Technology can be a blessing or a curse, a learning tool or a complete absurdity - and sometimes several of these at once. Here are a few choice tech news stories from this week that illustrate the wonder and blunder of it all, focusing on the thing that makes us all human - the opposable thumb.
Thumb Therapy for Crackberry Addicts: Corporate warriors can get a bit overzealous about banging out messages on their Blackberrys or other gizmos with teeny-tiny keyboards. And it's taking a toll on their hands.
The Hyatt hotel chain has seen hand and arm aches so often that it has introduced a special hand massage at most of its North American spas. The 30-minute massage costs about $30 and includes heat treatment, a "Blackberry Balm," and a focus on relieving and counteracting the tension on certain muscles in the hands and wrists.
Is Blackberry Thumb destined to be the "erectile dysfunction" of the oughts (or '00s, or whatever clunky name they've decided to call this decade)? Will there be some new medication introduced to cure this thumb disorder, destined to be hawked in those nod-nod, wink-wink soft-focus TV commercials? "It lasts 36 hours... so you can text whenever the mood is right!" Of course, we'll have the obligatory warning, "If you have an erect thumb lasting more than four hours, call your physician, or strap that sucker to your hand with duct tape before you break it off."
Text Me Blue: Here's a happier story about texting than the one above. Performance pioneers Blue Man Group are using text messaging to help audience members participate in their latest show, the touring rock show they call "How to Be a Megastar." The show pokes fun at giant stadium-sized rock-star extravaganzas, and includes the group leading the audience through time-honored rock poses as the fist pump and the head bob.
Audience members can sign up to receive and reply to text messages at various points in the show, which enables them to interact with the show's overall story line. This all creates some kind of game-type experience that gives participants more insight into the show.
Sounds pretty high tech for a bunch of guys who started out banging PVC pipe on paint-covered 55-gallon drums. Wonder if the blue men will don mullet wigs and offer attendees shots of Jagermeister in honor of the arena-rock theme? Awesome, dude!
Fastest Thumbs in the West... er, East: A 16-year-old student from Singapore has set a new world record for the shortest time needed to type a 160-character text message on a mobile phone. Ang Chuang Yang typed a specific SMS (short message service) message in less than 42 seconds. Specifically, it took him 41.52 seconds, which bested the previous record of 42.22 seconds set by American Ben Cook earlier this year. All this info comes from Singapore Telecommunications, which organized the competition. Hmmm, was there a home-country advantage at work here? Or is quick-draw texting just another essential aspect of productivity at which less-developed nations are beating the pants off the Americans? (Actually, that may be an unfortunate choice of words... wasn't Singapore the country that wanted to whack a young American with a cane a few years back for chewing gum or some such nonsense?)
Just so you know, SMS messaging competitions around the world use the same text provided by the Guinness people– "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." Not terribly practical for everyday business, but I guess the idea is to get you to use the entire alphabet.
And for all you Crackberry addicts out there (see top item in this article), here's the winner's secret to fast texting–use a mobile phone with large keys on the dial pad. Jeez, I could have told you that...
