Quick Arduino Use

Just found this and it uses the same Arduino technology that we had in iLab for the past project. Just goes to show what you can do. It’s all about the ideas. Must have more ideas.

Check it out here.

Visual Programming Spreading To The Web

MaxMSP is a great tool for creating interactive experiences using a method of programming similar to a flow diagram. You simply position the objects on the canvas and connect them in order to accomplish a goal. I used this program to create the Shoutbox application.

Recently I have discovered Yahoo Pipes which is a web based program allowing you to create a custom web 2.0 application using a library of existing APIs and filters from Google, Yahoo, Flickr and loads more. The surprising thing is that it also uses a visual programming style in order to simplify the experience and open it up to developers who are not as well versed in the various development languages.

I have only just starting using it but I will post whatever it is that I make. Check it out for yourselves at http://pipes.yahoo.com/

It’s A Trap!

I love Robot Chicken. It’s official.

I knew Robot Chicken was made by the people that do Family Guy, and I knew that it was stop motion but for some reason I had never watched any of it until my holiday when I put two seasons of it on my iPod.

I think it is definitely on par with Family Guy, maybe even edged it a bit becuase it was new and unexpected. I laughed so very hard at the Star Wars special they did, not about the actual Star Wars storylines, more about the storylines around the outer edge of Star Wars, things that could be infurred as true from the films.

Below is one of the funniest things I have seen in a while. I love Star Wars and I love comedy, you have to have seen Star Wars a few times to understand the comedy in this. So I hope you have.

Robot Takes A Beating

Posted in December last year. Possible future stress relief? This shows how developers are tackling the problem of unexpected forces applied to a system. Very useful if a robot happens to be carrying something for you.

Mailto Gmail (G-Mailto)

I discovered a nice little tool today that allows you to open mailto links in Gmail and not Outlook or another specified mail client. Now there are many things around that function on the GreaseMonkey add-on and intercept mailto links within a web browser and redirect them to Gmail.

Great, but what if you need to open a mailto link that is not in a web browser? I had this problem today and so set about googling. G-Mailto is a tool that you install on your computer which adds a clever bit of code into the registry that essentially adds a program to windows as an option for handling E-Mail but opens up Gmail rather than a program like Outlook.

Problem solved. The site even gives you details about what to do to make your own if you wanted to try and improve or add to the program.

How To Draw A Werewolf

I found this amazing YouTube video in which someone draws a werewolf from scratch in Photoshop. I wish I could do this!

Wall-E Review

Simply put, it is the best animated film I have seen in a long time.

To say this film was a long time coming is an understatement. I was dubious about the storyline when I first saw the trailer over a year ago but as usual I was side-tracked by the beautiful animation and comedy that Pixar put into their films.

Last night I watched Wall-E and was amazed that a film lasting 90 mins could have held my attention with virtually no speech throughout. All the emotion that you feel when watching the film is a result of gesures and ‘facial’ expressions. With The story being about robots it was astounding how Pixar managed to translate human expressions, inflections and movements onto various robot counterparts.

An overview of the story (without spoiling it) is that humanity left earth as it was too contaminated by waste and while they are gone they leave Wall-E robots to clear up the mess. The story picks up 700 years on and follows the only functioning Wall-E’s journey. Being left alone for so long he has developed a personality and curiosity which often gets him in trouble.

I was surprised at how serious the themes were in the film, tackling such issues as climate change, recycling, social boundaries, technological complacency and corporate monopolies as well as friendship, love and self-discovery.

There are many funny moments in the film and the storyline is entertaining. The best part about the film for me was the myriad of different robots and how they all seem to have their own personalities and character traits, good and bad, and how they react to Wall-E.

I will be buying this when it comes out. Well done Pixar, you’ve done it again.

5/5

On The Surface It’s All About Sex

After searching YouTube for a while today looking for new and interesting things and stuff, I came across an advert for Microsoft Surface technology. The Rio in Las Vegas has recently installed Surface and the ad demonstrates a few ways in which the technology can be used. The usual things appear such as seeing what is on at the Rio, what there is to do in Vegas and ordering drinks from the table. The main focus of the ad however is flirting.

The video shows girls using Surface to control ceiling mounted cameras above other tables to ogle men, then it allows them to send a message to that person or table. The guy then orders a drink and has it delivered to the girls’ table, all without leaving his seat. I like the integration of an instant messaging system and the new slant on the technology but I feel that the sexual undertones the voice-over suggests are far too optimistic. Now you don’t actually have to stand up to order a drink you don’t have worry about staggering over to the bar, falling flat on your face and embarrassing yourself.

No more is Surface simply resizing and moving around images and video (which is what you normally see in touch screen demos) and the premise of social interaction seems to be a good one, especially in an environment where everything is to excess.

I am going to be in Las Vegas in August so I will definitely be checking this out first hand and let you know what it is actually like to interact with.

As they say, sex sells. So why not use it to sell Microsoft Surface technology? Now it seems like there may be a use for it after all.

Bludlerp, Bludelerp, BELUDELERP!

I love comedy. I love wit. I love being a geek. So what happens when you combine all these? You get the competition from cracked.com to Photoshop the best powerup into real a real-life situation.

Some people (I hope) didn’t spend much time on the Photoshopping but some didn’t need much.

The favourite of mine is below.

To see all 30 entries and the winner click here

Oh and the title of this post is the sound that Mario makes when he gets a powerup in case you didn’t quite get the strangely spelt, obscure reference.

Facebroke?

So who broke Facebook? Come on, own up.

I’ve noticed recently that Facebook is having a whole bunch of problems that are quite serious isues with regard to users.

These include:

• Photo tag requests are not displayed correctly - when you click to view the tag request it appears people have tagged the search button, go home and then click the request again and all is ok.
• Videos that are uploaded run far faster than they should but keep the audio running normally. Makes for some interesting viewing.
• People tag you in some photos or video and Facebook notifies you, you click to view the photo and it takes you to a random photo - it appears the album does not exist.

I think it is possible that Facebook has become too big, with so many people adding hundreds of pointless applications it seems likely that it has put unexpected stress on their services. Imaging how much storage and processing power they need when you consider how many photos you upload and how much you pay for that. Its free, exactly.

I read recently that Facebook was broke and running out of storage space so were approaching a series of venture capitalists for funding to buy more servers.

So could all this mean the end for Facebook? Only about a quarter of my friends lists actually update it now compared to pretty much all of them 6 months ago.

Google… are you interested? They are building their own social networking applcation to run on 3rd party websites as a means of seeing what your friends are up to and collaboratively reading web pages. I can’t remember off-hand what that was called or exactly what it does but I am keeping my ears close to the ground to find out more. Would Facebook be a nice addition to this? After all Google did buy YouTube, why not Facebook?