New Year’s parties have always been some of my favorite times. Usually, though, people tend to either walk away or avoid me when I start talking about technology. This year I’m going to give you some of my secret conversation starters which are sure to lighten the air at your New Year’s party.
Everyone likes talking about self driving cars, especially when they can’t afford one. Tesla updated software in certain models that utilized sensors to essentially make an autopilot car. According to one article, Tesla updated nearly 70,000 cars with this technology.
Tesla isn’t the only company working on this technology. Uber, the ride sharing company, is said to be testing autonomous cars in California. As I predicted a couple years ago, Toyota’s Prius is a short distance away from having its own autopilot button. Moreover, most major automakers are investing heavily in autopilot technology.
Exploding cell phones were huge news only a few months ago. Samsung had a problem with its latest smartphone line causing cell phones to explode. Samsung tried to patch the issue by limiting the charging capacity of the battery, but in the end finally recalled and discontinued the effected model.
Unfortunately the same lithium battery technology is used in the majority of inexpensive consumer products. Everything from drones to nicotine vaporizers use the same technology because it’s cheap and readily available. I suspect new battery technologies will start to be introduced in 2017.
Many of you may not have known, but the biggest single data breach of all time happened not too long ago affecting the privacy of 2.6 million people. As I understand, hackers meant to acquire data from cash registers at a regional hospital and instead looted health records. Medical records contain the most personal information of any database.
Approximately 99% of medical offices currently use electronic health record (EHR) software to manage patient information. With the current government push to make records accessible to patients as well as other medical professionals, I foresee the possibility of larger breaches inevitable. After all, if foreign entities can hack email servers, they can certainly gain access to hospital databases.
Chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Intel finally started investing in new technologies because of the stagnant PC and mobile markets. Sales for all three have been flattening out over the past few years with some products underperforming expectations. As a stopgap AMD and Nvidia are creating technologies for the casino markets and Intel for drone technology.
From what I understand, all three companies are focusing on entertainment to bring them into next year. Casinos have a hard time attracting people 45 and under so both Nvidia and AMD are developing new game technology. Intel, on the other hand, seems to be going for the younger crowd with hundreds of drones flying simultaneously over Disneyland.
No matter how you feel about the topics I’ve included, they sure beat talking politics. I should also point out that someone simply mentioning the word “tweet” should be a trigger for you to transition from social media technology to one of my topics. Believe me, once I start talking to about EHR software or batteries it doesn’t take too long for people to walk away.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)