Text messages are officially taking over the world.

PhoneTag – and various other companies – have this new thing now, in the ever widening world of telephone technology. Voice recognition software in cell phones isn’t all that new, but this looks awesome. They have services that can convert your voicemail messages into text messages; they will transcribe your voicemail, and then send to – well, anywhere, really. You can get it sent to your email and/or your phone, plus you can sign into your account on the company’s web site and retrieve your messages. Different companies offer different services, like the ability to have people send you silent messages, so your phone doesn’t even make a sound or anything, plus there are some features that will let you play an MP3 as sort of a soundtrack to your message. Most of them will let you put these services on home and business phones as well as cell phones. I had occasion to read about a lot of the companies offering things like this, and from what I saw, people were digging places like SpinVox, PhoneTag, and VoiceBox, more than companies like CallWave, mostly because the latter makes you change your voicemail number. Anyhow, people seem to like them because you don’t have to take down messages before and you can read through them even in places where you’re not supposed to have your cell phone switched on, like the movie theatre and malls and things.

Go iGoogle yourself.

Google’s upping the ante and it looks like they’re seriously attempting to compete with social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook. They’re all about supporting OpenSocial now and they are finally – finally – reworking that bland homepage. I guess they’ve finally started listening to people’s complaints about it. These new improvements to iGoogle are an answer to public opinion as well. They plan to incorporate some of the elements and features already implemented in Gmail to spice things up a bit. iGoogle will have chat functions similar to Gmail and there will actually be real gadgets. The tabs are going to run up and down on the left side rather than on the top and you’ll soon be able to see what your friends are doing, via news feeds similar to what you can find on MySpace. Another social networking site ... I don’t know though. Google might be asking for trouble, throwing themselves into the ring with MySpace.

Invent an engine, win $3 million!

You guys may have noticed (or maybe you haven’t – I haven’t really been around long enough yet for all y’all to know my habits) that I stay the crap away from politics around here. That’s partly because I don’t want to get my butt spammed off, but also because I’ve got absolutely no clue about I’m voting for yet. That being said ... let’s talk about John McCain. He’s making me think of Al Gore lately, and I kind of like him for that. Then again, Dana Carvey’s Gore-theories on a recent comedy special sort of make me want to write in the guy’s name, for President of the World, so he can rule over global warming. But anyway...

Johnny’s put this offer on the table, see, and it really makes me wish I’d paid more attention in chemistry and physics and ... you know, whatever. Three million dollars, folks, for being able to come up with a battery for hybrid or electric cars – but not just any battery, oh no. It has to be able to actually work – I mean, really make it worth buying a fuel-saving car. Power, size, cost, and capacity – they’ve all got to be aces. And how does he propose to fund that giant reward? Everyone in America, every adult and child, gives one dollar. You know, I could get down with that. Dang, I’d donate a butt load more than that, if someone proposed a similar idea to get the country the crap out of debt.

Pitch-Perfect Technology

So. Good news and bad news, all in one package. Celemony Software, a Munich based company, has come out with some new recording technology. Direct Note Access is a computer program which can create digital recordings in which each note is perfect. It can change the individual notes of a specific instrument, for example, without it being necessary to touch any of the other notes. Everything can be entirely pitch perfect with little to no effort – because, yes, it is possible to perfect a singer’s pitch as well. So why is this bad news, too? Because I imagine that it means there will be tons more singers of the Ashlee Simpson/Brooke Hogan/et cetera variety, who can’t really carry a tune but get a record deal anyway, because they look good and computers can make them sound good, so hey, why not? I’m a music snob, ergo it’s bad news to me. Of course, that’s likely Ashlee’s problem already: her real problem on that SNL debacle was probably due to the fact that her studio made her sound so perfect that lip-synching was her only option for a live performance.

XP Becomes Extinct

It’s happening. It’s really happening. XP is going the way of the dinosaur and the Commodore 64, according to CNET. I’ve got a secret for all you cool cat techs, computer mavericks, and technology miscreants out there – I’m not superbly computer savvy. I know, big shock – but I’m not completely computer illiterate either; I know enough to like what I like and hate what I don’t. Windows XP works for me – and Vista makes my soul cry. Windows Vista makes a lot of people’s souls cry, but that doesn’t mean much to the bottom line. Dell’s already let go of Windows XP, setting it free like the proverbial true-love butterfly, but it’s pretty clear that XP was never meant to be for a lot of us. Folks who prefer Windows as an OS just got kind of screwed without either lube or the courtesy of a reach-around. Dell’s just a step of ahead of the game; other computer manufacturers are due to start phasing out their XP machines, and they should all be out of the way by 2009.
Windows in general and XP in particular have a lot of problems and get a lot of crap; I bitch about them myself often enough. But it’s still sort of disturbing that despite the majority’s rabid hatred for Vista, it’s getting the nod as Windows supreme. It happens, though. It’s quite akin to the way AOL is now basically AIM.

New Advances in Lasik Surgery

There’s good news for people with bad eyesight and about four thousand dollars burning a whole in their pockets.
More and more people are wearing glasses and/or contacts these days – we’re probably going to evolve that way. A couple hundred years from now – if the whole joint hasn’t burned up and burned out by then – babies will probably get fitted for glasses as soon as they pop out of the womb. It’s a technological hazard. We spend a heck of a lot of time looking at computer screens. On an average day, I spend at least nine hours staring at WordPerfect (shut up, I know it sucks but I like it) or web pages while I research the effects of green tea or specs on a 2005 Benz.
Lasik eye surgery is becoming a popular alternative to glasses and contacts, especially since people are having to get bifocals and the like earlier in their lives than ever. The FDA has improved a new, very advanced machine used in laser eye surgery, though. It’s called the Allegretto Wave Eye-Q and it can cut into or shape the cornea in half the time other, older machines take. It even nixes the worry most people have about lasik – that they’ll move during surgery and end up playing Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween for the rest of their lives. If the eye happens to move, this machine stops. Use of this machine also makes it possible for patients to recover faster.

Tales from an iPhone Convert

I have seen the face of the Second Coming, and it is the iPhone 3G. All right, that’s a little hyperbolic, but considering the fact that I have long been anti-Apple and anti-iPhone (this is mostly because until, oh, now, most cell phone service – including AT&T wireless – in my area has been non-existent; plus I cannot use a Mac to save my life. No matter!), it’s still a big deal. This phone is beautiful. The other day I was doing something that required me to read a TIME article on Steve Jobs’ new baby, and before I was halfway finished, I became a complete convert. If Apple or AT&T would take an IOU for the promise of my first-born child, I’d be right there in the thick of the frenzy that’s sure to take place nationwide on July 11, when the 3G’s set to go on sale.

Apparently, this thing can load up graphic-heavy web sites in 29 seconds (whereas the original iPhone takes nearly a minute). That’s all thanks to the 3G network. It’s got honest-to-goodness GPS tracking and navigation (and the demonstration, Jobs showed the audience real-time footage of a 3G user going down San Francisco’s famously twisting Lombard Street – and evidently they actually cheered for it) and there are going to be tons of applications for it. Among them are games so awesome that they rival the graphics on the PSP.

What’s seriously awesome, though, is the price. According to TIME, the 8GB iPhone 3G is supposed to start out at $199, and at $299, the 16GB 3G is still one hundred dollars less than the price of the original iPhone’s 8GB model.

So I’m not saying that I’m going to rush right out and buy one in July – but I am thinking about it, and I will covet anyone who has one. I will covet them sharply, with brand new #2 pencils.

Fuel-Saving Technology

Fuel saving technology may prove to be the next big trend – though some of the products which claim to enhance fuel efficiency aren’t quite living up to expectations, at least according to the Wall Street Journal. There are products which claim to be able to be able to turn your car into a "water hybrid," and other which can supposedly improve fuel combustion – and then there’s the Scan Gauge 2. It can fit just about anywhere in the front of your car, works on vehicles made in 1996 or later (and in some ‘94-5 models), and keeps you up to date on fuel economy readouts from minute to minute. Some users say that they’ve gotten more miles to the gallon since using it, and are saving more than a hundred dollars a month.

One Step Closer to Controlling the World

It’s official: gamers are one step closer to really being able to (kind of) play God. This gamer is all tingly from the possibilities. No, it’s not a new, let’s-decide-who-lives-or-dies video game. It’s the next step in playing video games. Emotive Systems is coming out with a new headset system that’s designed to pick up your brain’s electrical activity. It can also pick up the movements of your facial muscles, as well as those in other spots. You can literally think about killing off a villain, and boom. It’s done. These will be out for Christmas, at $299 a headset.

Turn Your Phone into a Jukebox

We use our cell phones for everything these days. They can double as computers, cameras, and little pocket-jukeboxes – except that the sound quality in most devices, no matter how chic they are, rarely give us the oomph we get from MP3 players. If we don’t have the funds to spring for the choicest wireless devices, we’re SOL – at least, we were. Logitech’s got a Pure-Fi mobile speaker out on the market now. Phones with A2DP support will get some serious stereo-sound from these, and when paired with a Bluetooth, you can hear your music even if you’re 33 feet away.