For me, it’s sometimes difficult to see giant leaps in technological innovations these days. The leaps and bounds of technological advances since the end of WWII seem to have turned into hops and skips. That, or I am missing something or looking entirely in the wrong place. When gadgets such as smartphones receive an update, the changes seem minimal, usually a screen that is more crisp and a camera that can capture more pixels than the last one. A hop I have noticed recently seems to be the folding screen. Big whoop. Although I do think the tech is cool to make it work, it doesn’t seem to be anything more than a hop in advancement. When it comes to a choice of gaming devices, the choice is up to the user’s preference in exclusive titles for each particular platform. All of the hardware performs pretty much at the same level and it is pretty much a matter of software preference these days. Even when it comes to software, changes seem minimal, especially from an end-user standpoint. I hear things about Windows 11 now and again and some pundits say it is basically Windows 10 with a face lift. Overall, the changes I see today seem minimal, especially in consumer-level devices and software. What will be the next big thing that will amaze me?
Apologies for my opening ramble, but sometimes I wonder if technology will make or break us in the future. About five or six years back, I remember thinking that self-driving autonomous vehicles were right around the corner, I thought we’d have them by now! Even today I see articles where Elon Musk states that 2022 is the year. I’m highly skeptical of this, no doubt. One of the reasons I can’t see this happening is I would think the infrastructure of our roads would need to be modified somehow in order for autonomous vehicles to work properly, especially in inclement weather like heavy rain and snow. Again, my research is a bit minimal on this, so I may be missing the details.
Rambling aside, there are many makers out there that are using similar technologies that these self-driving vehicles use to make devices that can help the visually impaired. I remember seeing this article a while back about such a device. It is called the Cane-Eye. It uses several different technologies, including an Xbox Kinect sensor array, to assist the visually impaired. I’d like to see more tech like this at a level that is affordable to the end-user.
As a dabbler with Raspberry Pi computers, I have gained interest in making certain devices. Recently I’ve been into LoRa, a new type of WAN that can be used in many IoT applications and other projects. One such project that caught my eye was the Ripple project, a neat communicator project that uses the LoRa network to send text messages among users on the network. Something that could be handy when other networks are inaccessible. However, I pulled a boner and got the wrong hardware. I’m no expert in this type of thing, I know a bit of a few programming languages, nothing extensive, and I have little idea if this would even work with the Ripple project. Maybe? I sure would like to know. I have fiddled with these devices a bit and they do seem to work with the debugging software. I as of yet, have not been able to connect them to the Pi Zero as the Zeros I bought came without the I/O pins soldered. So another project for me is to learn how to solder those pins onto the Zero board. That or buy some new ones with the pins pre-soldered.
Phew, that was a rush!
As I write this, I wonder if I should make something of these ramblings. Perhaps a series to keep my mind fresh and exploring things. I’ll call it the Weekly Ramble for now, sound good? Good. That’s all I have for today, thank you for exploring. Catch me again next week.
Benny's Bits and Bytes 
