My Life in the Tech World

What my 11 year old son thinks of washing the car

Valve Springs? What about the Navigation System? or the paint?

Is it just me or do Apple and Facebook seem like a perfect pairing? Facebook has the web version of what should be the social bits of iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes. In iLife, Apple has the desktop tools to enhance the social web experience. Apple also has the hardware and OS to make Facebook a much more integrated experience for users. Based on what I've seen of Windows Phone 7 Microsoft has got the idea. Facebook's advertising is just starting out. It would be a real winner combined with iTunes and Apple TV. Google is already going there. Apple needs a cloud presence and Facebook already lives there. They should move in together.

When I bought my LS460 the self parking and Mark Levinson audio options were bundled together. I wanted the audio but I didn't want the self parking so I decided against the whole package. A few months later I regretted not getting the self parking just because so many people asked about it and wanted to see it demoed. I realized that it was an option that made the car special. It was also clear that both the marketing and the feature itself had captured people's imagination. Now even though I wanted to have the option I still think that I wouldn't really use it. But I'm wondering what people that bought self parking have to say. Does anyone have something they can share? Do you use the self parking? Does it work? Is it just a gimmick?

More than 20 years ago I worked on an autonomous vehicle project. We had very little funding but managed to put something together that could follow roads, detect and avoid obstacles, and reach its target destination. Since that time I've known it would eventually be possible to replace a human driver with an automated system. There have been a lot of advances since that time with the DARPA Challenges demonstrating progress this decade. Honestly, I always thought it would be one of the big auto companies such as Ford, GM, Toyota, or Honda who would be the first to announce a significant real world demonstration. After all, they make cars, and they should have a lot of research dollars going towards automated driving. So I was a little shocked to read that Google is out on the roads with automated cars (probably for their "street view" application though they don't mention it in the blog post). Google is amazing! It's great that they see so many things as comp

It's become popular to use Adobe Flash cookies for tracking user behavior. Generally, this is a way for websites and analytics companies to get around your browser privacy settings. Why? Because Adobe Flash has its own privacy settings that are overlooked by most users. You need to go to Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager to adjust your settings. Personally, I don't mind normal browser cookies because they are easily removable, controllable, and well known by most normal users. Also, browser cookies are really useful for web applications to keep track of things such as your shopping cart and login status. However these Flash cookies are a different animal. Check out this example called " Evercookie " which demonstrates creating a cookie that's very hard to delete. Is there really a valid purpose for this? Anyway, I turn off all storage for Adobe Flash on my computer because I don't trust it. My internet connection is fast and I don't care if I need