Rafe's Blog

To infinity, and beyond

My last tech meeting before a much-needed vacation (which will explain my online absence for the next two weeks) was the "Immersive Space Reception," a party for the all-new digital planetarium at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

The planetarium half-dome is the same as it ever was, but they've added six DLP projectors fed by their own computers and new software. The projectors are 1400 x 1048 pixels each; five are used to cover the horizon ring and the sixth fills in the space left at the roof. The effect is seamless and amazing. This planetarium can go anywhere in the universe there's data on, and it can do it at the whim of the planetarium operator. During the demo, senior astronomer Ryan Diduck, and Sky-Skan president Steve Savage (his company made the software), "drove" us from Earth orbit, around our solar system and the galaxy, and to the edge of the known universe. What we didn't see, which Chabot executive director Alex Barnett says they're working on for the next step, is a trip in the other direction: Into biology and atomic structure.

Coincidentally, a few days prior I was experimenting with Celestia, a free universe explorer that runs on a PC (think of it as Google Earth, but pointing in the other direction). On the way to the planetarium, I was wondering: With all the computing and graphics power available on our desktops now, and all the data that you can stream over the Internet, who needs a planetarium?  Somebody at the event described it this way: Your PC, the Internet, your books -- think of that, collectively, as your bible of astronomy.  The planetarium is the church. It's where you go to be taught, to experience the wonder with others, and to feel the awe of the universe in a setting that you can't duplicate at home. Amen to that.

I want this keyboard

On this keyboard, every keycap is an OLED screen. It looks like just a design fantasy, but it makes perfect sense. Imagine if your key labels changed to tell you, when you were running Word, what formatting codes were hidden in each key; or, when you were playing Half-Life, which keys did what.  I'm sure someone out there is working on this.  Like I said, I want it.

Either that or the completely blank Ray Charles keyboard.

Evolutionary mistakes in technology

Technology evolves. Good technologies and products usually survive; poor ones usually go extinct. But not all of the technologies and tech products that have swirled down the drain of the tech gene pool deserved their fate. I wrote the Top Ten Tech we Miss for CNET, covering some ideas that we thought we'd have with us forever, but that unfortunately have gone the way of the dodo. Here's a preview: Spacemen. Kozmo. LPs. The Concorde.

The need for speed

While I'm busy pimping my columns, here's another one that just posted: Silly Upgrades, my latest Works for Me column on CNET. There's a lot of reader feedback on it, which I like.  But I initially thought people hated this column, since I got some early emails on it telling me that my ideas about fast cars being wasteful were not welcomed. I'll say it to the world: First, it was a joke. Kind of. I love cars. One of the highlights of my life was being driven around Infineon raceway by Mario Andretti in a Porsche GT3. That taught me a thing or two about driving fast. 1: It's fun. 2: Dude, it's incredibly scary.

Google is not my business model

In my latest Release 1.0 column (free registration required), I went a little deeper into the "Google is my business model" idea that surfaced when I talked with the CEO of Wondir.  Based on chats with a few VCs and on some other blog posts, I have a new opinion: This is a decent startup plan, but it's not a good thing to base a business on.

Laptops for learning

We generally think of computers as being more expensive than books, but that’s not always the case, at least not by much. Look what happens when you overprice textbooks: You drive people to buy laptops instead. (via Engadget) 

This could have a material impact on the big textbook publishers, like McGraw-Hill.

Instant Messaging: Threat or Menace?

Got these back-to-back emails this morning:

1) Akonix press release on the dangers of "Uncontrolled employee IM use."

2) Inc.com Small Business email: How an IM "Open Door" policy makes employees more productive.

Akonix makes some good products and its CEO, Peter Shaw, is a smart and interesting guy; I covered the company for Always On in 2004. But in this instance I definitely side with openness over security. Sure, IM opens the door for employees to leak information. But so does letting them go home each night. So scan outbound IM for files and confidential data if you must, but don't put a lid on IM use. As the Inc.com story illustrates, putting IM in the hands of employees can lead to intelligent and productive use in ways you likely have not foreseen.

Feed your head

Here's a weird thing about rock & roll and science fiction: The costumes are interchangeable. The Science Fiction Museum in Seattle is located alongside the Experience Music Project, and in a hall between the two there's a collection of costumes from Kiss, Devo, Dark Star, Blade Runner, and dozens of other fantasy worlds. Without a scorecard, I'd bet most people would have a hard time identifying which costumes are from rock and which are from sci-fi.

Here's another thing: Blogging might be this generation's science fiction. Before the Internet, people used the platform of science fiction to invent worlds, and write stories about them to explore radical ideas. Many were happy if they found just a few people to read their work and take them seriously, according to an exhibit in the first hall of the SFM. Sound familiar?

Anyway, if you are in Seattle and have even a nanogram of geek blood in you, visit the SFM. It's small as museums go but it's lovingly and thoughtfully put together, and sports Disney-level production values. There are lots of cool artifacts there (Captain Kirk's chair, for instance), as well as great trivia. For example, I learned that both Robby the Robot (from Forbidden Planet) and Robot (from Lost in Space) were designed by the same person, Robert Kinoshita (which might explain why Robby appeared in two Lost in Space episodes).