Looks like I’ve been challenged to another blogging challenge by Joel!

When did you first get interested in technology?

To tell the truth, I can’t think of a time I wasn’t interested in technology. We always had a family computer growing up and it seemed like magic to toddler me.

I grew up playing all sorts of games. One that especially stands out looking back was a mod for Half-Life called Digital Paintball. My dad was big into paintballing at the time (I even remember him bringing me along to a tournament or two!), and part of the hobby for him was hosting a Digital Paintball server.

I think the main reason this game stands out to me now isn’t so much the game itself but more that it sort of introduced me to the kind of unique shared experiences that tech makes possible. At this time we had enough computers around the house for both my brothers and I to all play together. Sometimes it was online on our dad’s server, but more often it was just us messing around together on the LAN.

It wasn’t just games though. By the age of three I was basically impossible to film because any time the video camera came out I’d drop what I was doing and run over to gaze through it. As I got older my dad introduced me to some of the basics of web design and programming and things sort of kept going from there.

What’s your favorite piece of technology of all-time?

This is a hard one, but I’m going to have to say the Nintendo DS. It’s the best thing Nintendo ever did, just above the Wii.

What really tipped the scales and made the difference between the DS being a really good handheld and the best handheld were the social features. They felt pretty novel at the time and even by today’s standards there were some really interesting things the DS was pulling off.

One of those was download play, a feature that a game could implement that would allow you to play wireless local multiplayer with people who didn’t even own the game. It would just take a minute or two to load while the necessary files were sent over, then all of a sudden you’d be in-game together like it was nothing. The game would be gone after a power-off, but still it’s hard to imagine any large game company, even Nintendo, approving of that feature today.

It also felt like a lot of developers for the system had real fun finding ways to build in local wireless multiplayer into their games. I have a fun memory of playing a giant game of capture the flag in the underground tunnels of Pokemon’s Sinnoh region during a big family reunion one year. Friends would come over and we’d let our Nintendogs meet each other. I even remember Pictochat, the built-in drawing chat app, being goofy fun when you had enough people.

What’s your favorite piece of technology right now?

Another tough one, but I’ll go with my Kobo Clara BW e-reader.

Phones today can do everything but aren’t good at anything. I can’t remember who I first heard that from, but I think that’s part of what makes phones slightly boring these days. My Kobo reader is a perfect example of a device that goes the complete opposite direction, doing one thing and doing it very well. I think that’s why I love it so much.

You can read my review of the Kobo Clara BW if you’re interested in my deeper thoughts on it. Overall though, I love that it’s a device that doesn’t really feel like a device. It doesn’t demand my attention, it holds a charge for weeks at a time, and it’s just a really comfortable reading experience.

Name one cool piece of technology we’ll have in 25 years

I’ve been thinking about this and AR glasses keep coming to mind. We’ll almost surely have the tech for really good augmented reality 25 years from now, the bigger question is whether many people will even want it.

A lot of people today are already increasingly conscious about how much screen time they’re getting. Augmented reality would be way more intrusive than anything we currently have and would have pretty high risk of severely isolating people.

A pair of AR glasses would have to be very carefully and tastefully designed in order to overcome the inevitable negative perception that a 24/7 face screen would get. It would be a massive challenge, much more difficult than actually building the hardware. And current tech culture being what it is, I don’t think any of today’s big tech companies would be capable.

I’m not super hopeful, but I do think a thoughtfully made pair of AR glasses could be useful and even help bring people closer together if done right. It would have to stay out of the way, treat you as the master instead of a consumer. I’d like to see that.

I challenge you

I’ll be sending this to a few people in case they want to do it, but if you’ve read this far then by all means I’d love to see your response too!

— JP