Death To Remotes! Consoles Should Run Your TV

​Death to remotes!

During the Xbox One reveal this week, Microsoft spent a lot of time on the console controlling the television and cable box. A significant amount of gamers fired back with "we don't care about controlling the TV, just show us the games!"

Once you try, you may not go back. I don't have an Xbox One, but Nintendo's Wii U is a good step in the direction of TV integration that I hope all future consoles take.

It's the simple things that I love about controlling the TV with my console, like changing the volume of a game when someone calls or is speaking to you.  I love coming home and turning on your entertainment system easily.  Having my favorite channels available at a push of button, without even needing to turn the console on, is a huge upgrade from the terrible interfaces that most cable companies provide.

The Wii U accomplishes the above tasks via button presses and the same infrared sensor that remotes use, meaning that you need line of sight to your cable box and TV.  If the voice control of the Xbox One works as advertised, it will be much easier to completely control your entertainment system without messing around with the ugly cable company interfaces. In addition, it will let you control your DVR and (possibly) On Demand cable functionality, something that the Wii U cant' do. 

Games will always come first, but don't discount the other media parts of the new generation of gaming consoles. Wii U took the first step, and Xbox One can really up the ante. Maybe even the cable companies will get on board and ​start to deign systems that aren't clunky.

Nah, that'll never happen.​

This post also appears on TWIB.

We The Geeks White House Initiative Needs More Youth

​My dog Leia is only 2, so she counts as a young geek.

We all know that the White House is full of geeks. The administration has hosted science fairs, responded to petitions for a Death Star, and Obama himself created a new fusion of Star Wars and Star Trek with a "Jedi Mind Meld"​. It's fitting that the White House has started a new initiative called We The Geeks, a Google+ Hangout series to have conversations about STEM and how it fits into the administration's overall Strategy of Innovation.

The initiative has assembled a great panel that is unfortunately a little heavy on folks that have already accomplished a ton in their career. This creates the risk of alienating folks that haven't accomplished as much. Hearing from Google, IBM, and other industry powers is great, but we need to hear from more young folk in the early and middle stages of their careers.  Hearing about their struggles, particularly in this era of education reform and a tough economy for new grads, would really help make the talk relevant to more people.  Check out the participant list:

​Cristin Dorgelo, Assistant Director for Grand Challenges, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE  Watson  National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholars ProgramSebastian Thrun, a research professor at Stanford, a Google Fellow, and a co-founder of Udacity, to discuss Google’s self-driving car and Google X

Now, I'm not saying to completely remove the more accomplished from the discussion.  Let's just turn the tables a bit - instead of their being one recent college grad surrounded by folks far in their careers, how about reversing that?  I'd rather hear mostly from younger millennial folks in their teens and 20s with one or two more advanced folks there to help guide the conversation and give advice. Break the videos into bite sized chunks so that they can be easily shown in sections to a kid in a community center, or a classroom, or just a curious individual who happens to be on my website. We need to do a better job of engaging our youth directly. 

Check out the video below!

​This post also appears on TWIB.

42 Lounge: Nerds in Downtown Milwaukee

​42 Lounge, 326 E Mason St, Milwaukee

As a science blogger, I love to talk about all things science related with like-minded people. I had my spots in Philadelphia, which was my home for the last 6 years .. until now. I've moved to Milwaukee, and one of my main concerns is making sure I can find places where I can geek out about space, Iron Man 3, and the latest video game.  Luckily I've found a great place to hang out at the 42 Lounge in downtown Milwaukee. 

Watching live video game matches like Starcraft at a bar is heaven.​

The great thing about places like 42 Lounge is that it has a nerd theme. Video games, tabletop games, and general science and tech talk rule the day - along with alcohol of course! Speaking of drinks, there are some great geek themed drinks from this list - my favorite so far is the Pokemon drink Lavender Town Syndrome (Hpnotiq, Vodka, Grenadine, Sprite).  

I was also able to test out the wifi connection using a Blackberry Z10, as well as take the photos for this post.  It was great to be able to talk about phones with other geeks in the area. Many of them, including me, had long given up on Blackberry after being surpassed by Google Android OS and Apple iOS phones, but the Z10 has changed many minds. Being able to hand them the phone and have them play with it, debate about it, and compare it with existing phones was a huge plus.

Check out the videos below for an interview with 42 Lounge co-owners Tony and Lynn Nilles, as well as a tour of the bar itself.

This post also appears at TWIB. 

Teachable Moments In Science: Kiera Wilmot

​Photo via WikiMedia

Science is fun! Part of the fun is failing, failing again, and pushing a hypothesis forward or rejecting it based off of evidence. This involves a ton of mistakes - some of which are more dangerous than others.  We need to learn how to turn reasonable mistakes into teachable moments.

16 year old Kiera Wilmot of Bartow High School mixed toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil on school grounds without supervision, resulting in a small non-harmful explosion. She was expelled for violating the school code of conduct, and faces felony charges of "possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds and discharging a destructive device." The gory details, including the full police report, are located on the Miami New Times website.

​Kiera Wilmot, via Miami New Times

The real problem is with the school and the police. When a kid makes a mistake that's not severe, it can be easily turned into a teachable moment. How about suspension instead of expulsion, with the requirement of a lab assignment based on the very experiment that was tried by Kiera? How about requiring a presentation by her to the class and/or principal to show mastery of the subject? This solution combines a reasonable punishment with additional academic work to help Kiera learn the proper way to conduct experiments. It also gives the adults involved another way to gauge her understanding of the scientific method. The penalties should go up for repeated offenses, up to and including expulsion. 

​For more about how scientific curiosity helps us all win, check out my post Curiosity Kills the Gap.

​This post also appears on TWIB.

Forbidden Tech #6 - Fridges

Forbidden Tech is my video series where I talk about pieces of technology that I was not allowed to have as a kid, scarring me forever. Check out the earlier Forbidden Tech videos here.

Why didn't my mom let me have a fridge has a kid? We investigate the case.  Check out the video!​ If you can't see the video below, click here.