Your smartphone’s getting even smarter
When the pandemic hit, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in making sure I knew where the thermometer was, replacing the battery on the pulse oximeter, and checking the expiration dates on the cold medicine in the cabinet. Your home “doctor’s bag” may well have a blood pressure monitor in it: a device with an inflatable […]
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Send in the drones!
Like those belonging to pretty much everyone else, the electronics devices and gadgets I rely on occasionally run out of juice. I forget to charge my phone. Or my smart watch. I misjudge how long my laptop has been running untethered, and now I’m finding that I’m running on empty. Sure, it’s not as terrible […]
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Mind over matter. In this case, a prosthetic hand.
Mind-controlled prosthetics for amputees have been around for years. And they’re amazing. But the functionality they provide is limited. They can be awkward to use and don’t provide fine motor control. And their use was generally confined to those who hadn’t just lost a limb, but who were also paralyzed. That’s because it required a […]
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Running on Technology
This past Monday should have seen the running of the Boston Marathon. I’m not a marathoner, but it’s hard not to pay just a bit of attention to Boston, the longest running (since 1897) marathon in the world. The event, like so many others, has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and will be […]
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From the MIT Technology Review: 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2020 (Part Two)
In my last post, I described the first five breakthrough technologies listed in the March/April edition of The MIT Technology Review. In this post, I’m doing the remainder of the Top Ten. (In parentheses, after each section, I’ve noted the writer for that article.) Satellite Mega-Constellations: This article starts with a fairly startling statement: “More […]
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Tech takes on the coronavirus
It’s probably safe to say that one of the things that’s first and foremost on all our minds these days is the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s not just on our minds, but in our everyday lives that are so impacted. We may be working from home – as many of our Critical Link employees are […]
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From the MIT Tech Review: Breakthrough Technologies for 2020 (Part One)
I enjoy reading about technology. And I enjoy reading about the future of technology. So I much enjoyed the article on breakthrough technologies in the current edition of the MIT Technology Review. This is an annual listing of advances in technology that the Review believes “will truly change how we live and work.” (In parentheses, […]
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See Spot work!
I have a long-time fascination with robotics, dating back to my grad school days. Plus I’m a dog person. When combined, these turn into an interest in Spot, the robotic dog from Boston Dynamics. I first blogged about Spot a couple of years ago (See Spot run!). At that point, Spot was in pre-release, with […]
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Augmented Reality: it’s not just Pokémon GO
We’re hearing a lot about Augmented Reality (AR), which I kind of think of as Virtual Reality’s “kid brother.” Rather than offering a fully immersive experience in a fully virtual world for the user, AR layers digital elements on top of the real world, and the user interacts with actual physical objects. The market is […]
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Vroom! Vroom! Cool car tech at CES 2020
Even though the products showcased there are not exactly in the Critical Link wheelhouse, I’m always interested in seeing what’s up at CES, the big consumer electronics show that’s held each January in Las Vegas. And so I avidly read up on the robot that delivers toilet paper (Charmin, to be exact); the Alexa-driven shower […]
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