Posts by MrMcginty

No, they wouldn't be interested in that kind of thing at all.

Pen proximity alarm

Why not build an alarm in that vibrate and sounds off (overriding all other sound settings) if the pen moves more than 3 metres away from the device?

Hitch-hikers

Reminds me of the 'upgraded' origami-bird version of the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy in 'Mostly Harmless' and subsequent audio adaptations.

And the 'skittering' (00.48 - soooo creepy!) reminds me of the 'pull-toy' a technician invented for James Cameron so that a face-hugger could chase Ripley and Newt in 'Aliens'.

[Where's the 'side-nerdiness' icon?]

God save me from the cloud

Since my company decided to save a few shekels by moving from Exchange to 365, my colleagues and I have gone from getting inter-company mails within seconds to having to wait several minutes or more, sometimes with catastrophic results, as those 'Stop that traaain!' emails never arrive in time these days. Luckily I have a virtual Windows install on the company Mac which still gets mail via Exchange, but it's hardly ideal. These missives now travel thousands of miles to arrive twenty feet.

Very glad that someone is at least thinking about this

When you have a practical monopoly, you can dictate terms, and Apple were so successful for so long in getting their consumers to do things Apple's way, that the mindset seems to have changed from 'What does the customer want?' to a kind of design imperialism - as if these products were coming out of some Ministry Of Technology which expects that the proles will just have to read the pamphlets and adjust their habits. They figure that if we want it that bad (iPhones and the shiny mobile space, next-gen game consoles, access to new TV and movies, etc) we will get it on the producers' terms or not at all.

Only recently have there been major signs of customer-dissension actually changing this mindset, such as the MS U-turn on some of the nastier proposed features of the XBox One, and the grudging semi-return of the Windows start menu. But everyone outside Apple has just been dazzled at the degree to which unwanted or unwelcome changes can be forced on customers without any major penalty on sales (if any).

As regards computing, I think the argument is skewed by the 'middle bell' consumers you mention. Before the reductionist age of the iPhone came in, we were talking about a band of people (and lets avoid demographics here, insert your own prejudices) who formerly relied on spouses, friends and relatives to set up and/or troubleshoot their computing experiences.

With practically all the options taken away (apart from the colour of the iPhone case), there was little left that could go wrong anymore. Today's middle-bell computing consumers feel liberated from the thrall of geeks, I think, and to boot have become the defining force in the consumer marketplace. What they will accept, en masse, is what the rest of us will end up with, like it or lump it.

On the plus side, it's still the same crazy jumble of spaghetti wires behind the shiny shiny, and those who are able to work with that can still do so, and arguably have better tools to do this than they have ever had. And, mostly, the tools are free.

It's just that geeks have to work harder these days to get their own computing experience 'their way'. And many of the most popular consumer products, following the iPhone/iPad model, are hermetically sealed in every sense imaginable. That won't change, so long as the numerous middle-bell consumers keep consuming.

"Having a watch on your wrist – that's pretty interesting, pretty appealing."

Available technology since 1868.

For over £250m...

...he has paid full price, at the very least, for his little rant.

PageRank

Google have been saying for at least two years that PageRank is being phased out, but this may be the omen that begins to convince the dozen or so PR companies I work with that the days of measuring the 'green bar' are numbered. I think the next major iteration of the Google Dance is going to be 'Like'-led, as I always believed. But foolishly I didn't think Google were going to get in on that act directly.

Mostly used for sounds effects in 'Aliens'. Mostly.

On the DVD extras for the quadrilogy and anthology editions of 'Aliens', it's mentioned that James Cameron did tons of sound effects in his hotel suite with a Fairlight during the production of that movie in 1985.

Robocop

Every time I see the latest shock-and-awe tech from US police, I can't help but envision Dick Jones testing it on an intern in his glass-walled office, and maybe nodding in approval over their collapsed carcass as the smoke settles.