to remotely control their car, Chrysler is mailing out 1.4 million USB drives. The company reportedly deemed it unnecessary to accept an offer from a former AOL marketing executive who promised to “have half a dozen of those suckers in every mailbox in America by lunchtime.
A recent survey states that 15% of U.S. adults don’t use the internet; and of these net-abstainers, 21% say the reason is that they are just not interested in doing so.
What?… I… that’s… you mean………
Okay, I think I’ve figured it out. There are three possible reasons for this response:
1) They misheard, and thought the question was “Do you use Tinder yet?” and answered “no” because a) they belong to a demographic that isn’t quite sure what an app is, let alone Tinder, or b) the fallout from the Ashley Madison adultery web site hack is hanging over their head and they’ll be damned if they are going to also admit to being familiar with Tinder.
2) They belong to a generation that grew up without the internet, “and I’m doing just fine, so why should I waste my time with it?”
And while there is no denying a certain correlation between wasted time and the internet, this demographic would likely have the same reaction if you substituted “internet” with computers, smart phones, cordless phones, fax machines, DVRs, VCRs, ATMs, microwaves, videogames, sushi, or Whole Foods.
3) They are genuinely part of the .000001% of the population that has no interest in porn or kittens.
That’s it. Thanks for joining me for Wordtacular 2015. Or Wordiocre 2015. We’ll leave that to the historians. Either way, words were used; thanks for reading them.
Mike Range
@MovieLeagueMike
Weekly Tech Views Blog by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt talk about whether social networks have devalued links and are ruining the Web.