technology

Yes, It’s Automated Mashed Potatoes

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So in some 7-11 in Singapore has an automated mashed potato machine.

We’ve also talked automated pizza here, automated convenience stores, and so on.  As you may have guessed, I kind of have a thing for automation, especially in the realm of food.  There’s a reason for that.

Let’s face it, people like their food and like it fast.  A lot of people like gadgets.  Oh, and a lot of businesses would like to remove “people” from the equation of a lot of things.  I see more and more food automation – and seemingly wacky automation – as a potential trend for these reasons.

In fact, I could see it go farther with concern over health.  Tell me how actual attempts to deliver healthy food someone would go over – at least in the right areas?

So, for you progreeks, keep food automation in mind.  If people are going to make a freaking mashed potato vendor this year, I can easily see a lot more food automation happening in the next decade.

Until then, pass the mashed potatoes.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Big Pile Of Ship

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Wait, news analysis?

Yeah, we over here at Fan To Pro have been dreadful busy, moving, getting new jobs, sick of old jobs, sick period, etc.  So the news analysis has kind of declined – and we do dump interesting articles to Ye Olde Twittere Feede.

So we didn’t get in a lot of news analysis, which of course was because all the great news happened at once.  I think if I were to sum it up, Apple’s new operating system is based on the Penny Arcade kickstarter, which is run in Windows 8 by Amazon, which is crouching over the burning corpse of Best Buy.  Or something.  Oh, and RIM is a disaster, but we knew that.

But out of the news articles, and all the crazy, something stood out:

Amazon is pushing to make same-day service.

Sure, it doesn’t come as any surprise, but there’s some takeaways:

First, this is going to be a challenge to lots of local retailers and not-so-local retailers.  Let’s face it, when you can get it from Amazon, people tend to.

Second, what’s being missed here is that Amazon is probably going to develop some revolutionary storage and shipping technologies.  People will want to help it happen, look at it, copy it, etc.  If you’re into shipping tech, this is revolutionary.

But there’s one thing that’s being missed among the Amazon-will-crush-all and so forth.

Amazon also has their amazon storefronts and the like.  What the hell are they going to be able to do when they have this mass shipping/recieving system set up? What kind of service can they offer to others?

Think of what it can mean for small businesses.  Think of how many other small companies providing services like this they may crush.  Think of what it will do if they use this to try to help people ignore the fact they’re sort of undermining other businesses . . .

Imagine if Amazon faces limiting lawsuits?  They could scale back – but keep the shipping business as a business.  An amazing about of people use their EC2 cloud service.

So, no, there may be much more to this than simply crushing others.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

 

 

 

On Accessibility, Trends, and Technology

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I was taking my roommate’s car in for a check-up, and grabbed a quick cab back home.  On the way I had a fascinating talk with the cab driver, who repaired, restored, and resold old cars.  To him, eBay was one of the greatest blessings to his hobby, as well as various specialty sites.

He regaled me with fascinating tales of how he got obscure parts and historical doodads, often very cheaply, all thanks to eBay and the internet.  Frankly, there’s an entire world of cars out there I never thought of.  I almost wanted to pay him more to drive around a bit more and tell me other things.

He got me thinking that eBay and other specialty sites are in many ways like Netflix, Hulu, Google Books, and the like.  They’re ways to get obscure and unusual materials that others may not have, understand, or appreciate.  The internet is a boon to the specialist, the unusual, the odd, and the unknown.

Just as I’m currently indulging my love of Asian Cinema with Netflix (side note: Tsui Hark should have directed The Last Airbender), this gentleman could indulge in his love of cars.  The internet and other technologies change what is obscure and inaccessible – indeed, everything is accessible now.  If you want anime, car parts, books, pornography, religious texts, plans, etc. there’s a website for you, probably several.

This is not just a technical shift, it’s a cultural shift:

Nothing is truly “obscure” or “unknown” anymore – you’ll stumble across things you never knew about by accident, and little is hidden from serious research.  If you need it, you can probably get it.

In turn, I think this may be changing people’s ideas of what is “normal” or “common.”  With so much available and public thanks to internet technology, it’s also publicly known to people.  This changes social norms and cultural concepts as we’re seeing things we never new existed, forgot, or even tried to ignore.

This further increases the chance of not just cultural adaption, but of conflict.  How many times have we seen assorted kerfluffles break out over video games, anime, manga, pornography, etc. on the internet?  It’s going to keep happening as we have access to so much.

Now let’s take all this “stuff”, all this access and mix in our favorite subject of late – Mobile.  When you can get everything quicker and with less localization issues, when you can find out more faster, it chains how we live and work.

One cab ride reminded me of the sheer power of Access we have.  I’ve seen it from my end, the core geek market, but in this case I saw it broader, saw it through the eyes of an auto enthusiast.  That brought home just how fast things are changing – because nothing is truly obscure or hidden anymore.

I know I didn’t appreciate it.  I’m wondering how many people really do.

And, for those of us that do, who work in information and technology, what does it mean for careers?

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/