Saturday, November 13, 2010

Senior Moments (An Ongoing Post)

Right now I'm sitting here in mid Florida watching a live footy (soccer) game from Birmingham in England. I'm also 'watching' my friend Daphne on her drive up to Barrow in N. England thanks to Glympse. (She's just turned off the A590 and is currently going at 38mph. 4th gear, Daphne, 4th gear). I'm also chatting online with various people around the world.

Kids now take all this amazing technology for granted and complain when the streaming video from the Chilean miner's webcam breaks up a little. I was watching it in bed on my phone, for goodness sake. How amazing was that ? That it was only 2am and I was already in bed !

I still remember Marconi when he placed the first ever pizza order by morse code and signal flags so all this is almost sci-fi to me. I remember Compuserve and dial-up internet when if a web site contained a photograph, you could go fix a cup of tea and still return to see the image building up like some sort of witchcraft.

I'm in the market for a new tv here and the options are bewildering : plasma, LCD, LED or LED and LCD ? What about 3D ? Internet enabled ? How many HDMI and USB ports ? 60mhz, 120mhz or 240mhz ?

You can now watch tv on a monster sized screen that would've put my local cinema to shame back in the day.

And few electronic items do just one thing these days. A phone that is just a phone ? No such device. When I go out for my daily walk, I use mine to listen to music but I could type live to friends around the world via a chat application, speak for free to those same friends via Skype, send my route to anyone who cared to see it via Glympse, watch a YouTube video or simply play a game. Oh and I could actually send/receive a phone call of course. And all this on a unit the size of a playing card. Amazing.

Being a bit of a geek, I've managed to stay in touch with the latest electronic developments but right now I'm on the edge. A few unknowns are creeping in and the occasional news article goes over my head. Soon most of them will and I'll be reduced to shaking my head when I step into a Best Buy or even a Walmart (ok so I shake my head EVERY time I go into a Walmart but that's got nothing to do with visiting the electronics section) and with no children or grandchildren to help me out, I'll be like a currently tech challenged senior, sitting at home with his wind up gramaphone and wondering where to get his collection of 78's re-grooved. Scary.

At least I'll be able to watch Bonanza reruns on my 60" LCD-LED 3D 240mhz wall mounted wifi enabled HDTV.

I just need to remember when they're on ! I'm sure there will be a phone app for that.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

An Internet capable tv would be good. Then you could stream Netflix.

Daphne said...

One of my favourite apps (ooh yes, I know these words) on my HTC Desire is Teeter, where you roll a little ball round some obstacles to avoid it going down holes.
I used to play this game in the mid-sixties when it was made of plastic. This is the kind of progress I can handle.

Jay said...

Hahaha! No kidding - and you forgot to add 'take a photo or some video' to your phone's list of talents.

I can remember our first video camera, great clumping thing that it was - and it didn't work half so well (or keep its charge as long) as my little phone, which isn't even an iPhone! LOL!

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