What I Want

Technology is close to solving some of the pesky problems of daily life. The big issues? No way! But a number of minor annoyances could certainly be eliminated in the next year or so. So here's what I want:

More cell phone bar code apps

SnapTell is a mobile app that uses the device's camera to read bar codes on products, and then tell you where else to buy them, on- or offline. Very cool! But I'd also like to automatically look up the product in Consumer Reports or epinions.com and see if it's even worth buying.

Better caller ID

When someone calls, I can see who it is and decide whether I want to answer. But if my wife's on the phone, I can't see who she's talking to.  Fix that. Yeah, yeah ... privacy. I'll bet Facebook knows who she's talking to.

Smarter remote controls

I have to go through about 47 levels of on-screen menus to browse through the video-on-demand movies or TV shows on my system. By the time I've found something tolerable, it's too late to watch it. I know the cable companies keep these ungodly search paths out of obligation to the content providers, but someone should make a touch-screen remote where I can add buttons that will just jump right to the set of choices I want. Click .. HBO HD movies; click again ... Showtime HD movies, etc. That simple.

For extra credit, just put all the movies in one freakin' list, and let me choose.  I really don't care which channel is so graciously agreeing to take my money.

And speaking of TV how about ...

Baysian commercial blocking

The most effective email spam blockers work by learning to recognize certain types of content as spam.  Why can't we do that for TV commercials? I could click the CRAP button on the remote when a commercial starts, and the system would learn what signals are just noise, and would blank the screen and mute the sound. Then I wouldn't have to sit through the animated boogers and the animated road kill and the animated whatever else six times in every half hour.

Better software upgrading

I have two PCs and a MacBook Pro, and I'm convinced they all spend most of their time upgrading their own software. I think they've got a little keeping-up-with-the-Joneses thing going amongst themselves.  "Oh, have you seen my new Thunderbird?" How about if they only upgrade when I'm not using the computer? How about if they learn how to upgrade without having to restart the whole machine? Better yet, how about if software companies TEST their products before delivering them?

Smarter GPS

Do I even have to explain this?

What else do I want? Well, I'd like a share of anyone's implementation of any of these ideas. After all ...

Rating Technology

In the New York Times Gadgetwise blog, Roy Furchgott comments on the way Consumer Reports conducted ratings of smartphones. In particular, Furchgott says:

The point is not that Consumer Reports has done a bad job. The point is Consumer Reports has tackled an impossible job. Picking a phone is dependent on so many factors – which service provider you want, the quality of reception in your area, and what features you value. There is no way to create a rating system that has all of the answers.

The smart phone is such a versatile device that there's no way to create a single rating or score that will be true for all potential users. For example, Consumer Reports claims to have weighed voice quality more heavily than other attributes in their ratings. I use a smart phone almost exclusively for Internet access, email, etc. I occasionally make phone calls, but really, the only reason I got this instead of a separate dumb phone and PDA was to free up one pocket. (See my earlier post, "No Such Thing As Too Many Pockets").

So if rating smartphones has this challenge, isn't this true for other technology devices? Consumer reports has rated computers, digital cameras, TVs and home entertainment equipment. All of this stuff is becoming incredible complicated, versatile and ... interlinked. I want Internet access from my TV, so I can download Netflix movies and read my email in my living room. (Yup, moving the laptop is too much trouble.)

Obviously buzz (the current term for word of mouth) has a lot to do with which devices we choose. But is it possible, as it once was with toasters and washing machines, to come up with objective comparisons and ratings of the current gadgets?