New Glass, The Wine App

     This blog has had many different articles or posts covering a wide range of interesting technology related posts, and a good number of those have been related to what the smartphone is becoming or what it can do for users. So to further that line of thought, I read up on a new app available to users on their smartphones called Next Glass!

     This crazy new app is a wine chooser (it also does beer!) that can predict your preferred choice in beverages accurately using chemistry. Read up on it here for the full article, but essentially once the app gets to know your tastes through a questionnaire, you can scan the label of any wine or beer and it will give you a percentage rating on if you would like it or not. Smartphones are amazing devices that have an amazingly wide array of uses, which now also includes wine tasting!

Thought Controlled Implants

There have been recent strides in prototype technologies that are aimed at the medical industry, where a user or a patient would be able to administer medications, or proteins straight into the brain from a small implant that would be potentially thought controlled. How amazing would it be to feel some aspect of illness coming on, and then just thinking about it makes it go away? That could be possible with so many diseases or even the common headache could be defeated with just a though. The technology works in test runs and has some really cool principles behind it. Check out the report at the Nature Communications website, or a much easier to read article on the report at Gizmag. Essentially when a signal is sent to this implant, either by thought or by a mental state that is subconscious, it creates a protein that then can diffuse into the brain and be easily detected in the body. Potentially you could have a medication released right onto the site of chronic pain or blockers onto an area that is causing a seizure with just a simple thought that would activate this implant, which would signal to the body or another implant to do something.

New Smartphone Uses in the Hospitality Industry

Smart phones are multipurpose devices that entered the consumer space years and years ago. Almost everyone owns one, or knows someone who does. But recently there has been a big push towards having smart phones enter the small business space, with tons of software and even external devices that have been developed to allow this device to expand its roles as a phone or a mobile browser. Essentially the phone is a powerful computer with a ton of features like GPS and a data package that can allow communication with the Internet.

A small business or even potentially a consumer can use devices such as the Square to take credit card payments right from their device, or use accounting or administration software from their phone to keep up to date on their life or investments; and as a huge plus the cost of the smart phone/device is small when compared to the uses it can do, making it a cost effective method for businesses to accomplish a wide variety of tasks.

Smart phones have also been able to unlock your car or your house remotely for years now, but a totally new adaptation for this technology has been with hotels, where they would allow guests to book a room, check in, and then open the door to their booked room all with their smart phone. Check out this video to get look at this awesome idea! Potentially a guest wouldn't ever even need to speak with another person, totally automating the process of getting a hotel room.