I’ve recently started learning to drive and after only 8 hours of lessons I still don’t love it, don’t get me wrong its going to be brilliant once I’ve passed but I just don’t enjoy it as much as perhaps I should so its got me thinking – at what point in the future are we expecting cars to drive without the aid or hindrance of humans like in I-Robot.

I know that you can already get the system which parks for you but does this mean we are not that far from a completely automatic car? – just imagine it – potentially less traffic jams due to cars being smart enough to figure out where to go and avoid them, faster safe speeds and perhaps less accidents – if any at all?

Either way it would be a bit easier for me if cars drove on their own.

When I first saw this I thought that it wouldn’t be that easy to make or that it would require some parts which I just wouldn’t have but the reality is that I am SO going to be able to make it and hopefully, it will actually work.
It looks cool just from the perspective of being able to do what we’ve seen in those Youtube videos of multitouch screens for ages.
I would highly recommend visiting here and checking out the video below, I will be trying to make it and will hopefully succeed. Wish me luck!

TV’s -  a forefront in entertainment media for many families all over the world, they have been upgraded and updated in size and functionality with more and more channels being added (even rubbish ones! – hard to believe I know!) bigger screens, smaller components, new plasma and LCD technology, Freeview, Sky, Cable, Hard disk recorders, and then of course HD!

Now then, Here’s a question for you to think about (and answer if you so wish in comments) – Where are they heading next? – are they going to get rid of TV’s and replace them with projectors, will we see convergence in TVs and PCs? Are they going to give us more on demand programs?, Interactive programs? – are they the future?

Question is … What do YOU think?

(how’s that for interactivity?)

And lastly, I’m glad to inform you all that my laptop after having Vista SP1 installed last week is still surviving! – I haven’t noticed any difference at all in terms of speed – which is what I was hoping for when transferring files but oh well, maybe it’ll make my laptop more secure and stuff so sorry to disappoint those who wanted it to fail – after saying this I have touched wood, set a recovery checkpoint and of course backed up backed up backed up :)!

For A Level ICT we are still learning about input devices and just how many there are, now this may come as a surprise – it did to me – how much more can there be to learn about Joysticks, Keyboards and Mice but I now believe the reason is that input devices are updating and changing in this the modern age.

The mouse has been the primary input device for many years now, it hasn’t been rivalled by anything serious but nowadays there have been many contenders and I’m not meaning those trackballs and silly imitations of mice but other more serious devices – such as graphics tablets which aren’t quite as new as I’d like but still quite high up in the technical department, and then related to tablets are touch screens which are becoming oh so very common in shops now and then there are ‘Smart boards’ which are mostly used in schools – they are just a board which has a projector projecting onto it connected to the computer in use and it responds like a touch screen with sensors under the first layer to locate the pointer location – these are brilliant for schools as they allow drawing and other interactive features as well as the ability to save this.

The reason I believe that there could be some new contenders which are taken more seriously than trackballs and the like is that the new devices being developed are not just input devices but allow a lot of interactivity and may become more than just the mouse for a computer – my first example is a project by a guy called Johnny Lee based around Wiimotes – because they have a ir camera in and are able to connect to computers using bluetooth they can have other uses, such as head tracking shown in this video:

The same guy has also done some projects using the same concept but in order to create a cheap interactive touch screen like display:

And finally another innovation which I don’t see as being a replacement for mice but as some inspiration – imagine if all input devices were as intuitive and unique as the one in the following video – we could be throwing balls around a room to change the channel and so on. This video shows a large amount of imagination and creativity, using coloured balls - of gum to control a sequencer, which could essentially control a pc in reality.

With that I will leave you to ponder just what input devices you can think of which might be the next big thing