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Tag Archive for scifi

Not For Us

http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2015/05/meta-analysis-finds-self-braking-cars-reduce-collisions-by-38-percent/

I’m intimately familiar with programmed responses and how changing the technology that trained them can f*ck you up.  When I started driving, the standard practice was never to slam on your brakes when you got into trouble.  You pumped your brakes.  It kept them from locking up, it made your taillights flash to warn the car behind you.  It helped keep you from locking up all over so that you could continue to react as you slid, in the unstoppable grip of physics, down the roadway to your certain doom.

Then the technology got better.  Cars have computers that take care of the brake management for you (usually) so pumping the brake in most modern cars has become counter intuitive.  It f*ucks up the computer, throws it’s braking off sync.  So now, after decades of pumping the brake, I now have to do the opposite.  I have to stomp ont he brake and hope the computer is smarter than I am (let me point out, I work with computers, so I am intimately familiar with “smart” machines and the misconceptions that go with them).

What they describe here in the Ars Technica article is one step further.  They are discussing systems to handle the braking for the the driver, which means no foot-stomping at all.  That’s an even more drastic change than the one we went through from pump to stomp.

 

 

 

Old Dinosaur, New Tricks

http://gizmodo.com/its-microsoft-build-day-2-live-streaming-hot-1701224950

What the h*ll, Microsoft!

After dancing the dance of the dinosaur’s graveyard for decades now, you give us this.  The HoloLens.

There are a metric *ss-load of VR devices and Apps in the works right now.  Everyone is hunting the killer app (I think VR App companies outnumber hardware companies by, like, 20 to 1).  Everyone is hunting the one cool thing that will finally make VR and AR mainstream products.

Microsoft may have done just that.

The key difference in what Microsoft is pitching is not the one coolest game you’ll ever play (like Magic Leap’s video) or the ultra-minimal camera on ur face (the public perception of Google’s Glass).  Instead they are showing us an integrated world.  They are pitching a lifestyle, one limited to inside your home to be sure, but a functioning, useful product that integrates your screens with your life.  You have the option of attaching stuff to your walls, to having apps and objects appear and disappear in-situ, rather than carrying them with you all the time.

And I think this is the big perceptual difference.  Having VR elements situationally popping into and out of existence requires a kind of constant mental engagement.  It makes you want to put the headset down and go to the kitchen for a soda, just to get a break from all the micro-attentions.  But by having those apps and objects stay static, have them fully integrate with the environment around you, like actual physical objects, you give the user the ability to walk away at any time, then come back to find everything where they left it.  It allows the VR to be a part of your life, rather than a novelty item.