Posted by on under samuel morse, iry, best thing since sliced bread, panics, phe, hysteria, thoreau, typewriters, backlash, aces, pencil, brains, critique, telegraph, waves, peoe, attitude, memory | 
Salon has a refreshing take on the effect of the net on wider culture, courtesy of Dennis Baron, author of the new book A Better Pencil. Baron places hysteria about the net's supposed dumbing-down in context with other panics of years gone by. Historically, when the new communication device comes out, the reaction tends to be divided. Some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread; other people fear it as the end of civilization as we know it. And most people take a wait and see attitude. And if it does something that they're interested in, they pick up on it, if it doesn't, they don't buy into it. I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony. We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything." Is the Internet melting our brains?...
Tagi: samuel morse, iry, best thing since sliced bread, panics, phe, hysteria, thoreau, typewriters, backlash, aces, pencil, brains, critique, telegraph, waves, peoe, attitude, memory
Posted by Chris on under iphe, blood and guts, gun violence, sick kid, uf student, store thanks, healthcare center, mery, viewfinder, waiting room, compass, brains, ace, apps, cue, Wordpress, real world, anger, gps, developers |
Maybe you think gun violence is atrocious, and that it should never be endorsed by an iPhone app. Well, you may be right, but I am sick and waiting for attention at the UF student healthcare center and there’s nothing I want more than to shoot up the place.
Cue: iSheriff, a new “augmented reality” (or should I say demented reality?) iPhone app that lets you blow the brains out of anyone in the viewfinder of your iPhone camera.
“Hey, sick kid in the waiting room. Let me put you out of your misery…”
“And will someone please turn off this damn TV! No!? Well then I’ll do it myself…”
If you’re not one for blood and guts, Disable Gore and go for the clean kill.
iSheriff is an amusing development in the new and emerging realm of augmented reality iPhone apps that are hitting the App Store.
Thanks to the iPhone 3.1 update, developers can now combine the iPhone’s camera, compass and GPS to place a virtual layer over a view of the real world.
Gonna shoot up a place? Use iSheriff.
This post was created using the Wordpress iPhone app.
Tagi: iphe, blood and guts, gun violence, sick kid, uf student, store thanks, healthcare center, mery, viewfinder, waiting room, compass, brains, ace, apps, cue, Wordpress, real world, anger, gps, developers
Posted by on under brain activity, air pollution, brains, air quality, decline, health |
The results of several studies illustrate the damage air pollution is doing to our brains, and the picture isn't pretty. Air pollution has an obvious and powerful effect on our health. What has not been obvious is the effect low air quality has on the health of our brains.
Tagi: brain activity, air pollution, brains, air quality, decline, health
Posted by on under braille keyboard, light particles, eye fatigue, sd card slot, fri, decent variety, humanware, accessible software, flash storage, usb ports, harsh light, notetaker, blogger, apex, ramblings, ly, brains, nbsp, peripherals, waves |
We don't know what it's like to be blind, but we often suffer from
acute blogger's eye fatigue and would love nothing more to pound out our ramblings in a no-look manner -- if only we could read them back afterward without letting all those ultra-harsh light particles and / or waves back into our brains. Well, a
Braille display and Braille keyboard obviously solves that problem, and the BrailleNote Apex from HumanWare is purportedly the thinnest and lightest notetaker for the blind yet. It runs Windows CE 6, with a decent variety of accessible software, and is targeted at serious students and professionals, with 8GB of built-in flash storage, an SD card slot, WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and a trio of USB ports. No word on a price or release date, but it sounds pretty kitted out, and these things typically don't come cheap.
Filed under: Peripherals
BrailleNote Apex claims to be the thinnest, lightest notetaker for the blind originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tagi: braille keyboard, light particles, eye fatigue, sd card slot, fri, decent variety, humanware, accessible software, flash storage, usb ports, harsh light, notetaker, blogger, apex, ramblings, ly, brains, nbsp, peripherals, waves
Posted by on under adobe systems inc, barnes noble, book vendors, e reader, amaz, s market, digg, e book, brawn, adobe systems, brains, sy |
Barnes & Noble, Sony and other e-book vendors may be the manufacturing brawn in the ongoing e-reader war, but the brains directing the challenge against Amazon.com's market-leading Kindle is Adobe Systems Inc.
Tagi: adobe systems inc, barnes noble, book vendors, e reader, amaz, s market, digg, e book, brawn, adobe systems, brains, sy
