SFist Tech Roundup: Tomorrow Dies Forever Today
You'd think that for a city on a fault line, situated right next to the world's biggest proving ground for new technology, the Bay Area could come up with a better class of super villains and evil geniuses. Giant robots tromping down Market Street, mind control rays broadcast from Sutro Tower, sheesh, even some sea lions with frickin' laser beams on their heads terrorizing tourists at Pier 39.
But no, all we get are "Web pioneers" and Sheryl Crow-hugging guys in turtlenecks trying to sell us MP3 players. So with a dejected sigh, let's go over some of the delays and missed opportunities in evil tech news over the past couple of the days:
Danger! Death Ray
Last Saturday, students from MIT came to San Francisco in an attempt to recreate Archimedes' Death Ray in an experiment for the Discovery Channel's series "Myth Busters." Any Roman fleets thinking about invading the city will be happy to hear that the experiment failed. The students' fatal flaw was that they didn't just fire the ray immediately, but instead stopped to explain exactly how the death ray works, giving the show's producers a chance to escape and foil their plans.
A Podcast to a Kill
The de Young Museum in Golden Gate park reopened this month, and CNet News is reporting that the most advanced technology is being used to secretly steal the world's most treasured pieces of art to finance a scheme for world domination. Oh, no wait... it's being used to make podcasts from museum curators about the exhibitions, along with floor-to-ceiling holographic displays and interactive touchscreens. These are not designed to electrocute guests or detail the plans for world domination, but instead to "be beautiful" and used for educational outreach programs. Whatever.
Agent Double 007
Last week, we talked about Apple's new Power Mac G5 line with IBM-supplied dual-core processors. The extra processing power, you'll remember, could be used to speed up complex calculations, such as simulating how quickly a zombie-fying chemical could infect a major population center's water supply. Apple's new best friend Intel announced a delay in releasing its own dual-core processors, pushing back the release of its "Montecito" chip to the middle of 2006.
The delay doesn't do much other than inviting criticism from rival AMD, as it's server machines, not desktops, that will be immediately affected, and Apple's move to Intel was reportedly motivated by the desire for faster laptop computers, not desktops or workstations. Still, we imagine that there are plenty of people who'd like to be able to track, say, the movements of laser-armed satellites in geosynchronous orbit, for example, and are tired of having to wait.
Die Another Day
Speaking of having to wait, we're going to have to make do with the interminable two-day turnaround time for Netflix deliveries, as the company postponed its plans to deliver movie downloads over broadband to TiVo. Netflix blames the difficulty in getting distribution rights from studios.
The Man With the Golden Gun
At least we've got still got dependable people in the gadgets lab. Emeryville-based educational software company Leapfrog has released the FLY Pentop computer, a genuinely cool piece of technology aimed at teenagers. The pen uses handwriting- and gesture-recognition to work as an organizer, calculator, music and game machine. And best of all from an evil standpoint: it uses paper, so it only works by killing a tree.
The company has a Flash interactive demo site with lots of fly kids talking how middle-aged marketing execs believe teenagers talk.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
And not that it's necessary, but Cisco announced a new system for linking the communications systems of police, fire, and other emergency services. The system networks existing communications equipment, instead of requiring each department to undergo a complete overhaul. The company plans to make the service available in the US in six months.
We imagine it'll be useful in the event of a natural disaster, because we're not holding our breaths for any of the so-called "super" villains around here to come up with a good, old-fashioned man-made one.