It’s pretty amazing when you stop to think that just 10 years ago people were carrying around Nokia brick phones and using dial-up Internet. The age of information technology is here and the advancements are coming almost quicker than we can keep up with them. It’s strange and exciting all at the same time. Innovation is driving technology to forefronts that will likely to wow society even further in the coming years but here are a few current bits of tech that are productions or are slated for near future release.

One of the newest and most exciting innovations out there today is the research and development of nanotechnology. This is an impressive front in, not just the world of cell phone technology, but for the science world as a whole. Nanotechnology, in essence, is the science of very small things. This is being haled as nothing less than a breakthrough in powering many of the devices we use. Apple is hoping to use nanotechnology to power the future generations of cell phones. They will, hopefully, completely bypass the need for replaceable batteries. Nanotechnology can harness energy from movement or vibrations and it’s the hope that, in just five years, we’ll be able to power the devices we use by nothing more than movement or the vibrations of our heartbeat. It will allow us to do everything from a reverse phone lookup to browsing the Internet. Many scientists feel that nanotech is the future of science and it’s likely to have broader applications than we’ve yet to realize.

We’ve seen a lot of breakthroughs in the world of gaming technology but before now it’s been primarily in the field of improved graphics performances. Now there’s a whole new market opening up for movement based games and platforms. We’ve seen several versions of these movement-based games but it hasn’t been until recently that it’s been advanced enough to be a viable market product. The Wii started using movement-based games but its application was somewhat limited. Now, on the market, there are completely hands-free systems that respond totally to the movements of the user. Microsoft has the Kinect and Sony is using a motion sensor controller. By recording the user, these devices allow you to manipulate an onscreen avatar that responds to the slightest moment. It’s not clear if individual platforms will be released on this central concept but chances are the console/controller system will be around for at least a few more years.

Every now and again entertainment takes a huge leap forward and “Skinput” is one such leap. It’s currently being designed for the Xbox 360 and it will allow users to have an interactive experience that, to date, has only been seen in Hollywood. It effectively turns the human body into a joystick. A two dimensional image of a series of options and commands are projected onto the user’s skin and would, basically, turn your arm into a joystick or remote. This tech is based on the science of specific vibrations that move through the body which are acoustically distinct from one another. Depending on the location, the area of the skin that a command would be applied holds a specific resonance to allow users to control a game through touching their skin. It’s likely that this will be applied in many ways but Microsoft is currently the only company with current designs using this new tech.

Similar innovations have totally streamlined the way media and information is consumed. No one could have imagined how the iPod would change the way we look at music and movies. From there we saw the evolution if the iPhone and the iPad. Similar devices are being seen on the market all over the world and it’s amazing to ponder all of the possibilities for computing software and its various, real world, applications. These initial innovations aren’t just changing the way we are entertaining, they’re changing the world.

Google has begun testing simpler and cleaner models for the search engine results page. The designs vary, but they all have more white space between results, fewer secondary links, like cached and similar, and no underlining in common. Another version of the search engine model has dashed lines between results, as well. These models have been filtered around the net, presumably to test which are easier for users to navigate.

Some critics of the filtered designs have complained that the designs are too similar to other search engines, such as Bing, and the new designs are too different from the comfort of the original model. Some users have started using Twitter as a vehicle for opinions about the separate test pages. The test is apart of a plan called the bucket test, where changes are shown to only a small amount of viewers can see the changes.

The models have less information per link and fewer results on the page. This allows a cleaner, streamlined look, but many users are not pleased with the possibility of these changes. Some users say the results pages with less information is counterintuitive to Google’s reputation for the amount of information from results. Fewer results per page will force users to scroll more often and click through to more pages than before.

There is an agreement between users on two possible reasons Google is choosing to test this type of layout, including:

Provoke a Feeling of Accuracy

By limiting the number of result on a page and clearing the rest of the space of most secondary links, user will have the illusion of a more accurate and considered search.

For example, if you were to search for medical assistant schools, Google would only list a few of the most relevant keyword specific sites found online, without linking to a myriad of other different secondary sites.

For More Advertisement

There is a section of the critical pool that believes Google is opening more white space for new forms of advertisement. This might also allow them to insert multimedia formats of advertisement, instead of the usually text or photo-based ads.

However, Google has made no other statement, except that the model were a part of a test, but not necessarily the final set-up. User found, if they deleted cookies from their computer, the screen display would return to the original format. Google will be collecting data from user in the test group to get a sense of the parts of the designs that worked or didn’t work.

Readability is a simple tool/service for internet readers that instantly removes clutter with the click of a bookmark(let) button — eliminating distractions and facilitating reading — as you (will) see below.

Before Readability

After Readability

Making Readability work is cake. After arriving on the Readability project page first select one of five presentation/font styles; then choose one of the five font sizes; finally, set your margin spacing — also from five choices.  Step two: drag the Readability badge/button to your browser’s bookmark toolbar. Now you’re set.

When visiting a webpage worth reading, click what you’ve just added to your bookmark bar and you are now reading better.

Readability Bookmarklet Button

. . . “Wait! I want the regular, ‘real’ webpage back!”  Alright, done. Click the gray refresh/return button in the upper left.

Readability's Refresh/Return Button

Make the jump to learn some potentially exclusive news about the future of Readability.

Oh, and if you want the MC Frontalot track mentioned above, it’s at SPIN.

So the news is that the Readability developers are supposedly working on a way for users to queue up, then read, several articles at time.  This means a new system that doesn’t require pressing the “Readability Button” for each individual webpage you come across thus providing the ability to cleanly read stuff from all over the interwebs in one place.  Or some similar thing.

There’s seemingly nothing yet mentioned about this planned functionality on Arc90′s blog.

News drops after writing Arc90 — creators of Readability.  Their response:

Josh:

Great minds think alike. We’ve been thinking the same thing. Keep your eyes peeled – lab.arc90.com. ;)

Thanks for writing.

Chris

–
Chris LoSacco
Partner, Arc90

Stop losing good ideas. www.kindlingapp.com

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:30 AM, josh wrote:

From the offices of:
josh d

They write:
Love Readability and use it daily. Would love to see another bookmarklet — or similar system — allowing queueing of articles for reading later, all in one place, when time allows.

Arc90 Email about a Future Readability Function

Last April I bought “The Spirit of Apollo” by hip-hop project N.A.S.A. on vinyl; purchased only because of the free digital copy provided since I still don’t have my turntable hooked back up.  But naturally, Epitaph, the record’s label, only gave three chances at downloading it on their sub-site — with a unique code and password — and it resulted in error each time while also counting toward my three downloads; so even if it was fixed, my download quota would need to be reset.

I immediately fired off an email to Epitaph.  Yesterday — some nine months later — an Epitaph intern replied with a MediaFile download link of the the album with a live Tom Waits cut tossed in for good measure.  Even if the audio quality of the .mp4 files finally provided should be better, any act like this is a step in the right direction.

“Make the money, make sure the money doesn’t make you. . . Be about something.”

Make the jump if you’d like to be bored with the actual brief email exchange.

4/18/09

Bought the new N.A.S.A on vinyl with a free digital download, but something is wrong with your site and it isn’t wanting to download right now. Could I please have the download. I’ve used all my credits trying to download the damn thing. Nothing.

—unique code—

—unique code’s password—

Thanks,

(Me)

——

2:54 PM

Hey Josh, we at Epitaph would like to apologize for the inconvenience. We have been undergoing technical difficulties we were unaware of and have just come across your email among many others. To make this right please go to the link at the bottom of the email to download the album. Also, if you could please reply to us a mailing address we would love to send you a care pack for your troubles. We sincerely apologize for the length of time this technical error was unnoticed.

Thank you for understanding,

The Epitaph Team

http://mediafilelinkprovided

——

8:55 AM

Wow, thanks. Like the old cliche goes: better late than never. I didn’t ever expect this to happen which makes it all the better, I guess, even if the audio quality should be encoded at a higher rate. Plus a live Tom Waits cut! More acts like this would help restore my appreciation of bigger labels.

Nate Broughton is right.  Infographics on the interwebs are now ubiquitous. Here’s a recent favorite from GigaOm concerning the economy of iPhone applications:

Recently rediscovered ArXiv.org — an online repository for free papers on Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics.

Nearly a 100 percent of everything on the site makes me feel stupid so I just glean the site’s very specifically focused papers for buzzwords and neato graphics, like the ones below.  With titles like “Effective Inner Radius of Tilted Black Hole Accretion Disks” and “The late jet in gamma-ray bursts and its interactions with a supernova ejecta and a cocoon” my head just starts swimming.

I follow Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) on Twitter — why, I don’t really know — and usually just pass over his copious twittering. But the other day his mention of BuzzVoice caught my eye.  BuzzVoice takes the stuff you read and reads it aloud for you.

Of course a computer voice does all the reading, but BuzzVoice still seems like it would be more convenient than current ways of doing this — such as copy and pasting everything into a Text to Speech thing.

And there is an app for that (this).  You can purchase the iPhone/iPod touch app or access BuzzVoice via their site.

Below, a comparison of Basic vs. Pro plans from BuzzVoice:

I watched some demo videos.  They accurately show how the service works, but why no samples stories.  Sure, you can easily register for free to check it out, but I see no reason why real, working examples shouldn’t be out front.

Google recently asked several online luminaries what they subscribe to, or read, in Google Reader.  There are people from four different areas:

* News
* Tech and web
* Food and health
* Trends and fashion

Find someone on the list you know or like, you can subscribe to what they read.  My only gripe is not linking to each site outright.  It would be nice to check out the main site before you commit to their whole RSS feed.

“This song is called Woof Woof; it is about a dog.”

This  is a video performance by Dan Deacon at Todd P’s (which I think is in NYC).  It comes from NOISEVOX who say of themselves:

NOISEVOX is an open music magazine and media network created by journalists, photographers, musicians, and you.

Not much other self-referential information can be found out on noisevox.org.

NOISEVOX has artist interviews or performances or both, including those by:

• The Thermals
• Animal Collective
• Moby
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
• Crocodiles
• Dan Deacon
• Japandroids
• Here We Go Magic
• Arctic Monkeys
• Hymns
• Health

(Former) MTV music journalist John Norris — who never seems to age — appears to host and conduct the interviews for the time being.

If you’ve never seen Auto-Tune the News, you’re missing out.  If you push play and are thinking WTF, give it a few moments until your ears adjust to hearing popular media figures being Auto-Tuned — (the vocal effect of the minute in hip-hop and rap) — and you may find yourself with at least a smile.

The Rumpus does an explanation blurb and mini-interview with the creators, the Gregory Brothers.