I think that we’ve all become a bit blase about some quite remarkable technology that we now just take for granted. But once in a while, you see something that makes you go “Bloody hell! That’s amazing!”

I’ve just had my flabbers well and truly gasted with modern digital printing.

I’m designing some large point of sale units for a large retail chain. I spoke to the printers and told them the size and description of the display unit I wanted to produce. A metre-high 3D stand. Ten minutes later they emailed me over a cutter guide done in CAD. I set my artwork up and emailed a hi-res PDF over to them. 90 minutes later a courier delivered me a finished unit – printed to a really high quality on heavy duty board, cut and folded into the finished unit. 90 MINUTES!!! 😯

I signed it off and was told that 500 units would be printed, cut, and folded, ready to go in-store by the end of the day.

What a world we live in today

Examples of having your flabbers gasted please….

My phone tells me how long it will take me to get home based on traffic conditions – but also tells me how long it takes to get to the local pub….
That is awesome

Thats nowt , my phone tells me what time the bus is at the bus stop!
time for another half. 🙂

Out on the bike on Saturday and realized I’d forgotten to take the chicken out the freezer for dinner. Was all layered up with thick gloves and couldn’t be bothered taking them off, so just shouted ‘ok google’ at my phone and asked it to tell the missus to take it out. Not quite amazing, but made me giggle about living in the future – I’m impressed with how google handles voice recognition even with my Scots accent and tendency to mumble, usually manages to understand what I’m saying 1st go!

iPhone, it just works. 😀

I signed it off and was told that 500 units would be printed, cut, and folded, ready to go in-store by the end of the day.

Obviously no work on – they’ll be bust in 2 months! 😀

I’m still amazed I can buy 250 full colour matt laminated business cards for £12.50. We used to charge £3-£400 for something like that back in the day!

This morning.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-MlJI48XX4[/video]

Imagine having a conversation 20 years ago, and you said that you could get your phone to find just about any song you care to mention, and play it instantly and wirelessly through your stereo.

realtime google image translation

works pretty well, good enough to read menus in a foreign country anyway

Bought a wireless charging pad for my Samsung phone a while back, been using it a few weeks now but it’s still basically voodoo as far as I’m concerned,

Especially as it works with the case on so there’s no direct contact whatsoever between the phone and the pad.

Contactless payment always does it for me.

I’m like “Wooo! Magic!” every time.

I get pitying looks from the 12 year olds that staff the checkouts at Waitrose.

Oculus Rift Virtual Reality – a truly jaw dropping experience especially considering these are 1st gen devices.

I think it probably when someone plonked an iPhone 3GS in my hand. Up until then I had even steadfastly refused to carry a mobile phone. But here was something which did things I wanted it to – and the interface, that truly impressed me. Things have slowed down since.

When I was picking my son up from school at 3 a.m after he returned from a school trip to Old Trafford and the Man city v Feyenoord game.

I woke up at 2 a.m. checked my ipad to track his phone, saw that he was still an hour away on the M6, snoozed for twenty minutes, checked again and got dressed. I was able to track him all the way home and knew to the second when his bus would turn the corner into the school.

Obviously no work on – they’ll be bust in 2 months!

yeah that is a bit odd, unless your client is paying a massive premium to jump the queue! You don’t just have machines capable of that kind of output sitting around waiting for work to come in!

I’m impressed with how google handles voice recognition

+1

iPhone, it just works

Spent 10 minutes shouting at Siri teying to call my missus after it failed to connect to my cars bluetooth. OK Google much better.

In response to the OP, yesterday when i discovered we can record manufacturing data of highway network material, track its placement and then display in an ongoing map model likely deteriorarion and future targetted precention based on the standard it came out the factory, the pressure it was layed and rolled with the weight of equipement including driver and weather / traffic variability.

This morning.

@MachinePix?

Some of their stuff is mesmerising. 🙂

I signed it off and was told that 500 units would be printed, cut, and folded, ready to go in-store by the end of the day.

I’m surprised a printer has the capacity to turn around a job that quickly.

Anyway my new car parks and unparks itself.

1987. My father bought a one year-old Buick Somerset with a digital dashboard.

Yes, it’s true. A digital dashboard.

After that, I stopped caring.

Percyp – saw a tweet yesterday, bloke had his phone stolen in Manchester last week.

It’s now showing as being in the middle of a forest in Senegal.

Technology that let’s you track your stolen stuff around the world is the future.

Yesterday: I read a review of a documentary film in an old school paper magazine at lunchtime. I thought, I’ll watch that.

That evening, I streamed the film over wi-fi (which still does my head in!) to my iPad and casted it to my TV. (Saves a walk down to Blockbusters to find they’ve never heard of it!)

Real time translation devices. Given the inherent difficulty involved it’s staggering. I wonder if in ten years there will be any point in learning a foreign language if our technology will translate for us?

Oh, and I have a 32Gb IPhone that is slightly larger than a cassette and can hold a heck of a lot more songs than a C90 with far better sound quality and will skip instantly between tracks. I know that mp3 players have been around for almost two decades, but that still impresses me.

And big rockets. The world needs more big rockets (albeit the ones which push stuff into space, not the ones which make big explosions).

Obviously no work on – they’ll be bust in 2 months!

yeah that is a bit odd unless your client is paying a massive premium to jump the queue! You don’t just have machines capable of that kind of output sitting around waiting for the odd job to come in!

It was a big commercial printers and the print run was booked well in advance. But, as usual, people were still changing specs, sizes and artwork at the 11th hour. It goes with the territory. I was assured they’d turn it round that quick, but had met that assurance with a cynical “yeah, right….”

I’m now put in the uncomfortable position of having to believe what a printer tells me 😉

I don’t think the novelty of Shazam will ever wear off. Hearing a tune on the telly, Shazam it the instantly play it full wack out of Sonos via Spotify. Awesome.

I love augmented reality on phones, turning the camera to scan some foreign language text and seeing it translated, on the screen, in real time (real time for all practicable purposes). Or pointing my phone at hills and mountains in my surroundings and having their names tagged on the screen image.

And then some modern medical advancements are barely comprehensible.

stolen in Manchester last week.

It’s now showing as being in the middle of a forest in Senegal.
[/]

Manchester to Senegal in a week!! How long it still takes so long to get stuff delivered to your home then?

Manchester to Senegal in a week!! How long it still takes so long to get stuff delivered to your home then?

If I get something from the UK to Oz it gets there in a couple of days, then spends 4 days getting from the depot to Tassie

Self driving Volvo in Gothenburg 2 years ago. Utterly nuts.

Still get that feeling of wonder when I take a plane TBH

Drones. I’ve seen loads of footage from them, and played with a ton of cheapy crap ones but it still blows me away every time I take mine 100m up in the air and I can see what’s below it on my phone as if it’s on a tripod.

airpods.

and the new forum.

I think being surrounded by technology in work has made me pretty unamazable.

The last time I was truly amazed was the finger print reader on my phone a couple of years ago because:

1) We’d tried fingerprint readers in my old job and they were crap, so my expectations were low

2) I actually need a password on my phone to stop the kids nicking it and running off with it.

So when it work flawlessly I was ‘amazed and delighted’ of course human nature now means when I can’t get in because I’m wearing gloves or my hands are a tiny bit damp, I get annoyed.

Talking about augmented reality, this app is pretty amazing…

Sky Guide

Wave your phone around after darkt and it identifies all the stars, planets and constellations. Great for standing out in the back garden at night with the kids. The stuff you can do on phones now is bonkers

The Google Translate stuff is pretty mind bending.

I have to review patents as part of my job & a recent one was a pdf written in Japanese.

I downloaded the Japanese language pack onto my phone, pointed the camera at the computer monitor & within seconds, it gave me an English output that was entirely believable as being what that patent was about.

I do agree that we are massively blasé about modern technology and the things that it enables us to do.

I like looking at manufacturing videos on Youtube – just to see the wonder of how things are made; a simple thing like a spring being made in massive quantities again and again and again – it’s really quite mesmerising.
And that spring will go in a machine somewhere that no one will think about; it will just sit there doing it’s springy job time after time, until it breaks or the thing holding it in place breaks.
Someone somewhere will have designed the spring, someone else will have designed the machine that makes the spring, someone else will have designed the machines that makes the parts for the machine that makes the spring etc……

the bit that should amaze me is that I can work seamlessly between 4 or 5 devices, google now actually starts to organise my life better and

Not having to go to the video shop anymore to find out the film you wanted to see is out on loan.

I just made a call with my iPhone, damn that thing just works. 😀

When I went to see this guy

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_BDH2eQP4[/video]

Watching a band turn up and play a gig is just a bit crap in comparison.

the bit that should amaze me is that I can work seamlessly between 4 or 5 devices, google now actually starts to organise my life better and

…finishes your sentences for you?

Sky Q app ..amazing being able to record stuff on to the box from my phone ..or for that matter watch it on my phone when I’m miles away from home..

I just made a call with my iPhone, damn that thing just works.

Good to know that someone’s does. 😐