DS Forums

 
 

When were you last truly amazed by technology?


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 24-12-2016, 10:09
anne_666
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 30,179
For me, Google Earth. I remember when I discovered it, I spent hours on it just traveling around random places around the world and had never experienced anything like it.

In terms of tech I've never personally experienced, a recent item I saw on the news was amazing - radio waves targeted at a specific part of a guys brain in place of invasive surgery fixed his 20 year tremoring hand instantly. Incredible.
This.

Yesterday; my phone which was on standby suddenly said "Did you say something? I ddn't catch that".

Creepy; appears my phone is listening to everything I say.
Take more water with it Richard
anne_666 is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 24-12-2016, 10:11
Phoenix Lazarus
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 13,888
. Soon after that a wlaking hologram in Disneyland
Wonder how long it will be before we have holographic computer games.
Phoenix Lazarus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 10:38
Monkey_Moo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 1,273
Doesn't happen often, technology constantly evolves but true revolutions are less frequent. The last 'wow' moments I remember are many years ago when I first used the internet, online gaming on my PC, streaming audio around my home with my Squeezebox, and GPS. But the first iPhone I owned seriously impressed me, its was such a massive leap from what was previously available.
Monkey_Moo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 11:26
Phoenix Lazarus
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 13,888
We'd be blown away if we could see what will be available in 2030.
Phoenix Lazarus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 11:31
d0lphin
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 15,419
I think it was in 2011 when we had out first holiday without our sons. One was in Germany, the other in Kenya and we were in Kefalonia and I found it amazing we could talk to one another when we were all in different places so far apart.
d0lphin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 11:41
RobinOfLoxley
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Devon
Posts: 12,830
I've dreaded the coming of Video Telephony most of my life. And it's finally bloody here isn't it?
RobinOfLoxley is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 11:47
gdjman68wasdigi
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Liverpool/sarf London.
Posts: 11,738
The bionic eye on my Six Million Dollar man.
gdjman68wasdigi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 12:09
spiney2
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 24,096
My Sinclair Radionics Project 60 fm radio tuner. Uses phaselock loop circuit, just like spaceships. Put your hand near it, automatically ''locks onto'' a different random radio station. It's things like this, that made Uncle Clive (sinclair) into a ''living legend'' ...........
spiney2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 12:19
spiney2
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 24,096
(seriously), cofdm. Allows digital telecoms to ''approach the Shannon limit'' (fastest theoretically possible). So now we hav 7 or 8 digital tv channels, in same bandwidth as previously just 1 analogue. Close to ''magic'' ......
spiney2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 14:17
Monkey_Moo
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 1,273
I've dreaded the coming of Video Telephony most of my life. And it's finally bloody here isn't it?
It was here about 10 years ago, more if you count Skype. It's just no one really uses it much.
Monkey_Moo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 14:24
ags_rule
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 7,401
Honestly it's been a while, but the Amazon Echo did it for me.

It's not that it's doing anything particularly unique (heck, I was able to use speech commands with my £30 Philips Azalis mobile back in 2001), but it is the speed and accuracy with which it is able to understand and carry out commands. I can ask it "What height is Mt Everest?" and it can tell me one second later - for me, that is why it is impressive. Google Now and Siri can't compete with response times like that.
ags_rule is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 14:37
owenmahamilton
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 705
For me it's being able to watch live broadcasts from space, in the grand scheme of things the ISS is not that far up (only a couple of hundred miles) but because it's in space it always seems a lot further away than that.
owenmahamilton is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 14:42
ianradioian
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 24,310
5 years ago when I got my first smartphone , a galaxy ace.

Phone; sat-nav; internet; music ; watch tv ; being a stick in the mud, playing my records & cassettes etc I couldnt believe it and rapidly learnt how to ' drive' it
ianradioian is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 16:35
Laurel1ne
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: London Town
Posts: 142
For me, Google Earth. I remember when I discovered it, I spent hours on it just traveling around random places around the world and had never experienced anything like it.
This reminds me, a year or two ago I was on-site in N. Chicago doing an install, and the company had a lot of elderly First Generation Poles, Russians and Ukrainians I happened to show them Google Earth and it gave them a great delight in being able to use Street View to be able to wander the streets of their former home-towns

I think that receiving satellite TV is pretty amazing. Basically picking up a signal that's the power of a light bulb from 23,000 miles away with a piece of shaped metal and some electronics, still amazes me!
This is mine, getting that first box and being able to watch TV from other countries live and being able to see different lifestyles. As a youngish person to see shows from the Arabic Countries and see the way people dressed

Also that my parents and friends might be in other countries but I can just press a button on the phone and it rings their mobile wherever they may be in the world
Laurel1ne is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 17:28
WombatDeath
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 2,068
It will sound like a small thing but I'm amazed by google phrase search. I understand how individual words are indexed, but it can't possibly index every sentence fragment on the web, so I have no idea how it returns results for phrases so quickly.
WombatDeath is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 18:16
dodrade
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 6,107
Holograms you can create just by putting a plastic prism on top of a smartphone playing a YouTube video.
dodrade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 18:44
Andy Birkenhead
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Birkenhead, Merseyside.
Posts: 9,707
When we (finally !) got a SKY+ HD box !
Previously we had the normal SKY+
The ability to "Catch Up" on shows we had would have had to miss out on, and be able to "Restore" a programme I had deleted, and accessing Box Sets just blew my mind !
Andy Birkenhead is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 18:55
Heartache
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,447
All the technology that has happened since the 70's/80's. Reel to reel tapes to VHS, VHS to DVD, then to digital. Set top boxes, Smart TV and Smart TV boxes. Mobile phones, and then Smartphones. Laptops that perform the functions that a larger computer did. 3D films and TV and l suppose social media too.
Heartache is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 19:24
RobinOfLoxley
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Devon
Posts: 12,830
It will sound like a small thing but I'm amazed by google phrase search. I understand how individual words are indexed, but it can't possibly index every sentence fragment on the web, so I have no idea how it returns results for phrases so quickly.
I know. I've been messing with computers for 40 years and it still seems to be the work of Beelzebub.
Google (and others) are very secretive on how it works.

I've never had the energy or desire to delve deeper and fry my brain, so I just accept it.

Like Wave-Particle Duality.
RobinOfLoxley is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 21:23
David (2)
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: S.West England.
Posts: 18,032
This takes some thinking. Amazon echo, Google Earth, etc etc etc etc are fine, but like a smart watch, it's just building on something.

I think the first time I saw a Macintosh computer in operation circa 1988 - when all the computers I had used were command line and "hard to use". The Mac actually changed my life because I got my first job because of it. The fundamental useage and workings that I used then are still at the core of everything today (tho greatly upgraded, adopted, modified, etc). It says something about a product when, if u take a modern PC user who has only known windows in the last few years and gave them a old style Mac and an old style dos PC, they could prolly figure out the Mac quite quickly but wouldn't have a clue about the old PC.


Rip Steve jobs!
David (2) is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 21:32
Woodbine
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 3,407
Probably when I got an amiga 1200 or when we very first got a cable box.
Woodbine is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 21:41
Hayley_baby
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 8,135
Probably WiFi for me, going from a computer that could only be used near the phone socket to a laptop that I can use anywhere around the house was the last time I was truly impressed, now its like WiFi is expected.
Hayley_baby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 21:45
Majik1
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 452
It won't seem like much to a lot of people, but every time I tax the car online I think of my dad (who couldn't walk very far) driving endlessly round the block in the early 1990s, trying to find somewhere to park close to the post office on car taxing day. This wasn't really that long ago in the scheme of things, but he'd be amazed to know that you can tax the car without even leaving your house now, in less time than it takes to boil the kettle.

I often think too of the equally not-so-long-ago pre-digital camera era, when taking photos meant having twenty four or so of them that you'd never seen, recorded on an expensive roll of film and stuffed into an 'offer' envelope that had dropped out of one of the Sunday papers, taking it to the chemists, sending it off, waiting a week for the prints to come back and finding that half of them had been obscured by a blurry image of your thumb. We've come a very long way in a very short time really, but the 'instant selfie' generation has no idea
I moved to a new town and the post office miseries told me I couldn't tax my car, I'd have to drive 20 miles. They were lying and very lazy.
Majik1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 22:38
ChipDouglas82
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Douglas Towers
Posts: 2,615
When I got a PSP (PlayStation Portable) was amazed how they could get PlayStation graphics on a small screen!!!!
ChipDouglas82 is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 24-12-2016, 23:09
MidnightFalcon
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Here--------->
Posts: 12,398
The Martian probe that just refuses to stop.

The Opportunity rover landed on Mars in January 2004 with a planned mission of 90 Martian days. 13 years (minus 1 month) later and it's still going.
MidnightFalcon is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply




 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 18:41.