N.Y. Times photo
Wen-Wen Lam of LinkedIn may be at a party in San Francisco, but her attention is not.

We can't see the forest for the T-Mobiles
As we consume Apples and BlackBerrys, natural world beats a sensory retreat

Adrian Higgins, WaPo:

You know you have crossed the river into Cyberland when the guy coming your way has his head buried in the hand-held screen. He will knock into you unless you get out of his way, and don't expect an apology. It's as if you aren't there.

Maybe you're not.

Technology has drawn us into our interconnected webs, in the office, on the street, on the park bench, to the point that we exist virtually everywhere except in the physical world....

But now, there's an iPhone app called Type n Walk that lets you see through your phone, sort of. Your phone's camera will project a movie of what's ahead of you on your screen. If you look at this background, you might notice if you're in danger of being run down by something in the actual physical environment you're moving through.

Meanwhile, you can continue to type without actually touching your device or paying any attention to the world around you and hope you notice in time what's barreling down on you just behind that alphabet you're pecking at.

This might be a machine's idea of a human life.

You are just typing text on a transparent background. You then have to copy it and paste it into the appropriate opaque app (email, message, Facebook, Twitter) and for a few scary seconds you'll be out of visual contact with what's behind what's in front of your face.

Another one that could be in The Onion, but it's not. Second time this week tech products went surreal in ways Dali could never have imagined.