Technology Reminders

There is still one feature that phones are missing. I wrote about this here years ago. What if you want to show something on your phone to a group of people? It is awkward to pass the phone around. If a phone has a flashlight then why can't it be used as a projector? Anywhere that it is a little bit dark, the phone screen could be projected onto a wall.

When is a phone going to offer a choice of keyboard? I am sure that many people would like an ABC keyboard, instead of this QWERTY order. This was made to facilitate faster typing in the days of secretaries but almost everyone does their own typing nowadays and it is useless to be able to type faster than one can think. Some people can type with their thumbs. Since most people are right-handed, how about a keyboard with the most-used letters to the right side? There could also be a left-handed thumb keyboard.

No matter how many words a language may have, only about ten thousand words are in common everyday use. Why not assign each word a four-digit numerical code, from 0000 to 9999? This would only include words, and not names. Every sign that might be read by people from another country would have the numeric code displayed under each word. It would only be necessary to enter the codes into an app to translate the words. This would  not work for detailed information because grammar differs between languages, but it would work fine for the information on signs.

As I have written here before, this ASCII system of encoding has long been obsolete. This is from 1968, the very early days of computer technology. This is what I call being "technically-forward but system-backward". There are two possibilities in a bit, either on or off which is expressed as 1 or 0 and this is known as "binary". Eight bits thus contains 256 possible permutations. There are 256 possible characters in use, including lower case, caps, numbers, punctuation and, unprinted control characters. Each character is assigned a particular permutation of eight bits. This is why an IP address has four sections between 0 and 255. But this is extremely wasteful of space. We really don't need to transmit caps because they can be filled in by spell check technology. Why don't we take the total number of necessary characters, and I don't think we need 256, and treat the entire document as a vast number of this base, and then transmit the entire number in binary? We use a base ten system but numbers can be of any base. This would save a vast amount of space. I am sure that the development of this ASCII system was influenced by Morse Code.

There is now so much on the internet that a form of AI doesn't require any new technology. Just turn computers loose to examine everything on the internet. They will see billions of documents and billions of images. They will learn to read by noticing that certain words tend to be associated with certain images. In this way they will learn all languages. They will read news and notice trends that no one has noticed. They will notice patterns in history that have never been noticed. They will produce a steady stream of inventions and scientific discoveries by putting information together. They will catch criminals by noticing crimes and fraud and patterns in crimes.

What will come next after phones? How about hats? The brain produces electromagnetic waves, known as neural oscillations. You won't need to push any buttons, the hat will read what you want from your brain waves. You won't have to look at a screen, that will seem like something from the Stone Age, because the hat will put what you are looking for directly into your brain. You won't have to actually talk to someone that you are calling because it can all be done with brain waves.

There was a lot of coordinating that could have been done. Take, for example, America's phone Area Codes and mailing address Zip Codes. The Area Codes have three digits and the Zip Codes five. This might have been coordinated so that the Area Code, of a given location, is also the first three digits of the Zip Code. In Zip Code 14304, for example, we would know that the Area Code is 143.

The earth rotates eastward. This is why rocket launch sites, such as in Florida and India, are located on the east coast. The rocket picks up the momentum of the eastward rotation so, if something goes wrong, it will crash into the sea instead of into a populated area. Why can't we use this principle to save fuel on flights? Eastbound flights should be as low as practical, to maximize the support of the earth's rotation. Westbound flights should be as high as practical, to minimize the opposition of the earth's rotation.

Why does every flavor that we use in foods have to be the imitation of a natural flavor? When are we going to develop completely synthetic flavors?

Modern printing technology has opened up completely new possibilities for flags. The old two or three color flags are from the distant past. A photograph can now easily be made into a flag. A nation's flag can now be a pic of a bunch of people hanging out on the beach.

Has anyone ever wondered if we are putting too much confidence in DNA testing? A DNA test is considered as like the Word of God. I remember when polygraph tests were where DNA is now. A polygraph was the Gold Standard. Polygraphs are still used but now it is known that they are of less than perfect accuracy. I wonder if we will ever find that DNA testing isn't quite as accurate as we thought. Remember that, a century ago, it was believed that an image of the last thing a deceased person saw was imprinted on the lenses of their eyes. If a murder victim has their eyes open, a close-up photo would be taken of their eye lenses, in the hope that it would reveal an image of the murderer.

I followed the Apollo Space Program as a child. But the development of AI means that there is less reason than ever to send humans far into space. AI can explore space. It would be ideal if the AI system on a spacecraft could be updated by programming from earth.