Category Archives: Blog

In my last post, I looked at tech – or tech-adjacent – gifts for the kiddos. Now let’s get into the holiday gifts for the grownups in our lives. Maybe even gifts for ourselves. (Just don’t tell anyone!)

As with tech gifts for children, there’s no lack of sources for suggestions for tech gifts for adults. Two that I liked were the gadget lists from Consumer Expert Tech and from The New York Times Wirecutter. Here’s the items that I found most intriguing and/or practical.

If you’re a traveler, you might want to take along a Muama Enence with you. This is a translation device that claims to turn you into a fluent speaker of thirty-six languages. Looks very interesting, but I will note that there are other translators that support a lot more languages (and get more stars on Amazon, too).

Tired of your phone battery draining at just the wrong time, but not interested in carrying around a bulky charger? The Charge Card Wireless is the size of a credit card, so you can slip it in your wallet and power-up when needed.

If you live in a place where the winters can get mighty cold – a place, like, say Syracuse NY – the VolteX Unisex Heated Vest can help keep you warm when you’re out there brushing off your car, shoveling your front walk, taking the dog out when the temperature has plummeted to single digits. (Not that I’d know anything about cold weather…)

Admittedly, the WoodRanger Mini Chainsaw caught my eye because it, well, looks like a toy chainsaw. It uses the latest in quenching technology to keep it from heating up, and it lets you take care of mini gardening and landscaping projects, one-handed.

Even if you’re all tuckered out by shoveling in your heated vest or pruning with your mini chainsaw, you still may have a hard time falling asleep. Yet who wants to take a sleeping pill unless they absolutely have to? The Chill Pill is a little handheld device that sends out electronic pulses that quickly lull you into sleep. ZZZZZZ….

I’m a lifelong engineer so you can trust me when I tell you that, with the possible exception of the mini chainsaw, I’m usually not drawn to anything cutesy. But I did get a kick out of the Victrola Rock Speaker Connect, a Bluetooth speaker that’s, well, shaped like a rock. It’s designed for outdoor listening, so it’ll fit right in.

And if the noise from the speaker – or from the mini chainsaw – gets to be a bit too much, Loop Switch ear plugs provide three noise reduction levels. Perfect for concerts, where the noise can definitely get out of control.

It won’t fit in your wallet, but the Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand will let you power up three devices at the same time. (And, I hate to say it, but it looks cute.)

Bird feeder in your backyard? Probably not as techy as the Netvue Birdy Feeder, which lets you feed the birds and take photos and videos of them, and any squirrels who may chance by. And it comes with color night vision, so you can also capture any raiders – avian and non-avian alike – who visit after dark.

Sure, we had a drone on our tech toys for kids list, but what’s a list of tech toys for grownups without a drone on it? The DJI Mini 3 gets props for ease of use. The one downside seems to be that it doesn’t come equipped with obstacle-avoidance sensors like more expensive drones have. You’ll just have to pay a bit more attention to where it’s flying.

My favorite item just might be the Bambu Lab A1 Mini, a 3D printer billed as a “thing maker.” At less than $500, this is a home version that’s relatively affordable. It won’t let you print “trickier materials” – the article mentions ABS and carbon fiber – but you could still make an awful lot of things with it. And what engineer doesn’t like to make things?

That’s it for now. Wishing you happy holiday shopping, even if you’re just shopping for gadgets for yourself!

One thing that I really enjoy about the end of the year is all the forecasts for the next year that start popping up.

Some headlines in the MIT Technology Review about a technology preview of the next century did catch my eye. But then I started thinking that this is so far out, it will impact the grandchildren of my great-grandchildren. So I thought I’d put that one aside for a later date – maybe one closer to the 22nd century, and focus on the almost here and almost now. Thus I landed on Gartner’s 2025 Top Strategic Technology Trends.

They grouped their trends into three categories – AI Imperatives and Risks, New Frontiers of Computing, and Human-machine Synergy – and outlined several sub-trends in each category.

AI Imperative and Risks
Under AI, Garner focused on agnetic AI, and on the challenges of governance, and figuring out how to combat disinformation. Agnetic AI pretty much means hands off. It’s a software approach that uses AI techniques and tools to make decisions and act on them in pursuit of goals – and to do so without much by way of human involvement. Agnetic AI has the potential to help organizations to achieve the promises of AI – greater productivity, freeing up workers to focus on higher-end tasks.

Empowering AI to act on its own leads, of course, to the need for governance platforms that can keep AI in check and “make sure AI is reliable, transparent, fair and accountable while also meeting safety and ethical standards.” This will be especially critical in industries that are highly regulated, but even non-regulated industries want to ensure that people’s privacy is maintained, and that there’s no unintended bias at play.

When it comes to AI, a problem we’ve increasingly the problem of disinformation, with more and more elaborate fraud schemes, crazier and crazier conspiracy theories that stoke fear and wreak havoc on society, and ever more elaborate (and convincing) attacks on businesses that undermine products and brands, wreck reputations, and manipulate stock prices. No wonder Gartner sees disinformation security coming to the fore.

New frontiers of computing
What does Gartner see for next year when it comes to computing? For one thing, cryptography in the post-quantum will become more and more critical, especially given that quantum computing will be deployed by criminals to decrypt stolen data, including data that was encrypted using traditional approaches. (Sophisticated cybercriminals have already planning for this future, with “harvest now, decrypt later” strategies, stealing even exceptionally well-encrypted data and hanging on to it with the assumption that, with quantum computing, they’ll be able to crack the code.

Gartner also sees ambient invisible intelligence in the future. This is “the widespread use of small, low-cost tags and sensors to track the location and status of various objects and environments.” The amount of data available for analysis will continue to grow exponentially, and the “real-time visibility” it provides will have a major impact on a range of industries: supply chains, healthcare, retail.

Demands for sustainability will grow, especially as AI is such a tremendous driver of energy consumption.

While conventional processing improvements are reaching their limits, new computing technologies, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), neuromorphic computing and quantum computing, are expected to deliver the substantial energy-efficiency gains needed in the next five to 10 years.

Also up will be hybrid computing, where all sorts of technologies “— such as CPUs, GPUs, edge devices, ASICs, and neuromorphic, quantum and photonic systems — “ are combined to solve especially thorny problems.

Human-machine synergy
It’s good to keep in mind that, behind all the AI, beyond all the quantum computing, there are human beings, and Gartner foresees “enhanced interactions” between the physical and virtual worlds; robots being an increasing part of our every day lives; and “technologies that directly influence cognition and performance.”

Spatial computing will be getting more attention as augmented and mixed reality, along with AI technologies in general, will make it possible for “users to interact with [the physical world] in an immersive, realistic and intuitive experience.”

Robots will become more skilled, with polyfunctional robots able to take care of multiple tasks. E.g., warehouse robots will be able to pick, pack, and transport goods. And, in the final trend Gartner identified, neurological enhancement, “using technologies that read and decode brain activity and optionally write to the brain,” will improve human cognition, which will hopefully allow us to keep up with those polyfunctional robots.

Source of image: Vistage

Although I’ve done some running over the years – some Spartan races, a 5K or two – I am by no means a serious runner. Still, I do have a lot of admiration for runners – especially distance runners – and read with great interest a fascinating article by Jonathan Rosen on the latest high tech running shoes, an article that appeared in the MIT Technology Review this past June.

The article centered on runners from Kenya, and that’s no surprise. As Rosen notes, “Kenya-born athletes accounted for 28 of the event’s all-time 50 fastest men and 17 of its 50 fastest women.” The official marathon record (2:00:35) was set by Kelvin Kiptum last October, and the unofficial record – and only sub-two-hour marathon – was set by Kiptum’s fellow countryman Eliud Kipchoge in 2019. (Time 1:59:40.2.) Kiptum was hoping to run a sub-two-hour race when, sadly, he was killed in an accident last winter.

Kenyans have achieved their stunning success for a number of reasons. The tribes that make up the majority of the country’s top runners share physical characteristics that make for an “energy-efficient gate.” These characteristics include “thin lower legs, long Achilles tendons, and a high ratio of leg length to torso.” Kenyan children are very active – they run places –   and they’re running at high altitudes that “help boost aerobic capacity.” Then there are the financial drivers. While Kenya is more industrialized and prosperous than many other African nations, many people live in poverty, and running is viewed as a way out.

But one key to the record shattering is the “supershoes” that competitive runners – and not just those from Kenya, of course – are wearing.

It was interesting to read that running shoe “technology” changed little between 1908 (when rubber heels made their Olympic debut) and 1975 when ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), and “air-infused foam” made running shoes that were lighter and bouncier. And for decades after, most running shoe improvements were for the most part EVA tweaks. And then, in 2017, Nike introduced the Vaporfly, which had a curved carbon-fiber plate and “a thick midsole material made from a foamed polymer known as polyether block amide, or PEBA.” That’s what puts the pep in a runner’s step (and helps runners suffer fewer injuries and recover more quickly from a grueling race).

And since 2017, this has been the name of the supershoe game.

The most crucial feature is the (often proprietary) foams that are used to construct parts of the sole. These absorb the impact of the foot and return energy from each foot strike back to the runner. Some use other features, like the orange “air pod” in the Nike Alphafly 3, for an added bounce.

Bounciness alone would not provide much advantage—today’s foams are so soft and thick (World Athletics allows up to 40 millimeters in competitions) that without additional support they would make the feet highly unstable. To give the shoes structure, manufacturers add rigid components like carbon-fiber plates or rods, typically sandwiched between layers of foam.

These rigid parts and foams are combined with wafer-thin mesh uppers to create shoes that are increasingly ultralight: the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1, released in 2023, weighs just 4.9 ounces (measured in the men’s size 9). Lighter shoes also reduce the energy expended with each stride—enabling runners to move at a given pace with less effort. The Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 was designed to be worn just once.

Interestingly, there’s research “that some runners get a greater boost from the technology than others, depending on their biomechanics.” And even those who are most in favor of supershoes (not everyone is) don’t want to take away the from the “talent, training, drive, and mental toughness” of the world’s most successful runners. Training has also improved over the years, and “new hydrogel-based sports drinks…make it possible to digest more calories during races.” (Kiptum’s coach had “estimated that the shoes improved Kiptum’s marathon time by a minute, or perhaps a little more.” Which is, of course, pretty significant, especially in the major races with large purses where split-second timing can translate into tens of thousands of dollars.)

As for Kenyan runners, the supershoes are to some degree a mixed blessing. For the top runners, it makes a performance difference. For those trying to make their mark, it works against those who can’t afford them.

Anyway, even though I’m not that much of a runner, and running shoe technology isn’t the sort of technology I’m involved with, I found the story about supershoes a fascinating one.