Holy crap, it's been WAY too long since I've last posted. Yes, this blog is still alive but barely. My work life has been a little crazy and in turn has limited my geek hours. Anywho, today I'll be recapping a few key announcements that have much larger implications in the overall scope of computing/technology and also do a quick summary of the tech i'm rocking these days.
2013 and some quick thoughts..
Well, late last year I kind of called 2013 the year of the smartwatch. Just in the last few weeks, rumors of an Apple iWatch device has hit the web and most tech blogs. 2012 saw a ton of early smartwatch startups like pebble and other main stream manufacturers trying their hand in the smartwatch realm (motorola's motoactive and sony's smartwatch). We also saw the start of fitness tracking devices such as Jawbone's UP and BitFits trackers. Last years' models were early, first gen designs/utilizations. 2013 is the year we see the second generations and hopefully be very late 2013 a full flexible OLED display model. With Apple in the game and other's taking notice of the potentials of comabining fitness tracking w/a watch that connects to your phone, the market is sure to explode this year.
One problem I have when I pitch my idea of the future wearable PC main unit being a watch type design is that most people still see the watch as a watch and nothing more. The watch itself is dead, however the physical location of putting a device there is ideal and a no brainer. Once we can evolve our kinetic recharge technology to higher levels, one could in theory power their own pc/smartphone (on your wrist, like a watch) just by walking or motion. I personally think that if you combine that along with some biothermal type technology where you use your own heat to help power your device; we could cure the problem we have in a feasible wearable pc. The smartwatch is just the start of a feasible wearable pc in about 3 years.
Google's Glass project is another piece to this puzzle. We need a method of interacting w/the OS on our wrist. Google Glass is the visual overlay we so need. Once real people see and use this, they will wonder how they lived w/o it. Imagine overlayed directions to locations or driving in your car w/all your car info overlayed. Possibilities are endless.
However, we still need a way to control all of this. I still believe that someone's going to make the ring controllers a reality. Basically you have a ring each of your fingers that contains an accelermeter and gyro to track motion and determine gestures. Combine w/barometer and a few other sensors, you could virtualize a keyboard in the air and also use gestures to interact w/Google Glass and the world. Main problems would be power, which if we could do biothermal would be solved and also communication.
Personal geek update...
Late in 2012, I sold my Galaxy Nexus and got a Galaxy Note 2. I've been using my Note 2 as my main phone and an iPhone 4 as my work phone. The Note 2 is a great convergence device, so much so that I sold my Nexus 7 to a co-worker.
I've gone the Apple route in regards to my main pc and now have a 2013 Mac Mini w/the Core i7 and 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD. My other larger platter harddrives now reside in a 4 bay storage array and connect via USB 3.0. I also have my Bluray burner in an external closure and connect via USB 2.0.
My goal has been to consolidate and downsize my collection. Also been using an UP bracelet to track sleeping/activity patterns.
Well, that will do it for tonight. Till next time.
