Technicity

I am starting another Coursera course: TechniCity

This 4 week course explores how sensors and networks are transforming our cities, how to engage in city building through social networking and crowdsourcing platforms, some experiments with analyzing city data and how open data initiatives, hack-a-thons, and urban prototyping festivals are creatively innovating our cities.

iBeetle

Just the other day I was imagining what an Apple designed car would look like. This week Volkswagen is showing off their new iBeetle at the 2013 Shanghai Auto Show. 

Available in 2014 as Coupe and Convertible models in various iPhone inspired color schemes, the iBeetle integrates with the iPhone for navigation, hands-free calling, listening to music and location based applications  and more both wirelessly or through the docking station.

The iBeetle is first Volkswagen with newly developed docking station and a special iPhone® application

I was expecting a little bit more from Apple. Where is the aluminum unibody chassis? Slide to unlock? Still has windows. Will it be available in the iStore?

Read more at Volkswagen.

Getting geekier - upskill with these online learning sites

Looking to improve your geek skills this year?

Here are some online tech education resources that look interesting:

• Kahn Academy - brush up on your math, physics and chemistry skills with lots and lots of video tutorials and exercises
• Some Stanford Courses:
• Computer Science 101
• Human-Computer Interfaces
• Software Engineering for Software as a Service
• TeamTreehouse - Web design, Web development, iOS apps
• CodeAcademy - Learn to code

Remembering Turbo Pascal

I stumbled on this post about the history of computing.

Things That Turbo Pascal is Smaller Than

Turbo Pascal 3 for MS-DOS was released in September 1986. Being version 3, there were lesser releases prior to it and flashier ones after, but 3 was a solid representation of the Turbo Pascal experience: a full Pascal compiler, including extensions that it made it practical for commercial use, tightly integrated with an editor. And the whole thing was lightning fast, orders of magnitude faster at building projects than Microsoft's compilers. 
The entire Turbo Pascal 3.02 executable--the compiler and IDE--was 39,731 bytes. How does that stack up in 2011 terms? Here are some things that Turbo Pascal is smaller than, as of October 30, 2011: 
The minified version of jquery 1.6 (90,518 bytes). 
The yahoo.com home page (219,583 bytes). 
The image of the white iPhone 4S at apple.com (190,157 bytes). 
zlib.h in the Mac OS X Lion SDK (80,504 bytes). 
The touch command under OS X Lion (44,016 bytes). 
Various vim quick reference cards as PDFs. (This one is 47,508 bytes.) 
The compiled code for the Erlang R14B02 parser (erl_parse.beam, 286,324 bytes). 

The Wikipedia page for C++ (214,251 bytes).

This reminded me of the Turbo Pascal programming I learnt in 1987 and later actually used when I was working in a medical laboratory in the late 80s to early 90's. All of the lab's patient and test results data was stored on a Unisys mainframe (the original machine filled a room and had a tape deck taller than me). As the lab technology developed, they bought new analysis machines and to get data from them into the mainframe, we installed several DOS PCs and I wrote the various data capture and interface programs in Pascal.

   

Seamless computing

Dr Neil Roodyn from nsquared demonstrates seamlessly computing an architect might use between devices in this demo. 

DSLR iPad Monitor & Control

I would not be surprised if at least one of the MuzGadget Bros has already tried controlling cameras from their iPad.

Chromoscope - different ways to look at the universe

Joining together datasets from several all-sky projects, this tool lets you see what is out there in different wavelengths.
Chromoscope - View the Universe in different wavelengths

My first search plugin

Have you ever had issue with a forum that will only allow searching for keywords longer than 3 characters. One forum I frequent often is www.pbxinaflash.com/forum. This is a great forum but the problem is the search functionality of the forum only allows for anything over 3 characters.
This is a problem when searching for things like "SIP, IAX, FAX, XEN" etc.

So I created my first open search plugin. Open search plugins are small XML files that add a search enginge to your Firefox or IE search box.

Here's how I did it.

• in Firefox I installed this plugin Add to Search Bar :: Firefox Add-ons
  
• then used Google advanced search to search the forum
• and saved this as a search
• I used this search myself for a month or so and then thought I would share it with others

Originally posted as draft by Robin 23-Apr-09.

iPhone Driving

"iPhone Steeting Wheel"

An interesting interface.

Kitchen Computer Build

A DIY Kitchen Touch Screen Project



Read the details at The iPhone Inspired DIY Kitchen Touch Screen Project

Google Wave

Still have some Google Wave invites to give away.

Green mouse

This eco-friendly, wooden mouse by AlestRukov uses natural materials as much as possible in the design.


Read more about Wooden mouse on the Behance Network

Google Chrome OS

Just watched the (over 1 hour long) Google Chrome OS webcast.

Today Google released it to Open Source and gave a demo. It looks interesting and really fast, simple and secure to use.

It won't be available for a year and then you'll need a supported device to run it, but it looks very promising.

The "What is Google Chrome OS?" video below is a much shorter intro:

Google Wave Invites

I've got some spare Google Wave invites if any of the Muzgadget Bros or our readers are curious to use this technology. See my earlier post Google Wave : Communication revolution for a long video introduction to Google Wave. Or to save time see this much quicker and funnier introduction:

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave : Communication revolution

Unveiled at Google I/O, Google Wave is a revolutionary way of collaboratively communicating. Still under development, it is open source and already has an impressive number of features. Google is opening it up for developers to add even more rich features with server based robots extensions and embedded gadgets to make a website more collaborative.

The long demo is impressive, but covers all the cool stuff.

More info at http://wave.google.com/

Designing Interactions

I stumbled across this website (and book and DVD) about designing interactions. The first thing that attracted me to it was this image of remote controls made simpler, by hiding features that are not commonly used.

This is just what my father-in-law needs.

Designing Interactions starts with chapters about the invention of early interaction devices like the mouse, desktop and PDA. The middle talks about designing services, the internet and play. It finishes with some discussion of what the future may hold.

Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge

Cool color tool - search by color

"We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour"

http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/?1#colors=ea9225;

Cool redesign

The $100 laptop is getting even cooler! More pictures at TED | TEDBlog: XO laptop redesign: Pics!

Moldable Mouse

Congratulations to the winners of the red dot online: design concept 2007: Productivity & Work winners for this cool mouse!

Made of lightweight modelling clay and covered with a nylon and polyurethane blend fabric, Moldable Mouse can be kneaded into shapes by users.

Moldable Mouse breaks the boundaries of the traditional mouse with its revolutionary design. Currently, all computer mouse products in the market are made with hard plastic, and their shapes are not universally adaptable to the human hand. Even the most advanced “ergonomically designed” mouse does not fit the preferences of every user. The inelasticity of the plastic model is problematic for long-time usage, as numerous people have suffered wrist injuries from extensive use in a fixed position. Moldable Mouse eliminates this problem with its unique design.

Moldable Mouse is made of non-toxic lightweight modelling clay, covered with nylon and polyurethane blend fabric. It can be kneaded into any shape the user prefers, and the shape is self-retaining. By allowing a wide variety of hand positions when holding the mouse, it reduces repeated motions of the same posture, thereby minimising the chance of common mouse-related injuries such as the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The click buttons and touch-sensitive scroll pad of the mouse are stick-on parts with built-in RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device), which can be repositioned for maximum comfort.
The nylon and polyurethane blend fabric covering comes in a variety of colours. The texture of the material feels similar to silk, but is much more flexible. Its softness significantly increases the comfort level of the mouse over that of the traditional plastic versions. Patterns and graphics can be printed on the fabric to make the Moldable Mouse more visually appealing. The base of the mouse, made of 100% recyclable PC/ABS plastic blend, houses the PCB (Printed Circuit Board), laser optics and batteries. Reducing plastic usage to a minimum by using mostly non-toxic clay and fabric, the Moldable Mouse is also an ecologically responsible product.

For the past forty years in which the computer mouse has been in existence, it has by and large remained static in its design. Today, modern technology has made it possible for the product to conform to the contours of the user, rather than the other way around. Moldable Mouse brings novelty to the field of industrial design, and beckons a new generation of user-centred innovations.
red dot award: design concept 2007

design:

Lite-On Technology, P&C Design Center

In-house design:

Liao Wei-Chueh, William W. Huang, Antonia Hsu, Amy Liu, Shi Yimin, Tiky Tao, Salem Zeng