Acela Express

Along the megalopolis trunk from Boston to Washington D.C., the reality of high speed rail has been in place for over a decade. Designed with banking turns, car tilting technology, and a sleek, almost trademark tapered engine car, the Acela boasts a travel time between Boston and DC as a seven hour trip.

The Acela’s top speed is listed at 150 miles per hour, though unofficial clockings have been rumored at upwards of 180 mph. Staring out the window, feeling almost no motion beneath one’s feet, yet seeing trees blur into inhuman smears of browns and greens – streaks twice as amorphous as the fastest car trip one may have witnessed from the backseat of a station wagon, or riding shotgun in a teenage friend’s uncle’s Viper – is sure to evoke some level of cognitive dissonance. Just maybe, time has been warped; perhaps the Acela is so fast, that arrival time is in the past? Ostensibly, the Acela significantly reduces travel time, especially in a region nearly asphyxiated by traffic, but a mosaic of shared right of ways with freight, commuter, and regular speed Amtrak trains, and community speed restrictions turn an otherwise seamless alternative to air travel into a series of whooshing sprints and turgid, albeit smooth slowdowns.

The Acela cars follow the airline coach model, with ample seating; include multiple ports for the recharging of various accoutrements, have wifi, a café car for light snacking, and even what is referred to as the Quiet car. Perhaps what an airplane might have if it were four times longer.

Powell Crosley: An American Original

Crosley at WLW control panel

American ingenuity.

Often it stems from the gap between desire and the weight of one’s pocketbook. With a grimacing pain on our face, we might remember the outlandish cost of our first computer or flat screen television as compared to the affordability of these items today. In such scenarios, a visionary sought to take the toys off of Millionaire’s Row and onto Main Street.

Never has this been truer than the case of Powel Crosley.

1950 Crosley Super Roadster

The Steve Jobs of his era, it was 1920 when Powel Crosley founded the pioneering radio broadcasting company that would change the world. But long before he went on to create the behemoth 700 WLW station, long before he introduced the universe to revolutionary television and refrigeration appliances, or spearheaded the first television NBC affiliate or created the car radio, still long before he altered the future of Major League Baseball and mass media…there was the issue of $130. Having promised to purchase a radio receiver for his son’s birthday, Crosley, shocked at the appalling $130 asking price (in 1920, nonetheless) sought to make his own. Realizing a functioning set could be crafted for only $35, the market potential was not lost on Crosley. Manic detail and precision at an affordable tag was Powel Crosley’s insanely simplistic vision; and it was this vision that exalted him as a legendary forefather of media as it breathes today.

1953 Crosley " Dashboard Radio"

These days the Crosley name is synonymous with classic inspiration. The company has continued its futuristic drive with a nod to the past. With pristinely detailed replicas and reintroductions of vintage radios and turntables, married with the technology of today, the Crosley Collection surges forth. Their collection includes mobile suitcase - styled record players and turntables, record changers, multi- functional audio cassette/compact disc players, jukeboxes, music boxes, telephones, and just about anything else that might come to mind. All created, of course, in the ageless styling that only a Crosley product can bring.

As for Steve Jobs, one can only imagine the conversation between the Apple guru and Powel Crosley, the man who made mass media possible. To be a fly on the wall at a MENSA meeting would seem tediously sophomoric by comparison.

Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES )

Remember When ?

Though released in 1985, it was actually 1986 when a little plumber named Mario burst onto the scene and forever changed the landscape of culture.

Atari had set the stage with its revolutionary (if not archaic) block style gaming. Then the Nintendo NES happened. Armed with a basic controller and a zapper light gun, the NES had what its contemporaries did not-a robot that worked on a then space- age command system. With a complimentary Mario/Duck Hunt game thrown in, family dinners soon became as extinct as outdoors play. Kids across America were addicted to conquering levels of such now- basic titles as Excitebike, Kung Fu, and Hogan’s Alley.

Nintendo NES is a dinosaur these days, with inter-coastal trash talk and uncannily real graphics rampant amongst the feverish gaming community. But in 1986, when an interrupted game meant not that an internet connection was broken, but that a cartridge simply needed to be blown into … Mario jumped his way into our hearts.

WARCO

In the era of FPS or “first-person-shooter” video games, military scenarios reign supreme. Atop the charts are the franchise titles of Modern Warfare and Battlefield—each to publish new versions this coming winter. Console and PC based gaming enthusiasts are near frenzy with anticipation for their next global conflict. There are some, waiting silently on standby for an unknown military FPS that has the potential to change the way we approach the genre altogether.

WARCO is a military FPS that embeds the gamer in full military combat and interaction as a war correspondent capturing photojournalistic news in conflict hot zones. Rather than being armed with a weapon, WARCO players are equipped with video cameras used to “see through the lens”, composing shots, capturing images and editing/publishing a news story.

In the moral gray area where military action often exists, decisions made by WARCO gamers will dictate and influence how the world perceives the conflict presented. In a society where media presentation influences global truths, WARCO could be an education regarding the impact and reality of first world entitlement. With a yet unpublished release date, WARCO could prove to be a bona fide game changer.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, the man whose innovations from his parents' garage in Silicon Valley became emblematic for not only the computer revolution, but also a paragon of American ingenuity and entrepreneurialism passed away Wednesday after a seven year battle with pancreatic cancer. His legacy is garganuan. From the co-founding of Apple, to the paradigm shifts of the Macintosh, to the iPods and iPads and iPhones, Jobs reinvented much of the framework of what has become commonplace in modern life. He was 56.

Google Map Cars

Cars, prowling the streets of these United States, affixed with rooftop pylons, and swivel headed cameras, all mounted on what could pass for a Thule bicycle rack, have been seen in and around the Westport neighborhood of Kansas City. Residents have been confused and distracted by the addled and fairly random paint jobs of the vehicles, described by one anonymous source as: “evocative of [early] Jackson Pollock.” The cars have been cataloging, in a panoptic swath ominously described by Michel Foucault, street level perspective in fish eyed 360 degree loops. A user can plug an address into Google’s engine, retrieve satellite imaging, and, with the aid of these data mining cars, photographs of the address, down to the detail of stoops and door knobs.

Google +

Social media has undergone various incarnations over the past decade or so. With the advent of Friendster, to the burgeoning Myspace, and onward to Facebook; tenants of social media dwelling spaces have fled from city to suburb to exurb – colonizing fast and hard and with grand purpose and gait, then as if compelled by locust like instincts – moving on to new ground. These digital metroplexes are left in ruin – like remnants of some lost civilization. Comments, left years prior, provide a contextual glimpse into how life was like for the user. An inside joke. Perhaps commentary on a failed relationship. Some band of temporal significance. Archaeologists of the future may yet branch into social media specialization.

The newest kid on the block, and the one with the most promise, is Google+. Google+ has learned from the various tribulations of its predecessors – combining the good points of all, and leaving out the bad – and is poised to be the next great social media network.

Ashton Promotes His Tech Investments

Aston Kutcher leverages is role on Two and a Half Men to promote his personal early stage high-tech investments.

Using the back of his laptop as a mini billboard, the clever and free product placement gave the start-ups quick exposure to 20 plus million viewers. Word has it that CBS executives were also watching and that it was a one time only opportunity, we think ... mission accomplished.

Mattel Classic Football

Gaming and real life are often intertwined nowadays, and the graphics from any number of games from the future-world consoles of today almost appear more lifelike than the guy playing them. But in 1977, a handheld revolution of blips and bleeps first turned our country into a nation of LED entranced zombies.

Mattel Classic Football.

A dive into simplicity now. Heck, they probably teach the programming on Day 1 at most Tech schools. But it sure made Mattel a household name in the Me Decade that was the 70’s. Not only did this must-have serve as a forefather to the Game Boy’s of the world, it made video games accessible to everyone, an accessibility that was taken full advantage of by consumers. Mattel Classic Football got its juice from a 9-volt battery, and the illuminated dots on the petite monitor were whoever the player imagined them to be-Namath, Bradshaw, Himself.

Users presumably grew out of the phase, as that was what their mothers told them what should happen. In modern times, no longer is this age/gaming false dichotomy relevant. With that green light, we can just imagine the leaders of industry and nations, pulling a Mattel Classic Football console from their power desks during private moments, stiff arming digital tackles and crossing the goal line.

Game on.

Black Box Case

With its duality, a Black Box Case might serve an infant well. After all, it only weighs 1.5 pounds, which a baby could bench press with ease. Additionally, it can withstand over sixty pounds of force, which would qualify it as a safe haven for the little one to nap in. And with its smooth oak body, its canvas is ever so soft, much like a baby’s bottom.

*Warning-not for use with babies.

Not the human variety, anyway. For many of us, our iPad’s and MacBooks are our babies, and in that instance, the BlackBox Case is perfectly acceptable. Hand crafted with surgical precision in Golden, Colorado, Black Box has bid farewell to the generic cases and bags that housed our expensive tech gadgets and introduced their brand of sleek sophistication, with an eye on security. What’s more, the company donates 15% of their keep to improve the world around them through various outlets of philanthropy. As if the concept was not cool enough already.

On an airplane, in our terrestrial skies, the little black box is built for survival. Should things come crashing down in cyber space, it’s nice to know there is another Black Box watching over us.

Blackbox Case http://www.blackboxcase.com/