New Tech Brings Potential for New Possibilities

The term “self-driving car” and the thought of one probably conjures up thoughts in most peoples’ minds of someone eating, reading, or even sleeping while their car drives them where they want to go. They may think mainly of Tesla and Uber, arguably the two largest companies most heavily in the development and application of autonomous, or self-driving, cars. Like many technologies, this one has roots much earlier than many would think. Unlike many technologies developed over a long stretch of time and only being perfected today, however, vehicular autonomy, or the ability of a vehicle to drive itself without human assistance, did not have the potential to exist at the time it was imagined. While the idea existed, the technology available simply did not allow for its application. This is particularly interesting given the normal course of technological progress wherein an idea develops and a very crude prototype created, and inventors continue to create more advanced prototypes until technology allows for a much more useable application or even perfection. Another thing making the case of autonomous vehicular technology even more interesting is the case of the airplane. Lawrence Sperry, the head of the Sperry Corporation, an aviator, and the son of then-famous inventor Elmer Sperry, invented autopilot for airplanes in 1912. This was not even a decade after the Wright brothers’ famous first successful flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina in 1903. Read more »

Connecting every device in homes and businesses is quickly becoming one of the most popular uses of mobile technology.  It makes accessing everything you want instant while allowing you to operate more than one device simultaneously.  Typically, users can only achieve this with a great deal of money, often requiring a professional installation.  When this is not the case, apps allowing this are typically simplistic and do not offer as much to the user.  Now, however, there is iRule, a mobile app that makes home automation easy even for those who are not tech-savvy.  It is also much cheaper and features an option to integrate other home controls into a complete cloud-based automation system.  Thus, if you already have some form of home automation or different apps on your smartphone for lighting, TV, and more, iRule can control all of these from one place. Read more »

Many people assumed that smartphones would make life easier to manage.  However, in many cases, all mobile technology did was replace physical address books, appointment books, and travel itineraries with virtual versions of the same things.  People still have to manually manage their contacts, calendar, and travel plans.  They just manage them by tapping on their phone instead of writing in a notebook or typing on a desktop.  Cool product EasilyDo aims to deliver users a way to manage their lives that actually does change how people do things.  Read more »

The world has come to a startling realization.  A Cisco employee blogged that there are now more devices connected to the Internet than people on the planet to use them.  Technology’s role in our lives continues to grow, necessitating knowledge on topics from computer support to Internet security.  Humanity reached a strange milestone as our devices exceeded our population for the first time.  Internet security and computer support are larger issues than ever in our machine driven world.

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