Friday, August 29, 2014

Google Drones

The next big thing is here!  Google is now working on something called Google Drones,  a drone used to deliver medicine and other utilities faster and more efficiently.  Amazon is also working with them to help deliver packages faster.  You can read more about it here.

These drones,  in case you haven't watched a video about it,  look almost too lightweight to be able to carry stuff around.  I'm not exactly sure how efficient and fast these things will actually be.  I'd rather have whatever it is I'm buying off Amazon be delivered to me in a way that's worked before in the past.  Of course,  I'm sure people said that about airplanes when it was invented,  and cars,  so who knows?  Maybe these things will actually turn out.  I certainly wouldn't want to be the first to try them out,  unless I have some sort of warranty on whatever it is I bought,  so if the drone falls out of the sky I know my package will be covered in some way.  On top of that,  I'm not exactly comfortable about drones getting popular.  I mean,  think about it.  A silent hovering camera that can watch every move you make.  It starts with them delivering packages,  but who knows?  What happens when the NSA gets their hands on them?  Sure,  I may just be some crazy conspiracy theorist,  but you never know.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Wayback Machine

WayBack Machine

What is the WayBack Machine?

The WayBack Machine is a tool created by a non-profit organization called Internet Archive,  founded by Brewster Kahle.  It was created based on a cartoon episode,  in which the main character used a time machine called the WABAK.  The purpose of the site is to show you what the certain websites used to look back way back in the day.  Below are three examples.

MSN

1996:

2014:
The biggest change I see is color.  They went from a pukey yellow green to a nice looking blue.  There are also a lot more pictures used to advertise each article.  The logo looks a lot nicer than the previous one.

Apple

1996:










2014:













The biggest change I see here are the use of pictures.  The pictures are a lot bigger and are used to really make the site pop out.

MySpace

1996:

















2014:












Ha, this one changed a lot.  While MySpace is still outdated even today,  there are still dramatic differences between the new one and the old one.  The old one's header is just MySpace.com over and over again...  It's almost as if they just learned a new trick and decided to use it over and over again because it was cool.  The new one,  however,  actually looks somewhat decent.  It looks more organized and easier to navigate and less of an eyesore.