Yes, the preceding is an homage to Berkeley Breathed. If you’ve never heard of him, you didnt live through the 80s. It is a reference to a short story about a penguin wishing to fly. Dont watch the movie BTW, it was God-awful. Read as like when Oprah left public television for cable. But before I lose you like Dennis Miller on Monday Night football, let me proceed…
As a runner and avid technofile, there are a few gadgets missing. Let me go ahead and describe them for you. Apple engineers, now is the time to pull out your scratch pads. I know you’re watching, I see the hits from Cupertino…
1. A gps enabled ipod nano. Everyone hates running with their $500 smartphone. The sweat, the rain, the dirt. Why should we have to? Why should we “calibrate” a nano to Nike based on a few strides. Really? Its 2013. Come on Apple.
2. A Pandora device we can run with. I’d be willing to pay $5-10/month to a service provider for this. Att, you listening? I would only need 30-60 minutes 4 times a week. Sounds like a pretty nice deal. You could even structure the date plan. Again running with a large touch screen device is not ideal. Embed in the nano or other small device.
3. A wireless projector that has a 2 hour change and has 500 lumens and wifi. LG has come close. As has 3M and Brookstone…but none has this yet. I want a projector for Netflix at a neighborhood party. And how about speakers over 5 watts. Instant party! Bam! I have nothing yet.
4. An electric car or a gas powered car that gets 75mpg under $20,000 that isnt a Prius. For the love of God, its been over a century since the car was invented. We still cant do this? We’ve all gotten excited recently over the 40MPG cars…you know what? This existed back in the 80s, and it was called a Chevette. We should be well beyond 1980s technology. And yet nothing exists for 75MPG. Detroit, you have failed us. Perhaps Toyota and Hyundai can do it for us.
5. Perfect dictation. I have to admit Google is extremely close on this. Theyre better than Apple and better than Dragon. Could you imagine a world where we never typed? It could happen. The tablets and smartphones are forging the way. Typing works for now. But the future is voice. I would free us of the keyboard and allow for massive product innovation.
6. An awesome EMR for physicians. As you already know EMRs suck. Seriously. Like the web back in 1993. God awful. I want a startup to create a stable (seriously that would be major), physician centric EMR. I would love to be part of a kickstarter project if anyones interested. Right now EMRs are a database with a physician peephole. I want an EMR that I can actually use and that actually saves time and improves patient care. If you’re interested you could make millions. I know many, many, many doctors who would be interested.
7. A smartphone that can go 2 days without charging. Boy wouldnt that be a miracle. My phone is always tethered like an umbilical cord to a wall, car, or computer. It just cant make it through the day. We need batteries 2-3x as powerful as they are. How about less power consumption? Using solar energy to charge the screen. Anything?! These days phones are critical for directions and contacting people. We rely on them. They need to be charged.
8. A wireless power system or buried powergrid. Ever wonder why we have such a tremendous exoskeleton? All our infrastructure is 20 feet in the air and tied to large poles of wood. When it rains, snows, freezes it gets damaged. Also when cars run into it, or squirrels or birds damage it. What if it was hidden from sight? What if it didnt exist? Think of all the savings from repairing them all the time. We all use cell phones, so lets lose the lowest of the 3 lines. The middle line is TV and internet. Yep, that can go to. We can broadcast internet. We can get cable and radio from satellite. The top line is the hardest, but wireless power does exist, but would need deployed on a massive scale. Or we could invest further in wind or solar energy and not need it at all. Sure the power companies wouldnt like that. Wonder if thats why its never happened…
So there you have it. I welcome your comments. Anything I left out? The future is bring. We have the technology, lets use it.
-Merican Dreamer
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