hexstatik

Let’s see if I can start making this a regular Friday feature…

as many of you know, I’m a technology junkie. i love all things “tech” and the things that technology enables us to do. I love seeing massive computer power put to cool uses. Today, the term massive computing power applies to almost any desktop computer when compared to computers from as little as 10 years ago. Granted, our desktop computers look like simple digital watches in terms of computing power when compared to today’s super computers, but they are still very very powerful none the less.

Some of the coolest technologies that are pushing the limits are happening in visualization. for example, it is now possible to take photos from flickr, analyze them and create a 3 dimension model of objects or space, like microsoft labs’ photosynth project, which was first demoed at TED 2007 by Blaise Aguera y Arcas. If you have 7 or 8 minutes to spare, I highly recomment watching this. After you’re done, you can actually play with a live demo of photosynth here.

Finally, the last thing that I wanted to mention is a little more photography oriented. It’s called Image Resizer, and it’s going to be in the next version of Photoshop. The video demo below is a quick 4:28, and if you’re interested in photography at all, you should check it out.

while I’ve been on facebook (sometimes also known as crackbook for its addictive nature, or “the facebook”) for quite some time now, it’s not nearly as consuming as it was initially, but i still find myself visiting on a fairly regular basis to see what is going on. of all the technologies and sites on the internet, facebook has managed to completely enthrall and estimated millions of people around the world. last month alone, facebook registered 26.6M unique visitors and over 15B page views (wow!) and the last I heard, had an estimated value of around $6B.

facebook is the one site on the internet that I think makes people feel safe enough to dump crazy amounts of personal data into. it has enabled its users to easily find old friends, make new ones, share photos and is changing the way people communicate using electronic means. there is currenly a shift away from email to facebook, instant messaging and text messaging. you could say that the shift to IM and texting began before facebook, but facebook is now influencing how these technologies are used.

although many have lauded facebook, it is not without its critics - the facebook website has been blocked by businesses and government agencies, criticized for it’s privacy policies, and several facebook consipiracy theories have also sprung up.

I was a little hesitant at first, then I put tons of information up, but that scared me, and I ended up removing most of it. I am quite careful about the information about me that exists out on the internet. sure, I have a blog, a flickr account, etc… so I can’t exactly say that I’m operating in stealth mode. However, I do hate having to give up my email address, and my information on facebook has been filtered out.

In many ways, I think that people also want to be able to trust companies on the web, and companies like Google do have the trust of many of their users. I even want to trust facebook, and so far, they have done a few things to instill that trust. However, I still get that burning sensation that one day, when someone with a big enough cheque comes knocking, they will sell out and everyone’s private and personal data will be sold and data mined and we’ll never see the end of the spam and advertising.

What’s your take?

The rumour mill has been abuzz with rumours about new iPods next tuesday, but according to Appleinsider, Apple today spread word of a press event scheduled for Tuesday, August 7th to discuss Mac products only, i.e. no iPod or iPhone related announcements. The Mac only announcements have also been confirmed by gizmodo. Appleinsider speculates that iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 may also be demonstrated. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a release of this important productivity software just in time for the back to school shopping season.

Although rumours about a new iPod on Tuesday have been circulating recently, based on other information, and the currently running ‘buy a mac, get an ipod nano’ promotion from Apple, I don’t expect to see a new iPod until or on September 16th.