In a twist related to my previous post about PrevYou here (link), a social shopping platform, an Austin, Texas-based site ShangBy (link) has an unconventional way for you to shop in Shanghai, where prices for luxury goods can be significantly cheaper than in the U.S., by allowing you to shop virtually via a camera following a Swedish guide in Shanghai! As a ShangBuyer, you tell them what items to zoom in on, which products Nina should try on, what questions to ask the merchants, and which products you’d like to buy. Now here’s actually a potential reason for justin.tv’s technology!
I guess one of the benefits of having a blog is my ability to publicly vent. I love my iPhone overall, but I am extremely frustrated with the ATT/Cingular service. I had Sprint for 10 years and never once had a dropped call. I’ve had ATT with my iPhone for a couple months, and it nearly drops every call. And I live in Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. I have to go out onto my balcony for people to hear me, and even then the voice transmission fades in and out. Had I known that the ATT service was so bad, I would not have purchased an iPhone and switched carriers.
Does anybody know a public petition for iPhone users taking a stance against ATT? Otherwise, I’m tempted to create one. Of course, there are now fixes, but I’m already locked into a contract with ATT, and my suspicion is that any workarounds will probably be plugged.
The data speed is also incredibly slow. This was a tradeoff that Apple made to maximize the iPhone’s battery life, but my preference would be to have a shorter battery life, and have faster data. We as consumers should be able to make that choice.
Defense Research and Engineering has announced a public competition to develop wearable batteries for soldiers, which are 1/2 the current weight of batteries that are currently used to power electronic gear, including GPS, night vision gear, and radios. In addition to weighing significantly less, the batteries must also be able to withstand rigorous use for up to 96 hours. [DoD press release]
Zink, a spinoff of Polaroid based in Waltham, Massachusetts, will be unveiling its zero ink printing technology at Demo 07 today in Palm Springs. The Zink technology is protected by over 100 patents and patents pending, and will usher in an era of portable, full-color printing without toner, ink cartridges, and ribbons. The first Zink-enabled devices will be pocket sized printers that work with digital cameras and phones. For more information, click here for a SJ Mercury News report on the Company.
Five San Francisco bus stops have been equipped with “Got Milk?” advertisements that utilize a scent of chocolate chip cookies to trigger an emotional response to the ads. Scents have been used in magazine ads for perfume and cologne, for many years, but this is apparently the first application of scent for outdoor advertising. [via Strange New Products and Neatorama]
We will be post Arthur C. Clarke’s vision by a factor of 19 earth years, but having already exceeded it, we fall woefully far behind in our conquest of the solar system. However, in some ways, we will have made the visions of Star Trek’s 23rd Century biomedicine seem primitive, in a decade and a half.
I should say that the main caveat to these predictions is a major nuclear or bioterrorist event, which could lead to an urban exodus, due to a lack of faith in the government’s ability to protect large population centers.
First prediction: A Heart Attack Will Achieve Obsolescence
There are genetic factors that predispose to certain arrhythmias, which unlike coronary artery disease, are not a simple plumbing problem. Already, with 64-slice CT scans, we have largely usurped the God of Angiography from his pedestal, by offering a non-invasive picture of coronary arteries. Radiation and risk of contrast material mitigate the use of these techniques, however, advances in MRI, and decreases in CT scanning time, will translate into chronological snapshots that will take the guesswork out of cardiac evaluation. Advances in endovascular repair will be superseded by nanotechnological intervention, which will evolve from clinic-based platforms to constant bystanders, which will monitor and correct defects, such as thrombus, and embolism.
We will find, I am sure, that there is a root inefficiency of the heart, apart from average mortality, that is present irrespective of genetic proclivities to certain arrhythmias. If it can be expressed as a ratio that certain increased activity will translate into sudden cardiac death, for instance, then constant monitoring via implantable devices will become standard. If the heart fails, the time to allocating a new, workable device, either by ingrafting the old with donor matched sells, or quickly rushing the patient to a hospital where a biosynthetic substitute can function as an intermediate. It will be interesting when a biosynthetic replacement will outperform the original – probably not by 2020, but I would not be surprised if one were designed by 2040.
I was a little reluctant to write about this for obvious reasons, but several bathroom experience innovations are worth noting. We do, after all, spend a rather significant amount of time in the bathroom, over the course of our lives, and the experience should be more interesting than it is today.
First, why does toilet paper always have to be plain, boring white? Why not black toilet paper? Or, why not toilet paper that looks like a roll of 100 dollar bills? A European company, Renova, is introducing solid, black toilet paper in the United States, and my guess is that it’s only a matter of time before you can buy Charmin in a plethora of colors and patterns! [Thanks, Deidre Woollard]
Secondly, there’s a new movement to move beyond simply placing advertisements above public urinals, which makes eminent sense because an ad has 45 seconds in front of a captive audience! Innovation Solutions Oceana has developed an innovative advertisement solution that offers an interactive experience to urinal users: high definition, color graphics, which are printed in “disappearing ink,” are activated when the urinal is used. [Thanks, Ilya Vedrashko]
Finally, brilliant businessman Mark Cuban recently invested in Brondell, a startup company that makes technologically advanced toilet seats. The seat, which retails for $550, features a heated seat, a retractable, warm water spray nozzle to clean, and a warm air blower to dry. The San Francisco based company, founded by Dave Samuel and Scott Pinizzotto, recently forged distribution deals with Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond. [Thanks, Forbes]
