I need someone to slap me hard in the face. It might wake me up from this bizarre dream I’m having. It’s like I’m dreaming yet I feel completely awake. In my dream I feel like I’m back in the year 1994.
Maybe it’s not a dream. Maybe I’m actually back in 1994…back to the future perhaps? Stick with me on this one while I explain why we’ve gone back to the future.
Recently I watched a few old episodes of Beyond 2000. If you don’t know the program, it used to air on Channel 7 through the late 1980′s right up to 1999. It stopped there because After 2000 didn’t really have the same kind of vibe…
Anyway the premise of the show was all about future technologies and science. From Travtek (c.1992) an early GPS system, to crazy cars and an entire collection of telephone books…on a ‘compact disc’!
After spending some down time looking back at some of the technologies they covered I came across one that I found to be remarkably modern. Back then, in the early 1990′s all the rage was about this new kind of gaming technology. It was coined ‘Virtual Reality‘ or VR for short. With polygon rendered graphics, it was destined to take the world by storm.
Well VR never really took off…until 20 years later when innovation merely coughed up an idea decades old. Oculus Rift is the latest attempt to bring VR back to life. There’s real buzz about Oculus Rift, and there’s a fair chance it’ll last as long as VR did in the 90′s too.
Sometimes there’s a lag with technology. Occasionally it can take a long time for something to be widely accepted. It usually takes real innovation to create something that completely redefines the industry.
Unfortunately Oculus Rift doesn’t do that. The graphics are nicer and there’ll be more games to choose from. But that’s as bout as far as it extends. Oculus rift will likely come and go much in the same way as VR did. It seems they’ve just reinvented the wheel; it’s really just lazy innovation.
And it seems lazy innovation has caught on at Apple. One of the biggest consumer product releases in the last month has been Apple’s iPhone 5S. In short it’s pretty much exactly the same as the iPhone 5. And that was pretty much the same (but a tiny bit bigger) as the iPhone 4S. And that was pretty much the same as the iPhone 4. So in four generations of iPhone…not much has changed.
But the new iPhone has a fingerprint reader. Concealed within the home button is a fingerprint reader that you can use to unlock your phone and…and…umm use for security stuff?
I purchased a Toshiba Satellite P105 laptop in late 2006. It had a built in fingerprint reader. To me it seemed pretty advanced tech. In fact seven years ago, it was pretty advanced tech.
Let me tell you how fingerprint readers’ work. You register your fingerprints into the system. For novelty purposes I also registered my second toe to see if it’d work. It did.
But as a backup to the fingerprint reader I also had to register a password in case my fingerprint reader didn’t work properly. Hence completely defeating the purpose of a fingerprint reader to start with.
Now Apple has a fingerprint reader in their phone…and a password backup to boot. It’s a sure sign that innovation has ceased when the best thing you announce is tech that’s about a decade old, and useless.
At some stage biometrics will perform a legitimate function in society. I tend to think it’s more in line with how you interact in a world of immersive technology, not how you interact with your phone.
Real Biometrics would be simply walking into a clothing store which 3D scans your height, weight and shape to direct you to the most appropriate fitting clothes section. Or perhaps runs a diagnostic of your current state of health to suggest appropriate meals at a restaurant.
A device that reads your thumbprint to access your phone, to then punch in a password anyway, isn’t innovation. It’s just being lazy.
They’ve got the size, the scale, the cash and the smarts to do whatever they want. Google will perhaps create a legacy as the most influential company of the 21st century. Nothing is outside of their reach.
Health and the wellbeing of people around the world are obviously on their list of priorities. Late last month they launched a new company, Calico, to tackle exactly that issue.
Trademark issues aside Calico’s goal is simply to improve human health. On Google’s official blog, Larry Page had this to say about the new venture,
‘Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives. It’s impossible to imagine anyone better than Art-one of the leading scientists, entrepreneurs and CEOs of our generation-to take this new venture forward.‘
‘Art’ is Arthur D. Levinson. And he’s going to be a busy man. Aside from being CEO of Calico, he also serves as Chairman of Apple and Genentech.
Calico is yet to officially come out with any groundbreaking work. But there’s no doubt that you’ll be hearing more from them over the coming years, so watch this space.
I was browsing through the Dark Web the other day. If you’re unsure of what I’m talking about, it’s the anonymous internet. It’s the internet that’s about 500 times bigger than the internet you browse every day.
You can find some amazing things on the Dark Web. There’s also plenty of information you don’t want to know about. I’ll cover more about the Dark Web in a video next week for Revolutionary Tech Investor subscribers. But until then here’s a nifty little ‘Life Hack’ I came across in one of the forums.
You can buy a two-pack of A23 Batteries for about $6. What’s interesting is if you pry open the case of the battery you’ll find eight 1.5V button-cell batteries inside. All up that’s close to $40 worth of button-batteries in one A23. And remember, you buy A23′s in a two pack.
This might only be just one simple ‘hack’ but it’s bound to save you some dollars in the long run. Particularly when it comes to replacing the little button battery in your watch or torch.
The point of this is no matter what your opinions of the Dark Web might be, it’s a breeding ground for ideas and technological creativity. There are numerous blogs and forums with thought provoking information. They cover everything from the conventional to the not-so-conventional.
As I delve deeper into the Dark Web over the coming months I’ll bring you some of the good and the plain outright crazy. Because who knows…one day those crazy ideas might actually become reality.
Sam Volkering
Technology Analyst, Revolutionary Tech Investor