Posts Tagged "technology"

Ten reasons Google+ deserves to beat Facebook

Posted by on 10 Jul, 2011 in Technology & Society | 7 comments

Last week Google launched Google+, a new social platform which many are comparing to Facebook. It is quite different from Facebook or Twitter, though it is clearly inspired by both. If it is to gain broad acceptance and not fade away like Orkut, Buzz and Wave–Google’s past attempts to build a social network–then it needs to be more than just “good enough”. It has to wow its critics. The good news is, Google+ seems to be doing just that. Here’s ten reasons why it deserves success:

Read More

“Play”

Posted by on 12 Mar, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

An excellent 20 minutes short film exploring a future of multiple realities. What if you could no longer tell which reality was real?

If you liked Avatar, Total Recall, The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, Surrogates, or Strange Days, this is well worth a watch.

Read More

A power station for every home? (via @deanupton)

Posted by on 25 Feb, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

Here’s one of those stories that seems almost too good to be true. A clean, self-contained fuel-cell power station, that could power your home. If this really works (and contracts with eBay, Google and FedEx suggest it does), this could revolutionize the energy economy. Very exciting.

Read More

One year without TV – Part One

Posted by on 17 Jan, 2010 in Lifenotes | 1 comment

In just a couple of weeks time, it will have been a year since my wife and I last received any kind of TV broadcast into our home. We don’t even own a TV since we moved to Canada.

That’s not to say we don’t watch TV shows, news and movies, it’s just that we’ve been using different technologies to do it. In this first post I will explore why we did it,  how we made the transition away from broadcast TV, and what technologies we found to be useful. In part two I’ll look back at our experiences and assess the pros and cons of not having a TV, and discuss where this might lead, for us and for society as a whole. If you’d prefer a shorter version of this post, you can head on over here.

Watching TV at a time that you choose

So, why did we make the switch?

Read More

One year without TV – Part One (Short Version)

Posted by on 17 Jan, 2010 in My Stream | 0 comments

 

Abandoned_tv_small

 

It’s almost a year since we received any kind of TV broadcast into our home. That’s not to say we don’t watch TV shows, it’s just that we’ve been using different technologies to do it. Here’s a quick summary of the why, how and what. You can read a more detailed version of this post over here.

Why did we do it? Time and Cost.
We’re all busier today. You can’t watch shows when they’re on, not if you want to catch every episode.
At first we bought a PVR, which lets you watch TV in a much more on demand way. Once you’ve owned a PVR, you’ll never look back. 
Read More