Futurelawyer

The Best Smartwatch Ever Is $50 Off For Cyber Monday.

The Best Smartwatch Is $50 Off Today. If you have been waiting to buy a Smartwatch, this is the one, and today is the day. $50 off of the Galaxy Watch 4 brings you the perfect wrist computer, with a Tizen front end over a Wear OS underpinning. I don't wear my older Smartwatches anymore, and, while I paid full retail, and a premium for  the LTE version, you can get a Watch 4 Classic for as low as $250 today. This watch is the culmination of my years long love affair with wrist computers. Put one on your wrist, and you won't ever take it off; except to charge it at night. 

Echo Frames For Under $200? Yes, Please.

Echo Frames. It looks like I ordered my Echo Tenor Frames a week too early. For Black Friday, (now a week instead of a day), you can get a pair of Tenor glasses (shown in the image below) for $164.99, a hundred dollars off. Adding around $175 for prescription lenses, this is a real bargain. The Bose sound is spectacular, and the Series 2 software is better than ever. I can't wait to get mine in a week or so. I wish I had these in the old days, when Thanksgiving was a room full of people I didn't really want to interact with. I could have been listening to my tunes while they droned away. Oh well. Better late than never.

Chess Club - The Game Of Kings In Virtual Space.

Chess For Oculus Quest 2. The very first video game I ever purchased, and for which I drove 50 miles to a store in Tampa, was an early Chess game cassette for the Atari 2600 game machine in the Eighties. I have played Chess all of my life, an addiction begun by my grandfather, and was really interested in how a computer game would allow me to play an imaginary person. I was influenced early on by the Chess playing automatons in literature, and Paul Morphy in particular. My addiction has come full circle now, with the introduction of Chess Club for the Oculus Quest 2, a $15 virtual reality simulation, in which you can reach out and grab the pieces and place them on the board, against a computer opponent, with your choice of classical music in the background. I don't have the time to use my VR glasses a lot; but, I suspect that Chess Club will become one of my favorite pastimes. It is easy to get lost in a game of chess, and the immersive nature of VR will enhance the experience. If you are a chess fanatic, this one game is worth spending $400 on a Quest 2. Movies on a big screen are another. Reality takes a back seat when you put this marvelous technology on your head.

FutureLawyer Grasps The Tenor Of The Smart Glasses Future.

Bose Tenor Eyeglasses. In a little more than a week, the FutureLawyer will be sporting new smartglasses, with a more streamlined profile. The Wayfarer style Bose glasses I have been wearing for a year and a half tend to take over the face, and don't look like business ready glasses. The new Tenor glasses are narrower across the face, and look more like normal sunglasses. Underneath the hood, the Bose experience is still all about quality sound, and I haven't had bluetooth earplugs in my ears for 2 years. Listen, you can hear my music with me. Not.

Robots R Us.

The New I Robot. Michael Wade has an interesting take on the advance of robot technology. It ties in to my post about the new virtual reality technology that involves the use of wearable gloves and headgear to imitate the real world. In fact, we need not fear the coming age of super robots that will be stronger, faster and smarter than we are. We need to fear the humans who control them, and the humans who, with enhanced tech, become them. Enhanced humans are going to be dangerous. We will first use them in wars. After that, bad people will use them to do bad things to innocents. Sometime, I am glad that I am old.

This Is Your Hand On A VR Platform.

Meta Facebook Reality Labs. The lab formerly known as Facebook has created haptic gloves that allow the sense of touch in virtual reality. I am of two minds on this. First, I love advancing tech to new heights, and I love playing with gadgets. Second, however, I am very wary of the progression of tech turning humans into blobs of flesh and bone sitting in chairs removing the senses into buttons, wires, and headgear. I see a dystopian society that exists only in virtual reality, while humans are tethered to body suits that mimic reality. This stuff should be used carefully, and only for entertainment or the enhancement of medicine or the support of the disabled. I fear a mass of humanity living in a virtual world controlled by a large corporation, and in which the messaging is controlled by a small group of people. Just another reason why we need to regulate big tech. 

Upgrading to Generation 2 Bose Smartglasses.

Bose Tenor Smartglasses. While I still wear my Bose Alto Wayfarer style smartglasses every day, I am ordering a pair of Tenor glasses. They have 2d generation Bose tech, and provide more wireless functionality as well as splash water resistance. For less than a pair of designer glasses at the local optician, (around $400), I will get the lighter, more classic rectangular style Tenor glasses, and still have the far superior Bose sound. Now, I will have options; but, for daily use, I will likely wear the Tenors every day. Are you still putting earbuds inside your ear canal? Isn't that annoying?

Galaxy Watch 4 Is The Maturation Of Wrist Computing.

Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 Gets $60 Dicount. When I first wrote the piece about the shrinking of modern tech, I used a Smartphone as an example of the obsolescence of boom boxes, video cameras, radios, and other bulky tech from the middle and late twentieth century. But, now, just a few years later, all of that tech doesn't just fit in a pocket. It is worn on the wrist. Now that Samsung and Google have combined the Tizen OS and the Wear OS into the Galaxy Watch 4, it is clear that the Smartwatch (or wrist computer) is here to stay. And, the price of admission is under $200. If you want the version that is also its own phone, you will pay not much more. The Watch 4 looks like a real watch, and has heft of a real watch, unlike the flat, rectangular Apple watch. I like ceramic watch bands; but, you can dress it anyway you like. The sensor technology has come so far that it is a medical clinic on your wrist. What's on your wrist?

FutureLawyer Wants To Keep His Pixel 3.

It's RIP For The Google Pixel 3. I bought the Pixel 3 at the local TMobile store two years ago because it was deeply discounted in a promotion. I liked that it was Google pure, and had monthly updates. I was always getting the current state of the art phone software. It was always a third phone in the bag, however, and I am totally immersed in the Samsung universe. But, recently, as I have relegated my Samsung Galaxy 10+ to camera duties with add on lenses, it has become my go to backup phone. I don't want to upgrade to the new Pixel 6; but, when the last security update comes next year, I may be forced to do so. Too bad. I really enjoyed checking in on the latest software Google had to offer, and comparing it to the state of the Samsung phones. Now that Google and Samsung are partners in the Wear OS smartwatch world, perhaps Google will provide Samsung phones with faster updates. What's in your hand?

The Best SmartWatch Gets Better.

Galaxy Watch 4 Update Brings New Features. The next update to the Galaxy Watch 4 brings new gesture controls, better heart rate and health monitoring, and much more. What's on your wrist?