Robot vending machines, again!

I must be ahead of my time. Here’s a link from SingularityHub.com about Pepsi Cola’s newest social vending machine! Yeah, a social vending machine! Here, I’ve been ragging about Coca Cola doing this, and Pepsi sneaks up on me and does this. It doesn’t talk, per se, but it’s a HUGE step in the right direction! At least somebody is listening to me. (I think).

Immersive AR comes a step closer.

Wrap™ 310

The link is to a pair of AR glasses. Still mostly meant for video viewing, but these don’t look nearly as geeky. So we’re getting there.

Smart parking meters

‘Smart’ parking meters catching on across U.S.

I heard Leo Laporte talk about this concept on his Tech Guy radio show podcast a week or so ago. Cool idea. Time for me to pester Coca Cola about smart soda machines in a new blog post again.

personal robotics

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Anyway, my subject is personal robotics. Lately I’ve been reading posts on www.deviantart.com about how people would like a bot that fits in your hand. Seeing that the trend is having affordable robots connect to the web via the local network for processing power, it is entirely possible. Larger bots would be limited to industrial, commercial, and household tasks. The little critters will be about the size of a cell phone, and have a USB connection for a power hookup.

The trick will be not losing them like phones and PDAs during the course of the day!

BTW, scroll thru my posts to read about a cell phone robot.

Cellular phone robot

http://robotgossip.blogspot.com/2007/01/cellular-phone-robot-cpr.html

The link is to a little item in development in Korea called a cellular phone robot. It looks impressive to me so far. The thing has several features that most simple robots have now. The video explains it all. When it goes to market, I’ll be looking to buy one!

Web 2.0

Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc….

Okay, I got suckered into the hype of Web 2.0.  I just read an article that pretty much exposes 2.0 for what it is:  hype.  (Had I been thinking, I would have provided a link to the article.  But at 1:45 am, I don’t think too clearly.)

Anyway, that person is pretty much expecting the current bubble to pop.  Which is plausable.  I keep seeing little fish getting gobbled by bigger fish.  Sooner or later the pond is gonna run outta food.  And we’re not really any closer to the concept of the Semantic Web, which is when I know the internet will have come of age.

Right now we have lots of pretty apps that work on the web.  But most of them are still platform specific.  Or written with cell phones in mind.  I use a cell phone for one reason:  “Help, my car broke down on the highway.  Come get me.”  Geez, I still have a land line.  Call me old fashioned.

I have my website set up for any number of web “upgrades”.  I never worried about the hype.  How did I get sucked into it so easily?  Better salesmanship, I guess.