Embracing the change in online shopping & social networking

THE world is changing pretty fast - exponentially in many cases, particularly in the technology and online industries. It’s natural for anyone, regardless of age or creed, to feel overwhelmed by the library­ of choice. Laptops, iPads, notebooks, Kindles, iPhones, netbooks, iPods and gaming consoles are all on offer under different brands and with varying specifications. This is failing to mention the infinite range of smartphones.

The wearisome part is that most of these devices are able to do the same things - some better than others. They can all really be thought of as portable computers. Buying new gadgets­ is fun and exciting but can be stressful and daunting at the same time. Having them all is impractical, and once they are outdated, they will likely become useless junk a few years down the line.

The important things to ask oneself when considering getting that new device everyone is talking about are “do I need this device in my life?” or “how will this gadget add value to my life or improve the things I currently enjoy doing?”

Online Shopping

Some go as far as ordering their clothing and groceries online. Most would agree that these are things that we want to touch and see before purchase. Electronics, on the other hand, are certainly worth buying online.

Consider that when you shop in a computer or electronics store, salespeople are arguably hired to try to sell you the most expensive version of what you’re looking for. The products will have a store mark-up; stores need to pay to have the goods ordered, packaged and advertised. This all adds to the price of most electronics.

Online stores are able to cut out most of these extra costs. Online shopping websites, such as takealot.com and kalahari.net, often offer­ free shipping to your door for orders over certain amounts. We are able to read consumer or peer reviews and assess the ratings fellow consumers have given specific products. Other websites offer comparisons of similar products. And, with a bit of Googling, we can even find video reviews and unbiased write-ups to aid our decision-making.

Online Banking

There is really very little need these days to stand in a bank queue again. The transference of funds can all be done online via online banking and PayPal. If there are still banks that do not offer these services they won’t be around for long. The only thing to be cautious of is phishing - receiving a scam e-mail, for example, asking you to supply or “update” your banking details. A reputable bank will never ask such things of you via e-mail.

Social Networking

Then there is the plethora of social networking sites and services - Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Google Wave, blogs, forums and the lot. Social networking sites are in a constant state of flux and new ones will emerge while others may wither and die.

The world of social networking should not be feared, but rather embraced for all its potential. This is now largely how people communicate worldwide, how companies recruit new employees, how business contacts are formed and how we consume our news and media.

The best bet is to stick with the tried and tested. With any free social networking site or service, we may have to deal with copious amounts of advertising, but this is a fairly small price to pay. Social networks are inevitably under the watchful eyes of their users. If any social networking site were to seriously violate any human right, or start charging users unfair amounts, they would soon be replaced.

Obviously one needs to be careful with what information you decide to provide on social networking websites, and this does not only pertain to profile information. “Liking” or becoming a fan of a particular brand or product might see you receiving related ads or promotions for a long time to come.

Embrace the change: online shopping and social networking

It is also advisable to never defame someone on a social network. This can come back to haunt you. Jobs have been lost and relationships have been broken as a result. Understand that whatever you do online effectively creates an ongoing online record of yourself.

But again, the inevitable growth of the Internet and development of technology should not be feared. There will always be those who will try to take advantage and scam us. In fact, nearly two thirds of our beloved Internet is comprised of spam. But the more you practice being a savvy online user, the better equipped you will be to filter out the bad and make the most of the good.

The Consumer Protection Act guards us and I can say with confidence that the greater good will always prevail online. There is much to learn and discover as the Internet continues to bring our world closer together. It is my opinion that its fast-changing pace is both exciting and full of great potential. Embrace and work with it and it will ultimately enrich your life.

TECHNO TALK: Hair today, gone tomorrow

SINCE I was a child I’ve had this fantasy of dressing up in a medieval suit of armour and having an all-out sword fight with someone also clad in medieval metal. The only problem is that people were a lot shorter 1 000 years ago.

The human race has evolved to be a lot taller than our flail-wielding ancestors. Squeezing oneself into a genuine suit of knight’s armour would be near impossible now — especially if you’re a beer drinker. This may make one wonder if we are still evolving today.

Most evolutionary biologists would argue that if we haven’t stopped evolving, our evolution has at least slowed down to a glacial pace. The main argument is that we have created and adapted our urban environments to best suit our current shape and form.

We have taken to sitting down a lot — whether behind a desk, on a sofa or in a car seat. When it’s too cold we take comfort behind our walls and cover ourselves with blankets. And now that things are heating up, we may blast air conditioners to keep comfortable. Human evolution doesn’t stand a chance.

Fortunately, evolution is technology’s best trait. Air conditioners have become more efficient and eco-friendly and can now be used to heat and cool a building thanks to a variety called a heat pump. Heat pumps are typically used to pull heat from the air or ground into a building to raise the temperature, but can also be put into reverse to cool a building.

How heat pumps work

Liquid refrigerant is pumped through the outside coils of an air-source heat pump. A fan pulls outside air over the coils, which absorbs the heat in the air and expands it into hot vapour. The vapour enters a compressor, which increases the temperature and pressure of the gas. The vapour then flows to indoor coils. The refrigerant condenses the vapour back into a liquid as it cools and flows outside to gather more heat. Meanwhile, the heat is pumped through the air ducts of your home and distributed throughout. This process can be reversed to cool the air inside your home. (Diagram: howstuffworks.com)

Heat pumps operate in a very similar manner to standard heating and air-conditioning units but without the need to install separate systems. They are also far more efficient than their ancestors as they do not burn fuel to condition the air but rather transfer it from one place to another. Heat pumps can also be used to heat swimming pools and can even fire up a hot tub.

I’m proud to inform that heat pumps are widely available in South Africa. A couple of good places to start perusing these are www.itssolar.co.za and www.heatpumpssouthafrica.co.za By providing your name, contact details­ and nearest city, a heat pump specialist will contact you within 24 hours. Prices for domestic heat pumps range from R10 000 to R15 000.

Heat pumps should of course be used in conjunction with other energy-saving techniques. Using fluorescent light bulbs and turning appliances off when not in use are the obvious ones, but it is also a great time to utilise the spring sunshine. Phantom loads are the less obvious energy drainers. When something like a cellphone charger is plugged into a live socket, but not into a cellphone, this actually drains more energy than would be used if a phone was charging.

So let’s all do our bit this sunny season to help the planet fend off global warming by being energy savvy and by using green devices such as heat pumps. I really don’t want to have hairy grandchildren.

** More Green Tech Articles **

THE EXPONENTIAL TIMES: Extra! Extra! Etc. Etc.

I TREATED myself with the purchase of a NAG (New Age Gaming) magazine the other day, which came with a glossy-ink-scented E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) supplement. The accompanying DVD was also largely dedicated to E3 and consisted of around two hundred game videos, trailers and GameTrailers.com awards.

I do not work for NAG nor do I sell their magazines. I was merely mesmerized by how far gaming has come in the last few years. We are certainly living in exponential times with the bacterial-like spread of information and new technologies.

Gone are the days of chalkboards and letter posting in the developed world. The sale and consumption of hard-copy books is fast dwindling at the hand of the Kindle and other eReaders. If Wikipedia were to be published as a book it would be over two million pages long. There are now even babies in Egypt named “Facebook.”

Exponential Times in Gaming

3D graphics has reached a point beyond comprehension five years ago. The number of gaming devices and vibrating motion controllers on the market this year can have one gleefully immersed 24/7, if you have the time. The exponential rate at which new game titles are being released has made the task of writing letters to Santa quite a meticulous one.

Exponential Times in Social Media

In 2007, one out of every eight U.S. couples met online. It is now estimated to be one in five. When television first entered our lives, it took 13 years to reach a target audience of 50 million. Facebook took just two years to get the same number of people on board its platform.

Greater than the exponential development of technology, is the exponential availability of information. It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information that anyone living in the 18th century could have consumed in their entire lifetime. The amount of technical information available is more than double every two years.

Exponential Times in Education and Employment

This exponential growth of technology and information is changing the way children are educated. Students are now being prepared for jobs that don’t yet exist and being trained to use technologies that have not yet materialised. It has also been shown that students who are online tend to outperform those who receive more face-to-face education.

This is of course changing the way that people are employed globally. It is estimated that 95% of companies that are online today recruit people using LinkedIn; around the same percentage of businesses use social media for marketing purposes.

Exponential Times Year to Year

In 2008, more than 200 million cell phone calls were made every second. This has roughly tripled every 6 months since. In 2009, every minute or so, a day’s worth of video footage was uploaded to YouTube. In 2010, the number of Google searches completed every ten minutes could have powered Las Vegas for half an hour. This year there are roughly 80 million Farmville farmers versus the 1.5 million real farmers. The moment you’ve finished reading this, most of this information will be outdated.

Here are two of the videos where you can find this information as well as more and more and more...

Exponential Times in 2008

Exponential Times in 2011

** More Web Developments & Absurdities **

FRANK WHITTLE: Genius inventor of the jet engine

IT’S quite amazing to consider that we are able to fly. We have built huge, metal birds they are able to take up to 800 people 11 000 metres above the ground without flapping their wings. Granted that aeroplanes are by no means perfect; but having achieved flight, and moreover being able to launch rockets into space, is certainly an achievement to be proud of. And it’s all thanks to the turbojet engine, or rather the man behind its invention.

Whenever one thinks of flight, the immediate names and imagery that might pop into one’s head are those of the Wright Brothers. Media coverage of such events, and consequently their recording into the history books, has a lot to do with that. History tends to neglect those without the proper status, family background or financial backing. In fact, the working class genius that thrust Britain firmly into the jet age was largely ignored by the British government and air ministry. They didn’t even bother to send a cameraman to the first (and successful) test flight of Britain’s first jet.

Frank Whittle (born 1907) is the genius to thank for our modern day aviation industry. Whittle began working as a fitter for the RAF (Royal Air Force) at the age of 16. Soon after he was air-born and performing stunt shows for the public. At 21 Whittle wrote a thesis titled Future Developments in Aircraft Design, in which he foresaw the entire future of flight. At 22, Whittle took out a patent for a jet turbine. He was also given a model aeroplane at age 4.

What made Frank Whittle’s jet engine unique is that it consisted of only one moving part – as opposed to the hundreds of moving parts used in conventional piston engines. Whittle’s piston-less jet engine also had no propeller, and drove planes through the air by thrust alone. Once patented and produced, Whittle’s remarkable engine successfully thrust Britain into the jet age and turned the aviation industry on its head.

The Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 – currently the largest passenger aeroplane in the world (image: wikipedia.org)

How a jet engine works

The single moving part in a jet engine is the bladed turbine that spins at a remarkable speed and makes that familiar noise as a plane prepares for take-off. Air is sucked in and accelerated into large combustion chambers where fuel is injected and ignited. The ejection and burning of fuel heats and expands the air and gives it enough energy to drive the turbine. The turbine, in turn, accelerates the hot air at high ‘jet speed’ providing enough thrust to drive an aeroplane forward.

Actually getting into the air and staying there is all to do with working against opposing forces. It’s all a matter of lift versus weight and thrust versus drag. One also needs to consider the atmosphere as being fluid – as sea of scattered water molecules that has density. In other words, an aeroplane sails across the sky rather than flies while a fish flies through the sea rather than swims. This is why it’s difficult to take off where the air is thin and why we should hope for a cold day whenever we fly.

It has to be said that Frank Whittle was a bit of an unapplauded genius. Being able to simplify a complex mechanism consisting of hundreds of moving parts into the single turbine jet engine, is nothing short of elegant. Being able to predict the next 50 years of an entire industry, is nothing short of visionary.

** More Gadgets & Tech Articles **

ALAN TURING: Inventor of the world's first digital computer

THE modern world as we know it is run on computers. Your world and mine would be very different without them. It’s interesting to know that just 70 years ago computers didn’t exist. What’s more interesting is to consider that some of humankind’s most significant and most innovative inventions, such as the computer, emerged from the horrors of warfare. They say that necessity is the mother of all invention. This couldn’t have been truer at the time of Second World War.

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was the founder of computer science, a brilliant mathematician, a philosopher, code-breaker, strange visionary and a gay man before his time, whose unique contribution helped turn the tide of war. Turing was also known as the “brain” man and was the genius of Britain’s wartime code-breaking headquarters in Bletchley Park — the most secret place in Britain during WW2. Here, Turing created a code-breaking machine which formed the basis of all computer technology.

Alan Turing lived a short but significant life. At public school he fell in love with a boy who sadly died of tuberculosis, leaving Alan distraught, but contemplative. It was at this moment in his life that Alan Turing began to think about the relationship between the body and mind — between mind and matter. He wondered if the mind of the boy he had loved could have somehow survived his death. He became obsessed with the nature of thought and how the mind worked and became fascinated with the idea of building a thinking machine.

Whilst going for a run outside of Cambridge, Turing had one of the greatest mathematical insights of all time. He began to contemplate how an imaginary machine, operating with a very simple set of rules or instructions, but with an infinite amount of time, could solve any and all conceivable, mathematical problems. This was the first logical concept of the programmable computer, which became known as the Turing Machine. But then war broke out.

Turing was known for his code-breaking and mathematical skills and was soon assigned a post at Bletchley Park. Turing and his colleagues were tasked with cracking the Enigma — the sophisticated German coding device that was used to encode messages during the war. The Enigma was believed to be unbreakable and nearly all German u-boat missions used it. If it hadn’t been cracked by the code-breakers, it would have certainly changed the outcome of the war.

Thousands had been tasked with cracking the Enigma system, but it was Turing’s genius that allowed them to figure it out. It was also Turing’s chance to finally implement his idea of building a mechanical brain.

The Enigma device used a simple rotary system but was able to encode messages in literally millions of different ways. Not only that, but messages were encoded differently each day, and to crack it required more than thousands of human eyeballs.

Alan Turing and his colleagues constructed a mechanical machine called The Bombe, which was able to churn out thousands of possible answers to the encoded German messages. It involved a lot of guesswork, but without Turing and his code-breaking machine, Britain may very well have not survived the battle of the Atlantic.

The Bombe was not the world’s first computer, but after the war Alan Turing and his colleagues went on to build Colossus. This mechanical, “thinking” machine was labeled as the word’s very first digital computer and is what all modern computer technology is based on.

Alan Turing died young under mysterious circumstances. He was found dead in his room by his housekeeper and it was reported that he died of cyanide poising. There is a bit of a conspiracy theory here as some believe that Turing’s death was by accident, others thought it was suicide and another group believe that he was assassinated. The assassination theory certainly has something going for it, as Turing was not only a homosexual at a time when it was illegal, but he also held some of the most important secrets of WW2 and may have been considered as a security risk.

However his life ended, Alan Turing will certainly be remembered and appreciated for the rest of mine.

• Footnote: A personal statement of apology was given by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on September 10, 2009, for Alan Turing’s inhumane treatment.

** More Gadgets & Tech Articles **

DTV: The dawning of a new viewing era

WE are entering a new era of television­. With a boom in the sale of 3DTVs predicted for this year, and the switching from analogue­ to digital television now postponed until 2013, surely this signals that things can only get better. But what does it mean for the end user?

Some feel that before we had the chance to upgrade our sets to HD-ready TVs, out came 3D-ready ones. They may feel that they now need to purchase digital­-ready TVs.

Fortunately this isn’t quite the case. The analogue signal (which is transmitted in a similar manner to radio­) will eventually be phased out; but before that happens, TV viewers with analogue TVs will still be able to pick up digital broadcasts after installing a Set-Top-Box (STB). These convert digital signals into analogue signals so that they may be viewed on older, analogue­ TV sets.

The Digital TV Transition

“But what’s so great about going digital?” I hear you shout. The format and efficiency of digital broadcasts over analogue­ ones not only offer better picture and sound quality, but also frees up space on the broadcasting spectrum — allowing broadcasters to offer far more channels than before.

“DTV (digital television) also offers multiple programming choices, called multicasting, and interactive capabilities. Also, some of the spectrum can now be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).” — www.dtv.gov

So in a nutshell, more channel choices­ with better quality broadcasts and even more interactive shows will be on offer with DTV. It has also been mentioned that the number of local SABC channels will increase from three to more than 10.

So while we may not need to upgrade our boxes in order to view digital broadcasts, if we wish to enjoy the full benefits of digital TV, including improved picture and sound quality, we will need to by entirely new TV sets. The same applies if we wish to enjoy HD, Blue-Ray or 3D broadcasts. We may be able to view them, but not at the quality in which they were intended.

The 3DTV Transition

So what of 3DTV? Being the new kid on the box, 3DTV broadcasts are still expensive to make and therefore expensive to view properly. Largely as a result of this, 3DTV has been separated into two categories — active and passive TV technology.

In both cases, 3D glasses are required to view 3DTV. However, with passive TV technology, one has to sit in a particular position without much leeway to move around in order to view the picture in 3D. The cheaper glasses essentially divide­ the image into two. A single frame is filtered for each eye. So essentially you are seeing the image at half its original resolution.

With active TV technology one wears independently powered 3D glasses. 3D images can be viewed from any angle and send out full frames on each eye sequentially, providing original picture quality at the full 100% resolution. It’s a no-brainer which TV technology is the more expensive one.

It’s difficult to say when would be a good time to upgrade one’s TV set given the circumstances. Like personal computers, televisions are becoming as quickly replaced by new technologies. The only advice I can give is start saving now.

THE difference between analog TV and digital TV has its roots in the way the TV signal is transmitted or transferred from the source to the TV, which, in turn, dictates the type of TV the consumer needs to use to receive the signal. This also applies to the way a DTV converter box has to transfer a signal to an analog TV, which is important for those consumers who use DTV converters to receive TV programming on an analog TV set. – About.com

** More Gadgets & Tech Articles **

SMART DUST: People and computers living in perfect harmony?

COMPUTERS have advanced so splendidly in the past few years that electricians are now able to make micro-computers the size of pinheads. The proposed applications for computers of this size range from modifying the weather to controlling the electrical infrastructure of large cities. Of course, it is wise to be wary of anything that is powerful and to analyse critically the potential of such technology before it involuntarily becomes an integral part of our lives.

Smart dust is one particular brand of microcomputers that has been hailed as a society-changing element that will greatly improve and change the way we live our daily lives. Devised by Dr Kristofer Pister from the University of California in 2001, smart dust is able to gather information from its surrounding environment and send this to people or other computers.

Pictured right: Dr Kristofer Pister demonstrating the size of smart dust particles (Images: newilluminati.blog-city.com)

A smart dust particle or mote is a wireless sensor that has four basic functions — sensing, computation, communication and power — all built into one tiny package. With smart dust being so low powered and inexpensive, the idea is to spread it everywhere — in every building, on every street, in every electrical device and ultimately, in or on every human being.

What smart dust is able to do is create a large invisible network that, in theory, would be able to manage the infrastructure of even the largest city in the world. Streets and buildings would be able to recognise people and respond accordingly. Workplaces would recognise employees and buzz you into the building. Smart dust could even send a lift to your floor and boot up your PC.

Of course the major concern involves privacy. If all of this information about you is available and gathered by smart dust, who else has access to it? Smart dust would also allow certain people to know exactly where you are at all times and could quite easily turn on you and deny you freedom of movement and access. It may sound like something from a movie, but the amount of control that powerful people could have on the masses via smart dust is certainly something to be cautious of.

What is a good idea is having smart dust monitor our roadways and transport systems. Smart dust scattered on the roads would be able to report potholes and traffic jams to commuters, and smart dust on the railways would be able to accurately report late trains in an instant. Bridges coated in smart dust would be able to report stress fractures, helping to avoid collapse and prevent disaster.

The first smart dust particles created in 2001, which were about the size of a deck of playing cards.

But do we want such fabric dispersed everywhere? Smart dust may be evolving to the microscopic level, but it is by no means undeniably safe. Several news reports were released in the past decade about a similar substance known as global environmental sensors (GEMS) that had been released into the atmosphere to monitor weather conditions. There was very little thought given to these electrical particles being inhaled once they descended to Earth, nor any given to the fact that several micro-organisms could ingest smart dust and die as a result.

It almost seems worth having to boot up your work PC manually and save a termite population in the process.

** More Gadgets & Tech Articles **