What do you do if you want a coffee?
For me, if I’m at home, I er, make one. If I’m out and about, I might go to a cafe.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re much the same. But if you happen to be in Switzerland and fancy a coffee, you might do it differently.
You see, they’ve just tried out a new service – where you can order a coffee online and have it delivered to you by drone – one of those little things that looks like a toy radio controlled helicopter.
It’s only a trial in one city at the moment but they’re hoping it’ll work and they’ll be able to do it elsewhere.
It does seem like an odd idea to me (especially as at the moment the drones can only deliver to a handful of Mercedes vans…). On the other hand I do like the idea of being able to ask someone to “whizz me a coffee” and actually have it whizzed through the air…
Style advice from a bunch of silicon chips
You’ve probably heard about how Amazon have developed various devices that they hope you’ll have dotted around your house – that can listen to you and do what you say. “Alexa, play me some music” you can say, and it will. Or “Alexa, what’s the world record for balancing tea cups on top of each other?”. Or “Alexa, order me a new broom and dust pan.”
They have various other specific gadgets, too, and different apps you can install on them.
I was reading about one today that has a camera built into it – and if you stand in front of it, it will look at the clothes you’re wearing and give you style advice based on “machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists.”
Now, I’m all for clever technology, but I’m not sure I’m keen on letting a bunch of silicon chips decide what my best look is.
I wonder if you can make the device crash by wearing the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) mix of bright polka spots and stripe… Or a tie with little horseshoes on it.
Following on from last time…
Last time I wrote a bit about what the point of Facebook is – but didn’t actually tell you how to use it for anything…
I don’t have room left in today’s email to say much more – but watch this space for next week’s email!
Do you know what function the new icons have at the bottom of messages which appeared after I downloaded the latest software . There appears to be a red heart with fingers. – music notes- and looks like a tennis racket? I am nervous to try them.
The ones in the iMessages app on an iPhone? They’re some rather gimmicky things that you can add to your message – the fingers with the heart behind is something called “digital touch” (it lets you send a pulse like a heart beat – no, seriously – I’ve no idea why), the “tennis racket” is meant to be a magnifying glassand lets you search for “fun” pictures to add. And the musical notes add a music clip.
Personally, I’m not sure I’d bother with them – but it won’t do any harm if you do want to give them a try and at least now you know what the idea of them is!
Tim