Go on. You can finish this one of yourself

This is probably the worst thing to say to a woman in bed. I've only said it once.
Oh god she deserved it though. I remember just getting so bored of her  poor sexual skills. I'm not great in bed myself. Just not enough practice. But I make an effort and I always want a woman to climax. She on the other hand was...well....lazy. Never made the effort. I think she thought sex was just fucking or something. Her idea of foreplay was what a man did.

I admit a degree of anger but more frustration. I suppose it's just a lack of my communication skills.

But I wonder what she told other people? I wonder if she told any of her female friends about what I'd said. I never told her she was crap in bed so she'd have thought "Go on. Finish yourself of" was said out of male
 laziness or something.

There's a time when a girl I loved who was a friend of hers looked at me awry when I made a joke along the lines of "Go on. You can finish this one off yourself" referring to a joke I couldn't be bothered finishing. Now she may have looked at me funny because she was amused by an off the cuff comment that made innuendo out of a normal phrase that could be mentioned in the office, or perhaps my ex-loved one had told this person what I'd said.

There's this thing called Theory of the Mind. It's interpretation of people's intentions often based on little gestures. Apparently schizophrenics have poor ToM. I stay away from attempting to interpret these little tells because they're not explicit. I'd like to ask the person I joked with but whose reaction to the joke I couldn't interpret but I don't trust her and she doesn't value me.

It's a shame because I'd like to know. Really just for a blog piece about a "How good are you in bed?" mobile phone application of the future. It's relevant because gossip becomes formalised using this sort
 of application. Imagine people could rate their partners and other people could access these. After all, we can rate companies and products. Why not public ratings of people once the technology matures?

Augmented Reality - an overview at the start of 2010

Augmented Reality is the latest revolution in the tech age of revolution after revolution, many of which start with dreams of a world dominated by whatever the visionaries see as the future. Unlike other bleeding edge ideas from the high tech world AR is tempered with a degree of realism.

AR is the blending of computer information with our sense. Its not quite cybernetics. In practice its applications on smartphones that use the video camera and overlay electronic information. There are also so called audio AR browsers that allow sound input. The technology is hindered because high end smartphones are still few and far between and none have the hardware to really make AR a reality. The precision of the current sensors onboard iPhones and Android devices isn't good enough for applications that are beyond gimmicks and proof of concept.

New devices and cheaper smartphones capable of running advanced AR apps will make the AR future happen quicker though perhaps it won't be quite how the visionaries saw it. I don't mean to criticise them: I like to think I'm one myself in a different field. I think visionaries fit into the picture by dreaming their dreams and publishing them, whereas ordinary folk get on with enjoying the fruits of those dreams.

Exciting developments from students at MIT and their Six Sense project are showing what creative minds can do with the limitations of current technology to produce a working prototype of a device that has a camera, projector and wireless interface to connect to a smartphone all in a small and portable though aesthetically impractical package. VR and AR-dedicated headset devices are becoming products that the public may consider buying though mass market products are still a way off in the future.

AR success as a revolution and the new Web 3.0 is dependent on a predictable and smooth advance of current technology but there's a high dependence on technology that's not ready for the real world and that means AR will advance at the rate of its least advanced technology necessary for (low unit cost) mass manufacture.

This is true for many technological advances. The development of high capacity disc systems like Blu Ray was limited by semiconductor material science. The major enabling breakthrough came from developing semiconductors robust enough to create high frequency (therefore high energy) light without destabilising the atomic structure. Without this modern high definition drives would have needed the laser replaced every six months which would have been commerically impractical.

Like the high def discs, the current tranche of AR devices may be obviated by another technology. As ADSL2 brings high speed broadband to the masses and the increasing success of online media the need for high capacity media systems has diminished. High definition audio is listed as one of the fails of the decade. Blu Ray won the format wars but takeup is still slow and it may never see the return on investment expected.

The AR industry seems somewhat aware of this potential and many companies are patenting ideas for the future. Its likely there's been an increase in patent applications for AR devices in the last few months of 2009 and a significant increase throughout 2010. This trend is another danger to the future of AR as it is for any technological advance but seems to be an accepted necessity of the information revolution, much to my personal dislike.

AR will happen. Its already happening in America and I expect the Far East to be leading the trend. Marketing and gaming have become to two growth areas in 2009 and there's high expectations for this to continue in 2010, even in the UK where AR has made little impact.