0 A.I.

I am formally declaring this year 0 A.I. (after iPad Launch)!

I've read that anywhere between 300,000-500,000 of these suckers were sold during the first weekend. With a cost of between $500-800 a pop, this is a whole lot of sheckles for our friends at Apple.

Not to be a wise-guy or anything, but I also hear that there are starting to be a number of complaints from the Gamma-testers as it relates to the quality of the WiFi signal.

Those Sneaky Marketeers!

Read an article the other day. I don't believe that the technology quite is there yet, but the article suggested that they are developing a technology that would embed cameras in stores for the sole purpose of analyzing traffic patterns, and also (especially) to see where people congregate. I guess that the general concept is that be seeing the gazelles by the watering hole, marketing will get a better sense of where people's interests lay.

At first, I was concerned and disturbed by this - and to an extent, I still am.

However, the fact that we are monitored and taped more than we probably realize is probably an eventuality. I guess that I would not be the only person in the world who was caught on tape trying to adjust a wedgie - but still - geesh, this sort of thing just really sticks in my craw.

In certain aspects of our society, this taping in public life does serve a purpose. Helps us to find tapes of a lost child - for instance. Or perhaps, persons of a more nefarious nature have been identified on tape, so in this respect, it's a benefit.

I swear though, I'm going to profit off of this. I will buy stocks in a technology company and then organize hundreds of flash mobs to congregate around the products manufactured by companies just to drive the stock price up as the stores scramble to stock up on the product. Naw - not really, but heck - it could be fun to manipulate these marketing gurus.

And the Dawn of a New Age Begins! Gamma-Testers Beware..

With much anticipation, the iPad is on sale to the public today. I've never quite understood this almost pathological need to be the first on the block to own technology. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that it's always the best decision.

I can recall that it was years before I bought a CD player. While I didn't benefit from the technology as others did, by the same token, I didn't pay the sky-high prices of new tech - often with a healthy chunk of R&D built into the cost. Let alone the fact that the technology needs to mature and for the most part, when we jump on this technology bandwagon.

It's pretty well considered that alpha and beta testers are those that test a product of technology before it gets released - shake the bugs out sort of thing. I refer to these people that live off of instant gratification as Gamma testers - those who pay a healthy dollar to for all intents of purposes test the technology in the "real world".

Thanks, but no thanks - not for me.

Maybe I'm technologically astute - or maybe I'm just a cheap Scotsman that wants to hold onto my dollars for a little bit longer.

We'll All Turn Into Mush!

As good as technology gets - for everything that it does for us, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the downside is that it can and will turn us into mush, in all aspects of the word.

Today, I was filling out a contest entry form and the skill testing question was 50/2*4+11-7. Instead of figuring out what should be a pretty simple formula, I whip out the handy-dandy calculator. In some respects, isn't technology making it too easy not to exercise basic skills?

Along the same lines, the other day, I was at the store, buying bus tickets for my son. The tickets cost $11.50 and I handed the cashier a $20 bill. I was astounded when she pulled out her calculator to figure out the change due.

Unreal - totally and truly. So many of us are just too guilty of being lazy.

In 500 years, we will have mutated to the extend where we don't have legs and we will just have big thumbs for texting - that's it.

Is It a Concern? You Bet!

Story down in the US where a lady was in the casino playing the penny slots. The slot machine clearly stated that the maximum payout was something like $100k. This woman "won" $43m and now is considering legal action. Casino claims that it was obviously a mistake with the VLT and that they are legally covered for things like this. Said woman is insistent at getting the whole kit-n-kaboodle (not bloody likely!).

Granted, I have no idea how many slot machines there are throughout the US, nor do I have any idea as to how many plays there would be in a given day. If I had to guess (I'll see if I can find out), I'd say that there are perhaps 1,000,000 machines. Let's say on average, there are 1,000 plays on a machine, so we'd be looking at possibly there being 1,000,000,000 plays each day.
(Author's note: based on one website, in 2004, there were about 790,000 slot machines in the US, so it would look like my original estimate was at least ballpark accurate!)

Sure - it's reasonable to expect that if there a billion plays per day, there's gonna be a few bugs, but it seems to me that there are way too many stories of this machines issuing inaccurate payouts. I'm curious why - one wouldn't think that calculating the payout would be all that complicated - it would seem like simple equations to me, so I'm curious as to how and why there are so many mistakes.

Thursday, April 1

Yes - that time of year - one that I often dread because it seems like each and every year, someone, somehow manages to sucker me in - even just once.

In the news today, there are a myriad of stories about some of the more inventive hoaxes and as I read these articles, I see how even things like April Fool's Day is permeated by technology.

I'm not talking about the lame hoaxes - such as "RickRolling" (by the way, it's interesting that this particular hoax can only be done in the electronic world. For the uninitiated, rickrolling is the phenomenan where person A (or a website for that matter) sends out a link to some page of interest. When the user clicks on the link, instead of the suggested content, the user is directed to Youtube where a video of Rick Astley performing "Never Going to Give You Up" is played. This bait-and-switch is old and it's lame and probably a bit tired.

One of the best technology related hoaxes that I read today was that The Guardian newspaper (British tabloid) announced that they were going to rewrite ALL news archives in the form of tweets. Some of the examples that they would rewrite history are as follows:
- "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"
- "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"
- "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Honestly - I think that this is just totally bloody creative and I love it. If anyone has any tech related hoaxes, please feel free to share :)

The Internet & Google & The Issue of Free Speech

The issue of unregulated and uncensored web content seems to be becoming more and more of an issue.

Firstly, China attempts to regulat Google's search results - to the extent that Google has decided to pull their Chinese presence out. Now, the Vietnamese (government(?)) is accused of initiating cyberattacks to take down opinions contrary to the "party line".

This whole issue of censorship and freedem of speech - it is just too much to fathom the right answer.

The scary thing is that I think that this will even get more convoluted.

To what extent is the Web an open forum? Is it a place for idealism when one states that freedom of speech is the be all and the end all, or are there limits - must there be limits?

Defamation would clearly not be acceptable - or would it? If someone "attacked" (for instance) John Travolta's involvement in Scientology and made inaccurate claims - is this right? Is it justified? Can it be regulated in some manner? If not, where does this lead us? Do we end up with a Wild Wild West mentality where anything goes? Or are there "reasonable restrictions" (and how would this be quantified?) as to what is out there in the binary landscape.

I"m not sure that we'll ever have an true answer on this one.