New ways to read

Magazines, Connaught Place (Photo credit: prolix6x)

I’m always excited to see the way that technology is going, and imagine what it will look like in the future. One thing which is currently changing is the idea of the magazine.

In the past, magazines happened like this: buy a magazine, and read it.

But with the dawn of digital publishing came the idea that you could select and read only those bits of a particular magazine that you found interesting. The idea of buying a magazine because that was the only way to read that column by that author became a thing of the past.

But the beauty of the magazine was lost! Rather than turning each page, enjoying the imagery and text layout, and appreciating the magazine’s structure, the reader’s experience has become one of searching through piles and piles of information to pick out that one gold nugget, then searching again.

Hence the creation of some very nice apps (like my favourite, Flipboard), which you can instruct to show you your favourite articles, images, and videos in a beautiful magazine format – it’s the best of both worlds! And of all of them, I have to say that Google Currents does this really, really well.

So it’s with excitement and anticipation that I announce that this blog is available in a specially-formatted Currents version! All you need to do is subscribe by clicking here, then it will become part of your lovely magazine. Congratulations!

And for those of you who don’t read this on a phone or tablet, so don’t appreciate anything I’ve just said, no worries! It may come as a surprise, but quality of life was actually pretty similar before all this digital stuff came along, and it will be after the impending rise of the machines, their destruction at the hands of the people that made them, and the return to an agrarian culture: you’re just way ahead of the times.

Do you suffer from FOMO?

A protester holding a placard in Tahrir Square referring to Facebook and Twitter, acknowledging the role played by social media during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The way that social media has taken over everything has led to a brand new disease: Fear Of Missing Out.

Seriously. You go on holiday from the internet for a couple of weeks, then come back and realise that you’ve missed out on hundreds, nay, thousands of updates on your Facebook timeline, Twitter feed, RSS reader and everything else – how much useful and vital information have you missed out on?!

So what do you do? Not go on holiday from the internet is what! Go on holiday from everything else, but still keep up-to-date with blogs and Facebook. You’re not an idiot.

But just in case you’re afraid that you might be, there’s a useful little article with the solution to FOMO.

New year, new idea

Image via Wikipedia

A good friend of mine is incredibly clever and has created a decent piece of software, mp3TrueEdit. It’s basically an easy-to-use application so that you can create your own ringtones and audio greetings.

The website’s over here, and right now there’s a free trial so you can see if you’d like to buy it – can’t say fairer than that.

Invention is the mother of pride

Image via Wikipedia

Steve Jobs was quoted recently as having said before he died that he had vowed to destroy Google if it took him till his dying breath. And in a nice little twist, Jobs’ biography has been written by another Isaacson! Alright.

And it’s not hard to get where Jobs was coming from. He invented the iPhone, and Google basically ripped off the whole idea. In capitalist society you should be rewarded for working hard and coming up with good ideas, not stealing – which is essentially what Google did by finding ways around the patent to invent Android and a different technology for pinch-to-zoom. And, let’s be honest, they haven’t done it in quite as polished a way as Apple have (not that that bothers Google at all).

But from a consumer’s point of view, I love Android. It’s made it affordable for me to own a beautiful touchscreen smartphone, and it’s freed up developers to create pretty much anything they want for the Android Market (rather than only creating what Apple wants in the iPhone app store).

So I understand what Steve Jobs was feeling, but ironically it seems like the very mindset that encouraged him to be a pioneer and inventor actually restricts the rest of humanity from developing further without his ‘permission’. Shame.

So I suppose it just goes to show that although the iPhone has benefitted the world by opening inventors’ eyes to the limitless possibilities of technology, it existed for one reason: making Steve Jobs more money. The American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has turned into a nightmare of the pursuit of something that is unachievable, is constantly changing, and simply doesn’t satisfy.

‘But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.’ (Jeremiah 2:11b-13)

I must be a trend-setter

Image via Wikipedia

I remember getting my first ever computer as I moved to university – of course, it was an Apple Mac. Over my first year of university pretty much everyone I met when they came into my room had the same response: ‘Eugh, you have a, a…an Apple? How do you get anything to work on it?’

As I started to show them the computer the response tended to go something like, ‘Oh, Word seems to work. Oh, that looks quite pretty actually. Wow, the internet’s fast. Hey, where’s the tower? In the screen? You’re kidding! Hang on, you have a full recording studio in that? But games don’t work, do they? What, you can have Windows set up on a partition? And it works faster than on a PC? Doesn’t your antivirus slow it down? What do you mean, you don’t need antivirus?’ And so on, and so on…

I’m not here to tell you that Macs are better than PCs – I don’t need to do that nowadays because the world’s generally acknowledged that you can’t simply assume that PCs are the best because everyone uses them.

Let me tell you another story.

My first proper smart phone was the Google G1, Android’s first attempt – I loved it. It was basically the iPhone but without the restrictions, at a fraction of the cost. The conversations I had around that were pretty similar to the one I quoted above – people were shocked that anyone would actually want to use a smart, touch-screen phone that wasn’t the iPhone…until I showed them how good it was.

And, once again, I don’t feel I need to advertise Android here because it’s so popular now – I read something the other day saying that Android now has a 50% market share.

With both of these I remember feeling distinctly annoyed when I discovered that my use of technology was no longer fringe but mainstream, and I’ve come up with some possible conclusions.

Option one

The entire world must be looking to me to determine where popular use of technology will be in a couple of years’ time. Unlikely.

Option two

I’m so clued up about technology that I can predict where the market’s going to be; I could make millions on the stock market. Unlikely.

Option three

I just like being a bit of an outsider – I didn’t go for the iPhone specifically because it was so popular, despite the fact that I’d always been a fan of Apple. I feel that they’ve sold out now that everyone has an iPhone.

Probably that one.

Would you rather go with the flow or stand out as being different? It might attract unwanted attention and critical questions, but may give an opportunity to share some life-changing truths!

So you think you’re good at computer games?

I’m fairly certain this is somehow an illusion…but it doesn’t make me enjoy it any less…and be just a little bit envious…

The iPhone – best thing to ever happen to the blind?

Have a read of this thought-provoking review of the iPhone by a blind user, who claims it’s perhaps the best thing to ever happen to blind people.

Personally I’m not the biggest fan of the iPhone, but well done Apple.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/a-blind-users-profound-review-of-the-iphone/63400/