This will be an unusual article for me to write. I’m a pretty excitable guy when it comes to new technology and such. I like interesting stuff and seeing all the new and efficient ways of doing things that people are coming up with. Thus, we present the Amazon Dash; a new concept so simple it becomes convoluted again and essentially negates itself. Amazon Dash is a plastic button that is brand-specific. You press the button and preset quantity of said thing appears on your doorstep within a day (it’s by innovation only for Amazon Prime users). It uses a very low-powered wi-fi chip and is small, if loudly branded. Users receive a notification their phone when the button is pressed and have a 30 minute time window to cancel an order. As many of  the products offered target people who have young children or pets, the button has a measure in place that only allows one order to be processed at a time (so pressing it fifty times in a row will only order your preset amount once).

It’s actually so weird and hilarious that everyone understandably thought was an early April Fool’s Day gag product (it was announced on March 31st). But it’s not. It’s a real product made by the company that perfected large-scale commerce and also wants to bring drones into play as a delivery system. Dash actually started its odd life cycle as a handheld wand-like device that let you scan products as you ran out of them. It featured voice recognition as well, presumably so you could finally fulfill your dream of ordering Kraft products in the most magical way possible.

“Must…replenish…Velveeta!”

The idea behind Dash is seemingly simple. But why go to all that trouble of making zillions of little physical buttons if you can just make an app that does the same thing? This is where it starts to get needlessly convoluted for consumers. Right now there are about 270 products available for use with Dash (most of them are trash bags, diapers, and granola bars). Do you really want dozens of little buttons scattered around your house for all the things you want to have replenished on a regular basis? Or, do you want to have to decide what three items (the current button limit) are worth having buttons for? That’s a lot of overthinking for something so supposedly simple. Dash is likely not the final form of whatever product is at the end of the tunnel. One of the newest category that the Internet of Things has created is “smart appliances.” Refrigerators that order food when running low, coffee makers that order more filters or beans, washing machines that order more detergent…that sort of thing. That is a bit less convoluted than an individual button for everything but the bigger question looming behind all of this seems to be “is going to the store really that big of an inconvenience?”

I don’t think the Dash necessarily represents a bold new step in the temple of laziness that many bemoan the modern world has become, but the concept is something ponder. Big brands are going to love the tighter bond between product and consumer that Dash buttons or smart appliances create. Instead of constantly being confronted by fifty choices when you go shopping and weighing your options every now and again, the order-it-for-you technology encourages you to make a choice once and theoretically never again. Digital music and movies and even books are one thing; the physical presentation of those products is arguably less important as long as the delivery of that content doesn’t impede on the integrity of the audience experience. At the risk of sounding a little “get off my damn lawn,” do we really want to live in a world where you can theoretically go through life without actually interacting with other people in a direct physical sense, much less leaving your house? The reason allergies were uncommon before the 20th century is because people didn’t live in sealed airtight houses. As bummerific as it may be to consider, for many people going to the store may be the only time they get out and about in a non-work environment.

But we’ll all go to space eventually and then everything will be okay!

The Dash isn’t a dumb product. It’s intuitive enough; I could foresee a future where a button with a logo on it is naturally assumed to be a “get more of this” device. Is it efficient? For the end user, it can be. But in the long run, Dash drives against the current zeitgeist in the acquiring of foodstuffs. The Dash in its current state seems to be a sevice people in the late ’90s would have dreamed of using the internet for. In a new millennium that prides itself on being aware of where your food is coming from and farmer’s markets are on the rise? Not so much.

Twitter’s newest app, Periscope, is one of the the most important apps that has ever come out. If you have a smartphone and you haven’t tried it out, you need to get yourself to the App Store and tap the download button. Right now. There’s also Meerkat, but everyone seems to be on Periscope. They aren’t paying me to write this. I am genuinely very, very excited for the new territory being opened by these apps.

So what do they do and why are they so exciting? These are apps that stream live video from a smartphone. Connecting to Twitter lets you send out a link to your live broadcasts. If you have a smartphone you have your own little TV network. I popped open Periscope while I was walking around town the other day and in less than a minute I had 40 people from all over world watching. (I currently live in an Idaho town called Moscow, so most of them were confused Russians).

What’s so great about it then? For average everyday use, it’ll just be a fun diversion because most everyday tasks are boring. If you’ve ever wanted to watch people eating their food instead of Instagramming it and you have gross friends then you’ll be in luck. But creativity will bring new ways of using our smartphones to connect with world around us. One of my writer friends texted me the day it came out, “I’m trying to figure out how to use Periscope for storytelling.”

One of the first ways we’ll see Periscope used for storytelling will be in journalism. Periscope’s first day in the wild saw it being used to cover an incident in New York City that ended with three buildings collapsing and 25 injuries. Hundreds of people were watching across several feeds from Persicopers in the area.

The first news story covered on Periscope.

When people started using weblogs (colloquially shortened to “blog”), they were usually regarded as a form of recreational writing. But in 2004, bloggers gained respect – and fear – from the press when they exposed CBS news anchor Dan Rather’s use of falsified documents relating to then-president George W. Bush’s previous service in the military.

Last year, most of the honest reporting from places like Ferguson wasn’t coming from CNN or Fox News; it was coming from journalists who were live-tweeting from the streets. Imagine a world where everyone can broadcast their own live, unfiltered views of events as they unfold. Periscope isn’t for journalists. It’s for everyone. It turns any smartphone user into a journalist. People like you and me. Anyone who wants the world to see things from their point of view. That world is here now and we will soon see it aid us in bringing greater transparency to many pressing issues.

One of my favorite authors in high school was Michael Crichton (like it was for many people, Jurassic Park was my gateway drug). I’ve always appreciated Crichton’s stories because he never swayed to one extreme or the other in exploring the implications of cutting edge ideas. As a scientist himself, he understood and respect the importance of innovation, discovery, and learning. But he also knew that the entire field is Pandora’s Box. Once something has been unleashed on the world, you can never take it back. That’s why criticism of a work like Jurassic Park as being impossible misses the entire point of that work. The story isn’t actually about cloning dinosaurs. The cloned dinosaurs in the story are a metaphor for the potential consequences of unchecked advancement and discovery fueled by ego in place of goodwill. But rather than condemn advancement and discovery, he understood that it was like any other force or object. Depending on who wields it and why, it can be a tool or a weapon.

“Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.” – Jurassic Park (1993). Written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, directed by Steven Spielberg

Possibly the greatest asset that technology has is to be charitable. And currently many notable advancements being made in the tech world are those that spring from a charitable mindset. Once the “wow” factor and cost go down, there are many ways that new inventions can improve the quality of life for millions, and especially for the less fortunate. That’s why we now live in a time where ailments such as blindness and deafness can often be cured through the use of relatively inexpensive implants. The guys who cashed in on the early days of computing and internet advancement – Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates are a few prominent examples – have turned their attention towards cultivating advancements that aren’t going to yield immediate results but instead lay the groundwork for future generations.

Bill Gates was recently asked in an online Q&A about the use of technology to extend lifespans. He pointed out that it is selfish for people like him to research in that area while there are still diseases that have been wiped out from most first world countries that still ravage third-world ones. And Gates has been willing to put his money where his mouth is; since leaving his leadership positions at Microsoft, he has put the same effort he did into advancing home computing into helping people in developing nations. One of the most important projects he is funding is new sanitation solutions that not only keep homes and streets clean, but also make efficient use of the waste energy solutions and resource recycling.

Which is a nice of saying “it makes water for you to drink from poop.” Check it out, though; it’s actually fantastic.

Crowdfunding has shown that a large group of people from all over the world can each provide a small piece to create something huge. The e-NABLE group is a community originated by Jon Schull, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology that connects people throughout the world who are in need of prosthetic limbs with people who can use their 3D printers to help design and build low cost alternative. Children especially are often deprived a substitute because not only are full blown robotic limbs prohibitively expensive, they will be outgrown multiple times until the child reaches the end of their growth period. E-NABLE’s alternatives are around $50 for a hand and $150 for a limb and can be customized and replaced part by part for almost no money as the child continues to grow.

Don’t be afraid of technology. Instead, be wary of those who use it exclusively for personal gain and support those who use it to improve the lives of others.

The thing that makes the Internet great is that it breaks down the gatekeepers in a variety of industries. In fact, it doesn’t even know they exist anymore; they’ve been circumvented and don’t usually realize, or admit it, until it’s too late. Making a product for commercial mass-production is a huge challenge. Unlike a many other endeavors, like writing a business plan or a novel, there’s overhead inherent in creating a prototype to even pitch. Generally speaking, the people who are going to be investing big bucks are going to be older. They often may not have the interest or knowledge in something too unusual or tech-oriented.

Enter crowdfunding. Crowdfunding has always been a great way to get a decent amount of funding with little commitment from backers. A great example is filmmaker Darren Aronofsky soliciting donations of $100 each from friends and family to get the $60,000 he needed for his first movie Pi.  The film made over $3 million and his funders all received back a promised sum of $150, plus a credit on the film. He is now considered one of the best contemporary auteurs of cinema and his last two movies, Black Swan and Noah, made over $300 million each.

There’s an idea; let’s crowdfund one of these suckers.

Of course, not everyone has people hanging out nearby who can fork over $100 just like that. And even that project took five years to fully fund. What’s great about crowdfunding when it becomes a more streamlined process is that you are essentially pre-ordering a product. And putting quite a bit of trust that someone you’ve never met is going to be able to deliver.

There’s also the added benefit of accountability. While Kickstarter does their best to screen projects, they makes it clear that you are responsible for how you fund with your own money. Even with the added benefit of crowdfunding through a legitimate service like this, there have been a few high-profile snafus involving the failure of a project failing to come to fruition or, even worse, bailing on their promise altogether.

Most Kickstarters that run past deadlines aren’t necessarily doing it because they’re lazy or incompetent. For many people seeking funding, this is a whole new territory. Even when you have the funding, getting a physical product into production is a vulnerable process where any number of things can go wrong. I have a friend who likes to back Kickstarter projects such as games and collectibles; he’ll usually assume he needs to add a month or two extra to their end goal for his expectancy of delivery. In his experience, the more money a project gets, the more likely delays. When a backer asks for $100,000 and they instead receive $8 million, that’s a whole lotta extra product to plan for. Delays are expected at that point. In this case, the responsible crowdfunding entrepreneur should provide regular updates of both the good and the bad. This kind honesty in the manufacturing process will generate understanding and lenience from the backers.

Once the backer accepts that reasonable delays are a part of the logistical minefield that is crowdfunding, the patience can be rewarding. And for the most part, the transparency provided by a public platform is enough to dissuade anyone from using the services for dishonest personal gain. People know when they’re being lied to, especially when you have their money. And if not enough people back a project to meet the goals that have been set then no money is taken and the pledges are cancelled.

Crowdfunding is definitely here to stay. Looking at Kickstarter’s official numbers is pretty interesting. Since 2009 the service has helped raise $1.6 billion in funding. $1.36b of that was successful, although that was at a 38.83% success rate. The majority of the successful dollars are coming from projects that are actually worth taking a look at. But for every successful Pebble/Exploding Kittens/Star Citizen, there’s a whole lotta crap like this, thus skewing the success percentage a little lower. Like other social outlets for creativity, such as YouTube, the cream rises to the top and 99% of the rest is total garbage.

And then there’s the tasty, tasty 1%.

The idea of buying a concept is starting to show up in other kinds of industry. Electric smartcar manufacturers such as Tesla will be able to send software updates to cars, similar to your iPhone. Camera manufacturer Blackmagic Design has a new model of 4K camera called the URSA that allows the user to swap out the image sensor when a new once becomes available, allowing for better image quality without having to buy a whole new camera in a few years.

As long as the temptation to release half-finished products is avoided, this business model will prove to be extremely fruitful. By releasing a product that is high-quality and upgradable, the customer has less stress over having to buy something over and over again whenever updates and changes are made. The relationship to the company is also personalized as there is a now a direct line to the consume;  and smaller companies are getting a chance jump in and prove their mettle.

The first patent for an electrical clothes iron was filed by Henry Seely of New York City in 1881. Besides the numerous safety concerns that needed to be solved before bringing it to market, there was also the issue of even being able to use the device in homes. At the time most electrical use in homes was for light sources and some of the first electric appliances were powered by connecting them to lightbulb sockets.

Seely’s device wasn’t too far ahead of its time. Patents for more familiar plug and socket systems started appearing in Europe in 1883. But it wasn’t until the mid-1920s that an electric steam iron became commercially available as a consumer product. In fact, none of Seely’s original devices exist to this day. His invention is often considered a great example of something just too far ahead of its time for its own good. But in tech innovation, being ahead of the times is what gets things going.

Upon debut in 1998, the iMac was the first consumer computer to ship sans a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive. In addition to this deliberately bold absence, the iMac also made use of USB ports in place of classic “legacy ports” such as PS/2, VGA, and serial.

These bastards.

Here’s how everything in the world works;

If you want something to become better you have to take the steps to get there. If want to run a marathon, you have to train and be disciplined and manage your dietary intake and do all kinds of things that make your body hurt while it becomes stronger. If you’re trying to get the hotel in a game of Monopoly, then you know that you have to buy four green houses before getting to that sweet, sweet red (unless you play like a barbarian with bank loans and Free Parking money).

Like anything worth doing, you can’t just whip up the best computer in the world and be done with it. Getting there is a long and gradual process of trial, failure, and occaisional bouts of innovation. As long as computers are a main hub for productivity, learning, and general everyday tasks, we will never reach a specific end goal of Best Computer Ever. It’s a potentially infinite road that is paved by some of the smartest people on the planet.

Critics, and the public at large, are skeptical of sudden change in computing standards. That’s understandable, because it usually requires to buying more things. Things that aren’t usually cheap. But at the same time, everyone wants their computers and electronics to be faster and more efficient.

Consumer products are made by large business that need to make money to survive. As long as people buy what the sell, they can keep doing what they do. The most idiotic complaint directed at the tech world is “why would update that model? I just bought one last year! I’m so mad!” People assume they got ripped off when a product is updated too soon after they buy one.

But any company worth its salt won’t let a product line stagnate and wither. Smart, successful companies are always working to improve the latest versions of their goods. That means tinkering with it until it’s ready for a big update. Keep in mind that in the computing world, a lot of things get built from scratch. Extensive testing and returns to the drawing board are not uncommon. This can take a while, and it makes sense to push the current product as far as it can go in the meantime. And when it comes time to replace yours, you will find a newly enriched product; often with a similar price tag, often with more powerful guts.

This week, Apple caused an interesting ruckus with the reintroduction of the MacBook, minus the “Air” and “Pro” descriptors. It’s a pretty piece of machinery that’s stupid thin and boasts Apple’s trademark minimalism. But is it too minimalist? There are only two ports on the device. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack and a multi-purpose USB-C port.

As more manufacturers include USB-C in their products, it’s poised to become an industry standard. Unlike Apple’s other cables such as Lightening and Thunderbolt (developed with Intel and used by other manufacturers as well), USB-C is a true catch-all cable. As you’ve probably guessed by the lack of other ports on the new MacBook, USB-C is a power cable as well. It’s also a high-speed data transfer and AV I/O cable. And it’s very thin – almost as thin as the Lightning charging cable.

Whether you like Apple or not, you have admit that they are respected as tastemakers of the tech world. The iMac’s bold design choices set a personal computing standard that has evolved across many companies’ products to this day. iTunes stared down physical media in entertainment while cracked its knuckles and muttering, “I’m coming for you, man.” Smartphones were around before the iPhone, but no one could get one right until Apple banished the physical keyboards that were holding the ideas back.

The pattern is consistent. Apple takes a good idea, strips away any of the unnecessary crap, and makes it more efficient. By innovating with the purpose of removing unnecessary junk, Apple has consistently changed the way we transfer data from our various devices. And with wireless charging soon poised to make a debut in personal computers, one data port is all you’ll need.

Sometimes you have to be crazy enough to release a product a little before its time. And for now, the other Macs still have their ports; Apple is playing it smart by not tinkering with any of their current product line, but instead resurrecting a dead one to experiment with.

And you if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

No conversation about the future is complete without a discussion of artificial intelligence (AI). There are quite a few misconceptions about what AI actually is and everyone has a slightly different way of approaching it. Usually opinions are at one extreme or the other; either gloatingly dismissive or obsessively paranoid. The rational response probably lies somewhere in between.

Here’s a more rational approach.

AI is not a living thing and it never will be. It’s exactly what the name implies; a simulation of intelligence that can give the illusion of being a sentient being. But no matter what, anything and everything it does is a result of complex programming. But when it gives the illusion of being a living thing and it does it so convincingly, what kinds of effects will that have on people?

There’s a concept in robotics (and it applies to other simulations as well, such as computer generated imagery – abbreviated as CGI – in films) called the “uncanny valley.”  The idea of the uncanny valley, a concept put forward by roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970, posits that our brains can recognize when something is “off” in a fellow human. If someone is lying to you, you may believe them, but if they have a subtle “tell” your brain can pick that up and process it without you fully realizing it. Presumably, you are used to truthfulness in your interactions with others. Even the subtlest lie can give a sensation of unease.

As simulations both virtual (CG) and physical (robotics) continue to advance and become more realistic, our brains accept what we’re seeing as obviously fake. But when say, a CG human in a movie is 99.9% realistic, the upward curve collapses into that uncanny valley. The uncanny valley is the point where every single tiny little thing that’s “off” jumps out at us. Simply put, a simulation of life, like a robot, will continue to become realistic and relatable until it is so close to being a hundred percent indistunguishble from the real thing that the tiniest details jump out at you, often causing discomfort. You can watch a CG animation like a Pixar movie with traditionally exaggerated cartoonish humans and not feel creeped out. Your brain doesn’t pick up the flaws of the blue cat people in Avatar because you know that blue cat people aren’t real and your brain isn’t wired to recognize them. But when you watch something attempting photorealism, your alarms go off. You may not be able to say why (although it’s usually described as soulless dead eyes).

Creepy Stoner Child never really caught on as a Christmas tradition.

Let’s say that AI does become self-aware and reaches the theoretical point that is called the singularity (more on that in the next part). Let’s say that a machine becomes self-aware; it knows it’s a machine, but that can’t change anything as far as its own existential problems. It’s still just a machine. If it looks like a trashcan, it’ll be easier to accept. But if it looks like a regular person, you might have trouble rationalizing to yourself, this is a walking iPod. Animators know this trick; that’s why everything from Disney princesses to Avatar cat people to Wall-E have massive eyes. It instantly makes the character empathetic (and sells tons of toys). Even cars have “faces.” It’s why in PG action films, bad guys are usually masked. It’s easier to accept that the heroes are killing hundreds of other humans if we can’t see the faces they’re snuffing the life from.

I’ve talked to people who don’t care about any of this at all. An AI-powered robot is just a glorified computer. Therefore, any concerns are moot and why should we care? I agree with this, but I would disagree that there shouldn’t any concern at all. Any unchecked advancement in a field of science will lead to trouble.