Author Topic: Name 1 Technological Feature That You Think Is Good (Read 10910 times)

Renegade · « **on:** January 13, 2013, 07:54 AM »

Now, that's pretty broad, but it can be anything in technology from software, to hardware to basic physics underlying a cool technology (say why there).

One thing that I find is pretty good is the way YouTube only loads enough of a video to buffer a few seconds (maybe tens of seconds) of a video and then lets you watch.

It saves bandwidth for them and you.

Now, it is a double-edged sword, as you can't just load a video then come back to it and seek through the video, but overall, I think it's a great compromise for speed, bandwidth, and viewer experience.

Giampy · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2013, 08:38 AM »

Name 1 Technological Feature That You Think Is Good
-Renegade (January 13, 2013, 07:54 AM)

Do you refer to the last few years only or there is not a limit of time?

Giampy · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2013, 08:48 AM »

Laser eye surgery.
Thanks to it I have succeeded in getting rid of glasses, a very torture tool for me.

Renegade · « **Reply #3 on:** January 13, 2013, 09:06 AM »

Name 1 Technological Feature That You Think Is Good
-Renegade (January 13, 2013, 07:54 AM)
Do you refer to the last few years only or there is not a limit of time?
-Giampy (January 13, 2013, 08:38 AM)

Well, hopefully more recent, but if there's a good reason for something older, why not?

Renegade · « **Reply #4 on:** January 13, 2013, 09:07 AM »

Laser eye surgery.
Thanks to it I have succeeded in getting rid of glasses, a very torture tool for me.
-Giampy (January 13, 2013, 08:48 AM)

That's something that I should think about... Good one!

40hz · « **Reply #5 on:** January 13, 2013, 10:40 AM »

One technology - but in three separate areas.

1) Non-invasive medical scanning (PET, CAT, MRI, ultrasound, etc.) which eliminated unnecessary guesswork and dangerous, expensive, and painful "exploratory" surgeries.

2) The CPU chip. It changed *everything* for the better and worse. Mostly for the better.

3) The IF statement in programming. That simple insight, which allowed a program to test and branch in response to the state of a condition, opened up the world for machine behaviors. Thank you Lady Ada Lovelace.

Giampy · « **Reply #6 on:** January 15, 2013, 03:56 PM »

USB Pendrive.
A lot of data we can carry into a pocket.

Giampy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 15, 2013, 03:57 PM »

Speed of Google.
It's unbelievable how Google finds what we want within few tenths of second and among millions of websites.

AndyM · « **Reply #8 on:** January 15, 2013, 06:48 PM »

Distributed electricity (alternating current)

pretty much nothing in our modern world is possible without it

Hail Tesla!

fenixproductions · « **Reply #9 on:** January 15, 2013, 07:46 PM »

@Renegade
Time machine but I've already told you about it next year

Fred Nerd · « **Reply #10 on:** January 16, 2013, 05:27 AM »

GPS. As a pilot, it's made things so much easier.

It's not approved to be relied on for navigation, but even with the few accidents it may mave caused due to people being dependant on something that can fail, it's saved lives when people get lost above the clouds and can know where they are and what height they can descend to before they run into mountains.

NB. These scenarios should NEVER happen, but sadly they do.

Paul Keith · « **Reply #11 on:** January 16, 2013, 06:51 AM »

One click button "Open files"

One thing that I find is pretty good is the way YouTube only loads enough of a video to buffer a few seconds (maybe tens of seconds) of a video and then lets you watch.

It saves bandwidth for them and you.

I prefer downloading YT files especially when YT could one day censor/silent/keep the video from showing up in a country.

The all downloadable web is still the dream to be. No walled gardens. FB/Twitter interfaces that logs tweets to txt files that can be reuploaded for scanning for comparing of trending news.

Pinning of images to the desktop at a single click. Google desktop search that acts like Springpad search but for a desktop PIM.

Send Scrapbook scraped Google links to Kindle/Kobo/Nook, Kobopub integrates with Dropbox to send .txt copies of highlights, bookmarked page copy or even the entire book.

Video to transcripts. Video to mp3. Mp3 to transcripts. Mp3 to FLAC.

File Manager as Dropbox. Dropbox as Word Processor Storage. Dropbox as Android sync.

Side Q:

2) The CPU chip. It changed *everything* for the better and worse. Mostly for the better.
-40hz

I just read this thread more carefully. What did the CPU chip made worse?

Giampy · « **Reply #12 on:** January 16, 2013, 07:08 AM »

CRT monitors.
Those crappy LCD monitors show beautiful images if we stay perfectly in front of them, but if we move from the central position those images become darker. CRT monitors have not such drawbacks.
Long live CRT monitors.

4wd · « **Reply #13 on:** January 16, 2013, 10:22 AM »

.... and what height they can descend to before they run into mountains.
-Fred Nerd (January 16, 2013, 05:27 AM)

I think I would have used the word avoid in there somewhere.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #14 on:** January 16, 2013, 11:25 AM »

2) The CPU chip. It changed *everything* for the better and worse. Mostly for the better.
-40hz

I just read this thread more carefully. What did the CPU chip made worse?
-Paul Keith (January 16, 2013, 06:51 AM)

Our lives by allowing this to happen.

Paul Keith · « **Reply #15 on:** January 17, 2013, 04:27 AM »

You can do that without a CPU though. Just look at the GOP.

Giampy · « **Reply #16 on:** January 19, 2013, 03:21 PM »

Laser measurement tools:
http://protechproper.../protech-slider1.png

app103 · « **Reply #17 on:** January 20, 2013, 05:11 PM »

The transistor....without it, most modern technology wouldn't exist.

Giampy · « **Reply #18 on:** January 28, 2013, 05:34 PM »

Digital photography.

I was fond of photography when it was analogic. Every time I brought my dear films to be printed/reprinted, I almost always got bad prints. The same photograph could result once reddish, once brown, once too bright, once too dark, once clipped in its frame. After five years of tribulations I left that damn crappy hobby.
Be damned for eternity all those xxxxxxxx who destroyed my desire to photograph.

Digital photography seems fine instead.

Giampy · « **Reply #19 on:** January 28, 2013, 05:59 PM »

Google Earth.
It may be a precious tool for people who like excursions, because it allows to find out new paths.

kyrathaba · « **Reply #20 on:** February 02, 2013, 05:11 PM »

The world wide web, for two reasons: (1) the dozens of DCers I'd never have otherwise met (and goodly folk on other sites); (2) all that information at our fingertips (rubs hands together)...

zridling · « **Reply #21 on:** February 04, 2013, 09:14 PM »

The Automotive Diagnostic Computer, which when hooked to your car, tells you almost everything that is currently wrong with it and needs to be fixed.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #22 on:** February 04, 2013, 10:15 PM »

Now, that's pretty broad, but it can be anything in technology from software, to hardware to basic physics underlying a cool technology (say why there).
-Renegade (January 13, 2013, 07:54 AM)

I'm gonna name a few because I don't feel like the mental shootout to pick a winner.

In random order:

1. Wireless Headphones. Because yes the sound quality sux but you can in fact turn sideways in your chair or even feed the cat without permanently damaging something.
2. Widescreen monitors. Took me a big while to use them right, but I'll never live without one again. My current one has a brutal scratch in the middle from Moving Day #1. I just hide it in dead-screen space.
3. (Cringe) iPhone. Doesn't intersect with all their other legion of problems, but for years I treated a phone as a piece of $hit that you jam in the glove compartment for the one day a month you needed something. The iPhone does do a few things well. (As long as we realize it's not a PC substitute and stay in the phone category we're fine.)