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.

A silly observation here but pioneering Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi author H. P. Lovecraft and the oft dandy playwright and writer Oscar Wilde could not look more similar.

In the face. But really only in regards to their elongated chins and similarities near the jowls. Kind of.

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• H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Portland (laughingsquid.com)
• How horror writers honor each other (hermenaut.org)
• H P Lovecraft Goes Where The Wild Things Are (dashpunk.com)

Your eyeballs are on a visual representation of various facets of personal Facebook data and who can access it. As you see, Facebook seems less private in general in 2010 compared to 2005. Proper context and explanation at http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy.

Recently found out I can invite three people to Google Voice. If you want an invite, plead your case in the comments below, or hit me up on Twitter — I’m twitter.com/dipps (@dipps). Fleshbags I know and like IRL will likely take precedence over even smoking hot strangers.  I’m hanging onto one of these invites.

Again, I’m giving away two Google Voice invites.  First come, first given or denied by the Google Voice dictator, me.

UPDATE: Dan, from the Nearly a Nerd.com comments, got his.  One invite left!

UPDATE 2: The second commenter, going by “H2O”, gets invite number two.  And with that, no more Google Voice invites to give away now anymore.

With a few more dollars and know-how, I’d be cranking out iReports left and right with the formula professed above.

Found this scrip in the car.

It may still be a little early, but you are worth it: Merry Holidays.

Santa related cheer from Santa, NO!

It’s about damn time I got invited to Google Voice.

I’m pretty sure that if you click the above widget, it will ring a phone of your choosing for you to then leave me a voice mail.  (I could set it to ring my mobile, so you could talk to me directly, but choose not to.)

Continuing from yesterday’s post — using this blog to essentially bookmark stuff to check out later — I give you Snag Films.  Search or browse over 600 documentary films to stream instantly (for free.)  Then embed some in you blog, like I’m about to do.

Two “hero” related docs:

Darkon

Film description after the jump.

DARKON is a feature documentary that follows the real-life adventures of an unusual group of weekend “warrior knights,” fantasy role-playing gamers whose live action “battleground” is modern-day Baltimore, Maryland, re-imagined as a make-believe medieval world named Darkon. These live action gamers combine the physical drama of historical re-enactments with character-driven storylines inspired in part by such perennial favorite fantasy epics like the legends of King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, and the saga of Conan the Barbarian. As role players, they create alter-egos with rich emotional, psychological, and social lives. They costume themselves and physically act out their characters exploits both in intimate court intrigue and campouts and in panoramic battle scenarios involving competitive strategies, convincingly real props, and full contact “combat.” Because real life so often gets in the way, its easy to understand these players’ motivations. Everybody wants to be a hero.

Confessions of a Superhero

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO is a feature length documentary that chronicles the lives of three mortal men and one mortal woman who make their living working as superhero characters on Hollywood Boulevard. The Hulk sold his Super Nintendo for a bus ticket to LA; Wonder Woman was a mid-western homecoming queen; Batman struggles with his anger, while Superman’s psyche is consumed by the Man of Steel. This deeply personal view into their daily routines reveals their hardships and triumphs as they pursue and achieve their own kind of fame.

The following FREE musical selections currently reside in my Cog (a open source audio player for Mac OS X) playlist.  (Haven’t listened to everything yet but hoping everything is worthwhile.)

• Ziggy Stardust (Remixed) — via BoingBoing Most of what I’ve heard so far is a little too classic techno-y for me.  (I haven’t listened to any of these others yet:)
• Various Artists – Ghostly Swim — via FlavorWire
• Matt Pond PA – The Freeep — via FlavorWire
• Zomby – ‘Back to 92′ Mixtape — via Earplug