GorillaOffTopic, Everything But Gorilla Trades

Ahhh, the Gorilla remembers the good ole’ days of being a kid and writing letters to Santa c/o the North Pole. The post office was kind enough to handle these obscurely addressed letters from hundreds (and in some towns, even thousands) of eager kids, and it was all but guaranteed that you would receive a response; hand written by Santa himself, and in plenty of time before Christmas (given of course, that you sent it to him in time!).

But yes, those postal workers had their work cut out for them the good old fashioned way. No computers to help write them either, just a good pen and a lot of patience. (Remember that?) But alas, the world is now a very different place, besieged by a plethora of technologies, none of which requires a whole lot of effort compared to when we were all young.

Kids can now access Santa via various methods. Just think about the options: the whole world is texting these days, so why should Santa be any different?  Well, it turns out he isn’t. Last year Santa emailed and even sent instant messages to kids who wanted to hear from him online. Kids could also go online to track Santa Claus as he made his way in his sleigh around the globe. Kids can still take advantage of all of these options, but now if they want to, they may text Santa as well.

Kids can go to textsanta.net and for a small fee of around $4.95, they can text and receive texts from Santa Claus from now until Christmas Day. (Why is the Gorilla not surprised by this?) And one dollar goes to the March of Dimes so it’s a win-win for parents and their “Santa-hungry” kids. The Gorilla himself even goes online each year to log onto the high-tech Santa tracker to see where Santa is in his sleigh, hour by hour, on Christmas Eve. It is a fun and exciting way to be a kid again for a few minutes (even if it is a far cry from the letter writing of his childhood!).

But far as the texting goes…. well for kids it’s great fun to get a text from the Claus-Meister, but the Gorilla gets enough texts now that he is in the “cell phone zone” once again after years of not having a cell phone. He’ll pass on trying the new Santa Claus texts; at least for this year. But he must admit….the old dude is pretty cool.

The DTV craze is about to hit and the Gorilla can’t help but think about it. Each day, at least twice a day, advertisers and celebrities show up on the tube to let everyone know that by February of next year, every TV must be switched over to a digital format via a converter or new TV, or risk the chance of losing a clear picture or getting any picture (or station) at all!

The new format will be used by not just some stations as they are now, but by everyone- rendering the old format completely obsolete. But is everyone getting the message? The Gorilla feels sure that there is that little old guy sitting in his trailer home, using his old fashioned antenna, who is just not keen to what is going on with the change. There will probably be many “old school” people who will be stuck with the static and without a signal. But, why digital? What’s wrong with what we currently have? Is it just the pressure and power of progress? Well, no not exactly.

Federal law requires that all full-power television broadcast stations stop broadcasting in analog format and broadcast only in digital format. Why? Well for a couple of reasons actually; first, because all-digital broadcasting will free up frequencies for public safety communications (such as police, fire, and emergency rescue). Also, digital is a more efficient transmission technology, which allows broadcast stations to offer improved picture and sound quality, as well as offer more programming options for consumers through multiple broadcast streams (multicasting). In addition, some of the freed up frequencies will be used for advanced commercial wireless services for consumers. It is not just because we live in a world where everything must be newer, bigger, better, clearer, like one might think!

The Gorilla owns a plasma screen TV that has such an excellent picture, (and no, it’s not HD) he couldn’t imagine something even better. There just seems to be no point to it. But it is the new format and the new way of things, and it is what TV stations are using, leaving us, the viewer and consumer, no choice.

In the end, it will be a change for the better. So in light of the new change, the Gorilla urges you to help that little old man or lady out there who you may know, and might be a little out of touch. Sometimes a television is the only connection for these people to the outside world and they need this lifeline more than you or I. In the meantime, enjoy the last couple of months of the current analog format because as of February 19^th, 2009, if you aren’t on board with the new format, you will be looking at fuzz on your TV screen!

Everyone loves gadgets. The Gorilla doesn’t have to tell you how much he does. To give you a break from all of the recent blah-blah politics, the Gorilla thought he would highlight some new and interesting technology since the holidays are creeping up quickly. Are there some real 21st century visionaries at work here or what?

Although a few of these great inventions are simply prototypes at this point, check out these cool new ideas: The first one is a futuristic newspaper called an e-paper. This item is absolutely remarkable and innovative. We all hate the toxic ink, which gets all over our fingers when we read the daily news, but not with this clever e-paper. It resembles a small 11×14 poster board or folder and works much like an Etcha Sketch. You simply open it up and virtual headlines appear, complete with text just like a regular newspaper. When you are finished reading, you simply shake the “paper” and a new page appears. You may also turn the e-paper over for more stories. Sebastien Bettencourt of the Art Center College of Design in California manipulates physical elements of the e-paper to move the reader through digital content that can be accessed wirelessly. The e-paper will have all of the same content as your actual paper, but without the ink! Amazing!

The next awesome item on the list of cool new tech is the planilum light. This cool light makes light bulbs obsolete. Why? Well because each planilum light panel is less than an inch thick and composed of four layers of glass, nontoxic gas, and phosphorescent compounds. It emits a lovely soft glow, without any risk of burning. In addition, planilum lights are energy efficient and 90% recyclable. French designer Tomas Erel of SAAZS has created beautiful lights that last a VERY long time; planilum lights last approximately 50,000 hours or 20 years! Now that’s nice!

Another great new invention that caught the Gorilla’s interest is both lovely and functional. It is a pod-like dining table called “Kure,” which acts and looks like a beautiful accessory by day, but can be opened at will to be used as a functional dining table at night. We know what you are thinking here. Items that are multifunctional are usually not very attractive. But the Kure’s style and elegance make it a lovely addition to any home, whether you use it for dining or as a centerpiece to your home. This lovely pod resembles and was designed to resemble a flower and emits a warm light from its core. Can Sarioz, the table’s designer, says his inspiration for the table came from thinking about a budding flower that can be opened and closed at will. Hmm. Pretty cool indeed!

These are just a few of the amazing new ideas on tap for the future of technology. Perhaps they won’t exactly be available for the holidays, but it sure can get you thinking about next year. The Gorilla always loves hearing about new technology. He will be anxiously awaiting the release of the e-paper for sure!

The Gorilla is not surprised by much these days, but when he logged on to his computer this morning and saw a picture of a violent video game, he was shocked at the grotesque scene it portrayed. Teen violence is up in recent years and experts believe there is a definite correlation between violent video games and violent behavior with kids.
 
This isn’t a new study or finding, and yet even though we are told the same things over and over about the potential dangers, it still seems like manufacturers of certain video games just keep coming out with games that have progressively become more violent rather than less violent, as you would think. To give you an idea just how serious this issue has become, all you have to do is look at the content of the video game “Manhunt.” In this game, a screen shot from ‘Manhunt 2 depicts scenarios in which a patient at an insane asylum hacks, slashes, and stabs his way to freedom. It is extremely graphic and bloody and relays an underlying theme of misery and anger.
 
Why would any company set out to invoke such thoughts in our teens? These aren’t just games. They are ideas, mentalities, and actions. Since it can sometimes takes weeks or even months to beat the games, kids are being subjected over a period of time to such negative and violent thoughts. In one study of U.S. and Japanese kids ages 9-16, kids who typically were mild mannered prior to playing the games, became increasingly agitated and displayed violent behavior over time while playing the games. Younger kids were in fact more affected.
 
American children 9 through 12, and Japanese kids 12 through 15, became more violent than did the teenagers in a larger pool of Japanese students aged 13 to 18. “Playing violent video games is a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior,” concludes the study. “The research strongly suggests reducing the exposure of youth to this risk factor.” The study also revealed a correlation between violence on the Internet, and an increase in aggressive behavior in children ages 10-15, including assault and robbery, which led to arrest.
 
So why isn’t the government getting involved? They did get involved a few years ago and started requiring special ratings be placed on the outside of packages on certain violent video games, which required that the users be at least 13 to play. These games were rated “T” for teen, but still contained what is considered to be “mild” violence. The Gorilla watched some of the machine gun- toting content and strongly disagrees.
 
Others are rated “M” for mature 17 and older kids but really, how do you regulate those? It is up to the parents to enforce the rules, but personally, this Gorilla doesn’t approve even for a 17-year-old. With the average teen playing video games for 13 hours per week, should those 13 hours involve gunfights, prostitutes, ax murderers, and thieves? Well, that is for the parent to decide, but it seems that with teen violence being steadily on the rise, the government should put further restrictions on what is being put out there. Just a thought.

In the future, we imagine many different things. Things like spaceships, flying cars, and cities on Mars. But one cool thing is not just a thing of the far-off future, it is happening as we speak. It is a system of transportation called, podcars- or PRT’s for personal rapid transit- and it is a concept that the Gorilla thinks is really cool.

Jacob Roberts is president of Connect Ithaca; a group of planning and building professionals, activists, and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States. He says that “it’s time to design cities for humans, not automobiles.” (The Gorilla is sure he didn’t mean to leave out the primates!) But the podcar is not only a really cool concept, but it uses clean energy as well.

“So what exactly is a podcar?” you might ask. Quite simply it is electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on their own network, separate from other cars. Unlike mass transit, podcars carry two to 10 passengers, giving travelers the freedom and privacy of their own car. And podcars reduce traffic, reduce the use of fossil fuels, and reduce congestion from parking lots.

The plan is to put stations every block or every half mile, depending on the need. A rider enters a destination on a computerized pad and a car takes the person nonstop to the location. Stations would have slanted pull-in bays so that some cars could stop for passengers, while others could continue unimpeded on the main course.

The podcar system is not exactly a new concept, as there exists a smaller version in Morgantown, West Virginia, which was built in 1975 and is still used to transport students. There are currently many cities throughout the world that are planning their own podcar systems and it is expected to take hold on a worldwide level. But for now, Ithaca, will take the lead in the U.S., catering to its almost 80,000 residents it has during peak season.

“We are introducing an alternative to the automobile for the first time in 100 years,” said Christopher Perkins, chief executive officer of Unimodal Transport Solutions, a California company that builds podcars, which operate on magnetic levitation instead of wheels. Very cool indeed, and in the Gorilla’s humble opinion…it’s about time!

The world is in absolute chaos right now. The last thing this country needs is more violence, so why would anyone want to endorse more violence? And if that “anyone” happened to be YouTube, the world should have something to say about it.
 
YouTube, the world’s largest video sharing Web site, removed over 2 dozen violent-enriched clips from its site following a Times investigation into harmful and inappropriate material on YouTube. The Web site took down 30 film clips, which featured gangs and gang-related activity, and showed hooded youths brandishing a variety of weapons including machetes, hand guns, and even sub-machine guns.
 
Apparently Google is admitting that they were in breach of its own user guidelines, which had recently been revised to deal with gang videos. (Nice going Goog!) The Gorilla could understand if there were only one or two gang-related videos, but 30? Have the guys at Google been sleeping on the job? C’mon guys, get a clue!
 
TV journalist Peter Barron is Google’s head of communications in Britain, and he says that as a result of concerns about use of the Website by gangs, it has now introduced new guidelines prohibiting users from showing weapons in their videos in a way that appears to “threatening” to its viewers. (Don’t worry NRA members, this does not apply to you!) Currently, there are over 800,000 gang members in the U.S. alone and that number is growing rapidly. It’s a good thing that YouTube finally got a clue, but not before the gangs got past the approval department for such a long time first!

These days, automakers need to be creative. They need to offer something new, something exciting, or something innovative. Ford Motor has done exactly that and it certainly delivers in the “most clever new innovation” department. Many of us have teenagers who are new drivers. A scary prospect, we know.
 
Ford understands this as well and that is why it created clever new technology to accommodate parents like us. Starting next year, the new feature will give parents the power to limit how fast their kids drive. So how does it work? Well, using a computer chip in the key, teen drivers can be limited to speeds of 80 mph or less. The feature called” MyKey” will also give parents the option to limit audio volume, and even sound a continuous beep if the occupant is not buckled up.
 
The MyKey feature will be standard on an unspecified number of 2010 Ford vehicles available next year. “Our message to parents is, hey, we are providing you some conditions to give your new drivers that may allow you to feel a little more comfortable in giving them the car more often,” said Jim Buczkowski, Ford’s director of electronic and electrical systems engineering. The Gorilla absolutely loves this new technology for cars. Imagine not having to yell at your kids to turn down the radio or to drive slower. No more warning them to wear their seatbelts.
 
The MyKey feature will act like the parent on your behalf. Finally, a safety feature that parents can really wrap their minds around! So what do parents and teens think about the cool new feature? Well, Ford said its market research shows 75% of parents like the speed and audio limits, but as you might expect, 67% of teens don’t like them. (Big surprise there!)

We all waited for the day when places like McDonald’s or Starbucks made Wi-Fi available to connect us to the Internet, and man have we come a long way since! When you think of Wi-Fi, no doubt these places probably come to mind. But you probably would not think of a Wi-Fi connection being available in something like an emergency vehicle, such as an ambulance, now would you?

But now that kind of innovative technology is changing the emergency medical field in ways we could only have imagined in years past. Right now, Wi-Fi is being used in ambulances in places like St. Louis, Missouri, and the new technology is saving time, which translates into saving precious lives.

Christian Hospital has equipped its entire ambulance fleet with Bluetooth technology, which was designed to send your diagnostic EKG results to the hospital before you get there. The idea is to get heart attack patients to the cardiac lab for treatment within 90 minutes of their first symptoms; a critical time period, which can often mean life versus death.

In an emergency such as a heart attack, minutes and seconds count dramatically. And with Bluetooth technology being used to transmit critical data like EKG readouts from anywhere a patient has fallen ill- such as an accident scene- physicians and cardiologists can get the jump on critical information needed to save lives. “Our ambulances are actually a Wi-Fi cafe hot spot,” says Wesley Boles, chief of emergency medical services at Christian Hospital.

And Christian Hospital has the data to back up their claim that this technology is indeed a tremendously good time saving tool. Of the 28 patients taken by ambulance to the hospital’s cardiac cath lab in the past six months, 24 were treated in less than 90 minutes. Christian

Hospital Northeast is the first hospital in the U.S. to use the Wi-Fi cafe hotspots in their vehicles, but will certainly not be the last as other hospitals throughout the U.S. are considering using Bluetooth in their emergency vehicles as well. The Gorilla hopes to never have an accident or a heart attack, but if he does, he sure hopes it happens in St. Louis, Missouri!

Here’s a very real scenario: a man in his 20’s finds out he has cancer. He decides to freeze his sperm knowing that chemotherapy could very well kill all of his sperm, thus eliminating the possibility of ever having children in the future. Now, more than 20 years after the cancer is gone, after years of being single and sterile, he marries and impregnates his new wife with said 21 year old sperm. Incredible, miraculous and very real.

The baby which resulted is now just one month old, but the history of her existence goes back over 20 years. Ken Decker is now in his 40’s, but at age 24, he found out he had Hodgkin’s disease. And yes, at the urging of his wise mother, he froze some of his sperm. Ken went about living his life in the years that followed not really thinking too much about his decision until one day when he met the love of his life, he knew that decision could pay off. He never knew back when he made that decision it would be one of the best and wisest moves he would ever make.

 Ken and Michelle Decker now have a beautiful baby named Madison, and the amazing thing is that the 21 years between Ken’s freezing his sperm and Madison’s being born is one of the longest periods of time for conception on medical record. Ken says the decision to freeze his sperm was a case of “mother knows best.” “It was a mom decision,” he said with a laugh. “I was playing, scuba diving, chasing a career, and mom was like, ‘You have to bank your sperm.’ I said, OK. I did what Mom said to do.” 

But it would be a difficult undertaking for Ken and Michelle since frozen sperm is not always viable. In fact, the technology to find a viable sperm didn’t even exist when Ken decided to have his sperm frozen back in the late 80’s.(Man have we come a long way!)  Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection — ISCI for short is that technology. It consists of finding one good sperm to implant into one good egg rather than using an entire banked sperm reserve to bombard an egg. This technique has dramatically raised the pregnancy success rate, and Ken and Michelle credit the technology for their new daughter.

However, it wasn’t an easy road for them. It took 3 long years and 3 failed attempts to get pregnant and on the fourth try they were at last successful. And, almost $90,000 later and they have their little miracle, Madison. When asked about how he liked being the record holder for longest amount of time between having sperm frozen and conception, Ken laughs and says “It’s really exciting. I hope no one beats us out.” Now, if they could only perfect the technology to include gorillas. Don’t laugh! We are an endangered species after all!

The Japanese, as we know, are the undisputed leaders in the world of technology. They are known for being way ahead of the curve on almost everything technology. For example, Japanese phones are by far, the most sophisticated phones in the world offering standard digital TV, music players, GPS, cameras that double as bar code scanners, and wireless credit cards. That is absolutely amazing- but wait…there’s more!
 
How bout’ a cell phone that can also unlock the doors of its owner’s cars and let them start their engines, without using an ignition key? Yes, this is the new Japanese technology built by Sharp Corp., which uses a technology originally developed by Nissan Motors, called “Intelligent Key.” It allows users to enter and start their cars without removing their keys from their pockets. The unique technology works when cars, which are equipped with the system, sense when the correct key is nearby, thus automatically unlocking their car doors.
 
Once the key is brought inside the car, the engine is automatically started. The technology is nothing new and has been available in cars for several years, but until now, it was never offered in a phone. The service will work using Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo Inc. This cool new technology will be displayed next week  at CEATEC, a major technology conference in Tokyo. Nissan has shipped about a million cars with the technology since 2002.