Skype Translator

It will soon be possible to talk with someone over internet phone services such as Skype that speaks a different language. The VoIP services is intent of breaking all kinds of language barriers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Gurdeep Pall, the vice president in charge of Skype, demonstrated the technology Tuesday night in California at the Code Conference, sponsored by tech-news site Re/Code. After a short delay, the system posts one user's translated comments as text onscreen to the other user while a synthetic voice speaks them aloud. Pall said Skype Translator will be available first as a Windows 8 beta app by the end of this year. This new technology is taking social media and communications to a whole new level. There are less and less barriers to break down. In the beginning of the century, it was about mails and telephones that made the world smaller and brought people together and now the languages are not an issue. Another idea is that this technology could be used in everyday life and not just on communication devices, but that would raise a whole slew of new issues.

Technologies to Disrupt the World

Two hundred times stronger than steel and light as a feather; tougher than a diamond, but stretches like rubber; able to conduct electricity and heat better than a copper wire, graphene, ladies and gentleman -- the very ingredients in the substance of your No. 2 pencil is changing the world. Electronics is becoming a hotter topic these days with electric cars and such along with communication services and devices.  Doctors in the Netherlands did, printing a lower jaw for an 83-year woman. And its success only makes this trillion-dollar technology even more appealing for both doctors and patients around the world. And if that weren't enough, the technology could be used to print out skin, ears, bones and organs. We already know 3D printing is primarily used with industrial design, aerospace and engineering, but its revolutionary applications are changing the medical space.

The iPhone 6

There have been recent rumors that the iPhone 6 will be coming out this August which is about a month or two before the usual date. If the release date rumor comes true, Apple might be trying to stem the slowdown in iPhone sales that happens every summer. Smartphone shoppers have become conditioned to Apple’s yearly cycle; typically, iPhone sales crater in the summer months as everyone waits for the newer model. The Economic Daily News also says that the display on the iPhone 6 will increase to 4.7 inches on the diagonal, and that an even bigger iPhone, with a 5.5-inch screen, will follow in September. In order to compete with Samsung, Huawei, and others in the massive Asian market, Apple needs to come out with a bigger screen for its iPhone which many companies in software development are looking at anyway. Of course, there needs to be confirmation of these rumors. Are you going to get the new iPhone when it comes out?

Technology

What is technology doing to us? Between the digital skeptics and the wide-eyed utopians sit the authors of The Second Machine Age, two MIT scholars with an interest in consensus and moderation. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, both at the university’s Center for Digital Business, realized that things were moving way faster than even they would have predicted. Just as the Industrial Revolution saw machines replacing human brawn, the second machine age sees them replacing our cognitive faculties. These two, whose previous book, Race Against the Machine, took a cautionary look at the way computers, software development, and artificial intelligence were making human beings obsolete, now describe themselves as cautiously optimistic.

Searching With Images

In the past, we have searched with words but now software development has come so far that you can search with images. Curious? Well, armed with a smartphone and one of these apps, all you have to do is snap a photo and the app will try to identify the object or landmark and find information on it. No matter what kind of information you want, Google Goggles can help. This is a stand-alone app for Android, but it’s built into the Google Search app for iPhone (tap the search bar and then the camera icon to search by image). Take a picture of whatever you want to know more about, from a place to a work of art to a barcode or text (even in a foreign language), and Google will bring up more information. If the item is for purchase, you’ll also find shopping links and reviews. Looking for the perfect home? Homesnap is the app for you. If you see a property you like while you’re driving around looking at neighborhoods, take a photo using the Homesnap app to pull up the home’s complete real estate listing. You’ll get easy access to the property’s full details plus photos, all without having to get out of your car to grab a flyer.

Pressure Sensitive Phone Case

Canopy, a Minneapolis-based startup, thinks touch screens limit how we interact with our smartphones. And this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show here, the company debuted the latest version of Sensus, an iPhone case that transforms the back and sides of your phone into large, pressure-sensitive touch pad. This, Canopy says, has two advantages: It allows people to use their phones without touching the screen, increasing the viewable area (great for playing games). It also lets people use varying pressure to get different responses from apps and games. This could definitely open doors for mobile application development in so many different dimensions. I can just imagine the news ways in which people will be interacting with their phones. It seems like people constantly need a different interface and the tech companies are looking for problems to which they have a solution for. Interestingly enough nearly all windows phones already have a pressure sensitive screen.

Wink and Shoot

If this technology is going to go big, I better brush up on my winking skills. Google also asserts that the winking technology could be used for many other purposes. The wearable technology market is expected to grow from $1.4 billion this year to somewhere between $19 billion and $50 billion in 2018, according to Juniper Research and analysts at Credit Suisse. I think that the whole winking technology is still a bit far away and Google has some serious issues to fix. GPS and internet phones should stay in the media that they are in because it would be a distraction to have your glasses do all of that. What are your thoughts on the Google glass and winking instead of pressing a button? Or are we just creating a problem for this supposed solution?