Becoming a designer
Boy, it’s been a while. An oxymoronic combination of being lazy and busy, I guess. Anyway, for this post I wanted to talk about design. It’s a topic that comes up a More »
Support for Windows 7 ends today
It is a sad day, as Microsoft is officially ending updates and security patches for Windows 7, the popular OS still being used by a large majority of PCs. Windows 7’s popularity More »
Returning Home: World of Warcraft Classic Comes Online
On August 26th, fans of the original World of Warcraft (henceforth referred to as WoW), and those who are just curious to see what all the hubbub is about, were finally able More »
The Lawnmower Man, and Vintage CGI
Inspired by a couple of Reddit forums to which I am subscribed, VintagePixelArt and VintageCGI, and being a fan of all things historical as it pertains to technology, I uploaded to the More »
Jony Ive leaves Apple
As someone who teaches extensively about design as it intersects with technology, and is also a computer and technology historian, I am conflicted about Jonathan (Jony) Ive leaving Apple. Mainly because he’s More »
Finally!
You know what this world needs? More giant robots. If the movie Pacific Rim taught me anything, it’s that nothing can protect the future of humanity – and gloriously destroy our cities – better than them.
And just like our own armed forces have friendly competitions with each other for good causes, to test themselves, have fun and earn some bragging rights, so should the colossal mechs that we will depend on in the future.
It’s the Fourth!
Since it’s Saturday and also the Fourth of July, and since no-one ever reads this site on Saturdays, I thought I’d repost something from last year that talks about how fireworks displays are made.
Be sure to check out the Bing homepage! If you don’t see the fireworks display (if you view the page after the Fourth), you can click on the little left arrow in the bottom-right of the page to scroll back).
So since today is the 4th of July and you should be out celebrating Freedom and Liberty, I’ll just put up a brief post talking about the technology behind putting together a fireworks display.
Some (maybe) useful websites
That won’t turn rogue and digitize you.
Occasionally on Fridays I post a few websites or even tools that present something interesting and show a unique application of technology. Today it’s websites that do something unique and use the web as a platform to illustrate…well, you’ll see.
Tetris in HD
Tetris in HD
First, we’re all familiar with high definition, right? If you have a 1080p TV, then you know it looks pretty nice, it has a lot of data, and in fact the ‘1080’ means it has 1,080 lines of resolution (of course, with 4K here and its 3840 lines of resolution, now HD looks downright poor). Even so, remember the old, big, heavy CRT displays? How would that content look (scale, really) on HD displays if everything else were left the same?
Ever wanted to see the inside of a spider?
Needless to say, if you’re afraid of spiders, this may not be the post for you. I mean, it’s a completely irrational fear, but hey, I’m not here to judge. Just to be safe, I searched for a header image of the most inoffensive, affable spider I could find (thanks to SawokMrGreen at DeviantArt).
So as I briefly mentioned in class, I almost went to grad school for biology, specifically to study the cognitive capabilities of spiders; I believed some of them have the ability to problem-solve, and that has since been proven true.
I also recently made a post about my trip to the annual convention of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. It’s always incredible to see the new technologies available to the medical industry, from digital x-ray machines to 3-D printing of artificial body parts.
The new trailer for “Steve Jobs” is here.
There is yet another movie being released that is purported to tell the story of industry luminary Steve Jobs. Aptly titled “Steve Jobs,” it seems to tell the story we all know and love: He was a driven dreamer, with perhaps less-than-stellar people skills, who luckily had some help along the way to forming one of the most important technology companies ever.
There have been other movies made about him. There was “Pirates of Silicon Valley” which I enjoyed greatly, although it was more about Steve Jobs *and* Bill Gates. of course, Bill Gates was never part of Silicon Valley, but you get the idea. This movie is probably the best one out there, and is highly regarded, but there was also the 2013 release “Jobs.” This movie was not well-received, however I thought it was very good. Never mind that Ashton Kutcher is a dead-ringer for 70s-era Steve Jobs, and although I’m no connoisseur I felt his acting was fine, but the story, at least the parts it told, were accurate and it showed the rise and leveling-out of both Steve jobs and the company he helped found.
California’s kill-switch law goes in to effect today
Sometimes I just can’t figure out why an obviously great – and necessary – idea doesn’t immediately become a law, even if it adds a miniscule extra step on the manufacturing end.
In this case, I’m referring to a “kill-switch,” a feature that would allow the owner of a smartphone to remotely render the device unusable in the case of loss or theft. Today in California, a law goes into effect statewide that mandates all smartphones have kill-switch functionality implemented and on by default (something I suspect will not be the case universally). Minnesota is the only other state with a mandatory kill-switch law, however their version does not require the feature to be enabled by default.
Welcome to IS301, and IS301.com for Summer Session 2!
Welcome to IS301 at NSC during Summer Session 2, and to is301.com! As you may have read in the syllabus, this is the companion site to the IS 301 class offered at Nevada State College. On this site I will make posts that supplement the topics we talk about in class and provide additional topics of interest.
That being said, the posts don’t necessarily mirror the topics we cover, although on occasion they might; rather they are meant to introduce additional topics of relevance to technology. They may cover robotics, social media, marketing, input methods, standards, lasers, military, virtual reality, the Retroencabulator, random links, or anything else that strikes me as relevant or even mildly interesting. The posts may be simply news, informing you of a new development, or they may be reviews, opinion, videos, examples, or a mix of all that and more. They will be peppered with links that provide additional information, as well as images, videos, and other media that add to the (hopefully) informative nature of the post.
Thanks for letting me know, Microsoft!
Recently I received a notice on my Surface Pro 2 tablet that the battery was running low. Then I got it again. And again. And again. And again…you get the idea. Usually if the battery is running low a band appears across the center of the screen informing you of that fact, however this time it gave me the full-blown strobe treatment (which, appropriately, syncs up perfectly to “Boogie Shoes” by K. C. and the Sunshine Band). Not only that, every time the banner appeared, it took control away from whatever I was doing, so this video of it happening was not easy to record.
Apparently I had not fitted the magnetic power adapter to its receptacle properly, so I’m glad it informed me, but it really wanted me to know!
Here’s the video of it happening. It goes on for over a minute, although the actual event was much longer. Watching it now, it’s almost hypnotic, mesmerizing. Bask in the Zen of Microsoft’s low battery warning, let it relax your soul and clear your mind. Or let it hypnotize you into thinking you’re a duck. Either way, be sure to charge your tablets!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOxC_Cpp2_4&feature=youtu.be
Unsend that unfortunate email
It turns out the word ‘unsend’ isn’t an actual word, but it might become one soon. Google is introducing long-functional but until now experimental functionality for Gmail that lets you recall an email before it is actually sent.
Some history: Google used to have a tab in Gmail known as Google Labs, where they would make available all sorts of experimental Gmail functionality ideas that their coders and designers were allowed to work on in their spare time. They were never made official, but people could try them out if they liked. It was closed down almost five years ago, however they had some neat stuff, my favorite being a plugin that used an ingenious method to prevent you from sending emails while inebriated, which would likely end in huge amounts of regret and apologies: When you hit send, you had to work out a mathematical problem before the email would actually send. The difficulty of the problem could be set by the user, and if you couldn’t work out the problem in a set time the email wouldn’t send. Brilliant. Also, full disclosure, I think it’s ingenious because it is, not because I ever had to use it (I don’t drink, so when I do something dumb I have no excuse).
Google is now implementing the big brother of the drunk email-preventer, one that lived in Google Labs for six years, known as “unsend.” The user can set a desired timeframe from a few seconds to 30 seconds, and during that time the email won’t send, giving the user time to stop the email from sending. There are many reasons someone may want this, just let your imagination run wild. (Not that wild, maybe you just neglected to attach a file!)
You’ll have to enable the function as it won’t be a default option, and now that it’s an official addition to Gmail, I suspect that other web-based email services will be offering it in short order.
8K video on YouTube
8K has been around for a while now, I’ve seen huge (108″) 8K displays at E3 for three years running. Even so, we’re too busy focusing on 4K these days, and two versions of 4K at that – true 4K (4096 x 2160) and UHD (3840 x 2160), although no TV you can by in a store is true 4K, that’s a cinema standard. *All* TVs that claim to be 4K are actually UHD.
Yet technology marches on, and just as we are seeing the very early development of new technologies such as quantum dot displays, so are we seeing the early attempts to move past 4K resolution towards an 8K consumer standard.
