Tomorrow's Coolest Tech

conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting piece on some of the Coolest Products currently being developed. It includes a product from Plantronics Bijoux, a headset that looks like jewelery. The earbuds fit snugly and the speakers hang around the neck. "The set is as stylish as any pair of earrings and a matching pendant." Another product making the list, ultrathin MicroMedia Paper as a basic media-player."

Comments

Nokia Strapup phone bracelet downright Laputian

[HTH NE1]

The Strapup isn't really a phone. It's a device that you program with personal movements or gestures to trigger relevant text messages. For example, when you dance, your motion prompts the transmission of text that lists nearby nightclubs to friends. The idea is to allow you to communicate without wasting precious time talking -- or typing.

For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore offered, "that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on." And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject....

[M]any of the most learned and wise adhere to the new scheme of expressing themselves by things; which has only this inconvenience attending it, that if a man's business be very great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged, in proportion, to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back, unless he can afford one or two strong servants to attend him. I have often beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the weight of their packs, like pedlars among us, who, when they met in the street, would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements, help each other to resume their burdens, and take their leave.

But for short conversations, a man may carry implements in his pockets, and under his arms, enough to supply him; and in his house, he cannot be at a loss. Therefore the room where company meet who practise this art, is full of all things, ready at hand, requisite to furnish matter for this kind of artificial converse.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.

-- Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels"