eReaders - A Disruptive Technology

Blogger’s Block – it is real and it is a terrible thing. 

So this week when I sat down and researched emerging technologies that appealed to me, I came up empty. It seemed all my favorite web sites were filled with stories about the cheaper tablet market, or the latest eReader wars. I already wrote about the new line of Kindle eReader, but what I didn’t write about was the disruptive side of this technology.

Growing up, my family didn’t have much. While we didn’t exactly sit around and watch a bug light for entertainment, we did have books to read. I love books. Always have. What helped build this admiration was my living near a library.

On days when I’d finished my chores early, I was on my way to the library for a day of mysteries and thrillers and even some of the scarier books I wasn’t supposed to be reading. Shaking off the weather from outside, I’d walk along the rows of ceiling-high shelves and play a game of alphabet roulette. Do I start with N or maybe B? Sometimes I’d cheat and browse through the cart of returned books.

Some of my favorite memories are of afternoons spent gathering a new collection of books. Part ritual. Part compulsion. I’d stack them on the table to my left then tear through with my fingers, consuming the pages before stacking the finished reads on my right.

There is magic in the way a book draws you in and evaporates the reality that is life around you. With the turn of a page and the read of a few sentences, you’re in a world someone dreamed up – just for you. The touch of the raised letters on your fingers and the smell of the paper as you turn the pages are the only things to remind you of where you are. I miss that.

I write stories. They’re in my head whether I want them there or not. A dream has always been to see one of my stories published, printed then shelved at a bookstore waiting for someone to pick it up. The likelihood of this ever happening is becoming less and less as reading habits move to books online and in downloadable digital form.

An eReader has a lot of benefits. With the latest connected Kindle Cloud, I can now carry with me the library I used to visit. Granted, it still only takes a sentence or two to pull me into the world the author put together for me. But while the reading experience is almost the same, the book experience is gone. Completely gone.

Going online to purchase one of the latest novels brings with it a certain amount of anticipation – but it is nothing like the excitement of running your hand over the cover of a new book before quickly turning to the first pages.

The Borders bookstores are gone. Libraries from coast to coast are shutting down. The classics have been digitized and made available for free to anyone with a computer or eReader. Some types of text will always be in book form – but the novel, in traditional form, is slowly disappearing.

Vehicle Safety

Every parent lives in fear of the phone call – you know the one. The call that changes life as you know it. It is the phone call that spawns an explosion of questions and speculation as you reach for your spouse’s arm. It is the hospital, and your child has been involved in a car accident. Images of your son or daughter flood your mind as you close your eyes and begin to pray.

But the call doesn’t end when you hang up the phone. It doesn’t end as you try and ask how this could happen. Instead, it is the beginning of what will become your everyday. And your left grabbing at your heart while an avalanche of loss threatens to carry it away.

A parent’s nightmare is receiving that phone call. For a close friend of mine, the phone call came twice. Two sons. Two separate times. Both lost forever to traffic accidents that could have been prevented.

As I write this, my heart feels heavy and butterflies gnaw at my gut. I didn’t know my friend when he lost his first son. I did know him when he lost his second. I remember his eyes and the look in them the day we buried his son. I can see them now as clearly as I did when we gathered to pray, and then to say goodbye.

There is technology that ensures a better vehicle safety. The problem – it’s not available in every vehicle. I can spend the remainder of this post talking about the costs and the politics, but I won’t. Nothing is as final as death. And so there shouldn’t be anything to prevent the progression, or evolution, of technologies for vehicle safety.

So instead I’ll list a few of the technologies that look promising. And if you happen to be reading this, and a conversation comes up one day about vehicle safety, maybe you’ll remember my friend and what his family went through. If that happens, then tell someone about what is out there and how it can save lives. Awareness is half the battle.


Blind Spot Detection – hands down this has got to be one of my favorites. Cannot tell you how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of somebody flipping me the bird because I cut them off.

Cameras & Displays – these technologies are both small enough and cheap enough to use everywhere in a car. For the display, use the vehicle's largest display, the windshield. Couple that with an eye-tracking feature and you can activate areas of the display as the driver moves their eyes around. Conceivably we can create a view that lets you see all around the vehicle at the same time; a panoramic with drive.

Cross Path Detection – this is the technology that could have saved my friend’s son. At the core it is a series of small radar detection sensors that is tied back to the vehicle’s computer system. Collectively the array of sensors alert the driver when other vehicles are in your path.

Attention Assist – the car knows when you are too tired to drive.

Driving Responsibly – there is no technology for this. Just throwing it in at the end to close the post. Teach your kids how to drive responsibly. And by that I mean by example. Don’t drive while texting. Don’t change lanes without proper notice. Basically don’t drive in any way, shape or form, that you wouldn’t want someone else doing in the vehicle next to you.

Tractor Beams - Oh Yeah!

Spock, say it isn’t so … yet another technology from the fiction of Star Trek is going to become a reality. And no, it won’t be tomorrow – but eventually.

The Tractor Beam is in development. My hope is that you are like me, a die-hard Trekker. If you’re thinking Trekkie then you can stop reading now and move on to the next Blog. If you’re still here and still curious, but only have a vague idea of what a Tractor Beam is, then read on.

A Tractor Beam is a light source that can trap and move objects.

Think about holding a small flashlight – aim the light at an object and then move the object across the room. All that, with a flashlight. Cool Huh!!

With one of those in hand, it’d be the last time my kids talk back to me. J

Now for you real Trekkers – what was the first episode in which the Tractor Beam was introduced … if memory serves, the Enterprise used a Tractor Beam to tow the SS Botony Bay – but of course on the big screen, Khan came back. Everyone stand up with me and scream KKHHHAAAANNNNN!!!!

NASA recently stumbled upon some free time after having retired the Space Shuttle program. So one morning over coffee, a few of their engineers watched a rerun of Star Trek. The episode showed Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (TNG, thank you very much) moving something with a Tractor Beam Lift; a space age fork-lift. A few conversations later and NASA moved one cup of coffee closer to turning fiction into fact.

Of course the above NASA conversations are pure fabrication, but who’s to say motivations didn’t really happen that way. Quite a few television shows we watched in years past have had elements of it show up as a reality today. Look no further than the iPod – seems a lot like a Tricorder. Doesn’t it ?  And I am sure I am not the only one still Dreaming of Jeannie. Won't be long before someone comes up with an I Dream of Jeannie App.

So what did happen? A nice amount of funding landed at the feet of NASA Scientist. The requested task … to study the corralling of particles to be moved using a laser beam. Pretty Wicked stuff.

The original thinking was to build out this technology to help NASA clean up the Space Debris. They do leave a lot of Junk up there. Later the project scope was expanded to a more general one – a Tractor Beam.

So what else can you build with this technology??  Order Netflix and watch every episode of Star Trek. That includes the original series, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Watch them once and when you’re done, watch them again. Once you have an established Trekker foundation in place, it won’t take long before you recognize that many flavors of Tractor Beam technology can be used everywhere. I want a mini concentrated graviton pulse to cut my steak.

As a side, I hear Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and HTC are already queuing up their Patent attorneys for the inevitable Tractor Beam Smart Phone Features.  Can’t wait to see an App for that.

Now, say it loud and proud with me One More Time – KHAN!! 

Light-field Technology

Have you ever grabbed your cell phone, pointed it at one of those once in a lifetime moments and then captured the image in front of you - preserving it for all of eternity? Or maybe you just took a picture of your dog licking himself. Dunno. Don’t care.

The point is, most all of us have. Except for Lee; he is still etching his drawings on the cave wall ... did you get the picture of Lumley done yet?

If your like me, you've lost photos. A lot of them. And if your like me, you cringed when you saw the product of your efforts. You thought you were going to be the next Ansel Adams or maybe make the cover of National Geographic. But no dice. All you had was a blurry mess of pixels that got tossed in the digital trash-bin. Out of sight, out of mind.

A photo is made from light hitting a sensor (we used to call it film). The product of light hitting the sensor is a combination of silver-halide or sensor sensitivity, lens aperture (depth of field) and shutter speed.  Yes, I used to work in a photo-lab.
This combination of chemical, mechanical and physics, relative to light, has been the same for more than a century. It doesn’t matter if it is digital or if it is film, how light is captured to make a photograph hasn't changed for a very long time.

A new camera aims to change that – it is called the Lytro and it is radically different. For the most part, you just point and shoot. Later, from your computer, you can change the image to focus on different areas of interest. The subject can change with the simple move of a slider bar on the screen. So if you change your mind, no problem, change the area of interest again and watch the focus in the image shift. When your done, render a new photograph and post it on Facebook. Or give it to Lee to copy to the cave wall. Just expect to hear him complain about it first.

The Lytro Camera

How does this change photography today? You no longer have to focus on a given subject. The camera calculus photographers do in their head to get just the right exposure and depth of field goes away. Now you just point in the general direction and the Lytro device captures the entire light field surrounding all viewable objects. Everything can be a subject in the field of view. 

Here is the gotcha – this is not something in a lab or being tested. The camera will be available for a few hundred dollars and it will be available soon.

I could write all day about the disruptive nature of this technology ... let us just say, the playing field between sony, nikon and canon may change drastically.

From a usage perspective - this will change what we traditionally understand as photography fundamentals. It isn’t just about snapshots and portraits of the family and pets, this touches on everything where there is video and image capture as a part of our day to day lives.

So how could this new technology change the way we do things today, tomorrow?

How about the security camera of the future? It could be a light-field driven camera where decisions in the courtroom change because the participants in the case can quickly adjust focus-attention of a scene. One shift in focus and the story being told is from a completely different point of view.

How about cameras in the operating room and the types of surgeries that have visual aides on monitors to guide a surgeon’s hands – we’re talking about cameras with potentially a tenth of the footprint in comparison and can shift light focus.

How about instant replay on the football field??

And finally, how about the camera on your phone? It would be nice to keep that digital trash-bin a little emptier during the next birthday party when trying to get a photo of the birthday cake before the candles are blown out.

Algae - an emerging technology? Yes, I mean the gunky stuff!

When reading about new and emerging technologies, algae wasn’t something I ever expected to see in a Google results list. But sure enough, it was there.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best advocate for recycling, or the greatest voice behind fuel efficiency. I’m not even sure where I stand when the press talks up the Global Warming debate. I do, however, recognize a common denominator amongst us all … and that is one. You can say it in French, Chinese, English or even Latin. One is still One.

We have One Earth. One. Not two or three. No repeats or mistake to be made. No backspace or copy & paste and a chance to start over. Just one home and one opportunity to get things right. One is one and it means something to all of us.

The math is simple. The most consumed of resources, oil, has a finite supply. When that supply is gone there is no more. 

So Algae as a technology? Why not. If we can grow algae and use it as an alternative fuel to power anything, or maybe one day, everything. Then why not fund the development so that it can be translated to a manufacturing process for mass production. 

Oh, and by the way, Algae is cleaner. Its Green. Sorry for the pun.

Soalzyme is a promising startup engaged in the development of algae biomass conversion as an alternative fuel. Located in California they are finalizing processes for large scale fuel production. Their goal - replace crude oil; I can get behind that.

Like I said, I’m not the best voice in the crowd - I’m not one to preach about saving the world or campaign to have recycle bins in every cubical. I do have one home just as you do. One.

Algae as a technology? What have we got lose? I  have nothing to lose. We have everything to gain.

The subsidized Tablet

While not an emerging technology - the business practice Amazon is fostering is new and will change the face of Tablet computing as an emerging technology.

The Amazon Kindle Fire is priced at a third the cost of other Android based tablets. The advantage to Amazon being they can afford to subsidize the tablet costs with expectations of selling content. Only Apple is in a position to compete in the tablet market in a same manner given they too offer content.

Where does this leave all other tablet makers ??  Who knows? Most will change up their model and be provider of hardware to Amazon or Apple but IMO most will fade away.

The Kindle Color is on its way

While Kindle changed the way we read books, much criticism received is over the limitations of the Kindle. Specifically that the Kindle's functionality was limited.

Whoever said the Kindle was supposed to do more than offer a platform for reading eBooks?

Rest assured for all you Kindle fans feeling the pinch of not being able to do more - the Kindle Color is on its way.

Leveraging a forked thread of Android, the newest Kindle will now do more such as watching movies or Netflix, play games, browse the web and yes it will still read books.