I recently moved into a new house...and you would think with a new house, you probably want to paint a couple of rooms, or buy some new furniture to fit in better with your new joint. Me? my first purchase was a for my family's new home was a Lutron Maestro remote control dimmer for my family room lighting. And not because I'm too lazy to get up and dim the lights when I watch a movie, I'm not going to lie to you; the only real reason I bought this is because I think it's cool. And every single time I press play on the integrated touch-screen remote control, and the blu-ray spins up, and television goes automatically to the correct input, and the room lights automatically dim, I basically get wood. And then there's the touch screen tablet notebook where I can scroll through all my family photos and edit them like I'm finger painting. Maybe just flip through my netflix queue and tap on the title of the film I want to watch, and just grooving wirelessly and instantly, simply marveling at what can be done now-a-days. Yeah, I have a problem, I know.
Being old enough to easily remember the days before computers and mainstream Internet use, I am just blown away when every one of these new gadgets comes out to the world; I am just friggen amazed at what can be done. As a kid I had a 13-inch black and white TV in my room. It was once the family TV, that was recycled when my parents moved on up to color. Anyway, on a clear night I used to be able to just barely eek out some soft core movies on Prism by fiddling with outer ring of the UHF channel knob. When I compare then to now, it is just astounding how far we've come and how fast it's moved.
Have you seen the Motorola Droid? This latest phone -- and I kind of hate to call it a phone, because it's more like a computer/iPod/camera/game console/GPS/etc/etc than it is a phone -- is just another phenomenal jump in awesomeness. I'm not a professional reviewer, so, you can go somewhere else to read all the cool crap it can do, and there is definitely some cool stuff. In my humble opinion the most amazing thing this phone can do is this: Your kid can be taking a video of you catching a baseball and say, the ball hits you in the nuts. You fall to the ground and start crying like a little girl or Glenn Beck -- your choice in this scenario. This video can be watched by 2000 people including Bob Saget himself, before you compose yourself and get back up to your feet. That there, my friends, is fucking astounding. You might be saying, so what's the big deal, most any phone can do that' -- and that's even more astounding.
By the way, are there any movie rental joints near you anymore? I don't have any idea if there's still a Blockbuster still around. Why would there be, with on demand movies, netflix, etc.? But thinking about it, VCRs came into their own in what, the late 70's early 80's? The video rental stores were huge business through the 80's and 90's. In my old neighborhood there were two video stores parked right next to each other, and they were both always packed and both charging an extra dollar for not rewinding your tapes. And now they're all gone, for the most part at least. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any industry that got so big, so fast, and died even faster (maybe the Dutch tulip bubble of the 1600's). But, I'm afraid that this is a sign of the times for many old school businesses and entire industries. As we moved, I was unpacking a box of my wife's cookbooks; loading them on the shelf it struck me: Why do we even have any cookbooks? We have the Internet. Why do schools even use books anymore instead of Amazon Kindles? Why teach handwriting at all anymore? Even the bluest of the blue-collared workers has to use a computer pad to adjust fuel mixture of his welder, or to perform an analysis of your car's engine, or to order your fries at McDonalds. The only real good reason I can see for handwriting at all, anymore, is to write a Christmas card to your grandmother. I wonder what will be extinct first -- handwriting or newspapers. These are amazing times we're living in.
Below is a kind of cool video illustrating some of the more recent trends.
3 comments:
Ok, so I'm about to buy my husband a Ipod Touch for Christmas. He's one those people who wants a separate phone and ipod (I don't know why). We saw the Droid the other night at Verizon and he seemed real interested in it. Should I bother with the Ipod or just get the Droid? That phone does look pretty sweet.
It's hard to say what would be the perfect present for your man, but here's my take. I loved my iPod touch, I carried it and a phone everywhere I went, everyday. It was never more than three feet away from me, ever, since I got it last xmas, that is until three days ago when I got the Droid. The Droid doesn't fully replace the iPod, and iTunes and the whole package, but it comes real close, with a whole lot of other benneys that the iPod/iPhone don't let you do. Granted I'm still in the honeymoon phase of my Droid relationship but right now, to me, the Droid seems to be the way to go.
Check out some of these fun apps. http://www.pcworld.com/article/181630/verizons_droid_10_apps_to_get_you_started.html
I don't imagine newspapers will exist much longer at all...or magazines for that matter. Once these devices are in the $100 range...print news is over.
There was already an article stating that it would be more cost effective for the New York Times to GIVE everyone of it's subscribers a Kindle and send the paper to them that way, than to keep printing the paper at the current rate of financial loss it's operating under. And THAT is at the current Kindle costs. Now with even more options like the Barnes & Noble Nook, and others on the horizon, coupled with already lower prices, that day that the print companies actually do start handing out Kindles is getting closer and closer.
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