DraganSr

Double Speed mp3 playback: iPhone, iPod Touch

2012-02-12T23:47:00.006-05:00

Podcast Speed and Rewind on an iPhone « Palmtopman's Blog

iPhone and iPod Touch have a useful (some would call it 'insanely great')
feature to be able to playback audio files on 2x and 1/2 speed,
with same 'pitch' of the voice, just faster of slower.

Some other mp3 players can speed up, but sound gets distorted,
sounds like chipmunk or Donald Duck.

As usual with Apple products, this feature works as 'auto-magic'
based on metadata ('info') of the file,
so mp3 files need to have a flag that is a podcast or audio book.
This is not always the case for mp3 files, and iTunes can help.

forum @SuperUser
...to get my mp3 lectures to play at double speed on iPhone (and iPod Touch)
iTunes uses to tell whether the file is a podcast or audiobook is a setting in:
"File-> Get Info-> Options tab-> Media Kind"
Set that to podcast or audiobook and voila,
iPhone will give you the option of 2x speed.
This is great, because you can select a bunch of tracks
and change the whole lot with a few clicks.

Microsoft has also added similar feature to Silverlight 5,
that is for now only available on 'standard' Windows,
not not yet on Windows Phone 7.x.
Too bad that Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 'Metro' interface
will not support plugins, including Silverlight...

Think different

2012-02-12T00:06:00.006-05:00

Think different, Apple Computers 2007

The voiceover was by Richard Dreyfuss.

"Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules,
and they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them
because they change things.
They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do."

@Wikipedia

Never aired version with Steve Jobs narration.

Technology-Driven Trends for 2012

2012-02-11T17:27:00.004-05:00

Daniel Burrus: Technology-Driven Trends for 2012 - Strategic Insights Blog

1) Big Data
2) Cloud Computing
3) On Demand Services (SW & HW)
4) Virtualization
5) Consumerization of IT
6) Gamification of Training and Education
7) Social Business
8) Smart Phones & Tablets as PC
9) Tablet Computers with Enterprise Level Web Apps
10) Intelligent Electronic Agents
11) Digital Identity Management
12) Visual Communications
13) Enhanced Location Awareness
14) Geo-Spatial Visualization
15) Smart TV Using Apps
16) Multiple App Stores
17) 3D Displays for Smart Phones and Tablets
18) eBooks, eNewspapers, and eMagazines
19) Interactive Multimedia eTextbooks
20) Wireless Machine-to-Machine applications

Version Control by Example

2012-02-11T00:48:00.006-05:00

Free online book Version Control by Example

by Eric Sink, founder of SourceGear (maker of Vault),
software craftsman,
and creator of new version control tool "Veracity".
He also created first version of Internet Explorer.

The book describes:

Subversion
Mercurial
Git
Veracity

The book is also available as a free printed book, with free shipping!

A kind of advertising, apparently printed book could be cheaper than AdWords!

Podcast interview with Eric Sink @ DotNetRocks

Android@Home

2012-02-10T02:06:00.000-05:00

SlashGear 101: Android@Home - SlashGear

OLPC XO 3.0: $100 Tablet

2012-02-08T23:29:00.010-05:00

One "Laptop" Per Child (OLPC) is now "Tablet", and price is half or the original.
OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet

(8", Android or SugarOS)

India's $50 tablet

The original OLPC preceded "Netbooks", cheap laptops.
Netbooks are now out of favor, due to even cheaper large laptops,
and more expensive, but more portable, tablets, $500 iPad in particular.

Could the new $100 "OTPC" achieve the original goal to be in hands of every child?

The scale of US budget deficit is about $ 200 billion / month

The estimate of number of children in US: by wolframalpha.com: 62 million (0-15 years), 20% of US population in 2010.

So, the increase of US deficit PER CHILD is more than $100 every DAY.
That is one OTPC for every child in the US every DAY!

NASA High-Res Images of Earth

2012-02-07T07:24:00.004-05:00

How NASA Makes Those Incredible High-Res Images of Earth | Wired Science | Wired.com

Americas, 8000x8000 px, 17 MB

How Apple cuts costs?

2012-02-06T22:39:00.001-05:00

How Apple cuts costs in building its gadgets - CNN.com

"The costs of parts and manufacturing for Apple's iPhone 4S is estimated to be $196, according to industry research firm IHS iSuppli. That's $453 less than Apple charges for a contract-free phone.
...
Apple has more than 60,000 employees, most of whom work in its retail stores.
...
During the last three months of 2011, Apple sold
* 37 million iPhones,
* 15.4 million iPads,
* 15.4 million iPods and
* 5.2 million Mac computers, according to the company's financial report.

That netted Apple $46.3 billion in revenue and $13.1 billion in profit,
which is double what Apple made during the same period a year before.

"

Google's "Solve for X" moonshot thinking

2012-02-06T21:31:00.006-05:00

www.wesolveforx.com

a conference for big thinkers to discuss “radical technology ideas for solving global problems."

February 1-3, 2012 in CordeValle Resort in San Martin, CA.
For three days, fifty scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators from around the world came together to discuss and debate radical solutions to some really big problems.
...
Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork.
...
If you have seen (or given) a talk that you think meets the Solve for X criteria, please enter the following, formatted this way, in your Google+ post: Huge Problem, Radical Solution, Breakthrough technology, Video (link to a YouTube video).

Google's Solve for X Website Goes Online

...visions will have to presented in a laser-focused 12-minute monologue to a "highly accomplished group of people" in a conference environment. Google lifted the importance of the presentations to the likes of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy. It is inspiration, passion and intelligence the company is looking for...

@ google+

Bottom line: a TED-like event, organized by Google.

Microsoft Photosynth 3D panoramas

2012-02-05T09:31:00.007-05:00

Photosynth - Capture your world in 3D.

Panoramic photos, composed of thousands of individual photos, with a nice move/zoom viewer.
More details @Wikipedia

A "photo" size: 30+ GigaPixels :)

Photosynth allows you to take a bunch of photos of the same scene or object and automagically stitch them all together into one big interactive 3D viewing experience that you can share with anyone on the web.

Apple Siri + earSmart noise reduction chip

2012-02-05T08:35:00.001-05:00

Why Apple's A5 is so big--and iPhone 4 won't get Siri | Deep Tech - CNET News

Besides Artificial Intelligence,
there is even more magic to make iPhone 4S Siri
work as it is (and sell as it does :)

Thanks to IPO filing of a company that makes specialized chips for noise reduction,
now we know that Apple has embedded some of that advanced technology
directly to A5 CPU that powers iPhone 4S...

Audience: Products Featuring earSmart™

Smartphone vs PC sales; Smartphone wins

2012-02-04T20:29:00.004-05:00

Smartphone Sales Boom -- Who Needs A Laptop? | PCWorld

Microsoft's smart solution: use same core OS in phone and PC (Windows 8)

Apple is in fact doing the same with iPhone from 2007, since iOS is based on MacOS..

Mozilla's 'Seabird' Concept Phone

2012-02-04T20:14:00.004-05:00

Mozilla's 'Seabird' Concept Phone Could Be a Boon for Business | PCWorld Business Center

A VERY interesting concept design
with 2 projectors, remote control, virtual keyboard,
from open source maker of Firefox web browser...

2D Video @ YouTube

3D Video @ YouTube

Want to buy a phone with projector NOW?
Here it is, for $800

Samsung i8520 Beam Android Unlocked QuadBand GPS WiFi HSDPA SmartPhone built in pico projector

Facebook IPO: "The Hacker Way"

2012-02-04T18:51:00.003-05:00

Mark Zuckerberg's Letter to Investors: 'The Hacker Way' | Epicenter | Wired.com

Mark Zuckerberg, the Hacker Way and the Art of the Founder’s Letter

“Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.”

TED: Danny Hillis: Back to the future (of 1994)

2012-02-03T23:43:00.001-05:00

Danny Hillis: Back to the future (of 1994) | Video on TED.com

Patent "frand": Apple vs Android

2012-02-03T22:31:00.002-05:00

Explained: Apple's not-so-secret favorite patent argument | Mobile - CNET News

Frand--also known as "rand" in the U.S.--is an obscure legal acronym that stands for "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory," and is based on the principle that fair licensing of intellectual property is often needed because sometimes certain ideas and patents just need to be shared for everything to work together properly...

frand relates to the agreed-on technology used to form the 3G cellular standard called UMTS. Several companies hold what are known as essential patents, and are obligated to license them to all the other participants in a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory manner...

One issue with the principle is determining what exactly is reasonable...

Windows Phone 8: Huge changes ahead

2012-02-02T23:06:00.001-05:00

Windows Phone 8 details leak: Huge changes ahead (Updated)

Windows Phone 8 Preview
Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo, will be based on the Windows 8 kernel and not on Windows CE as are current versions. This will not impact app compatibility: Microsoft expects to have over 100,000 Windows Phone 7.5-compatible apps available by the time WP8 launches, and they will all work fine on this new OS.

jCanvas = jQuery + HTML5 canvas

2012-02-01T09:59:00.001-05:00

jCanvas | jQuery meets the HTML5 canvas

Canvas's simple syntax makes drawing shapes as easy as it should be.

$("canvas").drawArc({
  fillStyle: "#333",
  x: 50, y: 50,
  radius: 25
});

Free and open-source

A Ruby Learning Hub

2012-01-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

A Ruby Learning Hub

A free 2-week online class of web programming in Ruby.

Diplomas vs. Badges for Education

2012-01-30T22:20:00.000-05:00

Why Get a Pricey Diploma When a Badge Will Do? - Forbes

For Job Hunters, Digital Merit Badges - New York Times

Screen readers ("Evi" vs. Siri)

2012-01-28T22:46:00.014-05:00

Comparison of screen readers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Siri at Apple iPhone 4s has finally managed to make computer voice communication mainstream.

How about "reading text?"

While this should be much simpler task than recognizing speech,
there are no many usable tools available...

There is one "special" among those tools: JavaScript based "webanywhere"
by University of Washington.

It works better with simple text, without web links.
Here is one such example:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11/pg11.txt
(Project Gutenberg's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll)

There is also a plugin for Firefox browser "Text to voice".
While quite usable, the quality is not quite ready for mainsream...

Why did I start to investigate this?

There is a new competitor to Siri, called "Evi"
Story at MIT Technology Review
that I in fact listen as podcast, generated by "audiodizer".

Evi one-ups Siri for iOS and Android @ slashgear

The "Evi" is created by TrueKnowledge
and is available for free on Android, and for .99 on iPhone.
Why the difference in price?
Android has Text-to-speech API embedded, and for iPhone license from Nuance is needed...
TrueKnowlage is using Semantic (Web?) technology for finding information...
Siri is using AI

I thought something similar can be done on Windows without much trouble...
Windows also used to have "Agent" tools, until Windows 7 when it is apparently deprecated...
Now, Microsoft offers "TellMe" tools.

Nuance, provider of voice technology for iPhone 4S, also offers text-to-speech tools,
as well as demo web site: Vocalizer 5
The demo accepts max 140 characters (like Twitter), and the quality is quite good,
plus it is fun to select from a few dozen international languages, that read English with accent :)
But Vocalizer is apparently sold only in some special way, for solutions...

Maybe Android is the best platform for this feature after all..
It just need a bit more work on apps.
"Evi" just responded (by voice) on an Android phone:
"I'm really sorry. Due to overwhelming demand, my servers are overloaded..."
No much real challenge for Siri and Apple just yet... :)

htmlUI: HTML5 & CSS3 Demos

2012-01-28T00:20:00.000-05:00

htmlUI « HTML5 & CSS3 Demos

a collection of homegrown HTML5 and CSS3 experiments

Enyo JavaScript Application Framework

2012-01-25T20:17:00.012-05:00

Enyo JavaScript Application Framework

HP has just open-sourced JavaScript framework part of WebOS,
with Apache 2.0 license (non restrictive)

Enyo 1.0 requires WebKit based web browser, but Enyo 2.0 is apparently more portable...

GUI widgets are generated from JavaScript... nice...
SAMPLES
Playground

Enyo is functional similar to jQuery Mobile and similar frameworks...
But there are differences in "level", since Enyo(greek godes of war)
is object-based, and the code a bit "cleaner" and more compact for apps.
For simple web pages scaled down for small screens, qQuery Mobile is easier.

Combined with PhoneGap
that is now also released as Apache open source (after purchase by Adobe)
Enyo could be a nice platform for portable mobile apps...
Provided examples work nice in Chrome, as well as in IE9 and Firefox...

Back to JavaScript, the language of the future :)

Udacity - Educating the 21st Century

2012-01-24T01:30:00.012-05:00

Udacity - Educating the 21st Century

A new education venture of Stanford Prof. Sebastian Thrun, co-teacher of AI-Class
New free classes:

CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE

CS 373: PROGRAMMING A ROBOTIC CAR
Start Date: 20 February

Behind the scene of AI-Class
Video: @livestream

In fact Prof. Thrun gave up tenure position at Stanford to start this new venture.
Udacity and the future of online universities
Sebastian Thrun resigns from Stanford to launch Udacity @ Kurzweil AI

It is interesting that there will be many Stanford online free classes
also coming in a few weeks, just using different "software platform" coursera
That platform is more controlled and less open, while more integrated.
As usual, life is complicated, and healthy competition is useful...

CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE

This class will give you an introduction to computing. In seven weeks, you will build your own search engine complete with a web crawler and way of ranking popular pages. You will understand some of the key concepts in computer science, and learn how to write your own computer programs.

No previous background in programming is expected.

Programming language used for class is apparently Python.
Python is one of most popular languages in Google (along with Java and C++)
as well as on many Computer Science and AI departments on universities.
Python is very easy to learn. The most popular book from Manning.com
Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners is about Python

Week 1: How to get started: your first program Extracting a link
Week 2: How to repeat: Finding all the links on a page
Week 3: How to manage data: Crawling the web
Week 4: How to solve problems: Responding to search queries
Week 5: How programs run: Making things fast
Week 6: How to have infinite power: Ranking search results
Week 7: Where to go from here: Exam testing your knowledge

CS 373: PROGRAMMING A ROBOTIC CAR

This class, taught by one of the foremost experts in AI, will teach you basic methods in Artificial Intelligence, including: probabilistic inference, computer vision, machine learning, and planning, all with a focus on robotics. Extensive programming examples and assignments will apply these methods in the context of building self-driving cars. You will get a chance to visit, via video, the leading research labs in the field, and meet the scientists and engineers who are building self-driving cars at Stanford and Google.

Prerequisites: The instructor will assume solid knowledge of programming,
all programming will be in Python.
Knowledge of probability and linear algebra will be helpful.

Week 1: Basics of probability: Car localization with particle filters
Week 2: Gaussians and continuous probability: Tracking other cars with Kalman filters
Week 3: Image Processing and Machine Learning: Finding objects in sensor data
Week 4: Planning and search: Determining where to drive with A* search: Finding optimal routes with dynamic programming
Week 5: Controls: Controlling steering and speeds with PID
Week 6: Putting it all together: Programming a self-driving car
Week 7: Final Exam: Exam testing your knowledge

Year of Dragon (zodiac)

2012-01-23T22:36:00.000-05:00

Dragon (zodiac) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"23 January 2012 – 9 February 2013: Water Dragon"

Wikibooks

2012-01-22T22:57:00.000-05:00

Wikibooks

the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit.
2,425 books with 40,134 pages

Wall St: "Apple Worth More than Greece"

2012-01-22T14:38:00.010-05:00

At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than (GDP of) Greece

Here is why:
Apple Profit More Than Doubles as IPhone Demand Fuels Sales - Businessweek

Here is result:
Things Apple is worth more than

iBooks 2: Apple re-inventing textbooks, for iPad only

2012-01-22T10:17:00.004-05:00

1 hour video, well worth watching...
Apple - Apple Events - Apple Special Event January 2012
You will need Apple's QuickTime to watch it...

Here are some facts mentioned:

High school drop-out rate in US is 30-40%

Textbooks are expensive ($50-70), and re-used for 5 years, not in great shape, heavy

Not mentioned, but known otherwise:
Steve Jobs described textbooks as an '$8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction',
in conversations with his biographer Walter Isaacson.

Here is what is new:

iBooks 2, a new/improved iPad app for interactive books

iBooks Author, a new "free" Mac app for making those interactive books

"Textbooks" section on iTunes, for those interactive books

iTunes U app for iPad, to view free education materials (books?) on iTunes U

iTunes U for K-12 education (so far it was only for universities)

Apple in Education

The bottom line: a well polished system for teaching, based on iPad and Mac.
It looks great!

But this is an "exclusive club". No iPad and Mac, no iBooks.

And there is a problem, hidden in the "fine print" of iBooks Author license.
While the tool is free, materials created by it MUST be distributed bu iTunes.
The author gets 70% and Apple 30%, as usual. It could be free also.
The material is "locked in" Apple platform. So "free" is not really free anymore.
Everybody needs at least an iPad.

Here is an opinion by Sascha Segan @ PC Magazine:
iBooks Author: You Work For Apple Now

There is no doubt that there will be imitations of iBooks.
It would be great if they are done as HTML5, to be completely portable.
And they should be able to work nice on 7" screens, such as Amazon Kindle Fire.
The target should be a $100 tablet that everybody can have.

The platform can be called "Web Books", or "we Books".
While Apple has "i" line for private exclusive use ("I Books"),
there could be a parallel "we" line for a collective good, like Wikipedia.

In fact, Apple is already using ePub, that is just zipped HTML, CSS and images,
with some proprietary extensions. The key for Apple is ability to control distribution,
so this could encourage people to produce content...

Free Online Education Who is Who

2012-01-21T19:00:00.006-05:00

Free Online Education Who is Who | - aiqus

www.khanacademy.org

www.knowlabs.com
AI-class

www.udacity.com
New venture of Prof. Thrun

www.coursera.org
Coursera is the organization behind the new (spring 2012) courses from Stanford (et al).
other *-classes

www.class-central.com
Class central is unaffiliated with Stanford, just set up as a resource; similarly to aiqus.

www.mitx.mit.edu

www.aiqus.com
Forums

Google URL Shortener http://goo.gl/

2012-01-20T23:27:00.001-05:00

Google URL Shortener http://goo.gl/

URL shortening @ wikipedia

100mpg: Ford Fusion Energi

2012-01-19T21:19:00.018-05:00

Detroit Auto Show: Will Ford's New Car Really Get 100 Miles Per Gallon? - (MIT) Technology Review

The "Energi" looks great, similar to
Aston Martin V12 Vantage

MSRP from $180,535

edmunds.com/ford/fusion/

The main competition: Hyundai Sonata (I think)

Hyundai Sonata ranks 3rd among midsize sedans in August 2011 auto sales
Hyundai Sonata: 21,399, Honda Accord: 22,506; Toyota Camry: 29,599.

Amazon DynamoDB

2012-01-19T20:33:00.002-05:00

Amazon DynamoDB

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. With a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, customers can launch a new Amazon DynamoDB database table, scale up or down their request capacity for the table without downtime or performance degradation, and gain visibility into resource utilization and performance metrics.

New service for Amazon’s cloud about to be directly exposed: DynamoDB

Build Your First Robot for $100

2012-01-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Build Your First Robot - With Plans and Step-by-Step Instructions - Popular Mechanics

Author: www.robotoid.com

Toyota Prius v Side-by-Side Comparison

2012-01-19T08:10:00.005-05:00

Toyota Side-by-Side Comparison

The size of this vehicle is almost the same to the first generation of Honda Odyssay,
but the fuel economy is 2x better. This is 16 years of efficiency improvements...

Prius v Takes Me Past and Present @MotorTrend

Free Computer Programming eBooks

2012-01-17T01:49:00.000-05:00

Download Free Computer eBooks and Programming eBooks
http://OnlineProgrammingBooks.com

"Legally Free Computer Books"

Smooth CoffeeScript

2012-01-17T00:36:00.011-05:00

CoffeeScript compiler is now written in CoffeeScript, that compiles to JavaScript.
That means it can run in any web browser, as well as in node.js server.
(Original compiler was first written in Ruby).

With portability (and current popularity) of HTML5, that is based on JavaScript,
CoffeeScript has a potential to become the most popular programming languages...

coffeescript.org is an amazing web site,
where complete language reference and interactive tutorial is implemented
as a single web page: one .html, one .js and one .css file!
That includes a complete annotated source of the compiler, too!

This is a "brave new world" compared to "classic CS training" that we know.
The same CS techniques are still used, parsers, generators etc,
but all an interactive environment that is simple to use and test!

Free e-book: Smooth CoffeeScript (without solutions)

and With Solutions

Online book, with an advanced reader (turning pages as real paper),
also available as HTML5 and PDF...

Or just watch video presentation by CoffeeScript creator Jeremy Ashkenas @InfoQ

More CoffeeScript links

HP TouchPad + Android

2012-01-16T19:18:00.004-05:00

CyanogenMod's HP TouchPad Team Releases A Glimpse At CM9,
Hopes To Give Us "Something To Play With" Soon

CyanogenMod team recently declared they have reached the impressive 1 million user milestone which involves official and unofficial installations...

Android 4.0 ported to HP TouchPad
announcement by HP that it would be open sourcing its WebOS software has led to a surprise reverse phenomenon of developers now hoping to port the operating system to Android devices.

Since both Android and WebOS are based on Linux and WebKit browser engine,
they may be able to run in parallel, that is to run both Android and WebOS apps
on the same base OS. It is more likely to have Android platform as a base,
since there are more drivers already developed...

On the other side, both Android and WebOS should be able to run as a "Desktop VM",
to run "universal" apps on every computer... That sounds like HTML5 offline apps...
and for the most part it is, except that a platform (OS) should provide packaging,
updates, and protection services...

WikiSPEEDia, the open speed limit database.

2012-01-15T22:32:00.007-05:00

Google navigation app (on Android) does not have speed limit info.
Some other app is needed for that...

Here is one (potential) solution:
Welcome to the Wikispeedia, the open speed limit database.

We are gathering the GPS-coordinates of every speed-limit sign on earth.
You don't need any GPS or cellphone to help, just 2 minutes of your time.
Its open source so you can contribute.
People can put these data into GPS devices to regulate or warn of excessive speed.
Google, Garmin, Teleatlas, even AAA aren't doing this, so please help out.
Plus the data you capture is copyrighted with your name.

It even has open source code
Nice idea, if it works, and can you trust such data?

As usual, there is a simpler solution for some money...
TeleNav "Premium" has such feature, and more... Having Google as competition is not fun...
So, TeleNav is now available as free app, with limited features...

ACMQ Online Programming Competition

2012-01-15T00:15:00.000-05:00

ACMQ Online Programming Competition: Jan 1- Feb 12, 2012 | Channel 9: ACM Queue is hosting an online programming competition on its website from January 15 through February 12, 2012.

Using either Java, C++, C#, Python, or JavaScript, code an AI to compete against other participant's programs in a territory-capture game called, "Coercion".

queue.acm.org/icpc

HTML5 Canvas Demos

2012-01-14T22:33:00.002-05:00

Applications, games, tools and tutorials using HTML5 canvas and JavaScript - Canvas Demos

Wikipedia Knowledge Map

Wikipedia Knowledge Map (Albert Einstein)

WebGL Maze

"Pure Web", no plugins! Impressive.

Windows Phone: 30 to Launch

2012-01-14T09:09:00.004-05:00

30 to Launch

Another Microsoft push for Windows Phone...

Your path to a Windows Phone app in 30 daysThe Challenge Is On:
January 31, 2012 – February 29, 2012

With great devices hitting the market and the broadly acclaimed
user interface based on Metro design principles,
Windows Phone is setting the new cool for mobile computing.
Take advantage of the excitement and create
a cutting edge application - fast. Really fast. 30 days fast.

Official Rules

Nokia is preparing some really good Windows Phone devices
(Best phone of CES 2012: Nokia Lumia 900)

At the same time, Nokia is preparing to hold-on to lower-end market
(Nokia buys Norwegian smartphone OS maker Smarterphone)

AI-class, ML-class, DB-class by Stanford

2012-01-12T23:47:00.006-05:00

A detailed comparison of 3 online classes by Stanford professors:

Fortnightly Mailing: Apples, screwdrivers and desks: a comparative review of three Stanford free online computer science courses

ai-class.com

DSmartWeb.com/ai-class
AI-class notes

ml-class.org

Machine Learning - complete course notes

db-class.org

CityCar, CityHome - MIT Media Lab

2012-01-12T11:48:00.006-05:00

Smart Cities by MIT Media Lab

The CityCar electric automobile...
get the equivalent of 150 to 200 miles per gallon of gasoline...
is powered by four in-wheel electric motors...
Each wheel unit contains drive motor (which also enables regenerative braking)...
This enables maneuvers like spinning on its own axis (an O-turn instead of a U-turn)..
fold to minimize parking footprint...
possible to park three or four CityCars in the length of a traditional parking bay...

A new vision for the city of the future @ Fortune Magazine

When parking, the rear of the electric CityCar slides under the chassis, allowing the body to fold up into a compact shell. Once folded, the CityCar will fit into a space just one-third the size of a standard parking spot. A single door on the front of the car pops open, allowing the driver to step out onto the sidewalk
...
MIT's Media Lab is also working on what it dubs the CityHome. Again, greater flexibility is key. The CityHome concept takes a Murphy-bed approach. A bedroom can double as anything from a kitchen to a personal gym with stoves, fridges, and StairMasters swinging out from hidden panels in the walls. Larson says that the customization cost for a small apartment would be as much as $30,000. However, the savings of paying for a one-room studio that functions as a three-room apartment could be 10 times that amount. MIT hopes to launch pilot programs in the Boston area.

Smart Cities by MIT Media Lab

One thing is missing to MIT great ideas: "Responsive Web Design" of web site :)

Responsive Web Design

2012-01-11T13:47:00.001-05:00

Skeleton: Beautiful Boilerplate for Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Development

60 Examples of Responsive Website Design

The Boston Globe
vs.
The New York Times

Try re-sizing web browser window... First news site adjusts automatically,
and the second one stays the same... so they need a separate "mobile" version, or app.

Responsive Web Design is done by clever use of CSS and JavaScript,
completely on "client side", in the browser...

Trello: Organize anything, together

2012-01-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

Organize anything, together. | Trello

Unreasonable for Progress

2012-01-10T00:51:00.006-05:00

Quote:
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people"
George Bernard Shaw

The hi-res user experience

2012-01-10T00:39:00.004-05:00

Creating Passionate Users: The hi-res user experience

Learning adds resolution to what you offer.
And the change happens not within the product, but between the user's ears.
The more you help your users learn and improve, the greater the chance that they'll become passionate
...
They knew enough to appreciate and enjoy subtleties
that are virtually inaccessible to everyone else.
...
How can you increase the resolution of the products and services you offer-
-without touching the products?
...
there's potential for a richer experience-
-an experience the non-passionate don't see, taste, hear, feel, smell, touch, or ever recognize...

Peter Norvig Interview | Remote Learning Project

2012-01-10T00:19:00.001-05:00

Peter Norvig Interview | Remote Learning Project

"...So, what was different?” It wasn’t information. It was motivation, determination or something like that. So I realized that you got to have a minimum floor of information and once you have that, its the determination that counts.

So I wanted to think about how you can do classes that do that better. And one thing I realized was a lot of the online classes say let’s take advantages of being online, and one of these advantages is that you can do it any time you want.

You see these ads on television showing a student that saying “I took my classes in my pajamas. Oh great. I can do my classes wherever and whenever I want.” But part of the problem is that if you can do it whenever you want you can do it tomorrow. Then you end up not doing it.

We wanted to make sure that although week to week its asynchronous (you can do it any time you want during the week), there has to be a homework assignment. Because if there is no homework assignment, you are going to push it off and not do it, at least I know I would.

So I thought that part was important. And when you ask “What works with distance learning?”, I would say it really depends on how you organize distance learning and solve these different aspects that I think are more important than whether you are in the same room or not."

Creating the Geek Squad

2012-01-09T17:45:00.002-05:00

podcast @ IT Conversations:

Robert Stephens | Creating the Geek Squad (now part of Best Buy)

his blog

GeoNames

2012-01-07T21:48:00.002-05:00

GeoNames
"The GeoNames geographical database covers all countries
and contains over eight million placenames that are available for download free of charge."

with jQuery autocomplete

Scratch by MIT Media Lab

2012-01-07T18:53:00.004-05:00

Scratch | Home | imagine, program, share

Scratch is a (visual) programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
created by MIT Media Lab

tutorials

Google Car - YouTube

2012-01-07T17:52:00.000-05:00

Google Car - YouTube"

'via Blog this'

.NET benchmarks

2012-01-07T14:09:00.005-05:00

Open source .NET and Mono web services framework

"A collection of 3rd Party and our own .NET library benchmarks
found on the Internet showcasing the performance of .NET server technologies."

Unfortunately, despite all marketing, Microsoft's ORM solution (EF4)
is much slower than others, same as I have observed on my simple tests...
While in many cases database access is just one element of overall performance,
it is not practical to spend 10x more time than necessary.
My guess is that using dynamics could be a reason for speed penalty,
and one solution may be adding static typing option.

here is one alternative solution: Dapper
Dapper code

podcast: Service Stack with Demis Bellot @Hanselminutes

Agile Value = Why / How

2012-01-04T21:41:00.010-05:00

Cutting an Agile Groove: The Live Sessions
presented by David Hussman @PragProg (The Pragmatic Bookshelf)

...show me the results, reframing the practice as a tool that has a purpose - "Why"
...“the big picture” context... is so often missing
where people are spending copious amounts of time talking about “doing agile.” ("How")

Store Wars: Apple vs Microsoft

2012-01-03T23:17:00.002-05:00

Store War: Mac Vs. PC - Forbes.com
Apple's stores generate more than $5,000 in sales per square foot annually.
Total stores:

Apple: 357

Microsoft: 14

Jeff Ullman - Mining of Massive Datasets

2012-01-02T23:39:00.003-05:00

Famous Stanford professor Jeffrey Ullman
offers a free online book Mining of Massive Datasets

@Amazon

He is also planning (free) online class automata theory for the spring quarter...

PhoneGap: Adobe, Apache, Native HTML5 apps

2012-01-02T19:02:00.009-05:00

presentation (video & mp3): InfoQ: Making the Mobile Web Native with PhoneGap

Many "mobile" apps could very well be web apps.
PhoneGap is a solution to "wrap" a web app into a "native mobile" shell,
where native APIs are exposed to JavaScript,
such as camera and storage on the phone...
This was available for years, not new.

The news is that PhoneGap team is now part of Adobe
,
and that its source is now open source, managed by Apache
,
under new name "Callback" ("Gap" jeans trademark was a problem for PhoneGap name)

There is also a "build" service

that makes it possible to make "native" iPhone app even without an Apple Mac computer,
or windows phone app without a Windows PC.

This will make it even easier to make even more mobile apps.
While most of such apps are not very good, out of large quantity
there will be some benefit too... not least saving developers time...

One more thing: apparently there are more contributors to PhoneGap
from IBM than Natobi (now Adobe)...

Wearable Android - WiMM

2012-01-02T11:42:00.018-05:00

WIMM Labs

Behind the capacitive touch screen is an OS distilled from open-source Google Android™. Core capabilities include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth™ connectivity, an accelerometer, magnetometer, vibrating alarm and more. A 14-pin WIMM water-resistant connector is smart-accessory ready.

@sdtimes

With (dev) price of $299 is it not quite ready for prime time...
But the idea is interesting...
What would be "right" price? I think $99,
and it would be nice to re-charge battery on movement.

And it is already available!
Sony Ericsson Liveview watch micro display for Android Devices, $70

This device is effectively a "touchscreen" remote control for an android phone.
May be helpful to protect the phone, and have both hands fee...

Motorola MOTOACTV, GPS, mp3 player, watch

$205 @amazon + $30 wrist strap (free until 31-jan-2012)

The AI Revolution Is On - Wired

2011-12-31T09:21:00.003-05:00

The AI Revolution Is On | Wired Magazine

Today’s A.I. bears little resemblance to its initial conception. The field’s trailblazers believed success lay in mimicking the logic-based reasoning that human brains were thought to use.
...
Today’s AI doesn’t try to re-create the brain. Instead, it uses machine learning, massive data sets, sophisticated sensors, and clever algorithms to master discrete tasks. Examples can be found everywhere: The Google global machine uses AI to interpret cryptic human queries. Credit card companies use it to track fraud. Netflix uses it to recommend movies to subscribers. And the financial system uses it to handle billions of trades (with only the occasional meltdown).

MITx

2011-12-30T16:34:00.005-05:00

MIT launches online learning initiative

MIT announced the launch of an online learning initiative internally called “MITx.” MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses through an online interactive learning platform

M.I.T. Expands Its Free Online Courses @ NYTimes

Here is one interpretation, by Forbes

M.I.T. Simmons Hall

...online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.

The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjects taught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion. The certificate will obviously not carry the weight of a traditional M.I.T. diploma, but it will provide an incentive to finish the online material. According to the New York Times, in order to prevent confusion, the certificate will be a credential bearing the distinct name of a new not-for-profit body that will be created within M.I.T....

According to the New York Times, access to the software will be free. However, there will
most likely be an “affordable” charge, not yet determined, for a credential...
...
university doesn’t plan to launch a prototype of the platform until the spring of 2012

Calendar 2012

2011-12-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

Calendar 2012

Permanent Calendar

2011-12-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

A fixed-date calendar and no time zones, researchers say | Human World | EarthSky

The same day always falls on the same date, year after year.
It maintains a 7-day week to preserve a day of religious observance (a Sabbath).
All months would have 30 days, except March, June, September, and December that are 31 days in duration.

Every 5 to 6 years, an extra week is added to the end of December to bring the calendar in sync with seasonal changes on Earth.

They also advocate abolishment of time zones in favor of Universal Time (UT), so that everyone across the world is on the same clock.

Lines Of Code

2011-12-27T14:50:00.003-05:00

Wiki: Lines Of Code

"Measuring software productivity by lines of code
is like measuring progress on an airplane by how much it weighs."
- Bill Gates

Why Bill Gates is Richer than You
by Philip Greenspun, a professor at MIT

Better-ness vs. Busy-ness

2011-12-27T00:18:00.000-05:00

Economics for Humans - HBR IdeaCast - Harvard Business Review

An interesting book and podcast interview
about motivations and business results.
The observation is that current business processes are optimized
for producing more stuff, not more of relevant values for people.

"Economics, and indeed human civilization,
can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings.
Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first,
and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put
numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy,
and degradation ahead of compassion. "

Kendo UI: "native looking" HTML5

2011-12-26T23:57:00.002-05:00

Kendo UI - The Art of Web Development

Telerik, the maker of popular web development tools and libraries
have a new JavaScript framework that helps make "native looking" mobile HTML5 apps. This is a result of 10 years of development of web tools...

Kendo UI is similar to jQuery Mobile UI, but with important difference:
while jQuery Mobile UI provides universal look and feel for all platforms,
Kendo UI auto-adjust to platform, such as iOS, Android, etc.
This helps make web apps that look more like "native",
to help acceptance of apps in app store.

This approach is similar to Mono tools for iOS and Android,
where "native" apps are built in C#, but GUI is based on controls from actual platform.
Apparently users like "native looking" and now is the race how to make them most effectively.

Kendo UI library has a dual license: commercial ($399/dev), and GPLv3 open source.

Here is an excellent related podcast interview @ Hanselminutes.

Extending Batteries Life

2011-12-26T09:16:00.006-05:00

Battery Univeristy: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries

If at all possible, avoid frequent full discharges and charge more often between uses. If full discharges cannot be avoided, try utilizing a larger battery. Partial discharge on Li-ion is fine; there is no memory and the battery does not need periodic full discharge cycles other than to calibrate the fuel gauge on a smart battery.

Elevated temperature is anything that dwells above 30°C (86°F), and a high voltage is higher than 4.10V/cell... Exposing the battery to high temperature and being at full state-of-charge for an extended time can be more damaging than cycling...

Users should not worry too much about the state-of-charge; a cool and dry place is more important...

Giz Explains: Why Batteries Die

HP MFP Scans 3D Objects

2011-12-25T00:11:00.006-05:00

HP TopShot LaserJet Pro M275 Printer Review | PCWorld

The new HP TopShot Laserjet Pro M275 is a color laser multifunction printer (MFP) that prints, copies, and scans, and it also comes with something extra: an elevated, 8-megapixel camera that makes taking images of small three-dimensional (3D) objects almost as easy as making a photocopy.

Note: the device, as well as the toner, are relatively expensive.
But the design is interesting and relatively new.

The concept of using camera instead of scanner
is used on large scale for "Google Books" project,
where a custom "scanning" device is created to quick and "gentle"
scanning of millions of books, where two high-res cameras
are taking photos of both pages of open book at once...
Obviously, the solution is patented...

Like everything in the technology world, there is a competition,
and there is an independent solution that does the same jobs as Google's

And even among "classic" inkjet MFP devices, there is also competition,
from Lexmark Genesis

Soon enough many smart-phones will be able to do similar job...

Education For All

2011-12-24T23:50:00.001-05:00

Education For All a website developed to facilitate informal tertiary education. Educational resources especially open courseware available on the web are selected, organized and integrated into a meaningful and coherent context - somewhat akin to a virtual university. This platform will make it easier for learners to engage with the vast and overwhelming information and knowledge resources available online.

The educational resources are aggregated from top universities such as MIT, Stanford, Yale and Berkeley and many other sources and consist of video recordings of lectures, lecture notes, slideshows, reading lists, and online books"

OSCON 2011 - Slides & Videos

2011-12-24T23:06:00.005-05:00

Speaker Slides & Video: OSCON 2011 - O'Reilly Conferences, July 25 - 29, 2011, Portland, OR

Interesting presentations, including some slides & videos

Here is one of presentations (a keynote: Adrian Cockcroft, "Data Flow at Netflix"

Netflix’s built a tool called “Chaos Monkey” to ensure that individual components work independently. Chaos Monkey randomly kills instances and services within Netflix’s AWS infrastructure to help developers to make sure each individual component returns something even when system dependencies aren’t responding.

AI Class - Statement of Accomplishment

2011-12-23T01:01:00.031-05:00

I have just received Statement of Accomplishment for successfully completed
Advanced Track of Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
online class with a score of 97.1%.

The class was held by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig,
Stanford professors and also working for Google.
The program of the class is same as regular Stanford class by same professors,
except for programming assignments that are not graded for online class.
The online class and results are not associated with Stanford University.
Here is an article about AI-class and teachers.

This was a great (mostly nightly) learning and 10-week experience!
More than 160 000 people world-wide have signed up for this class!
There was a lot of discussion on online forums aiqus.com and reddit.com

To help myself review materials (an reduce making notes) I have also developed
a simple web site to extract "close captioning" text from YouTube API
dsmartweb.com/ai-class

The future of education includes interactive videos for sure!
They are much better, at lest for me, than "classic" lectures.
Not to mention opportunity to learn from some of the best, at your own pace.

Here are some early Statistics. There were about 20,000 who finished the advanced track:
low - high | number | percentile
0.0 - 86.9 | 10,000 | bottom 50%
87.0 - 93.5 | 5,000 | top 50%
93.6 - 97.6 | 3,000 | top 25%
97.7 - 98.8 | 1,000 | top 10%
98.9 - 99.9 | 800 | top 5%
100.0 | 200 | top 1%

above 87%, the data is very linear, approximated by this equation: percentile = score * 3.773 - 278.649

With my 97.1% that is apparently in "top 12.3%"...

Machine Learning - Stanford free classes

2011-12-23T00:26:00.002-05:00

Machine Learning Class

Preview videos
There is an option to speed-up videos 1.2 and 1.5 times :)

Professor Andrew Ng is Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, the main AI research organization at Stanford, with 20 professors and about 150 students/post docs. At Stanford, he teaches Machine Learning, which with a typical enrollment of 350 Stanford students, is among the most popular classes on campus.

Stanford's free online courses

2011-12-23T00:13:00.001-05:00

Class Central - Summary of Stanford's free online courses

All based on videos hosted on YouTube, with custom web front apps.

Ongoing, completed, courses (3)

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Introduction to Machine Learning

Introduction to Databases

Upcoming courses (16)

CS 101

Introduction to Machine Learning

Software as a Service

Human-Computer Interaction

Natural Language Processing

Game Theory

Probabilistic Graphical Models

Cryptography

Design and Analysis of Algorithms I

Lean Launchpad

Technology Entrepreneurship

Anatomy Sakti Srivastava

Making Green Buildings

Information Theory

Model Thinking

Computer Security

News! MIT launches online learning initiative MITx

Python Tools for Visual Studio

2011-12-21T20:22:00.003-05:00

Python Tools for Visual Studio
"PTVS 1.1"
An integrated environment for developing Python in VS2010

Supports CPython and IronPython

Python editor with advanced member and signature intellisense

Code navigation “Find all refs”, goto definition, and object browser

Local and remote debugging

Profiling with multiple views

Integrated REPL window with inline matplotlib graphics

Support for HPC clusters and MPI, including debugging & Profiling

Interactive parallel computing via integrated IPython REPL

Google Sites - free

2011-12-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

Learn more about Google Sites
Google Sites makes creating and sharing a group website easy
Single-click page creation
Customizable look and feel
Dozens of pre-built templates
Settings for accessing and sharing information
And it's free!

Beyond "free" there is "Google Sites with Google Apps Premier Edition",
(a long name similar to Microsoft product naming :)

The "sites" appears to be integrated with Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Talk
so this could be in a way similar to Microsoft Office 365 / Live,
where SharePoint services are used for group collaboration.

It is really nice that both Google and Microsoft offer integrated web solutions,
and that they start with "free"...

Probabilistic Robotics book

2011-12-21T01:36:00.002-05:00

book: Probabilistic Robotics

Probabilistic robotics is a new and growing area in robotics, concerned with perception and control in the face of uncertainty. Building on the field of mathematical statistics, probabilistic robotics endows robots with a new level of robustness in real-world situations...

Sebastian Thrun, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

2011-12-21T01:32:00.001-05:00

Book: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
(Third edition) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig

The leading textbook in Artificial Intelligence.
Used in over 1200 universities in over 100 countries.
The 25th most cited publication on Citeseer (and 2nd most cited publication of this century).

Peter Norvig
Director of Research @ Google

IBM Next 5 in 5: 2011 - YouTube

2011-12-19T23:57:00.001-05:00

IBM Next 5 in 5: 2011 - YouTube

An interesting video with technology predictions for next 5 years by IBM...
Free Energy, No Passwords, Mind Reading, No Spam, All Mobile :)

I guess we should just accelerate that future!

This is not the first time IBM made such prediction.
Here is set of 5 from 2010.

One of predictions is repeated: powering mobile devices based on movement,
essentially no explicit re-charging. I guess that one may come first,
and IBM may already have all essential patents on the technology :)
The world just needs more IBMs...

The Cat in the Hat @ PBS Kids

2011-12-18T09:06:00.001-05:00

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That . Video | PBS KIDS

Internet videos are better than Cable TV...
Already, even before Apple release of "ultimate TV"...

Google's Majel vs.Siri

2011-12-15T22:40:00.000-05:00

Google's project Majel gets more interesting by the day | Android Atlas - CNET Reviews

...rumors of a "Majel" project
...over the last few years Google X's focus has been based around a super smart AI robot that leverages the tech behind a number of popular Google programs. Described as being 'the most amazing thing" he'd ever seen, the AI had passed the Turing Test 93 percent of the time over the course of an hour long IM-like conversation...

Learn Windows Azure

2011-12-13T19:06:00.004-05:00

Learn Windows Azure

Windows Azure

Microsoft is getting serious about making Azure easy to use...
They also claim some price advantage compered to competition...

There is total of 6 large data centers, 2 in USA, 2 in Europe, 2 in Asia.
In addition, there is 24 CDN (content distribution network) data centers.

@ Wikipedia

$1 billion in 16 days (a game or a movie?)

2011-12-12T15:27:00.000-05:00

Game Modern Warfare 3 Makes a Billion Dollars Faster than Avatar

Sixteen days. That’s how long it took Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to rack up sales of a billion dollars for Activision. For comparison’s sake, the highest grossing movie ever made, Avatar, took 17 days to reach that mark.

jsFiddle Web Editor

2011-12-11T17:41:00.004-05:00

Edit this Fiddle - jsFiddle - Online Editor for the Web
(JavaScript, MooTools, jQuery, Prototype, YUI, Glow and Dojo, HTML, CSS)

A great tool for testing web:
CSS, JavaScript, HTML...
The logo is another proof that there is only one icon used for "cloud" :)

The site even has "re-size-able iframe"...
One of rare things that HTML5 has discontinued are HTML Frames.
Instead, CSS, DIVs and iFrame is to be used.
But, while old HTML Frames are super-simple
to make re-size-able sections of the screen,
the same thing with iFrames and DIVs requires
custom JavaScript programming... not much fun...
Price of progress...

Responsive Web Design

2011-12-10T15:19:00.001-05:00

A "modern" web site design needs to auto-adjust
to the size of web browser screen.

This can be done by a few "HTML5/CSS3 tricks"
described in this original article...

A List Apart: Articles: Responsive Web Design
by Ethan Marcotte

Responsive Web Design @ MSDN

Google Chrome Frame

2011-12-10T14:59:00.002-05:00

Google Chrome Frame - Google Code

While Microsoft has given up on updating IE web browser on Windows XP,
and there is still too many IE6 browsers on "enterprise" computers,
Google Chrome now has a solution that does not require admin rights.

Chrome web browser now can be installed by any user,
and it can even appear as "plug-in" to IE6,
providing latest HTML5 features inside of IE...

Similar "trick" was possible for a while with Flash,
because recent versions of Flash include WebKit web browser embedded,
and if Flash app is a full-screen web browser,
it may appear that IE6 has latest features,
when in fact it is just running a plugin...

HTML5 "Boilerplate"

2011-12-10T14:51:00.002-05:00

HTML5 Boilerplate - A rock-solid default template for HTML5 awesome.
"A rock-solid default for HTML5 awesome."

A popular set of templates for HTML5 apps...

Skeleton
is a small collection of CSS & JS files
that can help you rapidly develop sites that look beautiful at any size,
be it a 17" laptop screen or an iPhone...

Microsoft iPod - YouTube

2011-12-10T09:25:00.003-05:00

"Microsoft Re-Designs the Ipod Packaging" - YouTube

Fun video... apparently produced by Microsoft itself
to show how NOT do design typical packaging...

Reinventing Education with Khan Academy and AI Class - YouTube

2011-12-09T22:52:00.002-05:00

Reinventing Education with Khan Academy and AI Class - YouTube

"The Problem Solvers"
...Khan and his 20-person team -- refugees from hedge funds, consulting firms, software companies, and tech start-ups -- say the videos are hardly the most innovative work they are doing. The real revolution at Khan Academy, they contend, is not being streamed on its vaunted website; it is happening in the back end of the platform, where Khan’s engineers are learning as much about the site’s 1.4 million registered users as those users are learning about math and science...

Winning The DARPA Grand Challenge

2011-12-09T17:03:00.004-05:00

How to build a self-driving car...

Google TechTalks August 2, 2006; Prof. Sebastian Thrun from Stanford:
The DARPA grand challenge, technical details enabling Sebastian Thrun's win,
and an introduction to the next phase called "The Urban Grand Challenge".

Winning The DARPA Grand Challenge 2005

Windows Phone on iPhone, Android

2011-12-08T21:41:00.014-05:00

Microsoft has prepared HTML5 demo pages
that look like Windows Phone / 8 "Metro Style",
and can be viewed from iPhone, Android, iPod Touch...

Is "Metro" really so good? It depends...
In some cases it could reduce number of "clicks/taps" to get the info.
Since Apple is already moving from GUI to Voice, the game is changing again...

XBOX is also getting Metro-Style Interface...
Xbox Update Adds Metro Interface, Cloud and Windows Phone App

Metro (design language) @ Wikipedia

Microsoft's design team says that the Metro UI is partly inspired by signs commonly found at public transport systems, for instance on the King County Metro Transit[5], a public transit system that serves the Seattle metropolitan area where Microsoft is headquartered. Metro places a large focus on typography and has large text that catches the eye. Microsoft says that Metro is designed to be "sleek, quick, modern" and a "refresh" from the icon-based interfaces of Android and iOS

The Metro design language was designed specifically to consolidate groups of common tasks to speed up usage. This is accomplished by excluding superfluous graphics and instead relying on the actual content to also function as the main UI. The resulting interfaces favour larger hubs over smaller buttons and often feature laterally scrolling full bleed canvases. Page titles are usually large and consequently also take advantage of lateral scrolling

Learn Windows Azure | Channel 9

2011-12-08T21:34:00.006-05:00

Learn Windows Azure | Channel 9

On Tuesday December 13th Microsoft will be holding a special Windows Azure event for developers. Join us LIVE from the Microsoft Redmond Campus to learn how to get started building applications for the cloud from Microsoft technical leaders Scott Guthrie, Dave Campbell, and Mark Russinovich. All of the sessions will be broadcast live thanks to your friends from Channel9.

Microsoft is getting serious about Cloud/Azure...
Notice that focus it is not only .NET... there is also Java, PHP, even node.js...

Azure SDK downloads

Azure Challenge

Apple Futureshock Video 1987

2011-12-06T01:27:00.003-05:00

Concept video showing off the applications behind Apple's "Futureshock" Knowledge Navigator concept device from 1987! Great!

Apple Futureshock - YouTube

Why iPad 3 Will Have Siri
and everybody will want to have a iPad3 :)

Dual-screen smart phones

2011-12-05T01:44:00.002-05:00

Dual-screen smart phones: Cnet reviews

Life in a day @ YouTube

2011-12-05T01:40:00.000-05:00

lifeinaday's Channel - YouTube

Microsoft Translator | Windows Azure Marketplace

2011-12-04T10:40:00.015-05:00

Microsoft Translator | Windows Azure Marketplace

"Marketplace for data/services",
powered by Microsoft Azure,
a useful tool: Translate

1tx = 1000 characters
Free: 2000 tx/month, .
$40/month: 4000 tx/month
$60/month: 6000 tx/month
...
There is also: 2 months free trial

currently supported languages

By the way,
Google Translate service
is also not free anymore, and the price is the same: 1 M characters of text: $20.00
Google just does not appear to offer any free options or promotions...
Also, Google's service is still in "labs", that is could change at any time...
It is quite usable, but result translation does require human editing.

There could be some "moral dilemma" here, since machine translation services
are trained on already translated web sites,
that was in many cases very hard and expensive to make.
Also, in many cases Google provides an option to "suggest better translation".

Clearly there is a significant value-add
by machine learning algorithms implemented by Google, Microsoft,
as well as in the real-time service provided,
but there is some value in original "data".
It could be mutually beneficial to have
original data available in a "free form".
Like Wikipedia.

Mentioned services likely have learned
from existing Wikipedia translations.
Services could be made available for further translation of Wikipedia,
and then translation programs can learn more from human editing feedback...

JSON-C YouTube API

2011-12-04T09:14:00.002-05:00

Developer's Guide: JSON-C / JavaScript - YouTube APIs and Tools - Google Code

YouTube site has not only a very rich content,
but also a very powerful set of APIs!

Besides very popular and standardized "ATOM" (XML) REST API,
there are also JSON and JSON-C ("C" stands for "Compact", most likely).
While there is no much "talk" about "JSON-C" to be found by googling,
the format does appear to be much more efficient for storage: good engineering, YouTube!

In addition to much smaller size (= less time to process), it makes programming simpler!

Comparing JSON and JSON-C

JSON-C feeds can exclude duplicate, irrelevant or easily calculated values.

do not preserve XML namespaces or schema information

minimize the number of JSON objects that are created in favor of simple properties

Atom (XML):
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/categories.cat'
  term='Sports' label='Sports'/>
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='dog'/>
<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='catch'/>

<category scheme='http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007/keywords.cat' term='frisbee'/>
...
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  <media:keywords>dog, catch, frisbee</media:keywords>
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JSON:
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JSON-C:
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Extra Virginity: Olive Oil

2011-12-03T17:32:00.003-05:00

Podcast: The World Of Olive Oil @ OnPoint radio
...olive oil is the paragon of health foods.
The golden foundation of the Mediterranean diet.
But do you know what you’re buying when you buy olive oil?
... the market is swimming in scandal.
Musty, grubby, rancid olive oil “deodorized” and passed off as extra virgin.
Italian flags slapped on oil from all over.
Health benefits promised and lost in fraud...

Book: Amazon.com: Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (9780393070217): Tom Mueller: Books

Happy 40th, Unix

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix - IEEE Spectrum

... and the reason to create was cheap gaming :)

Thompson had passed some of his time after the demise of Multics writing a computer game called Space Travel, which simulated all the major bodies in the solar system along with a spaceship that could fly around them. Written for the GE-645, Space Travel was clunky to play—and expensive: roughly US $75 a game for the CPU time. Hunting around, Thompson came across a dusty PDP-7, a minicomputer built by Digital Equipment Corp. that some of his Bell Labs colleagues had purchased earlier for a circuit-analysis project. Thompson rewrote Space Travel to run on it.
...
The name Unix stems from a joke one of Thompson's colleagues made: Because the new operating system supported only one user (Thompson), he saw it as an emasculated version of Multics and dubbed it "Un-multiplexed Information and Computing Service," or Unics. The name later morphed into Unix.

Microsoft TellMe vs. Apple Siri

2011-11-26T00:45:00.002-05:00

Same as making a tablet computer,
design and implementation "details" make all the difference...

Windows tablet was available for 10 years,
but only after iPad has demonstrated what a tablet should be,
now we have a race to make them better and more affordable...

Microsoft Doesn't Get It, Episode 65,536: TellMe versus Siri

2012: Big Data, Hadoop

2011-11-25T18:05:00.003-05:00

6 reasons why 2012 could be the year of Hadoop — Cloud Computing News

With "Dryad", Microsoft Is Trying to Democratize Big Data

Microsoft Billion Dollar Businesses

2011-11-25T17:59:00.001-05:00

Microsoft Has A Dozen Billion Dollar Businesses -- Do You Know What They Are?

Windows: $19B

Office: $15B
...

STEVE BALLMER'S NIGHTMARE: How Microsoft's Business Actually Could Collapse

Microsoft has sales of nearly $70 billion a year, annual profits approaching $20 billion, nearly $60 billion in cash, and is still growing sales around 10% per year.

But somehow, many people in Silicon Valley are convinced that Microsoft is going to collapse. Soon. Like in the next few years.