Technology Update 04/11/15

I always like talking about advances in technology, but I also know there are some advances we will never know about because they are locked up in government projects called black projects. Be that as it may I want to talk about some advances I do know about. It is being said that even Watson, one of the world’s smartest computers, cannot bestow practical skills into a robot which is connected to it. Yes it will become much smarter, but it is still subject to its physical limitations. It was suggested that some people might be scared by the prospect of connecting this powerful computer to a robot, but there is no reason for this to be anything more than an exercise to see what the effects of this joining will have on a robot. Watson was connected to a robot known as Pepper and when it is connected to Watson it is great at answering questions as you would expect it to be since it has access to the Jeopardy champion. You may be able to buy Pepper soon as the plan is to sell it for about $1,653.

A lot of people are excited about the prospect of Apple building a car. The reason for this is Apple has a reputation for easy to use devices. The code name for the car it Titan. Some are already calling it the ICar. It will be self-driving, electric and have Siri keeping you informed. I believe most of us know what Siri is by now. It is the application which you ask questions of and which answers you. One analyst who has studied Apple believes the ICar is still far down the road so I wouldn’t get too excited about it if I was an Apple fan. So why is Apple getting into the car business? The analyst guessed because Apple had a 700 billion dollar valuation in February 2015 and let the car project leak, because it wanted to remind investors that there were some great projects coming.

Google’s Project Zero has really annoyed vendors and developers and it really shouldn’t. First let me tell you what it is. Google has a program which is designed to catch vulnerabilities in software. When they catch one they notify the company, but this means if that company doesn’t fix it within 90 days Google goes public with what they found, putting the company on the spot. Google has decided to be a little more lenient and not count weekends and holidays in the 90 days. I still have to think if there was any way these other companies could do away with Project Zero they would do it in a heartbeat. There is no doubt that without Project Zero we would all be a lot worse off. Things are bad enough already. It’s too bad there isn’t a watchdog on the companies which store our data.

Elon Musk said he is spending “staggering amounts of money” getting ready for mass production of new models of the Tesla car. Tesla’s are not only beautiful, well made and have a long range before needing charging, but they are on the cutting edge. New batteries will be developed for them soon increasing their range dramatically. If Mr. Musk can get the price down to where they are competitive with cars in the $30,000 - $35,000 range, who knows how many more they might sell. I am sure this is beginning to worry the traditional car companies and as we know Musk has had roadblocks thrown in his way with his dealerships with some states saying he cannot sell factory direct.

I don’t think any of us ever thought while we were watching television and having conversations our televisions were recording everything we said. It turns out that Samsung Smart televisions listen to everything we say and can share these conversations with third parties. Samsung has stated the reason this feature is in their new Smart Televisions is so the smart televisions can collect user information about programming preferencesΒ  and help them locate the shows they would like to see. Hey wait a second, couldn’t this info be gathered another way by just collecting it from what we look at and search for? Of course it could. This is a downright invasion of privacy and people have to check if this is a feature on any smart television they buy. I know I wouldn’t buy one with this feature, how about you?
Ford’s new GT has attracted all sorts of attention with its fantastic styling and over 600 horse power. It has become the iconic American super car. The car will have a carbon fiber body and it will be produced in Markham, Ontario, Canada. Markham is just outside Toronto. The announcement was made at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. "Ford was looking for a skill set and went where the expertise was, if it were in Michigan they would have done it in Michigan. But carbon fiber bodies are still an immature technology and there is not a lot of selection of available vendors," according to an expert in the field.

First it was the huge auto recall for air bags, now a recall by GM is for 81,000 vehicles over concerns the car could lose it electric power steering while someone is driving it. Here is the rub, GM recalled 2008 models of the Malibu and Pontiac G5 for the same thing. At that time GM said it believed the problem was due to a sensor built at a particular time. The new recall is for 2006 and 2007 models of the Chevrolet Malibu, Chevrolet Malibu Maxx and Pontiac G6. The problem is not in all these models, but is said to depend on when they were built during the year.

An executive at Google has said he believes now may be the time to print out those important mementos and documents. He is referring to the fact many of us are saving our data online and if anything happens it will all be lost. He is calling this sending our data into a black hole and states we could be heading for a digital dark age. He is worried future historians will not be able to study our century because there will be nothing left to study. Vint Cerf of Google said, "Some people make the argument that the important stuff will be copied and put into new media, and so why should we worry, but…historians will tell you that sometimes documents, transactions, images and so on may turn out to have an importance which is not understood for hundreds of years. Failure to preserve them will cause us to lose our perspective."