Twitter

I'm not feeling well so I decided to sit down and try and figure out what the deal is with Twitter. After setting up an account and playing with it and reading about it, I've come to a few conclusions.

1. It is basically just the Internet Relay Chat that I played with as a kid, only with more mediums of communication that just an IRC client. So now you don't need to be a nerd to use it. Of course I don't use IRC anymore either.

2. Apparently journalists are losing their minds over it, and the RNC convention rioting was apparently some kind of turning point where people without Twitter were some stone age morons. Of course, considering how poor the coverage of the RNC convention was anyways I don't think that's saying much.

3. It is pretty cool to see a huge channel like http://election.twitter.com/.

Johnny Lee's Amazing Wii (remote)

I thought I had mentioned TED before, but apparently I haven't.

In short, it is amazing.

This latest TED video is a short demo by researcher Johnny Lee that has spread like wildfire over major web hot spots like Digg, YouTube and BoingBoing (where I picked it up). Millions have already seen his research, a statistic that might instigate a revolution in science marketing all by itself.

His easy, intuitive use of commercial off the shelf technology is mind blowing, and potentially revolutionary. Using little more than the infrared sensor on a Nintendo Wii remote, Lee shows how simple it can be to create highly sophisticated tools - such as a projected touchscreen digital white board, or eye-tracking virtual three dimensional spaces.

Sound technical? Probably. But it is certainly impressive, and it could hit the commercial and educational markets faster than you might expect.