technology « Sam's Thoughts

President Obama and ISS crew talk about R2

r2 curls

Robonaut 2, better known as R2 finally arrived at the International Space Station last weekend after sitting packed aboard the space shuttle Discovery for more than four months. R2 is the first humanoid robot to make it into space and at this point he is still very much experimental.

The astronauts have moved the [...]

Apple goes too far with subscription money grab

You have to give Apple credit for chutzpah. Last week they announced a new subscription system for content available on iOS devices and they are trying to grab revenues that they have no legitimate claim too.  I love Apple design and I prefer to use Apple computers and iPods over any competing [...]

Al Jazeera English now available on Roku

For those looking for  more intelligent and thoughtful coverage of what is really going on in Egypt, Al Jazeera English is the place to go. Unfortunately, there isn’t a major cable company in the United States with the guts to carry the Qatar-based channel.

However, thanks to modern streaming technology viewers can bypass the gate [...]

Kids demonstrate the acceleration of tech obsolescence

At the age of 45, I’ve lived through an era where technological advancement is proceeding at such a rapid pace that numerous technologies have appeared and then completely vanished from the landscape before successive generations could be born. The telephone in its original incarnation went largely unchanged for the better part of a century.  [...]

Roku XD-S shows the way toward a la carte TV

For years now those of that are tired of paying exorbitant monthly fees to their cable providers to receive 100s of different channels have been clamoring for a la carte television service. The problem is that most of us typically only watch a tiny fraction of the available channels. In my household we never ever [...]

Dr. Kiki meets Robonaut 2

Last night Marty Linn, GM principal robotics engineer and Ron Diftler, NASA Johnson Space Center Robonaut project manager appeared on Dr Kiki’s Science Hour with R2. R2 is Robonaut  2, the dexterous  humanoid robot created by GM and NASA. Marty and Ron spent a full hour talking with Dr Kiki about [...]

TSA Misses 12 inch razor blades while looking at Adam Savage’s tiny penis

Adam savage of the Mythbusters demonstrates yet again the ineffectiveness of American airport security theater. Like most frequent fliers Adam has a plan that he executes before heading off to the airport in order to minimize his hassle factor.

For me that includes moving all loose change and other metallic items to my carry-on [...]

Can a lasting peace ever truly be achieved…

…between the birds and the pigs? Will we ever be able to return to work?

Probably not!

Time for cell providers to provide family data plans

When I first got a cell phone back in the mid-1990s, I only used it sparingly because the price plans will enormously expensive and the batteries didn’t last very long. Over time, though using a wireless device for voice communications became dramatically cheaper as providers started to offer plans with hundreds or thousands of [...]

Ypsilanti library still wrong on downloadable audio books

Several years ago the Ypsilanti Public Library starting offering its users access to downloadable audio books through a service called Netlibrary.com.  Unfortunately that service was riddled with DRM that wasn’t compatible with anything but Windows computers and PlaysForSure media players. Anyone using an iPod or a Mac was out of luck.  At least that service [...]