Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

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It’s easy to think that those who peddle products on TV don’t have feelings.

Who could imagine they experience doubt or fear?

They smile on camera, tell you to buy a certain product and try to burrow their way into human hearts as they do.

Yet one of the most famous tech pitchmen of all, Paul Marcarelli, wants you to know his soul can be tortured.

He’s best remembered as the man who uttered “Can You Hear Me Now?” for Verizon more often than anyone could have ever conceived.

Now, he pitches for Sprint. Which some might say is a little like going from, oh, the Baltimore Ravens to the Cleveland Browns.

Still, Marcarelli just gave a pulsating interview to Wealth Simple, in which he described the insecurity of the phone pitch.

Oddly, for someone who’s likely made a lot of money out of corporate America, he doesn’t seem much of a fan.

He described his troubled feelings every year, wondering whether Verizon would renew his contract. It made him form some deep feelings about life in corporate America’s employ.

“Corporate America benefits from making you feel your role with them is utterly dispensable,” he said. 

That’s a feeling so many have surely experienced. You can be in the wrong place, at the wrong time and be disliked by the wrong person. Suddenly, you’re gone.

Marcarelli went into more detail about how corporate America preys on human insecurity, in his view.

“How else can they manage to get salaried workers to stay at the office until midnight and be within phone’s reach on weekends and holidays and during funerals and weddings and vacations without any additional compensation!?” he mused.

Warming to his cause, he added: “That shit’s illegal in France! A boss calls you on vacation, you can call the cops.”

That’s not quite how it works in France. There’s a certain negotiation as to when workers agree to be contacted and when not.

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Marcarelli said that the other side of his pitching was that “the work is well-paid, but you may be surprised to know that it’s actually a lot of work.”

Some people may, indeed, be surprised.

The Sprint man said that the job takes him away from friends and “I never know where I’m going to be from one week to the next, year after year.”

I pause for communal sniffling, while I whisper that Sprint declined to comment.

Still, we all know that an employee’s insecurity will never stop. Why, what will happen if Sprint and T-Mobile finally consummate their perennial flirting?

How many employees might lose their jobs?

I wonder, too, whether the new ad campaign for the merged firm could bear a stand-up act of Marcarelli and T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

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It’s often the case that other phone makers chuckle at Apple.

Who can forget Samsung’s excoriation of the iPhone’s history last year?

Cupertino, though, isn’t above its own mockery of rivals.

Having greeted the Samsung Galaxy S9 with a series of ads suggesting it’s far inferior to iPhone X, Apple’s just released two ads with digs at Android.

Of course, they don’t mention Android by name. But whom do you think is being mocked here? The Windows Phone store?

In one of the new ads, Apple suggests Google’s Play store is, well, insecure and even combustible.

Whereas Apple’s app store apparently has a beautiful big wall all around it.

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the second ad, Apple wants you to believe that its Portrait Lighting feature — which uses the iPhone 8 Plus’ and iPhone X’s dual cameras to make professional-looking portraits — is coveted by those who pose for pictures in Android phones.

In a review of the Galaxy S9, CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt did, indeed, intimate that the S9’s camera isn’t stellar in low light. 

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She did, however, insist that for well-lit shots, it is excellent.

I wonder whether Apple’s ads will persuade anyone to switch — a phenomenon that phone retailers tell me is increasingly rare.

People seem to decamp to one side or the other and stay there. Apple’s ecosystem is especially good at wrapping you inside its cocoon and persuading you that it’s just too much trouble to leave.

Some might see a longer-term worry for Android, though.

If a new Piper Jaffray survey is to be believed — and all surveys should all be treated gingerly — teens are flocking to iPhone more than ever.

Eighty-two percent of US teens said they own an iPhone, according to the survey, and 84 percent said their next phone will be an iPhone.

If that is representative of the future, then Android might have a problem. 

Then again, some say phones in general — yes, even Apple’s — aren’t selling the way they used to.

Perhaps people have better things to think about these days. Like, oh, virtual reality. (Yes, that’s a joke.) 

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man tweets his love for his car.

You might be tempted to offer such elevated words, on learning that fashion designer and rapper Kanye West has extremely deep feelings for his Tesla.

In a series of tweets, West’s adoration was laid bare.

Is it always good to be in the future? I thought we were all supposed to be in the present in order to be happy. Live in the moment, they say. Don’t they?

Still, Kanye had only just begun. He offered what many might assume was wit.

And then a tweet that almost felt like a lyric.

Until he finally expressed his uncontrolled joy at owning a car that will one day soon entirely control itself.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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However, it can’t be bad for business when a renowned tastemaker such as West expresses such feelings.

It may well be that the feelings are, indeed, reciprocated.

At this year’s SXSW, Musk was asked to reveal his inspiration. 

“Well, Kanye West, obviously,” was his reply, to perplexing laughter.

West has been extremely active on Twitter over the last week.

He’s been offering deep philosophical sayings, ones that he claims will become a book.

Sample: “Demonization has metastasized.”

Another sample: I don’t believe in horizontal hierarchy. If you build a ladder too high it’s actually most dangerous for the people at the top.”

Yet it’s the people at the top who have been the first to enjoy Teslas. Danger clearly has its privileges.

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

It’s a fear many pilots carry with them every day.

At some point, their plane may collide with a drone that’s being flown by someone who thinks they’re just having fun.

According to a report from UK Airprox Board, the country’s air safety agency, a drone came extremely close to an Airbus 319 that was taking off from Heathrow Airport on Jan. 7. So much so that the board gave the incident its highest-risk rating.

The report says the Airbus was at 4,800 ft. when “a medium-sized, white drone passed directly overhead, with an estimated separation of 20 ft.”

The board says the pilot had no time to take any corrective action. It didn’t identify the airline, saying only that it was a commercial flight.

The UK’s Metro reported the plane had 160 passengers on board. 

The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority has distinct regulations with respect to where drones can legally fly. 

It insists, for example, that drones should be in the sightline of operators at all times, “so that you can ensure that it does not collide with anything, especially other aircraft.” 

That seems prudent. 

It adds that drones weighing more than 7 kg. (around 15.4 lbs.) shouldn’t fly above 400 ft.

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Neither the UK Airprox Board nor the Civil Aviation Authority immediately responded to a request for comment.

Heathrow has seen reports of drones actually striking planes, as has Canada’s Lesage International Airport in Québec City. 

In such cases, however, neither the drones nor their operators seem to have been located.

Some pilots don’t believe drones are such a problem. Airline captain Chris Manno, for example, says they’re no more dangerous than bird strikes.

You can, though, understand the cautious approach of authorities. Drones are still a relatively new phenomenon in the sky. They are proliferating at some speed. 

Anything could happen. So why do these so-called enthusiasts insist on flying them near airports? In some cases, because they get spectacular footage.

But, please, don’t do it.

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

Is technology failing you in your quest to lose weight?

Even though you have a Fitbit or an Apple Watch, does watching your step count really get you to your ideal level of svelte?

Conan O’Brien and his sidekick Andy Richter have the perfect solution for you, one that understands the essence of human nature.

It’s called Fatbat and the late-night hosts are sure that it works far better than the Fitbit that’s so beloved by many of their coworkers. 

“I just don’t think numbers and graphs are the best way to exercise,” explains Richter.

So Fatbat delves into the basement of your psyche, the place where fear lurks.

You see, Fatbat consists of a very large man with a baseball bat. Yes, that’s it. 

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He simply follows you around and injects the fear of all universes into you, so that you will exercise. Or else.

In the true spirit of hard-sell advertising, Richter presents his first Fatbat client as having already lost 24 lbs, using this relatively non-technological, but seemingly effective method.

Astute logicians might notice something of a flaw in the Fatbat design.

Once you begin to become lithe and sprightly, your Fatbat won’t be able to keep up with you.

That will only lure you back toward the heinous behaviors that made you gain weight in the first place, creating a vicious cycle. 

Still, who can deny that humans are motivated by fear?

Perhaps just the thought of the large man with the bat will keep you on the straight and narrow. Especially the narrow.

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Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek    

Businesses are in a peculiar situation these days.

They’re often stepping in to fight social problems, as (some) governments seem incapable of addressing them — or even admitting they exist.

Yet, at the same time, here’s Facebook — one of the world’s most famous businesses — being accused of causing immense social problems with its alleged inattention to what’s happening on its site.

Enter SAP.

Wait, who? The enterprise software company seems to believe that businesses can solve, well, just about any problem.

Here’s actor Clive Owen — someone who’s capable of playing good guys and bad with equal aplomb — explaining in a new SAP ad that the world is in a parlous state.

Overproducing, overheating, overcrowding are just three of the problems we’re facing.

And then there’s the progressive decrepitude that hits all of our infrastructure — and even our actors.

Not to mention gender inequality. Indeed, it’s hard to think of what we’re doing right.

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“Solving big problems is what business does best,” says Owen. Is that so true? I fear some would say that business creates big problems, too. But perhaps I’m being infernally picky.

Still, Owen and SAP seem to believe that “together, we can tackle every elephant in the room.”

Does that include how insecure a lot of software is and how too many nerds believe that software ought to be at the heart of mankind’s every action, thought and feeling?

Oh, what am I saying? This is an ad, an act of artistic optimism on the part of a software company.

Ergo, Owen is here to tell us that SAP can help the world’s best-run businesses solve all the world’s problems.

Well, that’s a relief.

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

I’ve heard it said that today’s teens are more sensible, more conservative than generations before them.

I don’t necessarily mean conservative politically. It’s simply my impression that they look at their elders with a tinge of pity at what they’ve done to the world.

Might such a conservatism explain why ever greater numbers of teens seem to be iPhone owners?

I ask because investment bank Piper Jaffray released its bi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey on Tuesday.

Researchers asked more than 6,000 US teens, whose average age is 16.4 years old, what they spend money on and which brands they hold dear to their hearts.

And, yet again, it appears the preferred smartphone of teens is the iPhone.

When I say “preferred,” I almost want to say, in a dismissive teen voice: “Ugh, what’s that? A Samsung?!” 

You see, 82 percent of teens surveyed said they owned an iPhone, and 84 percent said their next phone would be an iPhone. This sounds like uncommon brand loyalty.

Last October, 78 percent said they owned an iPhone, and 82 percent said their next phone would be an iPhone.

Can this mean that today’s teens are true to their word?

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Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

There’s something quite odd about the apparent dominance of Apple’s phones among teens. After all, Samsung’s ads, for example, have always done very well in viral charts — often markedly better than Apple’s. Don’t teens bathe in viral-this and viral-that all the time?

It could be, of course, that many of the iPhones these teens own have been handed down to them by frugal, self-centered parents who want the newest iPhones for themselves.

Still, if an old brand like Apple can hold this level of cachet among teens, it must cheer CEO Tim Cook. 

If the company can suck in the young and wrap them in its relatively simple, efficient ecosystem, they may find it very hard to leave. 

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

Who says charity can’t be sexy?

Apple on Friday will release a remarkably bright red iPhone 8 (and an 8 Plus) as part of its annual Product Red program.

Part of the profits go to Global Fund, a charitable organization that funds programs that combat HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. 

On Tuesday, Apple released an ad to coincide with the new phones, but it isn’t exactly demure. 

To the pulsating beat of Sofi Tucker’s “That It (I’m Crazy)”, the ad reeks of the luscious red and black of the phone.

As with seemingly all phone ads at launch, here we have extreme close-up shots of the phone, making it look like a sophisticated machine.

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In this case, however, it’s something of a sex machine, it seems. 

The music has more than a hint — to me, at least — of Right Said Fred’s seminal work “I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt.”

The atmosphere reminds me of an ’80s club, where strange people would come over and say extremely odd things to you, while their eyes hovered independently of each other.

I suppose not much has changed over the years.

Of course, the problem for anyone buying this new red phone may be convincing admirers they haven’t merely bought an alluring case for their iPhone 8.

Oh, but just think how sexy it will look when you put it down on a bar, turn to the attractive person seated next to you and say: “I’m not totally materialistic, you know. I give to charity.”

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Technology has made so many things easier.

Buying things, for example.

You can sit at home, unclothed and the worse for wear, and click your way to buying almost anything you want.

But what about when you’re in a physical store? It must seem so old-fashioned. You might have to talk to people or, worse, stand in line. Who does that?

Apple understands your frustrations. Which is why it wants you to wave your phone like a magic wand in order to satisfy your purchasing cravings in an instant.

Cupertino has just released a series of blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em new iPhone X ads that show you how short a time it may take from seeing something you crave and buying it.

In one spot, a pair of sneakers is eyed and bought in the time it takes many people to think about whether they like a pair of sneakers or not.

That’s the joy of Apple Pay, in which your face is your ID. 

The same eye-opening trick is pulled with buying coffee. It’s so quick that the barista doesn’t have time to spell the customer’s name correctly. 

Wait, they never spell names correctly, do they?

And what about buying groceries? 

Well, that’s suddenly so quick that you have spare time to create art out of your purchases.

In the final ad, our intrepid purchaser doesn’t even leave the house.

She desperately needs a grooming kit for her dog, so one arrives. Almost, it seems, a second after she’s clicked on the “pay” button.

Of course, this is exactly what many people desire, especially in this splendidly exaggerated form.

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They want to just click a button or wave their phone around and get exactly what they want, when they want.

The question is whether that’s a good thing.

How many times have you craved an item, instantly bought it, only to regret it soon afterwards? 

Yes, you can return it. But that process always takes a little more time than the buying seemed to.

Still, you can see why Apple is plugging its service.

The company has largely succeeded in making the idea of unlocking your phone with your face a perfectly natural action.

The next step is to unlock the habit of buying with just one look. 

It eliminates the need for second thoughts. Or even first ones.

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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.

The more we let gadgets know about us, the more they remember.

So when 57-year-old Myrna Nilsson was found dead in Adelaide, Australia, police thought they’d examine the Apple Watch she’d been wearing to see what it could tell them about what had happened.

As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports, prosecutors last week presented evidence from the watch that appeared to contradict the story told by Nilsson’s daughter-in-law, Caroline Nilsson.

For two years, police had suspected Caroline Nilsson of having been involved. However, they only arrested her last month, after examining the data from the watch.

Her claim was that her mother-in-law had been followed by a group of men and had argued with them for around 20 minutes outside her home.

Caroline Nilsson, who has been charged with her mother-in-law’s murder, said she had been tied up in the home by the alleged intruders. She said she’d raised the alarm immediately after the attackers left.

Instead, prosecutors say, Caroline Nilsson’s emergence from the home at 10:10 p.m. was inconsistent with Myrna Nilsson’s Apple Watch data recording physical activity and heart rate numbers.

That data suggested that Myrna Nilsson had gone into shock around 6:38 p.m. and had certainly been dead by 6:45 p.m., well before her daughter-in-law notified authorities.

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“The evidence from the Apple iWatch [sic] is a foundational piece of evidence for demonstrating the falsity of the defendant’s account to police,” prosecutor Carmen Matteo reportedly said in court.

In addition, she said, there was no DNA evidence that any attackers had been in the home. Moreover, while Caroline Nilsson had claimed that the men had arrived in a utility vehicle, neighbors said they had seen no vehicle of that kind parked outside the house.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

A spokeswoman for the South Australia Police Department told me: “It is not South Australia Police policy to comment on matters which are currently before the courts.”

She also offered me the words of Superintendent Des Bray, the officer in charge of major crime for the police department, before the case came to court. He said: “Police would like to reassure the community that that was not a random incident and not a home invasion.”

This isn’t the first time an advanced gadget has been used by police to obtain evidence. Two years ago, police in Arkansas asked for access to an Amazon Echo that they hoped would provide recordings in a home in which a man had been found strangled in the bath.

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