Mario Marzano

Google Glass looks to redefine portable computing through wearable tech. Currently they're more toy than tool, but currently Google Glass is a simple smartphone accessory. User input will help, but the hardware my be too restrictive to become a staple.

Got Glass. Now What?

Glass Heads have already cracked open their piggy banks and laid a hefty chunk of change on one of Best Buy's stick counter tops for their tech-spectacles. But has the novelty worn off yet?

Have you begun begrudgingly worming your fingers through your pockets to property reply to a text or tweet after it was displayed on your eye wear. Most of us can't afford to speak our responses and find ourselves groping for our ancient smartphones. 

Google Glass becomes a smartphone accessory rather than a standalone platform. But for how long?

Usability vs Convience

Google Glass offers its user a constant connection to the web, but that connection is a clumsy one. Glass is a one button device that responds primarily to voice control and sometimes that isn't enough. It requires a symbiotic smartphone relationship that many users won't see worth the price tag.

What smartphones lack in convenience, considering a pocket is essentially miles away, is usability.

"Glass is worn like a pair of glasses, and pairs with your smartphone to deliver notifications to a small display in front of the right eye. It works with both Android phones and the iPhone. Wearers can read emails, surf Twitter and send text messages without needing to take their phone out of their pockets" (Gilbert, 6)

Gilbert says our phones will remain holstered, but what if we need to respond to a notification?

From my intelligent glassware I can view notifications in real time but depending on my location I may not be to respond appropriately. Voice controls lack the accurate input and privacy that a tactile keyboard posses. I may not want everyone in my crowded subway car to be a third party in my private conversation.

You may find your old smartphone more effective even if it isn't augmenting your reality.

Give Glass Time!

Pamela Lund, author of Massively Networked believes that if we want more from our wearable tech, it's coming and we can help.

Once the novelty wears off from tapping our temples on the toilet and darting our pupils towards the top right of our screens at the faintest buzz: What do we do. What will push us to toss our cellphones to the side?

According to Lund, we can do anything.

Support for Google Glass is still in it's infancy. Developers have yet to assess what us cyborgs need before we clear a socket on our crowded surge protector.

If a need is great enough, Google will soon provide. But that may not be enough to overcome the awkward interface.

Internet Explorer Worth Fixing?

Microsoft is determined to make themselves an “All in One” enterprise, but their war on multiple fronts may be setting an unwelcome standard among other corporations.

Internet Explorer Exploitable?!

Vocal techie, Kaylie Krauzyk tweeted:

#Chrome #Firefox #Safari use anything but #InternetExplorer for now; major bug detected http://goo.gl/Mvy4aC  #e8s4 via @VentureBeat

The vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer is one of a long string of message to consumers: Upgrade your browser.

Ben Manning of WTAJ fame describes the security breach in frightening detail:

"If you’re using internet explorer and you have Flash enabled and you click on a bad link it will take you to a website that automatically installs a program […] That malware will give people access to everything on your computer.” (Manning,

This is no small scale security breach, but Microsoft has yet to develop a permanent patch for the problem.

Internet Explore has been the butt of browser jokes for the last decade and since the invention of rival web surfing software, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome there is little reason to use the slower less secure Internet Explorer.

Microsoft hasn’t made any major changes to the software since it’s inception, showing their lack of ambition in that sect of the web.

Microsoft to the Rescue?

Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked says, "Just because revolutionary cyber-soviets and Robin Hood-style cyber vigilantism are not the answers to our problems does not mean that business and government as we know them today are serving the needs of today’s citizens and netizens" (MacKinnon, 236) This suggests that regardless of the cracks tech savvy "Robin Hoods" try to slip through, Microsoft still won't come to our aid.

Bill Gates would much rather establish what Robert McChesney considers "Walled Gardens" and slice up as many acres of cyberspace as possible. The overall quality of their technology matters little, as long as they're branding bits of software and hardware with their logo.

Image Credit: Kantar WorldPanel

Windows Phones, Gaming Consoles and computers have been losing steam in the hardware market over the last two years, yet Microsoft refuses to refocus

Microsoft Paves the way for Facebook!

It’s no secret that Facebook has longed to be much more than a social networking tool. It began interweaving gaming into it's website a few years ago, and after that attempted become an instant messaging application. In all of it’s attempts to broaden their area of influence it hasn’t implicated any of these changes particularly well and has strayed away from what many joined the service for.

Microsoft paved the way for this sort of shoddy corporate expansion.

With everyone expansive update users urge Facebook to developers to refocus and refine what already exists. Facebook users have been met with resounding "NO" instead Facebook is looking to pull a few loose twigs from twitter's nest. Darrell Etherington of Tech Crunch remarks:

"Facebook is looking to position itself more as a source for timely public information, along the lines of what Twitter has managed to become organically (Etherington)

Facebook doesn't intended to sharpen it's social media platform. There is a ceiling on how much profit it can pull in as purely a social tool. Like Microsoft, they believe branching out will lead to more money.

They've opened to door for a global market domination of inferior products and Facebook is just the first of many corporate feet to step over the threshold.

Facebook has recently introduced FB Newswire, a blatant rip off of Twitter's trending topics. This is the most notable of facebook's many attempts to market unoriginal ideas and tack them onto their swollen social media site.

Facebooks: Bloated 'All in One' Application

It's no secret that Facebook has longed to be much more than a social networking tool. It began interweaving connectivity and gaming a few years ago, and after that attempted become an instant messaging application. In all of it's attempts to hide its competitors in the shadows it hasn't accomplished any of these particularly well and has strayed away from what many joined the service for.

Tweeting up the Wrong Tree!

Twitter is the biggest headlines application for a reason. Each Tweet is displayed based on user preference and overall importance. Twitter unlike Facebook doesn't curate the news, it creates the news.

Ashley Feinburg of Gizmodo remarks, "By bringing curation into the mix, Facebook is trying to make its very own Twitter, but without the part that makes Twitter useful." (Feinburg, 5). Facebook's not forwarding the technology. It's parroting it, and poorly. Without the immense user-base comprised of people from every social group imaginable, the project is destined to fail.

Celebrities won't use it. Reporters won't use it. Why should the public use it?

Google is being urged to exclude outgoing links to the famous torrent hosting website The Pirate Bay. This could soon set the standard for web censorship.

Ave Ye Heard of The Pirate Bay?

The Pirate Bay has been growing steadily in both users and contributors and has become the household peer to peer file sharing site. What makes the website so remarkable is the content it provides.

Due to it's servers being hosted far off the coast of America's soil and strict laws on copyright, The Pirate Bay's chest is packed full of illegal content. If one wishes to wade through all of its content it wouldn't be too difficult to find a recently release film or album of reasonable quality.

Illegal? Shut it Down!

The process in itself is actually worth protecting. Users upload and download data simultaneously from hundreds of other computers which lessens the load on the offshore server.

The content itself sits in a legal grey area. Due to America's restrictive copyright laws virtually nothing is sent to the public domain. Previously a work could continue to generate revenue for fourteen years before becoming a public good. This would allow the public to use and own content without the fear of legal action being taken against them.

Technically with a few exceptions, the copy of "Gladiator" users are sharing should belong to them already. They're only accessing what should be a public good.

Google Guides the Flock

Monkey see. Monkey do. Holds strong in the corporate world. Once other companies see that they can start limiting what users can access, it's all over.

Imagine a world where Comcast decides to block any channel still showing reruns of Full House!

Scratch that. I welcome the change.

Web Rules Can Make or Break a Social Platform

Reddit exists as an example of what organized and constructive Internet communication could be. Established Tumblr blogger, katyiskelly defines Reddit “as a forum with threads on all kinds of issues. Some threads are personal, some are more serious.” (Kelly, 5) But it is in its organization that Reddit becomes a tool for communal web interaction. While it’s predecessor 4chan is damning itself to be nothing more than more gin.

4chan the Wild West of the Web

4chan is an internet analog to the wild west. No one knows or cares what part of the web you blew in from and you’re welcome to say what you’d like at  your own risk. The Sheriffs too busy drowning in a saloon somewhere to really moderate any user interaction so when tempers fly things have a tendency to spiral out of control.

4chan is the birthplace of many web memes that are usually chucked at and scrolled passed with the same amount of interest as one would have reading a newspaper comic. While these creations are hardly influential and largely individual Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus would argue;

“The stupidest creative act is still a creative act… On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something” (Shirky)

Shirkey doesn’t dismiss the achievement of those who have done very little in the grand scheme of things. But it is in the software itself where the quality of creative endeavors is limited.

 User Input is Essential

Unlike Reddit, it is a lot harder to organize people and collaborate because everyone on 4chan is reduced to a constantly changing number dictated by the time they had posted. Also unlike Reddit, which has a user based post review system, 4chan’s content is presented based on what was posted last. Meaning you’re just as likely to run into someone spouting nonsense as you are to stumble into a discussion of ethics.

This makes it increasingly difficult for anything to get done or produced and reduces 4chan to just another form of Gin. Thousands of voices are screaming out and none are really being heard.

Shirky remarks, “… what matters now is not the new capabilities we have, but how we turn those capabilities, both technical and social, into opportunities.” (Shirky, 191-192) Hw speaks in the defense of 4chans less than influential creations. Given the constraints of the software it is producing the best quality content it can.

Reddit took the idea of an open forum and with it’s own brand of government and structure found a way to take individuals and group them together to create something larger and more worthwhile.

While this isn’t true for all interactions on the website, but the rare instances of constructive conversation are eventually drowned out by the senseless clattering of keys and re-posting of captioned cat photos.

World War Web: Reddit vs 4chan

I view Reddit as a refined version of 4chan. It has curbed the anarchy and come up with a peer identification system that is just private enough to be identifiable among other users. But these two forums tend to come to virtual blows over which did what first and which community has a larger effect on the web at large.

While competition between the two platforms is good, it promotes innovation between the two competitors,  the people clinging on to 4chan’s limited structure are putting a cap on their possible achievements. Shirky states:

“Bias in favor of existing systems is good, at least in times of technological stability…. However, that intellectual asset turns into a liability in times of revolution…. those deeply committed to old solutions cannot see how society would benefit from an approach incompatible with older models” (Shirky, 209-210).         

4chan is a great tool for spontaneous expression but that is about the end of it. It is a forum for a time when the coming together of experts and ideas wasn’t on our radar and therefore isn’t built to accommodation a need for quality web contributions. Those who cannot see how society can benefit from the structure Reddit offers will be able to produce anything beyond what Shirky describes as Gin.

Works Cited

Kelly, Katy. “Where Are We Headed?” Reddit Offers Public Space for Interaction The Ad… -. Tumblr, 10 Apr. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

SRI International is working to mimic the movement and incredible carrying capacity of ants. These tiny robotic insects could work independently or in tandem with other units to do a variety of micro-constructions.

Faster, Accurate, and Gravity Defying

SRI's tiny mechanical insects operate on a special magnetic circuit board that can transmit signals to individual units or combine their efforts to lug a particularly large load. Just like they're insect counterparts they can ascend and descend vertical surfaces at a staggering 35cm per second (Solon,5). Remarkably they can move unobstructed along a warped or moving flexible circuit board. 

Micro-Builders: There's Strength in Numbers 

When these bugs start building they may array themselves in large formations under awkwardly shaped objects or work in smaller groups make minor adjustments to bits of circuitry.

"In one shot two robots are gluing together carbon fibre rods -- one applies the glue to the rod while the other puts it into place. In another scene microrobots work together to build a 29cm-long cubic structure made out of hundreds of lightweight rods glued together in this way." (Solon,6)

The latter structure could support several lbs of weight and based on the movement shown in the video these microrobots can create quality work in a hurry.

What's Next for These Micro-Machines?

These bugs specialize is transporting solid and liquid mass swiftly and safely in a variety of different shaped terrain. Imagine sending a handful of the microrobots into the vacuum of space to reattach a missing bit of insulated tile. The risk of being sucked off into the vast abyss of space is virtually nonexistent because these builders stick to steel like glue.

In combination with biological advancement we could see a surge in micro medical practices. They could zip around a sterile area weaving tissue like cloth or manipulating existing problem tissue.

The future is looking bright for mircomachines.

Web applications like "Cookie Clicker" slowly encroached on our free time and placate us with illegitimate satisfaction. Continuing to abuse these time wasters may plateau human advancement.

Why Click Cookies?

The object of Cookie Clicker is simple: Click the cookie. For every twitch of your finger a meaningless number ticks and you've got yourself a small pile of cookies. These Cookies can be spent in order to build your chocolatey empire and eventually the cookies roll in with little player input. These cookies can be spent to increase your automated production via Cookie Factories and Cookie Farms.

Cultivating Cookies is a Nasty Hidden Addiction

Currently my Cookies are rolling in without me having to do much at all. But still the constant ascending numbers lure me back to further upgrade my Cookie Mines and Cookie Factories. I'm not needed but between every completed sentence I'm whisked back off to my Cookie HQ to accelerate production.

Had I less willpower, I'd be buried in a sea of pixelated cookies while in a separate stack of unfinished homework and unserviced tables at work would pile up quickly.

What makes this game particularly potent is it never ends.

Cookies are Unavoidable!

Your collected cookies aren't only bound to your web-browser. Those with smartphones can continue to tap cookies on the go. Duane Hicks, writer of "Digital Distractions: A Problem for Students" notes that, "22 percent of all people who don’t own a smartphone planned to get one in the next 12 months." (Hicks, 5)

Considering 86 percent of the people originally surveyed own smartphones it is easy to see how contagious Cookie Clicker could become.

What Can Come From a Cookie Centric Society

Cookie Clicker gives the illusion of success with nearly every click. Achievements are dished out like pamphlets in a crowded subway station so the player is constantly riding a wave of success. If one is constantly wrapped up in pseudo-success they may lose their desire for actually accomplishments.

This could satiate the need for actually accomplishment and eventually stagnate the achievements of mankind, one cookie at a time.

Soon youth may not come from creams and powders. A group of rodents in Australia have already taken a sip from the fountain of youth. Compounds introduced to the rats restored muscle loss and cured symptoms of age related disease. This could logically lead to human immortality but not as you may assume.

Unwavering Youth v.s. Digital Immortality

Previously it was thought that our digital selves would be our only method of evading death. Provided human trials proceed as planned and are met with the same overwhelming success, biology may race towards infinity alongside our profiles and data.

Why Cyborg Immortality Matters

Scientists have recently been working on digitizing the mind. With the mind stored on a computer our thought processes could be accelerated much like any other computer process. This could redefine our current perception of time. Imagine thinking a days worth of thoughts in a second.

In a virtual world such as the matrix an avatar could act as quickly as our minds could signal. Theoretically this acceleration could be increased nearly infinity. The only thing that would eventually cut our existence short would be our living body sitting in storage in the real world.

With the ability to reset our biological clocks, humans could truly live indefinitely.

Corporations will Lord Over Simulated Existence

I view our future cyber playground like an extension of the internet and our digital selves. Assuming this, what holds true on the internet would likely bleed into virtual reality. 

Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook will no doubt see this web-space as tool to increase their profit margin and dip their bucket in the data well.

Digital Government Must be Established!

Tim Berners Lee is already pushing for user liberty in cyberspace. It isn't until these laws are established that we can consider uprooting from reality and uploading into the digital domain.

"We need independence of the Web for democracy, we need independence of the Web to be able to support the press, we need independence of the Web in general. It's becoming very important to sort out all that." (Lee, 2)

Regardless of how the battle for web freedom goes, digital immortality is approaching and I hope we're ready when the time comes.