I have in my pocket my very first and only iPhone so far: a two-year-old iPhone 6s. Apple announces a new phone every year, and just this past September 12th, 2017, they announced the iPhone X. As in, iPhone 10. No, that math doesn't really work. They went from the 6s in 2015, [...]
Sarah, my wonderful wife, best friend, and insightful muse mentioned something in passing that struck me cold. "You know, it's funny. You love the idea of autonomous cars, but you insist on driving a stick." — Sarah Porcenaluk She's right. I insist on driving cars with a manual transmission. To date, we've owned seven cars [...]
Silicon Valley was born through several contributing factors intersecting, including a skilled STEM research base housed in area universities, plentiful venture capital, and steady U.S. Department of Defense spending. Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valley's early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success. — Wikipedia You need [...]
In case you missed it, Wednesday at around 10:00 AM the Orlando community started buzzing with requests to contribute to The Orlando Tech Community Kickstarter. The campaign is a Hail Mary pass at the start of the season; they are looking to raise all of the funds required up-front to keep several well-known local tech-centric organizations [...]
David Rose's "Enchanted Objects" book is a great start for anyone who wants to design IoT devices for, well, people. As IoT design matures, we need to look beyond what's possible and look more at what is actually going to help our lives. Computers have become so cheap, so small, so fast, and so efficient [...]
I was starting to watch a documentary on Netflix called "Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things" when my heart began to sink. What is going on with the world? Are we just robots responding by instinct to shiny, colorful commercials, working ourselves to death to afford things we really don't even want? After a [...]
Opening gift after gift Christmas morning is an event. Accompanied by family and laughter, gift after gift is opened, and this year my wife, Sarah, got me an Echo Dot, a Phillips Hue starter kit (with two white Lux bulbs included), and she helped her mom and stepfather pick out a Phillips Hue Color Ambiance as [...]
'Twas the night before Christmas, in the automated home, Not a device was stirring, not even one; Google Home was set by the chimney with care, Waiting for "Hey Google" to hang in the air; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of Phillips Hues danced in their heads; And mamma [...]
A path diverges in a wood. ― Robert Frost The future involves a monthly bill. Microsoft is Office 365, the cloud service with the monthly or yearly fee. Adobe has completely phased out their buy-once use-forever model, favoring a $50-a-month service. Same-same with Quickbooks. TurboTax. Amazon Prime. Netflix. Spotify. Even smaller, more niche software have jumped on the [...]
The Internet of Things has many design considerations, and one very important tool that needs to be considered in all but the most disposable IoT devices is the idea of modularization. You might be of the age where you remember going to work on the ol' Buick with your dad. You handed him crescent wrenches [...]
