In the June 6, 2010 issue of PARADE, I found an article very interesting.  Recently, a man and his three kids  attended a Microsoft gaming meet up, and they were able to demo the latest, soon-to-be-released device called “Project Natal”.  It features a high-tech sensor that sits next to your TV and tracks your every move.  When you jump, your avatar on screen jumps.  When you wiggle your rear end, well.. you get the picture.  This will be a new addition to the Xbox 360, expected to be released sometime this holiday season.  According to those in the “geek crowd”, this could be the next most important development next to the joy stick!!!  They will be partnering with Netflix to allow you to wave your hand and select a movie.  Future hopes for the application will allow for online shopping and more! 
 
WOWSER!!  Track my every move?  If I clap, my avatar claps?  Sounds pretty cool, and I know my sons would love something so interactive… but here are my questions:

1. If I teach my avatar to fold laundry, load or unload the dishwasher????- could it happen?  (I wish!)

I am truly amazed at how far technology has come.  To think that my first cell phone was the size of a briefcase, had a cord and big antenna.  Now they are small enough to hide in a pocket.  Do you ever wonder what technology will offer in 10 years from now?  20 years from now?  Will it ever be like the Jetson’s?

Will be interesting!!

We have all been guilty of hitting the Send button in our Emails and then saying “OH DARN”. You KNOW what I am talking about, or is it just me?

…Responding to an email too quickly…

…Hitting the “Reply All” button when the message was for only one of the recipients…

Hopefully you were not talking bad about anyone!!!

Or what about when the autofill pops a name in the “To” line and then you realize you just emailed the wrong person?     OMG!

I guess the moral of this story is to check every line in our email before we hit that “Send” button as it can save us a lot of embarrassment and make sure the email is intended for the person or persons we mean to send it to…
 

I wish we had a “Retract” button that actually worked, invisibly snatching back an email.

 Now that would be genius!!!!  Microsoft, can you do better please?

Another celebration of our Nation’s birthday has come and gone.  Last week I found myself taking down the wife’s flowery flag while putting up our American Flag…..Ol’ Glory!  As I was hanging it up, the red, white and blue were bright and beautiful.  I actually said to myself, “Why am I putting this up only during the 4th of July and only for a few days?!?”.  There is a certain amount of pride I feel when I come home and see that flag on the front of my house…or when I walk out the front door for an early morning run.  That flag WILL STAY UP FOR A WHILE.  Not just on the 4th…not just Memorial Day and other times when “the nation calls for it”.  It SHOULD and WILL stay up for a while because I am proud of my country and proud to be an American.  USA!  USA! USA!

I am normally used to reading about the fabulous new updates on Google’s Blog and how they added this or made better that for searching. But lately I am so fed up with Google making my search life miserable. Actually, sad, hurt and frustrated. I mean its one thing to deal with my 6 year old twins saying no to everything (6.5 to be precise, lest they spot mommy saying this on the big WWW) but now even Google? What’s up? I am in no mood to be sorry or accept any Google apologies. It’s been my favorite engine of choice by choice (not default!)

I am talking about those annoying messages that pop up when you use too many asterisks in a Boolean string, develop a complex string with inurl: and more often than not when X-Raying Google for LinkedIn Profiles or any site using the site: command. You then have to prove to Google that you are indeed a part of the Homo sapiens species and decipher a CAPTCHA.   To quote one of my current most favorite writers in the search world, Glen Cathey, this has something to do with the issue of Google thinking everyone has suddenly become a malicious bot sending automated queries to their servers.
 
The nerve!! I mean don’t sit in the dark. The whole search community is up in arms over this. Folks who are the foremost authority on all things search and Boolean are talking, from Glen Cathey on Boolean Black Belt to technical wonder whiz Irina Shamaeva’s Technorati post, the blogosphere is abuzz.

Maybe all the attention is getting a bit too much for Google to handle – I think I’ll dash off a personal letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt on some non technical good ole fashioned rolled up parchment scroll so it will stand out in all the bits and bytes of code.
 
“Dear Google, I was a “Resident Alien” before I became a US Citizen but I assure you I am 100% HUMAN. No green blood, electronic nerves, mechanical motor hearts nor intent to harm. You are a premier search engine & a smart one too! What’s with the captchas? We ask for Search Engine Freedom!!!! Please release us from this bondage. You must find a way out.”

To prevent this issue you have to
(1)regularly clear your cookies (how painful is that, I’d rather loose my memory first!),
(2) switch browsers
(3) try Bing or Yahoo!
(4) or interestingly enough I just stumbled across this
(5) I am sure we will find other work arounds

This is putting a real crimp in my search style and it’s been going for a while now. Do me a favor – voice your opinions please!