A new Kickstarter campaign that will use Gamification to further Robotics research. Basically building giant Battle Robots and fighting them.
Viewing entries in
gadgets
I've been using the UP by Jawbone since January to monitor my exercise and my sleep patterns. Overall it is a nice device for collecting my movement, however it does not give very accurate information while riding my bicycle. I found a solution for this problem.
If you ever wonder what the world may look like in a few years with Nano bots flying through the sky. In perfect formation they could act as giant CO2 scrubbers, or even survey disaster sights for search and rescue. The possibilities are enormous but the sound will be much like a swarm of bees coming towards you. Have a look and see for yourself the work being done at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Quickly you can imagine a world filled with swarms of flying robots.
I really like my security pattern on the Android phone (Nexus 1). Basically I can draw a pattern to unlock my phone rather than using some pin number or password. I don't like password or pin as it is just annoying to quickly input on my phone with the keypad. I've seen many friends using this feature, however recently there was a problem.
After trying to install e-mail from my work account on my phone, I kept recieving security updates from the server. [Note to self: do not install stuff when you are intoxicated]. After allowing this by accident I realized I coudn't use my pattern security swipe anymore. I kep[t recieving the message "pattern disabled by phone administrator". What? So how do you fix this?
1. Goto Home > Settings > Location & security settings > Device administration
2. remove the device administrator.
Now I'm not sure what other security problems this may have, but I've got my security pattern back. If you have the same problem I hope this helps. And of course if anyone has any tips or comments about this and why it may be good or bad, leave a comment!
And remember to keep your fingers clean or it doesn't work so well :-)
Related articles
- Smartphone Security Thwarted by Fingerprint Smudges (pcworld.com)
My roommate Marlooz gave a presentation today at the 140 conf by Jeff Pulver. Back in Kinnernet, Pulver and I where in a group talking about twitter and I shared my TwitterDate experience with Marlooz. Now Marlooz and I are roommates. He said he wanted that story at the 140conf. So Marlooz was able to go becuase it was with her vacation with her family. She is such a wholesome girl. I was helping her out with the presenation till late last night. Then this morning I see a brief twitter about her laptop being stolen.
@marlooz
"#140conf My MacBook Pro looks like this: http://mobypicture.com/?ea0wih Please keep an eye out for it. It got stolen at Touch."
Then I started to see donations flowing in after that. Briefly I was able to skype chat with marlooz, all of 3 sentences before she had to go. I had no idea how the laptop was, the presenation would go, nothing. Presentation comes and I start to see a slew of comments about it come up in my search. As the presenation was about twitter love, when people heard that Marlooz had raised some €700 for a new laptop, people started understanding love in another way.
Let me tell you something about Marlooz. She is the best roommate. We don't have much money at the place, both struggling, but she knows how to shop cheap and make money stretch. And even though I have other clients, having worked for Marlooz and get paid from her, she was fast with payment. Something I don't see often in the freelance business. And that laptop of hers was her life. Once already she had spilled water on it, and borrowed my old laptop while it dried for a week. Then just before she had to goto London to film a project, her laptop died. Luckily I still had mine, but the battery is completely shot on it, and no new batteries help. Then she was able to fix her old laptop herself, (all kinds of screws on the kitchen table and stuff). Just before leaving for the States. THEN IT GETS STOLEN!!! I can't wait to see her when she gets back and I hope that there was enough money donated so that she could buy a really great laptop while she is in New York.
An Awesome Geek Chick like Marlooz, needs a laptop!
---Update---
She has raised enough money now to get her laptop.... I see here. I guess I should start to love twitter again as well. This story has brought me over from my twitter hate.
Last week my dad was showing me his new toy the Logitec Pro Webcam over Skype. I grabbed a screencast of this hilarious and awesome video chat together with my father. All I can say is he is an amazing man, and I love him so much. He’s one of my heroes for sure! He talks about diet, surviving in the corporate world, credit crisis and tech support. My dad is just trying to keep it real in a virtual world. How do you communicate online with your family?
Kodak Zi6 HD and iLife 09 test from Gabemac on Vimeo.
This is for my friend Rose. She is helping me out so much right now. Helping me get all the pieces back to restart my life in Amsterdam again. Everything from helping me clean my apartment, moving, taking me out, and even folding my clothes. An Angel.
The music in the video is “Something Beautiful” by Coco O’Connor. http://cocooconnor.com
The other reason I made this video is I am testing the Kodak Zi6 that I received from Kodak last week. I am also testing the new iLife 09 and iMovie 09 filters and workflow. Following the standard workflow and exporting to HD video this is the result I get.
I liked the fact that the Kodak imports in iPhoto, and then is transferred to iMovie easily. I don’t have that with my Sony camera. The shots I took were in intense lighting conditions to push the envelope of the camera. I liked the shot it took, but I wanted to play more with iMovie for the final result. I used a number of filters with speed and color settings in iMovie to achieve this effect.
Pros: The Kodak camera is a simple lightweight HD camera that a vlogger likes to have around. It took the direct sunlight shots very well, and did decent compensation for the hotspot sunlight shots next to the ivy.
iMovie has finally put slow motion back in. The effects and filters are very welcome, and the workflow is nice once you get used to it.
Cons: The Kodak camera does not handle low light situations very well. It is also rather large, (larger than an iPod) to always have around with me. I think most of the space is the battery and the usb flip out connection (which although is really cool, I have to use a USB hub for my laptop to connect it and my mouse or external drive at the same time).
iMovie has a nice clip editor, but it no longer scrubs audio when you are trying to tweak an edit to music and it becomes very frustrating. It would also be nice to have a “standard” HD for web export from iMovie which it does not have natively. The closest you can get is the large sharing selection if you do not want to export via QuickTime and set the settings yourself, which is what I did.