We’ve now had just over a decade of truly mainstream access to and use of the internet. I think I personally took my first stumbling steps on the web around 1995-1996. At the time, it was a limited phenomenon, rife with poor design. It was hard to see what was eventually going to come out […]
I enjoy experimenting with new software  just to see what people come up with. There’s just so much unknown software to discover. I suspect most people find something they like and then stick with it until it doesn’t work anymore, but there’s something to be said for proactively replacing your software and searching for better […]
Micropayments are an old idea. Examples of services using something that might be called micropayments today are Apple’s App Store (for the iPhone), Sony’s Playstation Network, various MMORPGs, etc. However the typical payment sizes are still quite large: Â the smallest possible payment on the App Store is 100 yen (1 dollar). With even smaller payments, […]
I previously commented on Wolfram Alpha and PowerSet. Fisheye Perspective now brings my attention to another “answer engine” as they are called these days: True Knowledge. You have to sign up for an account in order to test it, which I have yet to do, but one feature that’s immediately appealing is that users can add […]
Computers are connected to people, and to the physical world, through input/output devices. These are not just keyboards, mice, monitors, printers etc, but also various sensors, e.g. temperature, light, movement sensors and video cameras, and output devices like industrial control systems or robots. Every day, we increase the extent of what computers can observe, and […]