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Showing posts from January, 2020

The Future As Seen By Me In 2010

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Well looky here, things one has scanned in eh. (ignore the photo, that's some guy that made some accounting software, not sure what became of him ;) MIKE RIVERSDALE is fuming. The expensive headphones he bought in Sydney three weeks ago have just died. His first reaction is not to randomly spill expletives into his coffee, but to use his iPhone to vent his frustration to his Twitter con- tacts, under the moniker Miramar Mike. "I will also put, 'What should I do?' It's a conversation. I'm reaching out to the people following me." The council predicts hand-held digital devices such as smartphones will rule the world in 2040. They already rule the life of Mr Riversdale, whose company WaveAdept helps businesses adapt - their computing sys- tems to allow staff to work from anywhere - and with anyone. In order of fre- equency, he uses his iPhone to tweet (1136 followers; 8363 tweets since joining), e-mail, make phone calls and use online services, such as checki
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Chrome's "Send to device", What It Doesn't Do

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I'll tell you what it doesn't do, it doesn't do anything. It's been a released 'feature' since Chrome 77 (September 2019), and whilst the options are there and I can indeed choose to 'send to' my phone NOTHING has ever happened. I've never received a message (if that's what's meant to happen), my device's Chrome doesn't display a page, nothing at all happens. Oh, sure the ChromeOS status does show something is 'happening' and it will probably show it forever, but nothing ever actually transpires. As for sharing a page from Android Chrome the official instructions are poop as I don't even have a "Send to your devices". This is a Google Pixel 4 with the latest Android updates. Nothing, no option anywhere. So, what the story Google?
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VR Tackling Online Hate Speech

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Everyone thinks of games when the letters "VR" are bandied around and with Wellington-based company Beyond giving people such an incredibly fun experience in their VR product is it any wonder. However VR is just a tool, a tech tool that can be used to bring any experience we wouldn't normally have a hope in being a part of. With that in mind I popped along to the DIA Service Innovation Lab late in 2019 at the kind invite of Dr Hazel Bradshaw ( @driedfrog , website ), to see how she and her tiny team have taken the world of VR and used it for the good of us all. Some background - within government policy is created by many of the fine folks in the New Zealand civil service. A lot of these policy people, generally known as Policy Analysts (senior, junior, area focused, there are many flavours) generate policies for people that are not of their ilk. Of course they mostly have tried, tested, and traditional ways of trying to expand their horizons, limit the scope of b
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