This is what digital displays are going to be like in the not so far future…
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Category Archives: Technology
Go Internet!!!
Here’s how support for #SOPA and #PIPA changed in 24 hours. For more, see:http://
Blurring the lines between technology and reality
The graphics in this video are simply breathtaking. It’s a tribute to the new Ferrari 458 Italia made by the guys of Gran Tourismo. Parts of it if you were not looking closely you’d swear that it was actual video footage. Make sure to watch it in HD and full screen:
Can’t wait to see what “Gran Tourismo 10″ might be like in 10 or so years time. They’ll probably be beaming it into our heads in a virtual reality that will be indistinguishable from real life! Fingers crossed anyway..
List of Facebook Smilies
Well yes everyone knows the basic smilie and wink etc, but I for one can never remember what to write to get the other emoticons, and I end up typing random characters which just confuses whoever I’m talking to. So, below is a big list of all the facebook smilies you can do, and the characters you need to type (or copy and paste) to get them!
| Smile |  |
:) or :-) or :] or =) |
| Frown |  |
:( or :-( or :[ or =( |
| Tongue |  |
:p or :-p or =P |
| Grin |  |
:D or :-D or =D |
| Gasp |  |
:O or :-O or :o or :-o |
| Wink |  |
;) or ;-) |
| Glasses |  |
8) or 8-) or B) or B-) |
| Sunglasses |  |
8| or 8-| or B| or B-| |
| Grumpy |  |
>:( or >:-( |
| Unsure |  |
:/ or :-/ or :\ or :-\ |
| Cry |  |
:'( |
| Devil |  |
3:) or 3:-) |
| Angel |  |
O:) or O:-) |
| Kiss |  |
:* or :-* |
| Heart |  |
<3 |
| Kiki |  |
^_^ |
| Squint |  |
-_- |
| Confused |  |
O.o or o.O |
| Upset |  |
>:O or >:-O or >:o or >:-o |
| Pacman |  |
:v |
| Colon Three |  |
:3 |
| Robot * |  |
:|] |
| Putnam * |  |
:putnam: |
| Shark * |  |
(^^^) |
| Penguin * (Added 17 Sept 09) |  |
<(“) |
The Social World in 60 Seconds
Making a house from Shipping Crates
Here’s a mind-boggling statistic: 84% of the world’s refugees could be housed with a year’s worth of recycled American pallets–those wooden platforms used for shipping crates. That figure inspired the Brooklyn-based firm I-Beam to design the Pallet House, a 250-square-foot low-cost shelter constructed of 100 discarded pallets.
Nearly 21 million pallets end up in landfills every year; if repurposed, they could house more than 40,000 refugees. And since the pallets are designed for transport, they can first be used for carrying shipments of other types of aid, including food and medicine. Once onsite, it takes a five-person team less than a week to assemble and nail the modules together using basic hand tools. Tarps or corrugated roofing could serve as temporary measures to prevent water from penetrating the interior until enough locally available materials like dirt, wood, and thatch can be gathered to thoroughly cover the exterior and fill the wall cavities.
In addition to having the pleasing aesthetic of a garden shed, the Pallet House is far sturdier and more permanent than the tent structures common in refugee camps, where displaced individuals stay an average of seven years. I-Beam has built prototypes in New York, Indiana, and at the Architecture Triennial in Milan and is currently working on housing for those who lost their homes during the earthquake in Haiti and the floods in Pakistan.
The 12 year old App Developer!
This is incredible! A TED talk given my a 12 year old who has been developing his own apps!
I think its fantastic and this type of thing should be taught in schools! Just imagine the advances in technology if a portion of kids this young came out of primary school with a vivid imagination the ability to make applications!
Very interesting snapshot of the mobile market
So this graph shows the current state of play for Mobile sales by OS in the USA over the last two years. Amazingly approximately 650,000 users switched from a non-smart to smart phone every WEEK in September 2011. iPhones were already prominent but Blackberry’s ruled the roost back then – however they ahve been shrinking steadily and after their recent downtime their demise is imminent. iOS has grown steadily, however its really nothing compared to the staggering explosion in growth that Android has had!
The race is far from over though if you just look at the amount of non-smart phones still out there – a truly massive market yet to be captured!
A Fantastic TED Talk on why Facebook & Google are bad for the future of the Internet
The GoPro HD Hero – An incredible little HD action sports camera
I just got one of these. It’s amazing. Have a look at this video – the quality it records in is simply stunning
I took it out on my motorbike over the weekend and got some great shots, especially when its mounted to the side of my helmet – works really well.
See www.gopro.com for more info – buy it on Amazon
Are you obsessed with Facebook?
So, Tablet Computers. iPad’s & Android’s wtf?
When the sneak peak of the iPad came out about a year ago now, it really did not excite me. The concept was good because we all can imagine the potential of handheld tablet computers, but Apple (unsurprisingly) were a bit light on the features and heavy on the price. I certainly was not adding one to my wish list – but I was definitely interested to follow the market. A few months later I got my hands on one for a proper play with it, and wow, I was very impressed. This thing is slick – like really cool. I was very surprised by how much I like it – and so many of the apps were absolutely captivating and very impressive to use. Also as a business productivity tool its amazing. However the price was still extortionate – starting at €499 for the basic 8GB & wifi – going all the way up to a crazy €799 for 64GB with 3G. So, it was stilll a pass for my shopping list, but i was excited to see what the competitors would come out with. And it didn’t take long….
There have been a multitude of new tablets released onto the market like the Samsung Galazy Tab, the Dell Streak, the Archos 101 – all varying in sizes and capabilities – but all these, not being apple, run Google’s mobile operating System called “Android”. However because the market is still quite imature – none of them aren’t exactly cheap for something you may only use as an occasional toy – surfing the web on the couch instead of on the PC – or keeping you amused on trains & planes. Thankfully, it did not take long for a whole host of Chinese versions to hit the market. Like a lot of these Chinese imatations, most of them are rubbish…. Apart from one…
Zenithink ZT-180
The Zenihink ZT-180 looks just like an iPad with a 10″ screen – although it has a slightly more widescreen format screen. It has a pretty fast processor, 256mb and 4gb of internal storage – but unlike the iPad this is easily expandable by up to 32GB with a Micro SD card. it has Wifi and a full accelerometer as well which is great for games. Also unlike the iPad it has a full size USB port which for me is a massive plus! It runs Android 2.1 but can be upgraded to 2.2 Froyo. The battery like is not going to be as good as the iPad’s but from waht I hear you can get about 4-6 hours depending on usage. Some stat’s say more but many say less. It does not have 3G but I’d be unlikely to even get an iPad with 3G due to excessive data charges in Ireland (it’s cheap in the UK). With a small Hack you can get loads of apps from the Android Market – and this upgrade improves battery life too apparently.
But the best thing about this, is the cost. I just bought this lovely little unit for a total price of €134 including express delivery via DHL – a tiny fraction of what you would have to pay for n iPad. Ok now its definitely not going to be quite as Good as an iPad – however it does have some advantages like USB & SD etc – however the iPad does have a nicer Capacitive screen – but overall its a great value package.
Buy from Here using 5% discount code: 15450
The Internet of Things
Google is developing Self-Driving Cars! Wow!
This rocks: Google has been working on a secret project to enable cars to drive themselves. I shit you not! And they haven’t done it on a computer simulator, or in some controlled lab, they’ve been out on California roads testing this out.
“Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research,”
So how does this work? The automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors, and a laser range finder to locate everything around them (these are mounted on the roof). And, of course, they use Google’s own maps. But the key? This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.
Google says it gathered the best engineers from the DARPA Challenges (an autonomous vehicle race that the government puts on) to work on this project. They also note that these cars never drive around unmanned in the interest of safety. A driver is always on hand to take over in case something goes wrong, and an engineer is always on hand in the car to monitor the software. Google also says they’ve notified local police about the project.
So has it worked? Apparently, yes. There has been one accident so far, but it was when someone else rear-ended one of these Google cars.
Google notes that 1.2 million people are killed every year in road accidents — they think they can cut this number in half with the tech. It will also cut energy consumption and save people a lot of time.
I want this yesterday. This is all kinds of awesome.
Why Android kicks the iPhone’s Ass
When the iPhone4 was announced, I was pretty excited and I was definitely going to buy one. I am definitely not a Mac Fanboy – but when I got an iphone about 2 years ago – I totally fell in love with it. However, right before I was about to pick one up, I saw this video – and suddenly my interest changed. If you don’t know, Android is an operating systems for mobile devices made by Google. Amazingly there are more Android smartphones in America than iPhones, but it has not kicked off in Europe so much for some reason. It’s 100% open source meaning anyone can get the source code and change the way anything works to the way they like it. This means no ‘having to do something one way’ like the way Windows and Mac OS work. There are also lots of good phones, HTC being the main manufacturer. The “Google Phone” that came out a while ago was made by HTC branded the Nexus One by Google. I bought the HTC Desire which is more or less the same phone with a few updates.
So, the main differences: The HTC Desire has 4 buttons at the bottom. I LOVE this. Apple sometimes try to over-simplify things – and always touching can be annouying. The Home button always bring you to your main home screen, the Menu button is a menu for whatever screen/app you are in – same for search, its specific to what you are doing, and then there is a back button (which is nice but sometimes its easier to swipe back than reach down and press the back button – but again this is changable). It’s also lighter and has a nice feel to it in your hand. The screen is absolutely superb too.
The Desktop / Homepage: On iPhone you just have a few pages with icond on them. BOOOORRRINNGG. On Android you have a “Desktop” with Widgets. I have a weather widget, a time/alarm widget. A search box that give you both phone and web search results. I have a strip of icons that with one click turn on or off your wireless/bluetooth/data/gps etc – which on ipohe you have to go into 3 or 4 menu levels. You have a total of 7 screen that can have anything on them. Facebook, Twitter, Gmail – basically anything! Instead of having to click back and forward between 7 screen, pinching the screen will bring thumbnails of the 7 screens and click one one to zoom back in. You can also change the background photo or have “Live Wallpapers” which are cool animations that change depending on e.g the time of day or weather, or it can even be a map of where you are at any time!
Click for bigger version
Integration: Google is not just available as apps etc, it is fully integrated into the whole OS. You contacts can sync with your gmail account. Also facebook & Twitter if you want – when you look at your list of contacts/phone numbers – it automatically pulls in the persons photo from Facebook if you are friends with them. It will also pull down their updated contact details if they have it on facebook!
Notification: Whatever it is, all notifications are in the one place. If you get email, texts, updates, downloads, etc – you get an icon at the info bar at the top of the screen. Touching this bar and dragging it down, give you full details of this and you can clickc to jump into each one!
The Keyboard: The keyboard is way better. You can touch and go to any point, not just the end of a word. Holding on one letter for a second give you a second option, like a number, question mark or exclamation point etc. The predictive Text is also way better, giving you several options of what you might be trying to type, not just guessing one which the iPhone does.
Change the OS: Since Android is Open Souce, there are several different versions/flavours of it available to download and put on – basically they are all changed in certain ways so find the one that suits your needs best and use that one! Some are very simple and made for speed and battery life, some have loads of extra programs and features!
Other Random Stuff: It is FAST!!! Like properly fast. the 1Ghz Snapdragon processor is amazing. Android also has a massive range of phones available in different formats. With iPhone you can only choose hard drive space. It has REAL multitasking. And its easy to kill background apps in one go. The Android market is better. Not as many apps but its more open. You can take off the back cover and change the battery (a huge plus – since the battery is not great) – and also it has a removable SD Card for your apps and data. It also works like a big USB key as you can store anything on it when you connect it to a computer. Also, the cable to connect it is simply “Micro USB” which is the de-facto standard for all phones going forward (a new agreement from all the phone manufacturers – except apple funnily enough – groan). You don’t need iTunes although it will work with it if you want. Android supports Google Voice and Voice Actions so you can navigate your phone, call people, send texts, update twitter and facebook, all through voice recognition!!!
iPad / Tablet PC’s: Just like the iOS on the iPad – Android works on other mobile devices like tablets. iPad is obviously the first one that has become massively popular, but in the next 6 months a huge amount of manufacturers are going to come out with their own versions of the iPad – but they will be running Android! I can pretty much guarantee that these devices will be better – way more features for a lot less money than the iPad. They will have USB posts, Cameras front and back, Multitasking, Removable SD Cards, File Transfer, Flash, HDMI, GPS. All the things the iPad does not have (on purpose BTW, apple do this so that they can bring out versions 2, 3 and 4 over the next few years to keep demand/desire high for their newest line of products – knowing that a large percentage of their Fanboy customer base will buy each one – groan…)
So, in conclusion, I am so so glad I did not get an iPhone 4. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 4 is a great piece of kit, and for some users it might even be the better choice – its better at being a phone + an iPod for example. If you have an interest in technology and enjoy the techy/nerdy part of it, the Desire is 100% definitely the way to go. But even if you are not, this is a really fantastic phone for everyone. Mainly though, is the fact that Android has come from nothing to a real game changer and challenger to the iPhone in a very short space of time – it’s just so much more open and versitile. So, give it another year or so of innovation, plus another few new phones to be released, and I don’t think iPhone is going to have a chance…
Here are a few video’s worth watching:
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