by david allan van nostrand | Mar 22, 2021 | Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Unintended Consequences
Robots are machines that respond automatically and unthinkingly to the commands of others. They perform routine mechanical tasks that have been pre-programmed by humans. They are not sentient beings and are not capable of conscious thought. Robots are best at...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 14, 2019 | Fads, Items in the News, Research, Technology
In 1999, Star Wars was in theaters, Space Invaders was in arcades, and our team was crisscrossing Europe and Asia, testing mock-ups of what would one day become tablet computers. The main attraction of our prototypes?They were a new category on the power-mobility...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 18, 2018 | Items in the News, Surveys, Technology
There are more than five million mobile apps, yet consumers only download a tiny fraction of them, and regularly use no more than 20 or 30 a month. Mobile users favor them over websites and expect them to be fast, comprehensive, and easy to use. How big is the mobile...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 11, 2018 | Items in the News, Surveys, Technology
The Centers for Disease Control released a study that showed some things many of us would already have supposed to be true. For the first time ever, a majority of U.S. homes are cellphone-only. Ten years ago, nine of ten U.S. households had a landline, and now...
by david allan van nostrand | Apr 9, 2018 | Technology
During the late 1880s, the Swiss Army decided to purchase a new folding pocket knife for their soldiers. It was to be suitable for use by the army for two things other knives couldn’t do: opening canned field rations and disassembling the Swiss Army rifle, an...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 4, 2017 | Big Data, Research, Technology
U.S. President Ronald Reagan liked to define “mixed emotions” as the feelings a man has as he watches his mother-in-law drive over the cliff in his new Cadillac. Another example involves how driverless vehicles will be programmed to react in emergencies. One is to act...
