Underrated Stories of 2016

Underrated Stories of 2016
Number	2933
Broadcast Date	DECEMBER 27, 2016
Episode Length	57:00
Hosts	Tom Merritt, Roger Chang
Guests	Ian Morris, Nate Lanxon

What are the most underrated tech stories of 2016. Nate Lanxon and Ian Morris from Tech’s Message join Tom Merritt and Roger Chang to give their perspective and listen to suggestions from the DTNS audience.

Guest

• Ian Morris
  • Forbes
• Nate Lanxon
  • Bloomberg
    
    
• Tech's Message

Underrated Stories

• Nate

IDEA ONE: Why is 4K anything still awful? 4K made advancements this year... but it still leaves us wanting. Poor quality streaming, low bit rates in phone cameras, no realistic demand for 4K Blu-ray, download market non-existent, gaming barely capable of 4K gaming - what's going on, tech industry!?

IDEA TWO: 2016 was the last year we will ever have to care about international roaming charges, or at least it should be.

• Ian

Windows 10 getting bash support or Plex server coming to the NVIDIA shield.

• Roger
  • Take responsibility for electronic-waste disposal
  • India struggles to deal with e-waste and leftover electronics
  • Up to 90% of world's electronic waste is illegally dumped, says UN

E-waste. The increasing amount of it and the disproportionate effects it has a on lower income countries and populations.

Viewer Selected Underrated Stories

Smart Home Normalization

The specific catalysts are:
Amazon Echo Dot for $50 each
Same Echo Dot being sold at multiple bricks-and-mortar retailers for $39.99 on Black Friday - I don't recall that market penetration getting any reporting.
TP-Link Smart Plug for $18 (Alexa-specific deal) so I now have my first Alexa-controlled device
Number of smart light, smart thermostat, doorbell, and camera ads I'm seeing and hearing weekly
To me if feels like 2016 theoretically deserves the "Year of the Smart Home" title, if journalists were still willing to make any "Year of" declarations - At the very least, a lot of pieces are both gelling and coming down to no-brainer costs at the same time.

Thanks for all you do!

Best regards,

Sent by Chris

Hi Tom & Roger!

I think that while VR and AR were certainly not shy stories this year, I feel like too much of the coverage was about relatively shallow advancements, like how they will change amusements and minor conveniences. Not enough time was spent diving deep into them, to think further ahead (although maybe not as far ahead as we think!) into very good (say, helping disabled people) and possibly very bad (privacy issues, criminal activity). Lip service was given to these deeper issues usually, but the bulk of all the coverage was on very short term effects.

Science Fiction (which we, and probably much of the DTNS audience) has imagined many different ways in which VR & AR change society and civilization. Perhaps ideas from certain novels & movies could be used to examine how possible that vision is to coming true, and when it might happen.

In short, I feel like VR & AR is an enormous revolution, on a completely different scale than the digital / PC revolution has been up to this point. It's the first real transformation from computers as machines & tools, to us integrating them much more fully into how we literally experience, and change, the world.

Happy Holidays and thank you, thank you for all the great reporting and discussions, and fun times. Y'all rock. Hope you & your families have a great holiday season.

Cheers,

Sent by Philip

There has been a lot of talk about VR this year but I am interested in how it is changing education and the classroom. That has started this year but it's potential is amazing.

Sent by Desmond

I feel like the Kickstarter for the Here One wireless earbuds really didn't get much coverage. It's a great execution of tech and a huge leap of innovation. But they really didn't get talked about past a few initial reviews from tech sites.

https://hereplus.me/

Here One™ is the first all-in-one, truly wireless listening system. With two smart earbuds and a connected app, you can stream music, take phone calls, reduce unwanted noise, amplify speech, access Siri and Google Now, and more. Selectively choose what you want to hear and remove what you don’t using Smart Noise Cancellation. Everything else is just a headphone.

(Disclaimer: I do not represent the company that makes those earbuds in any way. This is my personal opinion, not an ad for their product).

Sent by Jonathan from Houston

1.
Archaeology is one field where there are a lot of early adopters, and this was best exemplified in 2016 with the Scan Pyramids Project.
This project is a team effort by three universities in Egypt, Japan and Canada, and they have used several bleeding edge technologies to explore the inner depths of the pyramids of Egypt, especially the most famous ones at Giza, like the Great Pyramid.

Basically, they’re doing scans like the ones in Star Trek!

the project’s researchers have used infrared cameras to find temperature anomalies and possible hidden cavities;

they’ve sent drones (the fixed-wing kind and the quadcopters) with cameras and lasers to do what is called 'photogrammetry', a very advanced kind of imaging, to produce 3D computer models and visualizations;

and the coolest part: they have placed 'muon' detectors, which measure cosmic particles going through the pyramids, to reveal it’s internal structure.

An October report tells how muon radiography has already detected several new hidden rooms or passages, and the project is not over yet.
By the way, muon radiography was originally developed in Japan to explore volcanoes and reveal their magma chambers! How cool?!

Read about the Scan Pyramids Project here:
http://www.scanpyramids.org/assets/components/pyramids/pdfs/About_ScanPyramids-en.pdf

2.
From the macro to the micro, another historical-tech story this year is the scanning of a completely burnt Dead Sea Scroll from 1400 years ago with the help of tomography and computer modeling.

in short, the previously unreadable scroll is first passed through a very high resolution CT scanner, giving a 3D image of the internal layers of the scroll, like a brain scan.

the second and third phases are actually the most advanced, in terms of computer programming: the software creates segments of the scroll by identifying the individual layers, and each individual letter on the parchment is also identified.

the third phase involves 'flattening' the 3D image of one layer, as if you would actually unfurl the scroll and place it on a table. And voilà! the text is visible, and we can now read whatever is on there!

This means any piece of burnt parchment or even books can now be read, and not thrown away, and its secrets revealed!

Read about "Ancient burned scroll virtually unwrapped » here:
http://dctv.link/dtnsunderrated2016link

Although those stories dont often make it into the tech press or even the mainstream news, it’s undeniable that technology helps us uncover the past, and preserve it, by solving real problems and giving us concrete answers on important historical questions.

Thanks a lot for this opportunity to share my passion!!

(I host the History News Show podcast, and thanks again Tom for letting me imitate your show title!!)

Sent by Jordane Labarussias

What will we do when technology takes away everyone's jobs. What is society doing to prepare for the next level of automation? I hate I say I don't have much faith in where things are going. We need to reinvest in our existing workforce but that takes significant investment from employers or the government neither of which seems likely.

Sent by Norm The Bummer from Visalia

One story that is underrated and seldom talked about is how Public Libraries are pivoting into New Technologies to remain relevant.

In Southern Illinois, even the small public libraries have at least one PC for free public use for Internet access as well as Microsoft Office. Often they have Public WiFi for those with phones, tablets, and EReaders.

The Herrin City Library (serving 12,500) has six (6) PCs for public use with Internet access, printers for b&w and color printing, and scanners. Public WiFi. The PACs (Public Access Computers) are used by an average of 30 people a day. We also offer ebooks for home download or at the library. The Ebooks collection numbers about 10,000 titles. We provide Fax Service and average about a hundred pages a month at $1.00 per page.

Even the smallest libraries are finding ebooks to be more affordable and are joining consortiums which help them offer free ebooks to their communities.

Public Libraries are a free option for those who can not afford the devices and/or do not have internet access.

I was the Director of the Herrin City Library for 23 years and a Librarian for 43 years. I have seen many changes in the Library Profession since 1972 mostly in the area of technology. I am retired now, but still volunteer at the Herrin City Library.

Sent by Michael Keepper

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
• Support DTNS on Patreon
• DTNS subreddit

Preceded by: "Best of 2016"

Underrated Stories of 2016

Followed by: "Listener-Co-Host Show"