Gadgets Blog

This holiday season many children will open up a new PlayStation 3, Wii and X-box 360 with Kinect and play the most graphically amazing games created, using everything from handheld devices to their own body as controllers.

I have been gaming for more than 25 years, so I remember the early days of Atari and Nintendo. For this reason, I thought I would take a look back at the technology of the past so that we can appreciate the technology of the present.

Atari: Who remembers using a screwdriver to connect the Atari to the television? This was before the days of the red, white and yellow A/V inputs. I still remember sitting on my parents’ bed playing Breakout for hours. The sound effects consisted of beep followed by a boop and then another beep. Whew, those were some crazy times. Space Invaders, Combat and a plethora of other classic games that anyone over 30 remembers. The graphics consisted of various block forms, and the controllers had one button.

8-bit machines: I like to call this the golden age of gaming. Nintendo debuted the Nintendo Entertainment System along with a little Italian Plumber named Mario bent on saving Princess Toadstool from the clutches of the evil Bowser. Some of you might also remember Robbie the Robot, who you could control to play a game called Gyroscope. Yeah, nobody else does either.

Scientists have always tried to prove that computers are faster, smarter and better than the very humans that built them. Kasparov defeated Deep Blue in chess, but a revamped program derailed him, and now they are going after the last vestige of human intellectualism on television (besides “NCIS”), “Jeopardy.”

The two biggest winners in “Jeopardy” history are going to go head to head against IBM super computer Watson in two televised matches in February. Ken Jennings won 74 games and more than $2.5 million, and Brad Rutter won more than $3 million in his appearances.

Watson is the culmination of four years of research into allowing a computer to understand a question — or in the “Jeopardy” sense, an answer — and to figure out the answer/question. In human terms, it doesn’t seem like that big of deal. When we hear 2 + 2, our brain formulates the answer using logic, and we realize that the answer = 4. Even if we haven’t heard the question, we can understand the logic.

A computer only understands what it has been told. So if a computer hears 2 + 2, it will only know the answer if someone has written a program that tells it how to answer. Random questions from random categories are difficult for a computer to answer, because it has to use context clues and targeted information gathering.

You’ve all been here: sitting patiently and politely while you slowly teach your parents, grandparents and older aunts and uncles about the ins and outs of technology, namely, computers. Whether they don’t know how to copy and paste, change their screen saver or even search something on the Internet, you’ve been the go-to tech support.

But honestly, it gets tiring. We all know this. While we’re amazed, shocked or even impressed that our parents decided to use the computer in the first place, we’d be more impressed if they could do it by themselves. Without our help. Forever.

That’s why Google employee Jason Toff decided to make his new Web site, TeachParentsTech.org, which is geared toward assisting those who need some help in the tech department. And by some, we mean a lot. According to Toff, he was hard-pressed to find anyone without that same torturous story about bringing Mom and Dad up to speed.

I know I’ve certainly been there. While at the airport with my sister one day, she realized her flight was delayed. Wanting to know more, we called home looking for our brother to check the flight status online. (We are but humble non-cellular-Internet-using folk.) But, unfortunately, brother failed us this day, and was out with some friends. Instead, Dad picked up, and he couldn’t discern a mouse from a Web page if his life depended on it. My sister and I just settled for not knowing.

The popular Web site Gawker was hacked recently in retaliation of the treatment of WikiLeaks. This was no harmless prank, and instead released source code and private e-mail conversations of Gawker employees.

The real danger is that other hackers can use this information to get passwords from Gawker users, and some have already been broken. The hackers released a 500-megabyte file filled with information for the world to see.

Gawker was not the only Web site hacked in the Gawker family, either. Gadget site Gizmodo and pop culture site Jezebel were also hit by these hackers extraordinaire. Files containing passwords of users as well as employees were readily available in the Web space, and people were sharing the files via bit torrent.

Several Web sites have been hacked recently following the release of classified information by WikiLeaks and the treatment of the founder and company. Calling it Operation Payback, hackers are hitting sites that have denied WikiLeaks service and publicity such as Twitter and PayPal and now Gawker.

In the wake of the WikiLeaks scandal with Julian Assange, many military agencies have, under the threat of a court-martial, banned the use of flash drives, CDs and DVDs for data storage.

Called the Cyber Control Order, members of the military are to cease and desist the use of removable data storage devices connected to the secret Department of Defense network SIPRNet. This is after thousands of classified documents were published.

According to reports, a soldier downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents onto a CD marked as Lady Gaga. I guess they couldn’t see his poker face, either. He then turned the CD over to the site WikiLeaks.

Although it was instituted under the name of security, this new order will make it difficult for members of the military to do their jobs, as these removable media were the most common way for information to be transferred from one computer to the next. Perhaps they should simply ban Lady Gaga from military media.

Any troops caught using portable drive devices may be court-martialed under Article 92, the failure to obey order or regulation. It seems to me that the military is taking the wrong approach to keeping classified data from getting out.

I am not a big talker, whether in person or on the Internet. Being a professional writer primarily with Internet-based clients, I am often online chatting on Skype about one job or another, and I always notice the plethora of emoticons that are available to use.

As a writer, I have always been best at expressing my emotions through words and descriptions. It’s the stock and trade of my business and I have always found the use of emoticons a bit… well… annoying. Don’t get me wrong, I have fallen prey myself to the occasional smiley face and smooch kiss when my wife was chatting, but am I ever going to need the emoticon that bows or applauds?

Am I suddenly going to find myself on the receiving end of a digital karate fight and feel the need to offer my respect before we cyber battle? I don’t think so. Am I suddenly going to enter “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and have to fight off my wife’s seven evil exes? If I did, then I bet that ninja emoticon would come in handy.

Sometimes it’s not the emoticon itself that is annoying, but rather the frequent use of them. I understand that you may be happy while talking with me, but I don’t need to see a smiley face at the beginning and end of every post.

It’s tough to be an entrepreneur these days with costs being so high in the global marketplace. From this problem, sites such as Kickstarter.com were developed that allowed people to donate to projects they felt worthy of funding.

You may only get $10 or $20 per person, but thousands of people donate, and people have received thousands of dollars for their projects, from inventions to movies. Recently, someone’s idea to create an iPod Nano watch earned $600,000 in 20 hours, which shattered records for Kickstarter.com.

The idea came from a former Nike creative director who had experience in developing watches for the mega shoe corporation. He got the idea when Steve Jobs commented that the new Nano was so small that it can easily be worn, so the iPod Nano watch was born.

The watch doesn’t actually come equipped with a Nano; instead, it’s a wristband that people can attach their Nano to when they go out. He developed two types. One allows people to take the Nano in and out at their leisure, and the second becomes a permanent dock for the Nano.

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While the project is still a ways off from hitting the market, Google Android head Andy Rubin gave members of the public and the press at the Dive Into Mobile conference a sneak peek at a buttonless tablet computer running on the Android operating system.

The pad looks comparable in size to Apple’s iPad, but it has no buttons. This is a departure from previous Android hardware, which included four buttons, and Rubin said this change was intentional. The pad orients itself regardless of which end is up. A button would make this confusing, so they went without it.

The tablet runs on a new version of the Android operating system and may include video conferencing and chat abilities, simplified menus and a three-dimensional version of Google Maps. Android and Motorola are developing this iPad killer.

This is the first time Google has given the public a glimpse of this much-anticipated piece of hardware, and it was just enough to whet their appetites for more. No date has been set for release, other than to say “sometime next year.”

Last night, Comcast customers in Illinois, Indiana and other states experienced an Internet outage. We have a triple package with the cable conglomerate, and last night, as I diligently worked on items for Monday morning, I discovered that my Internet was out.

As someone who makes a living working from home, I understand that much of my work involves using the Internet. I use it for researching articles, contacting clients via e-mail and sending my work from place to place. I was actually finishing up a project when the Internet went out.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. I called the cable company and wasn’t able to get through. I kept getting a busy signal. I assumed it must be a pretty widespread problem to knock out their phone lines, so I just hunkered down, watched some television and thought it would be up in an hour or two.

I was wrong. By 11 p.m., I was officially in panic mode. There was no way I was going to be getting the money for the project I was working on by the morning. If the Internet was still out in the morning, then there was no way for me contact anyone to let them know my articles would not be coming.