Project Ara

Why Google Did Away with Project Ara

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Project Ara was an ambitious venture to create a modular smartphone, featuring upgradeable components. And when I say ambitious, boy was it a moon shot.

It’s one thing to upgrade components in a desktop computer or a car, but the smaller the device, the trickier it is to engineer efficient connections between components whose bandwidth requirements and standards of communication vary wildly. Even notebook manufacturers struggle with this limitation as they attempt to engineer ever-thinner devices.

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Sony And Smart Contact Lenses

Smart Contact Lenses Will Soon Be upon Us

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After Google experimented with integrating a glucose level sensor on a contact lens, it was only a matter of time before we would see more innovation in this field. A recent patent filing from Sony describes the intention of putting a camera inside a contact lens.

While this toy won’t exactly be invisible –at least not at first – the privacy implications are quite serious. We’re still at least a few years away from market availability, but I imagine that after several product cycles, such a camera could reach a pretty good recording resolution. Coupled with wireless transmission to a storage device, people will eventually be able to record everything they see, everywhere they go.

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Microsoft's New Direction Is Not Surprising

Microsoft’s New Direction Is Not Surprising

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Together with its new CEO, the software giant is embracing the inevitable: transforming its users into a data product.

What worries me the most is the fact that Microsoft is moving towards transforming Windows into a closed ecosystem, emulating the model established by Apple and, later, Google.

With the upcoming Universal Windows Platform, Microsoft is taking its first steps into placing itself as a leech between developers and customers, charging not only for the operating system but also taking a profit share from producers.

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Big Corporations Go After Artificial Intelligence

Big Corporations Go After Artificial Intelligence

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The word “Go” in the title is not coincidental. Much earlier than expected, an AI program managed to defeat a human Go champion. Artificial Intelligence has had the upper hand in the game of Chess for more than a decade already. However, defeating humans at the game of Go requires a different kind of intelligence than it is the case with Chess.

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