Word: gizmos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Fast-moving execs have long yearned for a device that would serve as both cell phone and PDA. The quest to produce it has mostly yielded electronic Edsels. But some new gadgets are reversing the trend. In August Motorola will unveil its Accompli 009 ($600), the first such gizmo with global capability, working in most cities throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. The device comes with a GSM-based phone, Web browser, e-mail and a plethora of PDA features. Samsung's SPH-I300 ($500), also due out in August, sports a Palm OS with color screen and stylus...
...Louisville, Kentucky, the diabetic with the battery-powered titanium-and-plastic heart was resting after they drained fluid from around the gizmo in his chest...
Still, so many of the technologies that promote interactivity don't fulfill that promise. When I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this January, Compaq gave each delegate a free iPaq pocket computer. I sat with a friend and marveled at the gizmo. Then we sent each other e-mails. Hey! Of course, we were sitting side by side (at an indescribably dull panel on Asian economies). Pointless communication, yes, but isn't that what we do nowadays? Think how commonly we send e-mails to colleagues at work who might be as near...
Sound Morpher INTEL PLAY, $49 Record sounds with this gizmo, then load them into your computer for warping. Humans sound like alien chipmunks, and passing cars become X-Wing fighters...
...knock this. Specialist invention has given millions of us the highest standard of living in history. And not just at the gizmo level. Now and again, deep in the epistemological woodwork, mind-numbingly arcane fields mix and mingle to produce cosmic upheaval with startling new realms of crossbred knowledge: astrophysics, biogeography, psychopharmacology, neurochemistry, paleobotany. This is to be expected. There are more scientists and technologists alive today than in the whole of previous history, and they have as much right to a happy and productive life as the rest...