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It's been a while hasn't it!
The most recent news has been that I bought a Kindle Fire while it was on sale, meaning I got a refurbished one for only $140.
I tried out the default interface, but I found it kind of lacking. It was OK for what it was aiming for, but I knew it could have been so much more. So with a bit of exploring on the XDA Developers forums, I now have Android Ice Cream Sandwich on my Kindle Fire, and it's a thousand times better! Well except that currently ICS doesn't support streaming from Netflix or Hulu+, but otherwise browsing, apping, and emailing are soooo much better. And the rest will come soon!
So basically I got a really good competitor for the iPad (now that I have ICS on it) for about 1/4 of the price. I love browsing the web on a 7" screen compared to my 3" G2, and with ICS I get all the good apps like Google Maps, Swype, and Google Play. Definitely worth the money considering how much time I spend on the couch surfing the web on my smart phone.
Of course eventually having a full blown tab with camera and microphone would be nice (I think it's amazing that we have the ability to do video phone calls on a tablet today. It's the AT&T video phone back in the 90's, but reality today!), but for the price, I really can't complain.
Speaking of living in the future, Google produced a really fascinating video of what their "Google Glasses" might be able to do in the future. I can't wait! And with the what's being worked on today, it won't even be "glasses" that do this, it'll be contacts!
Even the things possible right now today are amazing though, as seen by the Google project for an autonomous car.
Me and Kara drove to Hot Springs, AR to meet up with her Dad for his birthday and to do some horse racing betting (we ended up $7 up for the day!), and I couldn't get out of my mind that the 8 hour trip could be completely automated with the technology available today. Driving on the Interstate is almost trivial for the automated driving programs that are possible today, and I can't wait until that's available in a production car. I predict that by 2020 it'll be available, and by 2030 it'll be standard in just about any car you can buy.
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