Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime    

 

1. The Post Office

 

Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

 

 

2. The Check

 

Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018.  It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.  Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check.  This plays right into the death of the post office.  If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

 

 

3. The Newspaper

 

The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper.  They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition.  That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man.  As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it.  The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance.  They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell     phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

 

 

4. The Book

 

You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages  I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes.  I wanted my hard copy CD.  But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music.  The same thing will happen with books.  You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy.  And the price is less than half that of a real book.  And think of the convenience!  Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

 

 

5. The Land Line Telephone

 

Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore.  Most people keep it simply because they've always had it.  But you are paying double charges for that extra service.  All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

 

 

6. Music

 

This is one of the saddest parts of the change story.  The music industry is dying a slow death.  Not just because of illegal downloading.  It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.  Greed and corruption is the problem.  The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing  Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.  Older established artists.  This is also true on the live concert circuit.  To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

 

 

7. Television Revenues

 

To the networks are down dramatically.  Not just because of the economy.  People are     watching TV and movies streamed from their computers.  And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV.  Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.  Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  I say good riddance to most of it.  It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery.  Let the people choose what they want to watch      online and through Netflix.

 

 

8. The "Things" That You Own

 

Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future.  They may simply reside in "the cloud."  Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents.  Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be.  But all of that is changing.  Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services."  That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.  So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet.  If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud.  If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud.  And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.  In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device.  That's the good news.  But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?"  Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical?  It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that     photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

 

 

9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)

 

Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended)

 

 

10. Privacy

 

If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.  That's gone.  It's been gone for a long time anyway..  There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone.  But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View.  If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits..  "They" will try to get you to buy something else.  Again and again and again.

 

 

All we will have left that which can't be changed.......are our "Memories".

AI Based Behavior detection for public Place

AI Based Behavior detection for public Place

Oral-B Genius Toothbrush Uses Your Phone's Camera for Better Dental Hygiene

Enjoy your standard toothbrush while it lasts for its replacement may reach you soon. Oral-B at the ongoing Mobile World Congress unveiled its smart, connected toothbrush. The company says that its new smart toothbrush dubbed Oral-B Genius is able to take better care of your dental hygiene.

The Smart Series model uses motion sensors and more interestingly your smartphone camera to track your dental cleanliness. The smart brush from Oral-B also utilises position detection, SmartRing lighting system to track location, pressure, and brushing time.

Users will be able to monitor and control the features from the Oral-B app on their smartphone. A user is required to put their smartphone in a holder on the mirror in front of them, and open the Oral-B app to get feedback in real time. A user is supposed to sync data with their toothbrush, at least, every two weeks and these pieces of information can also be shared with their dentist. The toothbrush can be charged by plugging the toothbrush using a USB cable.

The Oral-B Genius toothbrush tells users how well they have brushed their teeth, and what areas could use some more efforts. The company insists that based on its study, about 80 percent people don't spend enough time cleaning their teeth.

"Patients are not brushing their teeth correctly, even though they think they are; they brush too hard, do not brush long enough, and miss zones of the mouth. This new brushing system helps us coach patients to brush properly, and improve these three main areas of patient brushing behaviors that affect their oral health," said Dr. Jose Nart, DDS.

"The Oral-B Genius and App take digital guidance to the next level by bringing awareness to what's actually happening each time users brush and giving them real-time guidance to improve every brushing session. Now our patients can continue what's started in the dental office at home - a professionally guided brushing routine."

The Oral-B Genius smart toothbrush will be available in select markets starting July. Its price hasn't been disclosed yet.

Source : NDTV

New data storage method can fit 360TB of data onto a quartz disk for 14 billion years

Researchers at Southampton Univerity (UK) have devised a new technique to digitally store data; a LOT of data, around 360 terabytes of it. And that storage option is permanent.

The breakthrough from the university's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) directs ultrafast laser pulses at a quartz disk to write data within it's 3D structure. Three layers of dots are written in, each just five microns away from the other. They've also developed a read process that involves hitting the disk with another pulse of light and recording its polarisation once it's passed through.

To cut to the chase, the ORC's method will let you store up to 360TB of data on a single disk about the size of your spectacle lens, for 13.8 billion years (at room temperature). To test the method, the team wrote a number of monumental literary works to quartz disks, including the King James Bible, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Newton’s Opticks, and the Magna Carta.

The "Superman memory crystals" as the researchers are calling the written disks are a major step in digital storage, especially in an age where, despite access to cloud options, a lot of users prefer to keep back up copies of data on disk. Not to mention, as Professor Peter Kazansky, from the ORC, says “It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations. This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

'ReFlex' Flexible Android Smartphone Developed, Brings 'Bend Gestures' to Apps

Researchers in Canada have developed world's first flexible smartphone that uses bend sensors to simulate flipping of pages and playing games without even touching the display of the screen.

Researchers at Queen's University's Human Media Lab developed ReFlex - a full-colour and high-resolution smartphone that combines multi-touch with bend input allowing users to experience physical tactile feedback when interacting with their apps through bend gestures.

"This represents a completely new way of physical interaction with flexible smartphones," Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, said.

"When this smartphone is bent down on the right, pages flip through the fingers from right to left, just like they would in a book. More extreme bends speed up the page flips," Vertegaal explained, adding: "Users can feel the sensation of the page moving through their fingertips through a detailed vibration of the phone."

Published on EurekAlert.com, the report said the bend sensors are placed on the back of the display to sense the force with which a user bends the screen. The amount of bend is read by the sensors and is made available to apps for use as input.

ReFlex has a high definition LG Display Flexible Oled touch screen and is powered by an Android 4.4 (KitKat) with boards mounted to the sides of the display.

The smartphone also features a voice coil that allows the phone to simulate forces and friction through highly detailed vibrations of the display.

"This allows for the most accurate physical simulation of interacting with virtual data possible on a smartphone today," Vertegaal noted.

"When a user plays the "Angry Birds" game with ReFlex, they bend the screen to stretch the sling shot. As the rubber band expands, users experience vibrations that simulate those of a real stretching rubber band. When released, the band snaps, sending a jolt through the phone and sending the bird flying across the screen," Vertegaal said.

The researchers will unveil the ReFlex prototype at the tenth anniversary Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) - world's premier conference on tangible human-computer interaction - in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on February 17.

Szimple Wants to Be the Media Player Anyone Can Use

Szimple is a new crowdfunding project on Kickstarter that wants to make watching video content that's saved on your computer as simple as switching on your TV. It's a great idea in theory, but with a plethora of alternatives already available, does backing Szimple make sense?

There are now any number of ways to get content from your PC or phone to your TV screen. Dongles like Google's Chromecast, and Mango Man's Teewe 2 make it extremely simple to stream content to your television.

Many new televisions also come with built-in DLNA streaming support, and there are plenty of apps for iOS and Android that allow you to push content over DLNA if you phone doesn't have a built in DLNA sharing option.

The problem with both of those methods is that you're reliant on a Wi-Fi connection being available to stream the content over.

Today, many TVs also have support for playback of media from USB pen-drives, or from an external hard drive. That's pretty much as simple as it can get, but there are some limitations with this method as well - for one thing, it's a solution that works only with specific TVs; for another, the interface that most TV makers use is still slow, hard to use, and frequently limited in terms of the information it presents.

Szimple wants to plug both these gaps, and the Kickstarter promises a simple device that you can just plug into your television, and then you jump into your content. To watch something, just plug in a USB pen-drive with the videos you'd like to see, and Szimple will display it on the TV in an XBMC-like interface, with posters, wallpapers, genres, and ratings all displayed.

The little set top box also includes an SD card slot, an Ethernet port for wired Internet connectivity (to download show information), an optical audio out, and Wi-Fi. It natively supports most of the popular video formats, and works offline. You get all this for EUR 100 (approximately Rs. 7,000), which is a fairly high price considering that streaming dongles are available for less than half that, and other smart set top boxes in India are also typically close to Rs. 5,000 in price.

And although the word Android is not mentioned anywhere on the page, looking at the specifications and the hardware, it's a safe bet to assume that the device is essentially an Android set-top-box with a highly customised OS that has only three options on the home screen - "Movies", "TV Shows", and "Settings".

That's a lot simpler than the Amkette Evo TV home screen which was a little confusing at first glance, but it also highlights the biggest problem with Szimple - this project comes across as a little too simple. The Evo TV had its share of problems, but it was easy to get to the Android layer underneath and tinker away to your heart's content.

If you wanted to install a music jukebox, or a news reader on your Evo TV, you could do that, and it also allowed you to set up the various Web streaming services. And the Evo TV is around the same price as well, except you can get it right away, without having to wait for a Kickstarter.

Despite these shortcomings, it's possible to see the appeal of Szimple as a very streamlined media watching experience; switch on, and start watching, without worrying about navigation, or settings, or anything else. Whether that's something you want is the question.

The project, which is accepting funds until January 8, has a target of EUR 150,000 (approximately Rs. 1 crore), and has - in a week - raised EUR 1,050 (approximately Rs. 75,000). If you pledge EUR 100 (approximately Rs. 7,000), (a relatively high price for a product of this type) you can get the Szimple, delivered anywhere in the world by June 2016, though as is always the case with crowdfunded projects, there is a chance this won't meet the goals, and even if it does, there is no guarantee that it will actually ship.

From 5-Hour Energy to 24 Hour Electricity, With Free Electric

Indian-American businessman Manoj Bhargava might well be the patron saint of employees with long working hours and students cramming for exams as the creator of 5-hour Energy, an "energy shot" brand, but in interviews, he's talked about wanting to invest his fortune to make a difference in the developing world. Last Friday, Bhargava was in Delhi to launch Free Electric, a stationary bicycle whose buyers can use it to generate electricity.

"One of the biggest problems in India right now is the lack of electricity," says Bhargava, speaking to Gadgets 360 at the launch event for Free Electric. "When you're pedalling this, you can power 24 LED bulbs, a fan, a phone charger, and a tablet - or you can use it to charge a battery, which can be used to power your household needs," he adds.

Bhargava's Stage 2 Innovations, a specialised laboratory working on problems related to water, energy, and health, has created a design, which will be licensed out to partners and sold to people in rural areas and to the urban poor, for whom he believes ready access to energy is going to be a revolutionary change.

"The idea was to make something that was really simple - if someone can fix a bicycle, he can fix this," says Bhargava, adding, "the problem with solar is that it can't be fixed in a village. Children throw stones, we have monkeys, and the weather is such that you can go a week without sun, so solar isn't really well suited to India."

The company started working on the project a little over two years ago, and went through many failed designs along the way. Bhargava tells Gadgets 360 that one of the early designs was to make a hand cranked generator, that would look similar to a water hand-pump - the idea being that this electricity pump would be instantly familiar, and therefore easily adopted. However, the concept was a bust, and along the way, there were plenty of other setbacks, until the pedal design was adopted.

The Free Electric cycle will go into production from March 2016, says Bhargava, but he refused to share details about the partners who will be manufacturing and distributing the cycle in India. However, he says that it will be sold and distributed through existing distribution channels, instead of relying on non-profits or the government.

"They [non-profits] are really bad, they're only a little better than the government when it comes to getting efficient logistics done," he says. Of course, relying on commercial channels means that there is a higher cost involved, even if Bhargava says he isn't looking to make a profit on the device; it will cost the end user between Rs. 12,000 and Rs. 15,000. That might not sound like much at a time when we're looking at smartphones priced at over Rs. 50,000, but Bhargava isn't trying to sell these bikes to most people.

"This is not really useful if you have an AC or a fridge," he points out. "You might not think that you're rich, but compared to the people living in villages, you are very rich." The people who will most benefit from the Free Electric are the ones for whom Rs. 12,000 poses a serious investment. But Bhargava is confident that there will be enough people to buy the bicycle.

"The bottom 200 million can't afford this, but there are 400 million people who don't have access to electricity, who can afford this," he says. "That's the first step, to get these devices to as many people as we can, and then we can address the rest."

"Also, it's not just for the home, it could also be for communities," he adds. "For example, a school could buy it, or small businesses Or perhaps someone could buy the cycle, while others in the community buy batteries, and then pay the guy with the cycle to use it to charge their batteries."

This kind of community model has already been tried by non-profits working on similar systems, but Bhargava is dismissive, talking about the efficiency of the Free Electric, and of the free market, in generating more energy, and delivering more units.

However, he's not sharing technical details about the bicycle, or sharing targets in terms of units to ship, total number of partners, or other specific details either.

"I'm not interested in watts and volts, I tell my engineers, 'tell me how many bulbs that is,' because that's what our buyers will understand," says Bhargava. He claims that an hour of pedalling should cover the needs of an average household, running a pair of bulbs for around six hours, along with charging up a mobile phone completely. "Of course, I have a bad feeling that lots of people will use this for TV too," he says.

Still, with new designs in the works for agricultural use, and a high end version of the Free Electric to sell in Western markets, whose sales will subsidise the rural version, it's clear that Bhargava has big plans, for India and the rest of the developing world, and these are going to get field tested pretty soon, starting in Uttarakhand.

Source : NDTV