The Internet - A Guide
OMG,  this is really how people were introduced to the Internet. Watch and laugh.

It costs how much?


 Here's a great video about fixing laptops. Next time you get the bill, just remember what went into it.

What's in a Face?

Tokyo is famed as the home of weird technology - and vending machines in this particular case. I'm sure we've all heard about some of the delights which can be bought from machines on the streets in the Japanese capital. Modesty does not permit me to go into detail,  however those of a curious disposition should look here.

So what's the latest craze? Machines which analyse your face and decide what you would like to drink automatically. Readers of Douglas Adams Hitchhikers' Guide will now be reeling with thoughts of lifts deciding the floor you want is not what you really want, and doors which become depressed and refuse to open.

However disconcerting the thought of sentient apparatus may be, we are not quite there yet. This machine merely offers choices based on analysing facial types and some basic parameters of sex and age. But be sure that a man in a Tokyo shed is working on a vending machine with a sunny Disneyesque personality. Its cheery 'Have a nice day' echoes eerily in my ears as I type.

Perhaps the most depressing thing about this entire story, however, is how predictable people can be based on simple information. "I'm 20 and female so I drink green tea" etc, etc.... Next stop barcode tattoos and feeding tubes injecting pre-determined nutrient sludge.

And what would they offer Wayne Rooney? 

"A brain the size of a planet and this is all they want me to do"  

Geeks Are Cool Now...Right?

On what can only be described as my favourite  title for a webpage - "Geeks are sexy"  - it has been revealed that 10/10/10 was the most important day in the history of humanity.

In a shock exclusive which seems to have caught the mainstream media napping, the website explained that 101010 is binary for the decimal (or stupid old numbers as we scientists call them) 42. As every good geek knows, this is the number that the computer Deep Thought came up with as the answer the ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

For those of you scratching their heads and asking - "what is he talking about?" I can say only this. How did you even get here? You are in deep behing geek lines without a passport if you stumbled on this page by accident. Press the back button and return to Facebook or Twatter.

Jeeeeez...

Irony Thou Art a Cruel Mistress

 In a bizarre twist of ironic fate, the guy who bought the Segway company has died in an accident - on a Segway! Plunging off a cliff, somewhat like his company's fortunes, he died near his home while riding round his estate.

This is such a 21st Century re-enactment of a medieval tale. The Lord of the manor falls from his fantastic new horse after buying the stable where the fabled animal was bred. Shakespeare himself would have dismissed it out of hand as too corny.  

 It just goes to show that George Bush wasn't such a dork after all. Anyone can fall off one of these.

Just keep telling yourself that George. 

Mind Control

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present - the future! Control stuff with your mind. Look cool with a silly headset attached to your forehead.

Does it work? Does it hell. This ridiculous iPhone and iPad accessory claims to let you control applications with your mind. It reminds me of some other so-called "mind control" products which have been less than successful. Usually they are impressive looking eye-candy applications which respond as much to nodding your head as thinking the 'correct' thoughts. At best they may be able to detect alpha wave rhythms in the brain which denote a state of relaxation, but whether this can be used to actually control software is another matter. It would be like trying to drive a car with one pedal, which was only on or off, and no other controls. A tad unlikely you would make it round the Nürburgring.

I have wanted mind controlled software since I watched Clint Plywood in Firefox (1982) fly a secret Soviet spy plane by thinking in Russian, but I'm afraid this is not it. Back to the drawing board boys.

On the other hand!

For every ying there is a yang, grasshopper. Following my last post here's some diametricly opposed tech. This little gizmo is the Porn Detection Stick. Available at all good bookshops, all you have to do is, apparently, "Simply plug the stick into any Windows XP, Vista, or 7 computer, click the icon, and the PSD will find any pornographic images - even deleted ones!" Wow what a tool.

The only downside I can see here is that it may, just may, fall into the wrong hands. Technology can be subverted all too easily to fulfill nefarious purposes. Just look at the Internet - one minute a force for democratic free speech, the next a corporate marketing porn-fest of Jerichoan proportions.

As the manufacturers blurb states - "Despite Internet filters, pornographic content can easily contaminate your organization's computers. Whether copied from flash drives or other media, downloaded from e-mail, or simply missed by your filter, unwanted illicit images should be found and eradicated." 

Yes, that sounds plausible. However, I fear it may be used to find the stuff your significant other deleted when he/she found it.

Cinical - me? Never. 

'Insert Funny Headline Here'

 The FleshDrive, pictured here, is either the Devil's work, or a handy (sic) way to access the Internet's greatest resource. It depends on your point of view. These entrepreneurial free-spirits have hit upon the idea that downloading your own pornography is time-consuming and dangerous. So why not have someone do it for you? Golly gosh it seems so obvious now that people everywhere are kicking themselves, thinking - "Why didn't we start this company?"

Yes folks, it's porn-on-a-stick. (I couldn't help that one). For a mere 39 dollars and 99 cents, you can choose what flavour of adult entertainment is pre-loaded on to this 4GB memory stick before being sent to your house/office/anonymous P.O. Box. 

The people at www.fleshdrive.com (WARNING CONTAINS EXTREME NUDITY) have everything you could want in customisable filth for adding to this device. It does, however, have FLESHDRIVE clearly printed on the outside, but heh, maybe your boss won't notice.

The appocalypse begins here. 

Itunes, Youtunes, We all Tunes

So after what seems like a millennium, Apple have updated the Itunes logo. The new look accompanies the release of Itunes 10, which sees Apple include Ping, a social networking feature. The idea is to share what you are listening to with all your pals - or the random "friends" from South Korea who will undoubtedly pop up requesting to be included as soon as you turn this feature on. Thus the question I would like to pose. "The last bastion of privacy destroyed?"

By which I mean, do you really want to share your music taste with the world? I'm sure some readers would baulk at the thought of their darkest musical moments being displayed across their friends screens, let alone broadcasting it to the world. So is this a step too far for the social networking phenomena?

At this point I should really nail my colours to the mast. I hate social networking. There I've said it. I may use a computer every day and be immersed in IT from dusk till dawn, but I refuse to participate in this inane use of communications technology. It just does not sit easily with my personality. If I want to communicate with people, I do so using email, phone or text, in a one-to-one situation. Call me a Ludite if you will.

But here is the nub of my argument. Social networking is akin to waiving the intimate moments of your life in the air, writ large on pieces of electronic paper, waiting for someone to comment on them. This is attention seeking behaviour. Music is an auditory pleasure, predominantly experienced alone.  Let's leave it that way.

And after all, social networking is the new Matrix. It is simply another way of corporations wringing every last drop of demographic and sociographic marketing data from our pitiful lives, in order to sell us washing powder. Whether you like it or not, every last sentence you twitter, every facebook friend you add, is grist to the marketing mill. Be afraid.

Have a nice day.