[Closed] When was the last time technology truly amazed you?

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Part 1: I'm always amazed at the quality of Open Source technology.
I remember when it used to be a mess. Now it's better than proprietary in many cases. Mainly due to better collaboration tools.

Case in point. I'm building a CNC router (computer-controlled wood cutting).
I can choose from 3 different amazing open source tools that will control the machine perfectly. All free, well documented, well supported and industry tested.
2 of them can run on <£10 Arduino boards.

Part 2: YouTube. If I want to know anything at all, I can find a helpful person on YouTube to talk me through it. Build a CNC - no problem. Build a boat - no problem. Jet bike - no problem.

We have a gas chromatography machine with attached "twister" technology; simply put it exploits the ability of certain polymers to grab certain aroma molecules out of a product. The molecules are then washed off the polymer and collected in a chamber then sent to the GC column for chromatography and then subject to mass spectroscopy to confirm the identification. Amazing stuff happening in a ropey area of Manchester; it always impresses the hell out of me. I love showing visitors around our place; when they reach our £4m robotic factory their eyes go all goggly.

Presumably, it wasn't stolen by MyHermes.

No but it was delivered by them, supposed to be to edinburgh though 🙂

Saw a 3D printer producing toys at a craft fair recently. I know they've been around a while, but it was the first time I've seen one in the flesh. The potential is incredible.

Also, being taken for a spin in my mate's Tesla Model S. I know it's essentially just a car, but the way it operates just feels revolutionary compared with standard cars.

This week I had the opposite of the thread though. I played with a friend's iPhone X and was a bit underwhelmed. Given that it costs so much more than the competition I couldn't see what it did that was better and justified the difference in price.

[i]feel like Buck Rogers when I use my phone to pay for things. [/i]

I remember the TV series majored on him buying stuff using novel technology.

Teacher in the year above me just had all her class with VR headsets on. She was wearing a special t-shirt and when they looked at different bits of her, it showed the internal organs working.

Not amazed, but was quite impressed with the London underground recognising your bank card - not seen that before on mass transit.
Generally use the hire bikes when down for a meeting, so don't think I've been on the tube for a couple of years. Was with a couple of others earlier this week and used it for the first time.

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[i]She was wearing a special t-shirt and when they looked at different bits of her, it showed the internal organs working.[/i]

#strangest

When I discovered teamviewer the other week.

I can basically control the 4 computers I have access to from anywhere now, ie can control any of the computers from any computer or even from my phone.

Couple of weeks ago.

Sat on the couch wondering what to have for dinner. Browsed some recipes on my phone and found one I fancied and had the ingredients for. Tapped a little icon to say "send this recipe to my google home", then walked into the kitchen and announced "ok google, lets start cooking" It then read the recipe back to me step by step.

Awesome.

I work in that London, currently I can see[url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scalpel ] The Scalpel[/url] going up outside my window.

I am constantly amazed at the technology that goes into building such strange shapes.

Every time I enjoy a hot cup of tea around 2.30pm that I made around 6am.

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Well I take an interest in tech, so I know what things are potentially possible - then I become impressed when after many years of development they finally are widely available and work well.

Had the satnav on my phone in the car yesterday going to Ikea then Hobbycraft, it was about 5pm. Then I realised I might be doing it the wrong way round:

"Ok Google, what time does Ikea close?"
"Ikea Cardiff closes at 9pm"
"Ok Google, what time does Hobbycraft close?"
"Hobbycraft Cardiff closes at 6pm"
"Ok Google, take me to Hobbycraft Cardiff"
"Okay, navigating to Hobbycraft Cardiff"

All whilst driving along and not even taking my eyes off the road. Then I asked her to shuffle my music on Amazon music, and it did.

Although, asking her to play UK Radio X on TuneIn is ridiculous. She says 'Ok, asking to play music' and then plays a Lebanese station. Every time.

The Original Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979.

I never got to own one because I could not afford it, instead I was given one cheapo Aiwa version several years later. I seldom used it so gave it away later on ... 🙂

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Site engineering equipment. Been around for an age but the handsets are running Windows 10, lightening quick, tell where am I in a heartbeat, setting holding down bolts out, level etc etc all to within 1mm with just 1 man required. Me taking that on board and learning how to use one in a week saved on a site engineer at 2.5k a week, which has all just contributed to my christmas bonus.

Earlier this week was the last time. not exactly amazed, but utterly impressed it works.

Via college, my 17 year old daughter with ASD now has an app called 'Brain in Hand'. We'd heard about it through her previous school so were quite excited to actually gat funds to get it for her.

Essentially it's a 'how do you feel today' app, with some scenarios in there, like 'my bus is late' and potential solutions. all of which are backed by a traffic light system. This is great as it means she can self manage, not have to text us ever time or rely in college services and gives her a better sense of independence (the important bit).

It also asks you to check in how you're feeling (green, amber or red) every hour or so.

What we didn't realise is that the traffic light system is backed up by on call councilling service. So, when things were a bit stressful earlier in the week, she was feeling amber. after three ambers she immediately gets a text, asking if everything is ok. She texts back thinking it's an automated reply and gets a human response and a few tips on ow to manage and guide her to feeling better.

Yesterday was a rubbish day, she pressed red and got a text asking if they could call her and she could speak. she couldn't, but they talked her through how she was feeling via text and get her to a place where she could manage to get on the bus home, and checked in with her that she'd made it.

There are two things that are just damn awesome about this, the first is the service itself, the second is that my daughter has adoped it very naturally.

very very cool.

Just got some directional HDMI cables, very impressive.

Another vote for drones (or more correctly, quad-rotor). I know about GPS, but to see is float stationary in a 10m/s wind is pretty impressive.
(I know it was a 10m/s wind because that's how fast it started to move when I turned the GPS bit off, displayed in real time on a tablet 100m away.)

Although, asking her to play UK Radio X on TuneIn is ridiculous. She says 'Ok, asking to play music' and then plays a Lebanese station. Every time.

You have to ask Alexa for "Radio X UK". Might be the same for google...

Not sure about being amazed I was certainly shocked when Google sent me a monthly timeline with everywhere I'd been the previous month, the route I'd taken, mode of transport, times and dates and then linked in photographs I had taken.

Not impressed by technology at all, my usual response seems to be, is that all it is? Progress and development is way too slow and ponderous! I have a 10 year old laptop that isn’t completely out performed by new ones, imagine comparing that to one from 1994 with a 2004 model!?

My Echo Dot after I bought a Bluetooth receiver to plug into my old sound system. Now I just tell Alexa to reconnect and what to play, no need to pick up my phone. She also turns the light on too.

The new oscilloscope at work decodes serial data for me - no more manually decoding messages 1 bit at a time 🙂

Google maps travel planning is pretty cool too - tell it where/when you want to go, and it'll not only give you directions by car, but can now link up public transport routes and provides links to the service providers for booking tickets

last time I was amazed - probably playing street fighter on the SNES

saved on a site engineer at 2.5k a week, which has all just contributed to my christmas bonus.

2.5k a week???? Time I dusted my level book off! 😯

I saw a bloke stood outside a reversing car on Tuesday, he was staring at his phone. Didn't seem that monumental until the car locked and the bloke walked off... He'd been reverse parking his Tesla using a phone app. I had to do some thinking before i got my head around that, and it still amazes me now

Lovewookie, that app sounds amazing! I worked in Autism services for a long time and would've loved to have had something like that to support people!

Pretty much everyday I am shocked by how good software is at making things easier.
I still am amazed that I can take RAW files on my camera, tweak them on my iPad and send them to the office via an EE mobile hotspot.

It kinda amazes me every time I build a 3D model. Rendering is pretty impressive too.

Quadcopters. Can fly half a mile away, with a live stream from the camera to my phone. Then press a button for return to home, and it flies back again, and lands on the exact spot where it started from.

MicroSD cards. Smaller than my fingernail, and can store about 50000 songs or photos etc. My first digital camera only had a 2MB memory card...

Not impressed by technology at all, my usual response seems to be, is that all it is? Progress and development is way too slow and ponderous! I have a 10 year old laptop that isn’t completely out performed by new ones, imagine comparing that to one from 1994 with a 2004 model!?

Why would you expect massive developments in laptops? I rarely use mine nowadays, entirely as a result of other developments in phones / tablets etc. With development of cloud technology the laptop is increasingly just a screen and keyboard

Yup Chromebook FTW.

Lovewookie, that app sounds amazing! I worked in Autism services for a long time and would've loved to have had something like that to support people

It really is. If I'd have had that when I was younger I'd have probably developed better coping mechanisms than I do now!

It's such a relief to myself and Mrs Wookie having something that works and allows us to relax a bit (just a bit mind..)

I do get a little worried by tech sometimes, i changed my surname when i was 20 back to my mum's maiden name as i hadn't seen my dad for years and was not close to his side of the family at all, so it seemed right thing to do. I am now 42, so that was 22 years ago.

Was on Facebook recently and it came up with one of those adverts for a Sweatshirt with "Greenhill Clan" or similar on it, this was my surname 22 years ago before the internet actually worked and Facebook was a dream, still don't know how it knew that as i haven't used that name on any form or document for all that time

My son is Type 1 diabetic and developed it at 14. We had a year on at least 4 x daily injections and numerous finger pricks.

After a year he moved to an insulin pump, a tiny device that delivers insulin, and is controlled via a Bluetooth blood testing meter - 12 injections over 3 days down to 1 cannula change.

Move on another year and a device called an Abbott Libre hits the market - it's a small sensor (£2 size) that you put on your arm. You can scan the sensor with NFC on your phone, and it tells you your blood sugars as it records them every 5 minutes. On top of this, it sends data to my phone, so I can see his bloods anywhere in the world. It also sends his readings to the hospital's database - this is all automatic. This costs us 100 per month for 2 sensors which last two weeks.

Recently he's been getting lazy either blood testing or scanning, so we've ordered another device which sits on top of the libre and sends data straight to his phone and will alarm if he is going too high or low - this is without scanning. The app will also send all the data to a secure web page that we can see anywhere in the world.

Blooming amazing. Was a great relief when he was using it whilst skiing with school in Austria last year, and we could see he was checking his bloods.

This has all moved on in just 2 years, from stabbing himself loads, to hugely reducing this and being able to keep tabs on his blood sugars in real time.

It's still shit being a Type 1 though. Anything to make life easier.

Watching a SaceX rocket reenter the atmosphere and land vertically. Truly awesome.

In the world of wooden flooring, I don’t often get to experience fabulous technology. I think the last one was getting a jigsaw with an LED! 😆

Occasionally though, something comes along. I use an app called Locometric RoomScan to measure rooms. In their last update, they added Augmented Reality scanning. So now I can do this. Only started practising with it today but took all of two minutes to do this:

Apologies for crap video (and it only works in portrait) but it’s a really neat little app. Does a surprisingly accurate scan of the floor plan of a room which is perfect for me as I only ever need to know areas and perimeter lengths for skirting. Really like the way you can add the doorway (at the end). And if you can’t see the corners, it also does a scan by tapping all walls.

Like that app deadly, would be very useful when we do site visits.

After 2 weeks with an internet speed of 220 kbs I am hoping the Openreach engineer coming tomorrow might be able to get us back to our more normal superfast! 1.5 mbs. But then snow is forecast so I guess he won't even bother trying to come out. Still, the beauty of the modern world is that I can use 4G on my phone instead. Errr. NO. I have to go 6 miles to send a text and another 5 miles again to get a 4G signal. Sometimes I think the modern world has passed us by. Especially when I hear of all the tech that you lot are enjoying 🙁

Scud this article echoes your experience. [url= https://gizmodo.com/facebook-figured-out-my-family-secrets-and-it-wont-tel-1797696163 ]https://gizmodo.com/facebook-figured-out-my-family-secrets-and-it-wont-tel-1797696163[/url]

It's the little things. Rerouted my phone cable to avoid a horrible run of internal cable to the master socket. When you think I get 80mbps broadband and voice calls down two scrawny wires it's a bit mad.

Same as above in that it’s the more simple things that amaze me......sat nav and slow cookers. I mean slow cookers are amazing turn it on in the morning and go to work. When you get home perfectly cooked and ready to eat as soon as you walk in the door.

@welshfarmer my dad was heading back to rural Northumberland waiting for the open reach guy, looks like they are getting fibre to the house.
Some of the steps forward in agriculture are amazing, self levelling sprayers, GPS guided tractors and seed drills, the sheep and cattle pens that allow one man to do what took 3 with all the weights uploaded from the machine.

CraigW - Member

Quadcopters.

Matey's videos on here made me think; flying video camera, couple of hundred quid; awesome!