December 2010
5 posts
4 tags
CES Coverage Begins Next Week
My annual pilgrimage to the Consumer Electronics Show is only a week away. Over the next few days Well Known Fact will set the stage for this year’s trends, and will review last year’s gems and bombs.
As always, coverage suggestions from the Well Known Fact masses are encouraged. Let me know what items require the inside skinny! Do you want to know more about this year’s best...
3 tags
Saving Benjamins
I’m not ordinarily a Christmas Eve shopper. My broken DVD player turned me into one.
Disc after disc gave the very unsatisfying error message “check disc for scratches.” Only in the jargon of tech does this really mean: “check DVD player for debris.”
Compressed air didn’t do the trick, so out into the fray I went on a mission for a DVD lens cleaner. This...
6 tags
All I Want for Christmas is Less Broken Stuff
As 2010 draws to a close it’s time to reflect on the year and prepare for what lies ahead. And what lies ahead appears to be: less money.
Looking back over the past year, members of my immediate family have broken four point-and-shoot digital cameras.
Yes.
Four.
There was the Kodak. Broken by Kid #2 The Olympus. Broken by Kid #1 The Nikon. Broken by Kid #3 The Casio. Broken by my wife.
...
7 tags
Trebek Pits Supercomputer Against Ken Jennings and...
For those who get a buzz around AI, heuristics, symbolism, and the semantic web, IBM is pitting its latest natural language supercomputer, “Watson” against real, live, Jeopardy champions in February 2011. The winner goes home with a $1,000,000. No word yet from Watson how it plans to blow a cool million impressing its friends.
"How OId is Old Enough for Email?"
This was the question among several parents at the bus stop for our kids’ elementary school. My response?
“As soon as the kid asks for it.”
This seemed to surprise my neighbors, who look at me as a cautious, web savvy guy.
An email account for a six-year-old, in this case, comes with strings. I get to watch the account like a hawk. There is no expectation of privacy. In fact,...