July 11, 2008

Sumopaint - online image editing software

Sumopaint - Image editing in your browser

Pretty neat, good for simple editing. I am fascinated by the symmetry tool!

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May 20, 2008

an interview with bill gates from 1986

CD ROM is totally different. We hope with CD ROM you’ll be able to look at a map of the United States, point somewhere, click, zoom in and say, “Hey, what hotels are around here?” And the program will tell you.



Sounds like Google Maps to me..... Bill Gates 1986 - Programmers at Work

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October 26, 2007

taking the "web" out of web-apps?

A new project in the Mozilla pipe-line is almost taking us full circle in the desktop application -> web-application cycle. Traditional desktop applications like email, calendars and office applications have all sprung up in new forms on the web, offering users benefits such as accessibility and quicker launch times. However, Mozilla has raised questions such as "why do you need a 'back' button, or a navigation bar in your web-app?" and in response is developing Prism - an application that pops out web-apps and allows them to run directly on your desktop. Circle complete?

Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism.

i, for one, am giving this one a try...

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April 03, 2007

Wireless power - electrifying!

I have been moaning and griping for quite a long time about the uselessness of having all wireless gadgets if you still need to plug them in for them to work.  Sure it's great to have wireless mice and keyboards and who knows what else, but, as I have said to anyone who will listen, what good is it until we have wireless electricity/power?  oh, i have been met with skepticism.  i myself have not been able to think about how wireless power would work without frying all of us in an instant, or, less dramatically, killing all other electronic appliances.  but still, i knew, that someday, someone would find a solution to our dependency on the mother of all wires...

and now, here it is: Startup jump-starts wireless power.

so the concept of never needing to plug in for power again is still way out there.  but at least people won't look at me with quite the same "good lord she is out of her mind/too much time spent reading sci-fi there..." look when i mumble something about wireless electricity. they will still have plenty of other reasons to think that of me, just not that one in particular.

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January 25, 2007

Norway sticks it to iTunes

The consumer ombudsman in Norway has ruled that iTunes does not conform to Norwegian consumer protection laws, and that Apple must either make its code available to competitors by Oct 1st, or it will face court charges.  The ruling is based on the fact that songs purchased through iTunes cannot be played on any competitor's devices.
The full article Norway declares Apple's iTunes illegal at Financial Times.

Goooo Norway : ) 

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January 16, 2007

Interesting. No, really.

I almost didn't click on the link from Reddit.  But then I saw that the article was on Wired.com and changed my mind.  And I was surprised, and intrigued.  At first by the fact alone that the article is a well thought-through piece that actually reviews that notorious game Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, and second, by the realization that the game isn't quite as horrible as I (and apparently many others) would assume.

While that is said, I do find the idea of making this horrific event into a game a bit distasteful... however, reading the author's careful analysis of the entirety of the game - no detail from creator Danny Ledonne is missed here - made me think of whether or not this game might actually be able to impart a thing or two on the young minds of its players.  For instance, the observation that <span class="quote">for all their bombast about being objectified by their tormentors, did
precisely the same thing to their victims. They didn't see them as
individuals: They were just metaphoric targets for their hatred</span>.  And my thoughts continued to spin on from there... i have no idea if whoever is playing this game is taking as much notice of the details of this game, nor whether they are considering the motivation behind the details.  but at least this isn't quite as inconsiderate and mind-numbingly senseless as i originally thought.

Posted by lara at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2006

Actual smart product features of 2006

Brilliant Ideas That found a Welcome

This article was really comforting to read.  Really.  I have spent the past few months getting increasingly frustrated with a couple of cell phones that just never seem to do the things I want them to - and I really don't think I am that demanding... It just seems that for every different make and model, the manufacturers of cell phones and smart phones (large heavy things that try to be both a little computer and a cell phone, and fail miserably at both) each have a few good feature ideas, and at least an equal amount of bad ones.

However, David Pogue has reassured me that product features are not always astoundingly dumb and ill-thought-through.  From magnetic power cords for your laptop that prevent the technological death caused by tripping over your power cord and bringing your fancy-schmancy laptop crashing to the ground, to Vista's Point Without Pointing speech recognition software feature that lets you identify a button or program without knowing the name, 2006 has luckily spawned a few really great product features. 

I will sleep more soundly tonight.  I think.
; )


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November 15, 2006

about time!

my goodness!  i have been saying for quite some time that the day someone invents wireless power, i will be a happy camper.  these statements have usually come after i have tried to move around my "portable" computer (aka laptop) and stuggled with all of the power cables that still are attached to it (laptop power, speaker power, external HD power...).
Finally, my distant hope is becoming something more than a random idea based mostly in my head, and slightly in the world of science fiction:  Physics promises wireless power.

booyah.


powered by performancing firefox

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November 07, 2006

a cool little app

Check it out: Autohotkey. 


sweet.


powered by performancing firefox



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November 01, 2006

CSS rollover image

i'm not quite sure i understand this yet, but whatever.  Simple CSS Image Rollover. Actually, i don't think it sounds all that simple, because you have to make a composite image, but i suppose that the benefit of not having to plunk around with javascript (biig plus in my book) makes up for that.


powered by performancing firefox

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October 26, 2006

i was DEFINATELY not aware of this

I was enlightened today: At U.S. Borders, Laptops have no right to privacy.   Apparently when you arrive in the US, customs and immigration have the right to browse through all the files on your computer, and even seize it.  this applies to anyone - They don’t need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law. They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations.

Yeah, not so cool. I mean, not only are they prying into whatever you might have on your computer, but they can actually just take your computer and not tell you when you're getting it back. One lady said she has been waiting for a year to get her laptop and its contents back. That is simply unacceptable. Luckily, people and groups are working to get the law changed so that seizing and searching must be based at a minimum, on a reasonable suspicion..

hrmph.

powered by performancing firefox

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September 25, 2006

a little dose of hindsight and some thoughts on who is the bad guy

Here's an article that looks back on the real successes and shortcomings of Windows XP - not the sales figures or numbers of copies installed. If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP


This article actually suprised me, by shedding light on who is actually to blame for some of the annoying things about XP. I am guilty of mumbling prophanities under my breath when I have just installed new software on my computer and return to my desktop to find 10 new shortcuts placed there presumably "for my convenience". I tend to direct my mumblings towards the creators of XP, but I now know that I should save these insults for others - XP was originally intended to clean up the look of Windows


The very interesting parting thought from the author,

What's the ugly flaw in Windows Vista that people will be screaming about in 2010, but is escaping people's attention right now?"

sums up the gist of the article quite nicely - the flaws we now regularly complain about in XP weren't even on the horizon when it was being developed (who had heard of security threats??). So how can we think that the developers of Vista are any more competent at foreseeing the future?
anyways, it's an interesting read...

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June 01, 2006

Controlling robots with your mind...

Wow. Researchers Make Robot Hand Controlled by Human ThoughtGranted, this is just a case of getting the robotic hand to play "Rock, paper, scissors", but nonetheless it represents an actual success for converting human brain waves to robotic movement. The use of fMRI to capture the processing that is going on in the brain and having a mapping of sorts between a certain pattern of activity and an actual concept represents a really cool development in this field. The real-world application of this will hopefully allow amputees and other patients with restricted or no use of limbs to control their prosthetic devices using the same nerve impulses that they normally would.
coool. yay cogntive science nerdyness!

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April 25, 2006

ARGH

Once again, a charming example of the whole "one step forward, two steps back" phenomenon. Those of us who care about such things have been happily registering that more and more hip and cool college students have been switching over to browsers other than IE, and have shared all sorts of lovely thoughts about the progression of technology. Then this happens: Microsoft Sends Windows Live to College. This might sound all peachy-keen, until you read about some of the limitations of Microsoft Live:


The reason for Microsoft pushing this out to all 72 colleges? The article softly hints at it... it is of course, all about promotion.

The Redmond company believes that catching the students early on will turn them into life-long users of Windows Live.


Yeah, good old microsoft...

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April 05, 2006

What happened to all the pretty colors?

If you're wondering why this blog is stripped of all design today, read more about CSS Naked Day. The point of this effort is to first of all show the power of CSS but also remind people the practice good standards when writing the content of their pages.

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February 24, 2006

good enough for another post...

Data Mining Using Goole

A pretty good overview of all the many ways you can do specific, smart searches in google. i'm contemplating printing this out and haning it on my wall until i actually commit one or two of these to memory! maybe.

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December 22, 2005

Self-recognition in robots

The issue of self-recognition has always been of great interest in cognitive science (and any of its sister-fields). From a development perspective, we have been curious as to when a child actually starts understanding that a mirror presents them with an image of themselves. Do our brains come pre-wired with this ability, or is it a skill we develop?
In primate studies mirrors have been a controversial topic, as initially the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror was considered "higher-cognition", and was considered to only be a human quality. However, more recent research shows that primates do in fact recognize themselves. (i recently saw a show on the Animal Planet where a chimp was using a mirror in its enclosure to remove something stuck in its teeth).
So, now it appears that we have figured out how to build this ability into artificial intelligence, creating Robots with self-awareness. This is pretty neat. As many people will be quick to argue, just because we are able to duplicate a behavior in artificial intelligence doesn't mean we've figured out how we do it, but it certainly is one step closer. Also, it adds a really cool, and decidedly functional, ability to robots and their behavior!!

Posted by lara at 06:36 AM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2005

the battle fizzles out...

well, it seems as though for once, the consumers will not be the losers. A while back I wrote about the apparent upcoming battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD, and my opinion on this kind of diversion in technological progress that customers end up paying for... now, however, it seems as though this battle has been resolved before it hits the frontlines of consumer retail; Blu-Ray has an overwhelming majority of the large corporations who will be using this technology (SW companies, music & movie labels) backing them. This may seem like a surprise, especially since "HD DVD was selected by the DVD Forum as the successor to the DVD standard" -- Blu-Ray was developed outside the DVD Forum.

No details on how Blu-Ray has managed to drum up this much support. However, it does seem like the company has taken a step in the right direction by having their players be capable of playing both traditional (soon to be old!) DVDs in addition to their Blu-Ray discs.

So it would appear that this time the losers are the companies that initially took sides in this battle, like Toshiba and Microsoft. I guess you have to take your wins with your losses...

Posted by lara at 03:59 PM | Comments (1)

December 10, 2005

on the first day of christmas...

...or, a Very Nerdy Advent Calendar!
24 Ways to impress your friends

cute idea. i wish i could pick up all of these little tips...maybe with time?

Posted by lara at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

remember humble pie?

With time, anyone who fancies themselves a web designer will develop personal opinions and taste for what they feel is a good website design. That is all well and good - developing a critical eye takes seeing lots of pages, noticing frustrating elements, or succesfull elements - but as this article from ALA points out, it's still important to remember that it doesn't matter how much a designer likes a site, the customer has the final word. And even though making several versions of a website, and getting people (or even better, prospective end-users) to evaluate them, can take time, it just might be worth it in many cases. And since most of us are wonderfully proficient in separating content from design, making multiple designs is not an unmountable challenge.
Design Choices Can Cripple a Website

Posted by lara at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

the battle over high-def DVD: the real losers...

so we discussed this issue at stanford this summer, and it really just bugs the crap out of me. DVDs are moving to the next generation - high definition - but the industry cannot agree on a common technology, and therefore the VHS vs. Betamax battle from the 1980's is going to repeat itself. the winners? too soon to tell. the losers? consumers.

So the deal here is that two different companies have separately developed their own high definition DVD technology. On one hand there is Blu-Ray developed by an association that includes among others Sony and Phillips, on the other is HD DVD which is being backed by companies like Toshiba and Sanyo. I'm not going to get into the details of the technology. The main point is that to enjoy either of these technologies you need to buy brand new equipment (estimated at $1000) and the two technologies are incompatible. This means that movies will be issued on either Blu-Ray discs or HD DVD discs (depending on which studio is behind the movie - studios and software companies are taking sides in this battle...) and that you will only be able to watch Blu-Ray discs on your Blu-Ray equipment.
What does this mean for consumers? Well, in all likelihood, there will not be room for both of these technologies in the long-term market, so one of them will eventually be forced out of business by market forces. However, any consumers who have invested in what will end up being the losing technology will be left with some expensive equipment and discs, that will no longer be compatible with the high definition DVD market items. basically, they lose.

So, the bottom line here is that the competition between companies to develop this technology independently has led to the emergence of two incompatible technolgies. Motion picture studios, software companies, and consumers will be forced to choose sides, and ultimately, one camp will lose out. Big Time.

Who's it gonna be?

Posted by lara at 09:54 AM | Comments (1)

October 04, 2005

making portable devices more portable

so i have had a laptop for the past 4 years. i'm generally pretty happy with it, however, in the past year the battery has gone from bad to crappy-like-all-get-out. at this point i can no longer unplug my computer even for a second without it crashing. so at this point i guess i can say that it's not so much a portable computer as a small and light-weight stationary one. however, even brand new laptops today have an expected battery life of a few hours. doesn't that seem a wee bit odd?

recently i (finally) bought an mp3 player. one of the main issues of comparison between the various brands of players is their battery life. it strikes me as odd and archaic that these new technologies are limited by something as trivial as battery power.

so i read a little blurb in the newspaper today about new technology for batteries and had a little moment of "well, thank goodness" and "it's about friggin time". i went online to find out more about how researchers are developing fuel cell technology to replace the current battery systems we have in portable devices. This article from PCWorld - Better Battery Life for your DigiCam, MP3 player?does a decent job explaining the development of a hydrogen powered fuel cell.

Consumers would install the fuel cells as small credit-card-size cartridges. The fuel cell would contain pellets of hydrogen-storing mixture, as well as an ignition system and a microprocessor. When a battery's energy level deteriorated, the microprocessor would initiate the combustion of a pellet, generating hydrogen to power the fuel cell. That would provide energy to recharge the battery. Once all the pellets on a cartridge had been consumed, a new cartridge would need to be inserted.


we'll see what happens to this technology in the future - i'm not holding my breath until my cell phone is powered by one of these - but it's nice to know that the problem is being addressed.

Posted by lara at 05:28 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2005

RSS feeds, and how they are changing the nature of technology

very interesting article, and some quality thoughts on the matter of the evolution of the way in which we gather information from the internet:
Channel 9: Longhorn (heart) RSS

the more i think about this issue, and in particular the characteristics of the evolution that this guy is talking about, the more intrigued i am...you might recall that i occasionally talk about how the majority of our existing technology is pretty much a passive resource - the value of any database is only as great as the quality of the way in which information is retrieved from it by people - and i think that the development of RSS represents a significant change in this. it seems to me that RSS feeds, and perhaps the subscription services more so, are a significant step in the direction of creating technology that takes an active role in parsing and distributing information. imagine what this new type of technology could do for a company that has a massive database with information gathered from all its projects - this is the kind of stuff that makes my brain tick. loudly...

Posted by lara at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

an interesting experiment

http://yagoohoogle.com/
searching from this site runs two searches and displays them in a split screen (horrors!! it uses frames) but it allows you to compare the results of the two search engines. when i searched for my name, yahoo actually gave more relevant results, which i found interesting...

Posted by lara at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)