Mobile devices and computers are getting thinner, faster and sleeker with each generation. Every update from major tech producers makes it abundantly clear that that is the main concern in manufacturing, and yeah, it gets the consumer’s attention. Light and little is convenient for users. But you know what’s even more convenient?

No updates.

Bear with me – did Captain Kirk ever have to update his technology? Did Dr. Who ever need to install the latest software update for his Sonic Screwdriver or the TARDIS? No. Why? Because in the future, there’s no such thing as having to update every friggin’ fortnight.

I’m griping because I’m a consumer and I’m tired of the inconvenience of putting my phone temporarily out of commission periodically to update to the latest iOS, or exit from my browser on my laptop so my laptop can update the latest for my desktop and apps. When are we going to reach a level of sophistication in our hardware that updates are – well – outdated? Are we ever going to have the technology of Spock that is created perfect and remains perfect, no batteries required, no foreseeable updates needed?

We may not be there tomorrow, or next year, or even for the next decade. But dammit, if we can travel through space and break the speed of light, we can make a smart phone that doesn’t require software updates. Do you hear me, tech firms? This is your consumer talking. Your Jiminy Cricket. I’m not impressed anymore by “slimmer and faster.” Give me what I really want.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

You know those corny Hollywood love stories that start with two rambunctious kids, a boy and a girl who fight on the playground with a mutual hate for each other, who eventually develop an unforeseen love twenty years later because they are clearly made for one another? Apple and Google’s relationship is like that, but still in the playground-warfare-stage.

Apple (the #1 tech firm in the world) and Google (the #2 tech firm in the world) are both undeniable forces to be reckoned with in the realm of technophilia. Both create stellar devices and have garnered strong, if not obsessive, followings. But each company shines in different ways. Apple’s hardware and design is just plain sexy. Sleek aluminum casing, lightweight mobile devices, lots of curvy, thin products with that simple glowing apple icon – Apple is easy on the eyes. But it’s applications have been falling short of expectations these days. Meanwhile, Google knocks it out of the park on a regular basis when it comes to applications. Anyone compared Google Now to Siri, for instance? Google’s products are also much more economical. The only problem is that they come off as clunky, chunky and out of date when set beside Apple products. It’s the 21st Century – people care about size, look and feel just as much as functionality now. Notice how thin and feather-light Apple’s latest products are, as revealed in this week’s keynote in San Jose.

But as different as the two are, Google and Apple operate great together. Give me an iPad with wifi and Google’s Gmail, including apps like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Alerts, and I can take care of business anywhere, anytime, and look cool doing it. Melding Google and Apple together would be like giving a Victoria’s Secret supermodel a soul – Apple makes products that look awesome, Google makes apps that work awesome. You’d get the best of both worlds and maybe, just maybe, end a feud that may otherwise never cease.

For now the two corporations are just trying to divide completely from to prove that they don’t need each other (even though they do). The most recent and simplest of examples would be Apple’s switch from Google Maps to Apple Maps in the iOS 6 update. Users were absolutely perplexed by the change. Taking away Google Maps from iPhone users was like taking away their oxygen. In Apple’s attempt to exorcize Google apps from their devices and keep the companies separate, Apple only succeeded in seriously pissing customers off. Applelites are now considering boycotting iPhones and switching over to the less pretty, yet more freeing, Android products. But I don’t want to have to sacrifice looks for capability. I want to use Google products and Apple products. Together. Making me choose between one or the other is like making a kid choose between living with Mommy or Daddy in the divorce.

Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but the point is: Apple and Google, don’t ever hand your customers an ultimatum, because it’ll just come back to bite you in the ass. You’ll just lose customers who will drop you and go over to the other side because they don’t feel like waiting for you to figure things out, or maybe just to spite you. And the competition is really  getting tiresome. Seriously – Apple, Google, make amends. Why can’t the two greatest technology behemoths just agree that they’re better together than apart?

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

“That phone is glued to her hand!” A father laments over his incessantly texting tween daughter.

“He spends more time on his phone than with me,” a girlfriend huffs of her Javascript n’ business boyfriend.

Behind these comments, there’s a growing truth. As people of the 21st Century, we have a very intimate relationship with our phones. The little device has all our most valued information stored, from multimedia to phone numbers, and is the quickest, most efficient and constant form of contact we have with the rest of the world.

We have a well-worn indent in our jean pockets where we keep our phones, ready to draw like gunslingers at a moment’s notice. We tune in to our favorite morning music playlist as we take the train to work, check our email in between classes (or during class), check the weather, text Mom, upload an Instagram photo, text Benny, check Benny’s profile on Facebook, play some mobile games, check GPS to pinpoint the restaurant down Lombard street, Tweet something ironic and witty, and maybe make a phone call.

With the recent release of Apple’s iPhone 5 – and the consequent grumbling that “not enough has changed” – it’s only a matter of time before one of the Goliaths competing for our business gives us what we want: something completely different. And if companies like Apple and Google and Sony are paying attention, the direction of the future is clear. Somehow our smart phones are going to become a part of us, literally. We carry our phones everywhere; without them our hands feel empty and we fidget; when we lose them we fall into a deep despair and our lives are thrown off kilter.

The first few steps will be small; fashion will begin developing clothing lines that cater to little spaces dedicated to your smart phone’s safekeeping. Phone cases will start mutating and sprouting more latch-like qualities to graph to your backpack, purse or wrist. The smart phone itself will start to morph, melting away from geometric shapes and appear more form-fitting to the contours of our limbs. The textures will soften from vinyl and steel, the sizes will vary, and sooner or later, you won’t be able to spot someone’s phone on them, but you’ll just know they’re always plugged in.

This is a disturbing thought in a lot of ways. People becoming inseparable from their phones, even having the option of smart devices implanted into your chest or wrist in the far future, sounds unnatural. Should we really be so attached to our phones? For the sake of our mental health, shouldn’t we have the option to log out, unplug and take a break from society once in a while? But human behavior is developing in the other direction, becoming more and more dependent on smart devices for everyday tasks.

So the question isn’t an “if” anymore, it’s a “when?”

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

With millions of users worldwide for social games and mobile app games, it’s clear that short, quick and repetitive is what hooks people. People need their fix of the familiar and recurring, of gain and progression, which they get through video games.

Nintendo, Naughty Dog and Insomniac, for example, are big gaming companies with less of a drive to get users to return consistently. By that I mean, the companies create an awesome game, the product is sold, and users may or may not buy the next big thing that the company turns out. Users build a relationship with the game, inherit the story and absorb it. The process is on a much larger scale than internet and social games, and the interaction is much more gradual and the cash flow is delayed.

For gaming companies looking to make money quickly and keep it coming, you have to change the layout of the game itself to be quick and repetitive as well. Zynga, the creator of Facebook’s naggingly infamous games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, thrive on repetition. You put a little money in, you get a little farther in the game, you put a little more money in, you get even farther in the game. And the added aspect of inviting friends and comparing your progression to their only spurs competition and increases the users interaction on a regular basis. Get enough people to give a little, and gaming companies start making a lot, fast. ”Zynga platforms are perfect for pinpointing advertising markets,” SeekingAlpha writes, “Add gambling to the mix, and Zynga is a beast.”

But the social gaming industry, where geeks roam wild and nerds run free, isn’t just lucky. Companies are very selective about who they choose for their creative team, and psychoanalysts are starting to make up a big part of that demographic. In a job ad for Valve, the title reads, “Got a degree in Psychology?” and the description continues:

“We believe that the more we know about human behavior, about how and why people do what they do, the better our products will be.”

People with an intimate knowledge of the human brain are becoming just as valuable, if not more so, than creative and tech-savvy folks in social gaming. For some companies, the story or graphics aren’t as important as the selling point, the addictive “it” factor that gets people hooked. That’s where hiring gaggles of psychoanalysts comes in, to help gaming companies test what addicts users rather than amuses them. Some may argue that, with this kind of attitude, the quality of gaming is decreased to mindless, repetitive and time-wasting recreational activity.

But you know, you can stop accepting FarmVille requests any time you want. You just don’t want to.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

The culture surrounding tattoos today is colorful, if not a little ambiguous. And as tats have become more socially acceptable in even the most highbrow work environments, the demographics for the “inked” are expanding. Anyone and everyone has tattoos, not just the motorcycle gangs that blaze through deserted highways, tumbleweeds sent flying in their wake. Your mom has a tattoo, and your piano teacher, your lifeguard, your barista, and you may even have one. You: the nerd. So what happens when hardcore nerd culture collides with the seductive allure of permanent art that is tattoos?

Well, sometimes it’s awesome. Sometimes it’s mortifying.

You can’t deny the enthusiasm of a nerd – there are certain words you can’t say around them for fear of sending them into fan-crazed apoplexy; “Hyrule,” “Firefly,” or “Sir Ian McKellan,” for example. Being a nerd means hardcore fandom, Comic Cons and camping in long lines overnight for superhero movies. So it’s no surprise that nerdy tattoos, like everything else in the nerd realm, can seem a little extreme.

So where do you draw the line? Is tattooing a violently blue TARDIS police box on your arm really that much crazier than a flaming skull tattoo? Some would argue that nerdy tattoos are more sentimental, more meaningful. When someone gets a Muppets tattoo, they could be immortalizing a significant part their childhood.

Sure, getting a picture of David Tennant’s face inked onto your body may not seem so relevant to your interests in five or ten years (can you really love one Time Lord THAT much more than the others?), but there are plenty of timeless nerd tattoos. Getting a nerd tattoo paying homage to your favorite book, video game or movie can be a worthy venture that may be cherished till the end of your days.

Or you may wake up five years from now hating David Tennant because he’s always staring at you.

PS, thank you Pinterest for being a wealth of photographic gold. 

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

On Wednesday Apple unveiled their latest smartphone model, the iPhone 5, and since it had been three years since their last generation’s iPhone 4 and over a year since the updated iPhone 4S, expectations were high. Anticipation was simmering.

And then kind of simmered down.

The general underwhelmed consensus of the iPhone 5 isn’t necessarily a slight to Apple. The newest generation phone does still have a lot to offer; the look is still sleek, sexy and glossed to perfection. The screen is 0.3 inches larger for a better viewing experience and more touch-space. The device is faster, while managing to be the thinnest and lightest iPhone yet. But after the revealing of the phone, people still found plenty to grumble about. The look and features of the device haven’t drastically differed from predecessors. It’s obvious that smartphones have dominated society, but we’re ready for something different. Real different.

Consumer demand is what has been shaping the evolution of the smartphone. As Jony Ive, Apple’s Senior VP of Design, even says in the introduction video to the new iPhone 5 about smartphones: “It’s probably the object used most in your life.” Our phone, which is now the wearer of many hats, from navigation to gaming device, is constantly in hand. It can be quite a handy little gadget, and its potential has barely been unlocked.

What is needed is a smartphone that can expand and contract to different screen sizes, to cater to our video-viewing needs and also fit comfortably in the back pocket of a pair of skinny jeans. Furthermore, something used so often needs to have a universal adapter for easy charging, but also have the battery stamina to last through a long day in the gym, then office, then to the market, then back to the office, then out on the town that night. The notion of wireless charging seems ludicrous right now, but it would enhance user experience like no other. Also, quite frankly, the smartphone needs a makeover. Are we confined to a soft-edged rectangle for ever? Can’t we explore some other geometric shapes? Or experiment with different dimensions, cubed or otherwise?

Speed isn’t enough anymore. Thin isn’t the definition of sexy hardware anymore. So let’s make something different, because customers are already demanding, “Next!”

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

With the presidential elections almost upon us (November 6th), the media is in full political-swing, on and offline. Coverage of President Obama and Republican runner Mitt Romney is extremely up close and personal these days, and with the help of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and beyond, the run for U.S. president is more widely talked about than ever. Television broadcasts reach the folks at home, but these days, kids can get ahold of Republican and Democratic National Convention news in the palm of their hands. Technology is expanding demographic knowledge of the elections. But really, how much are kids paying attention to the presidential campaigns, with all their loud music and Angry Birds?

A lot, actually.

More people are tuning into the presidential run because it’s become more accessible over the years. Twitter, which has an enormous teenybopper audience to begin with, was all abuzz after Michelle Obama’s opening speech at the DNC Tuesday night.

RT @gov: A new record political moment on Twitter: @barackobama drives 52,757 Tweets per minute. Over 9 million Tweets sent about #DNC2012.

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 7, 2012

All those tweets weren’t just coming from middle-aged pundit pushers – and even if they were, the mass amount of coverage across the social network site was so vast, younger audiences wouldn’t have been able to escape the discussions if they tried.

There’s something of potential good under all the fluff of social networks today, and that’s getting real news out to people as well. We’re past the age of Abraham Lincoln, whose only method of campaigning was newspapers and soap box speeches, traveling benignly from town to town. Never mind even television – it’s all about electronic connection. That is what makes the presidential elections of 2012 so personable – yet widespread. With Twitter accounts, Obama and Romney can communicate directly to people, and yet still reach mass audiences. Even charismatic President Reagan, famous from his acting career and boosted by his television charm, didn’t have the impact on audiences that presidential runners have today. We’re able to get a deeper inside look at the lives and personalities of our candidates. More people can watch their speeches, read about their thoughts and see the candidates in their natural habitats through today’s social media.

Many argue that the Internet was the beginning of the end of the personal touch, that people are hidden behind computer screens and will never experience human interaction the way they should. So some say. But in the case of the 2012 elections, voters have never had such access to the lives of Obama and Romney, revealing the humanity in both.

The straight-laced public figures that ran for president in past elections are gone. We’re voting for humans now, thanks to computers.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

So scientists at Harvard decided to tip the scale of the universe a little further and engineered something the first of its kind: cyborg skin. A combination of nano-electro wiring and living cell tissue, this manufactured flesh can recognize oxygen, pH, and other elements in the air, just like human skin can.

It is a huge scientific accomplishment. Scientists embedded “a three-dimensional network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues.” Dr. Charles Lieber, the head of the cyborg-skin research project at the Harvard labs, believes that the new technology allows for more sensitive and accurate biological experimentation for the future, without damaging cells.

As the scientists revealed in an interview with the Harvard Gazette:

“Beginning with a two-dimensional substrate, researchers laid out a mesh of organic polymer around nanoscale wires, which serve as the critical sensing elements. Nanoscale electrodes, which connect the nanowire elements, were then built within the mesh to enable nanowire transistors to measure the activity in cells without damaging them. Once completed, the substrate was dissolved, leaving researchers with a netlike sponge, or a mesh, that can be folded or rolled into a host of three-dimensional shapes. Once complete, the networks were porous enough to allow the team to seed them with cells and encourage those cells to grow in 3-D cultures.”

Lieber and his team claim to have no interest in creating armies of Terminator-esque cyborgs with their new discovery, but that doesn’t mean the technology won’t be diverted by other people – eventually. In a world full of plastic surgery and rapidly advancing medical science, it’s no secret that we want to find the secret – to living forever. Skin is the key to looking younger – people don’t want wrinkles. So they get overpriced, anonymous-dermatologist-recommended skin creams, Botox and face lifts, oh my. And if Joan Rivers and Meg Ryan ever taught us anything, it’s that even science can eventually fail in keeping your skin looking young.

But thanks to Dr. Lieber and the folks at Harvard, skin is a whole new ball game. Cyborg skin, with the capacity to feel and react the same way as human skin; it’s a future gold mine for cosmetic surgery. The age-insecure have been waiting for realistic skin to replace their pockmarked and wrinkled flesh for far too long. It’s only a matter of time before Lieber’s scientific strides are twisted into a Hunger Games development of severely altered and unnatural cosmetic procedures.

It’s the media’s fault, of course, blah blah, we glorify the young, yadda yadda, we idolize beauty. Society sucks. But the truth is, the fight to live forever is deeply engrained in our human instincts: we want to survive. We have always wanted to live forever, through the search of paradise within religion, through vast stone monuments and long-winded autobiographies to endure long after we pass. Technology is just finally catching up with our ancient thirst for immortality.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

Today we have the technology to read our bodies like a book. In exercise, we can monitor our heart rate, pace, and distance traveled through GPS to make charts, graphs and whole maps with the info. For athletes training to improve their performance, collecting data on their strengths and weaknesses while in action is invaluable. It allows for educated decisions in how to run faster, jump higher, and go farther.

For most people, however, monitoring one’s performance during exercise is simply to keep tabs on calories burned and to focus on weight loss. Obesity levels in the world, America especially, are rising constantly, and science is working to make exercise interesting again.

Meet The FitBit – it’s just the latest little gadget out there: sleek, black matte surface, Tron-esque blue trimming, only 2 inches long and a light 4 ounces, easy to tote along on a run, and even easier to forget it’s there at all. It’s a clock, a pedometer, a stopwatch, and a sleep monitor, among several other features. ”It’s the smallest fitness tracker out there,” the website enthuses. Tuck it into your waist band, your pocket, or your bra, (or strap it on your wrist at night and it will track your sleeping patterns, hours of rest acquired, how many times you woke up in the night, and more).

The little wireless gadget boasts impressively accurate 3-D motion sensors to record the exact number of steps you’ve taken and distance traveled. And once you enter your information online on your FitBit.com account (height, weight, age) the device can effectively determine how many calories you’ve burned. What’s even cooler is the built-in altimeter (recording change in altitude) which detects when you take the stairs or hike uphill, taking increased incline into account to more accurately calculate calories burned.

What’s also nifty is the FitBit’s ability to automatically update info onto the website whenever it comes within 15 feet of its charging dock.

And finally, the gadget is competitively compatible with several other fitness and health apps out there, including MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper, and Microsoft Health Vault. So those tracking their meals and nutrition can combine the data with their detailed workout data from FitBit and are able to make smarter decisions to improve their athleticism and health, because they have more information available to them.

With the evolution of science comes a thirst for knowledge, it’s a cycle. People learn about there bodies, and it leads to more questions; how do we work, what makes us tick? Seeing data and figures all algorithmically telling you how scientific your body is, the minuscule effects of your workout all compounding to produce results of fitness – it shows internal results (however small they may be) while external results may take much longer to appear. For those striving to lose weight, something like the Fitbit can show those little improvements even if they don’t show on the scale yet. And for the athlete, that millisecond faster run time from yesterday is another personal success. As a global population, we’re experiencing staggering weight gain epidemics, but with the right technology, the motivation to get fit and stay fit may just happen.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)

It’s clear the tech world wants to please bookworms. From the lustrous Apple’s iPad 2 to Google’s Nexus, to the easy-on-the-eyes e-ink of Kindle Fire and Nook, companies have striven to bestow all the vivid color and realistic page-turning abilities to their reading tablets to give readers the experience of reading without the “hassle.” All that burdensome page-turning, the nuisance of toting heavy tomes around that weigh you down; real books are a pain, right? If people didn’t consider reading physical books a hassle, companies wouldn’t be duking it out to create the best e-reading experience on the market, right? After all, isn’t that what technology is for – enhancing an experience, while eliminating inconvenience?

The main convenience of e-books is storage. You can carry around an entire library in your backpack. Access to quotes, research and all-time favorite passages are at your fingertips 24/7, wherever you may be. For the travelling avid reader especially, e-books are a godsend. What’s also cool is the immortality of an e-book; the e-book can go anywhere and the pages will never wrinkle, never yellow, never tear. Many of the tablets allow the reader to edit and annotate the materials, and unlike with a physical book, those changes can be removed or altered without making a scrawling mess. 

So like many other aspects of modern society (finances, communication, news) that have become paperless, is reading next? The story itself remains intact – isn’t that the only thing that matters?

Well, no.

Any booklover can tell you that reading a physical book is more than just about the story. There are deeply emotional and psychological aspects that come with reading a good old-fashioned book. It’s a multi-sensory experience. The texture of a book’s pages, the weight of the book in your hands, that old book smell, that new book smell, that happy birthday message scribbled on the last page from your friend from years ago. Physical books are full of wear and tear and memories, because they age with time like everything else physical. Unlike e-books, which always remain as their crisp, clean and scentless selves. It’s all a bunch of code and retina-display pixels.

This isn’t to say that technology will never advance to appease all five of our senses. It will. But at least for a very long time, e-books will remain odorless, tasteless and locked under smooth glass. One day we’ll have e-books that emit scents of aged paper and ink, and touch screens that can change texture depending on whether you’re flipping through a glossy e-magazine or an old, rough copy of Moby Dick.

But for now, e-reading exists for a much more utilitarian purpose, while hard copies of books continue to sell because they offer everything emotionally that a tablet cannot. Sentimental beats practicality sometimes. It’s why us bookworms dread moving to a new place – we bring our personal library wherever we go. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Jessica Barone (Social Media Director, SSD Nodes, Inc.)