Just imagine driving a Back to the Future-like flying hover car and having the directions of your mother-in-law’s famous ham dinner destination streamed via Google Maps directly to your glasses.

This is not Star Trek: the Next Generation; Google is really testing Project Glass all over the west coast of the US.

Rumors began to spread last December that Google was working on high-tech glasses with a wearable head-up display that could tap into cloud-based location services and detail users’ surroundings.

The details are still up for speculation, but the lightweight glasses seem to place a mini-computer onto the frame’s right side of the coolest hipster glasses imaginable.

Tech mogul Robert Scoble was at the charity event in San Francisco tweeting away after he got close to Mr. Brin.

“The Google Glasses are real! Here is a set on @sergeybrinn cofounder of Googl @ Palace Hotel, San Francisco,” said Scoble. He put the picture in the Twitter post, and continued to say, “They look very light weight. Not much different than a regular set of glasses.”

Brin of course must have been laughing to himself, because he could probably have taken the picture and tweeted using his glasses, instead of a smart phone.

Curvilinear touchscreen glass has been in the news lately, as it could revolutionize tablets and anything where a touchscreen could be useful, and these glasses show the evolution of a computer screen, if nothing else.

Forget physical buttons on the coffeemaker – buttons can break – let’s just smarten the area with glass and touch away! Or better yet, let’s blink an eye into our augmented-reality glasses and let them command the bean to brew!

In a steadily growing virtual world, the Cloud – whether it be Amazon’s or Apple’s or anyone else’s – has revolutionized the use of computer data storage.

Using an innovative new “mCloud Data Center Unit (DCU),” the company has kept its pricing in line with the cost of Amazon or Rackspace by combining compute, networking and storage tech — but with 10-times the input/output operations per second (IOPs) performance, thanks to the SSDs,” Morphlabs VP Yoram Heller told Cloudline.

There are two priorities to be met when any business mogul, writer, student, or Internet entrepreneur keeps their precious files on a Cloud, instead of on their MacBook Air: the system that harbors the data ships must be reliable, so there is no worry over losing the next chapter in that bestselling novel; and users who go to the Cloud to upload, see, read, and rewrite their works must be able to access everything on their personal Cloud quickly, as delay eliminates the usefulness of the virtual data-bin.

Morphlabs physical memory banks – that are used as the mCloud’s private service makes the security, reliability, and sheer speed of their Cloud compete with public companies, like Amazon, for consumers of all types, from business to amateur web surfers – are entirely made of SSDs.

Hard drives are being revolutionized by SSDs, as their prices come down and their uses go up. Without the moving parts to break, the gargantuan chip storage drive of the SSD moves data faster, like lightning, and now the amount of memory on these SSDs are reaching the Terabytes (TB) that we all have come to rely on to back up our own home computers.

In the US, Alchemy Communications is currently using the Morplabs’s innovative new mCloud at their own Los Angeles-based headquarters where they are a provider of private cloud services.

Morphlabs has just raised the bar, as private Clouds loom in the virtual sky overhead.

Avengers Assemble!

There are certainly myriad comic book connoisseurs that have already preordered the first true High Definition retina-like screen wielding iPad from Apple, and now they will have all of the ammunition to soak up the gorgeous clarity and vivid coloring of the tablet with any of the Marvel super hero comics.

Are we in the middle of an Iron Man-like technologically innovative Tony Stark revolution?

Peter Phillips, SVP & GM, Marvel Digital Media says, “At Marvel, we’re always looking for ways to bring the worlds of print and digital media together to deliver the best comics experience for our fans. With this next step, fans will soon be able to buy their comics from their favorite retailers but also enjoy them on their mobile devices and tablets, all at no extra charge. Welcome to the Revolution.”

With the advocacy of e-readers in so many devices, from the Nook tablet, the iPhone, and even the iPod Touch, giving free access to digital versions of the products that consumers have already bought hard copies to is something that mirrors what many movie studios are doing with their Blu-ray and DVDs that include their digital counterparts.

It is not a new practice, but is certainly one that comic fans will find appealing. Marvel is championing the if it’s free, it’s for me campaign, and why not? It will only bolster sales of paper books that have collect-ability and digital copies.

What books are we talking about?

Well Marvel has an answer for that too, in all of the most-talked-about comics in the industry—including AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, THE MIGHTY THOR, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN and more—[and they] will come packed with a code to ensure fans have the most critically acclaimed stories with them anytime, anywhere.

It is time to go to the comic shop for my Amazing Spider-man!

One of the most fearsome and suspenseful characters in Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 is the fireman’s ultimate weapon: their artificially intelligent robotic dog. This creature is made to run down any transgressors trying to escape from a book hoarding crime scene in a future where books are outlawed and ruthlessly burned by the fire department.

That robot is armed with poisoned needles, but is animal-like in all ways as it runs deftly and extremely fast on all fours and can leap and pounce on people trying to escape its clutches. Boston Dynamic’s Cheetah bot might be the result of reading these passages, though they are not trying to hunt people…YET!

The goal is to improve on the sluggish top speed of today’s free-standing robots, so that rocky or uneven planes that restrict wheeled bots from traversing across are no longer a problem. Currently the freestanding robots can go from about five to ten miles-per-hour maximum with excellent balance but slow speed . . . that is until the Cheetah is unleashed.

Right now, the researchers, led by Dr. Alfred Rizzibeast, have a work in progress, though they have achieved a remarkably articulated spinal section of a back that makes the Cheetah adept for walking or running on rough terrain. On a treadmill it is running at eighteen miles-per-hour, but the engineers are having trouble fitting a powerful enough battery in the small space available to have it running free just yet.

The researchers estimate they will have the Cheetah free and on its own soaring near top human speeds by the end of the year. And Boston Dynamic hopes to create an ostrich that can function similarly and possibly break the thirty mph mark in the next couple of decades. The future is here!

Imagine the board room meeting droning on for hours on end, and the very second a couple of the corporate clowns bend their heads down to joke with one another at a whisper (so that they can placate themselves and not lose their sanity in such a dry environment) the director points a radar gun-like device at them and – BAM – silences them instantly.

The device created by Kazutaka Kurihara, from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba, and Koji Tsukada, at Ochanomizu University is not science fiction. On the other hand, it is simple, easy to engineer, and fully functional. It can stop people from talking in mid-sentence.

Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second. There must be some inner sentience within the brain that is self-conscious and cannot abide hearing itself played back in near tandem.

The effect is not physically harmful in any way (or so they say), and as soon as the SpeechJammer is turned off everyone is free to banter on again.

In a report posted at the Cornell University Library web site, Kurihara and Tsukada state that “[they] utilize this phenomenon and [have] implemented two prototype versions [of the guns] by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed. We discuss practical application scenarios of the system, such as facilitating and controlling discussions.”

It will be interesting to learn just whose discussions are controlled in the future.

The cameras are on, the eyes in the painting move to follow us as we traipse about the bedroom, and even our search – for which movie won’t tank on Rotten Tomatoes – is being recorded.

Then it is being scrutinized and put into information banks by browsers, search engines, social media sites, and anyone else that has advertising ads online.

Does this sound like science fiction, or a 1984 time descended upon us upon us in the twenty-first century?

This is the state of many countries around the world, including the US, where there are no laws protecting Internet users from surrendering personal information.

Tracking companies thrive on policies, like the new Google privacy policy that kicks in by March 2012, that allow all information about an Internet user, including personal information, like when you visit the bank’s site to check a shrinking balance, to be meticulously collected and sent out to advertisers.

Ever notice how the ads showing up on your Facebook page are all things that you use or at least look up online?

It took Do Not Track Plus (DNT+) to tear down the personalized billboards on my computer screen and make my all too frequent bouncing back and forth from every social media site imaginable smoother, quicker, and much more pleasant.

The social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, browsers, and search engines all note each keystroke that users make, and there are not many laws or protection from this kind of heinous act (which is pretty frightening, folks).

Do Not Track Plus (DNT+) is the solution for any country’s lack of Internet law (and it is the wild wild west out here in the US for now).

DNT+ is a free add-on product from Abine, and is a highly reputable and functional service that has been reviewed by CNet and ZDNet and that, by default, blocks all tracking!  Customize the setting s if you want to, but I like seeing the number of all my blocked trackers increasing each day.

This miracle helps you restore your online privacy and regain control over who sees what you are doing online, stop annoying pop up ads and other targeted advertising, and load certain websites up to 4 times faster.

DNT+ is available for all of the big web browsers, but not for mobile devices . . . yet. Abine promises to keep DNT+ free forever too, by offering premium programs too, such as DeleteMe service that removes our customers’ personal information from public websites, which they hope 1-2 percent of their DNT+ users will purchase at some point.

Once the small download is done and this bad boy is installed on your toolbar, you can watch as sites are blocked from tracking you at each web site and see which ones are grasping at your coattails for your info.

Do Not Track Plus is an amazing program that I can personally attest to making my browsing experience much faster. Enjoy!

Welcome warmly, or coolly depending on the weather, the Nest Lab’s newest creation:  the Nest!

The new company from Tony Fadell, the designer for eighteen iPods at Apple, launches the sexy wall item, the Nest Learning Thermostat, in November for $249.

The Nest, for all intensive purposes, thinks about how the user likes their temperature. All that is required is for the energy-minded to continue to turn the thermostat up and down according to when they leave the home, or go to sleep, or the seething summer heat requires A/C, or the frigid pre-November snow asks for more warmth ASAP.

As the consumer manually sets the Nest thermostat, like they normally do (we are not talking about the complicated and convoluted programming that nobody spends the time doing), the Nest remembers, reasons and then begins to program the thermostat’s temperature for you.

It learns.

In fact, Fadell believes the Nest learns so thoroughly that he says users will save up to 30% off of their utility bills when Nesting.

And let us not forget the minimalistic and gorgeous body of the Nest. Fadell, the iPod designer, knows how to carve out a sexy piece of tech, and the Nest is a prime example. The round face is black bordered and inside is either digitally blue or orange, depending on a rising or lowering of the temperature.

How hard is it to operate? Well, just twist the Nest left or right to plus or minus degrees, like you would any other traditional thermostat.

The Nest is money saving sexiness!

September 1st was the day.

Facebook Messenger has long been a trick to the trade of up keeping various friendships, regardless of busy schedules, contrasting time zones, and imposing work queues. The free “Facebook Messenger” App mobilizes the instant messenger everyone is using incessantly!

There is even a way to use the App to message people who do not yet have Messenger via text too.

Though the App has been around for a few months now, its newest version is causing quite a stir, as the overtly necessary “copy and paste” function is now included, and there are added abilities to link to addresses and numbers easily.

Where is everyone? The App tells all.

Shared location from Facebook lets you see where everyone is dwelling, or moving to, or stopping to use the restroom (yuck, I know) so that group trips become easier to congeal (though the personal tracking creeps me out, personally; Big Brother, anyone?).

In short, the “Facebook Messenger” application is intuitive and runs smoothly to not only provide for a near infinite number of running conversations with anyone and everyone on Facebook (from anywhere, folks!), but there are a number of other useful features as well.

Putting a working mobile App into play allows for the use of smartphones, iPhones, and their touchscreens to easily transmit embarrassing pictures, videos, and get alerted by the phone’s notifications of each equally embarrassing response.

The “Facebook Messenger” App is also the choice messenger by the Dark Knight’s arch nemesis, the Riddler!

Enjoy!

The Roku 2 XS is the newest TV streaming component to hit the shelves this month, and Roku, the original device company for Netflix, has spared no expense.

When it comes to TVs and you–the consumer’s–system, folks, small and thin is sexy.

Roku has beautifully crafted their newest streaming device to rival the Apple TV, but at a cost of less than ninety-nine dollars. And it is smooth, silky black, and shaped to be roughly the thickness and overall size of a hockey puck.

That’s right, a hockey puck!

But do not let the size fool you, the Roku 2 XS is packed to the gills with all of the streaming capable goodness that one could imagine. The XS unit contains an HDMI, A/V Out, Ethernet, micro-SD (for expanding memory for future games that could come available), and a USB for its connections.

CNET has declared the XS the best streaming box on the market for less than a hundred bucks. And it comes with dozens of video and audio channels that include Amazon Instant Video, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Crackle (though this does not stream in HD yet), sports channels (including MLB, NBA, and the NHL), and of course, Netflix.

The Netflix interface on the XS is superior to all other models (even the great Sony), as the menus are HUGE and easy to maneuver. The XS box has specialized in being intuitive to consumers for years now, and they have perfected a Mac-like interface for half the Mac-price.

Any TV can connect to the Roku 2 XS, and it is wireless as well, if there are no wires to be found for the Internet.

And it comes with a blue-tooth Wii-like remote that plays the “Angry Birds” game that comes with the XS for free! Simply pull back on the gorgeous remote to ease back the birds’ sling and go to town on the Angry Birds’ pigs.

The third installment in Future Games of London’s hit “Hungry Shark” series offers up a fun way to get out any frustration on the iPhone or Droid. Simply fire up the free “Hungry Shark Part Three” App, and let the tilt-a-phone touchscreen controls guide a great white to chomping onto anything that could resemble food from a shark’s point of view (and this includes people, folks).

The intuitive game controls allow phone tilting to move the vicious-looking shark about in the water, as it scours the floor for scampering crabmeat, or the surface for bikini-clad appetizers. The gameplay takes a little getting used to, and care is needed because the great white can be beached, which will slow down the toothy predator and hurt its health.

The “Hungry Shark Part Three” App’s HD graphics are beautiful. The animated people that haphazardly run away, the vitreous water backgrounds, and the baby white shark that grows into a gargantuan great white, after consuming a steady diet of swimmers and sea creatures, are all impressive to the eye.

The sound effects are excellent and add realism to the mayhem, as the swimmers scream that there is a shark and run away with audible splash sounds. The music emanates the suspenseful creepiness of Jaws.

This installment of the “Hungry Sharks” App features many challenges for the ferocious eater. There is combo eating, for more points, enemy sharks (that will make you swim with the fishes when you starve to death), numerous levels of exciting play, a blood bath, and even dangerous oil slicks to dodge.

Have fun feeding!