Category Archives: Tablet PC Thoughts

Playing with Virtual Earth

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I have to admit that I really like Google Maps.  It’s an impressive web application, and has completely altered how I use maps – and send map information – to friends, family, and coworkers.  It’s now so easy to quickly locate something on Google maps, get the link, and send it.

As of yesterday I started to experiment more with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, and I now think that I found something I like even better than Google Maps!  I was listening to the Virtual Earth podcast from Where 2.0 and Stephen talked about the features that are there … many of which I hadn’t realized.

First, if you put in a query, it will display the results contained in the map you are viewing.  As you pan the map, the query results update.  You can use the compass for “game-panning” by clicking your mouse on the compass and holding the mouse button down.  You can also use the Tools->Scratchpad to drag and drop locations that you want to keep.  It’s then easy to e-mail these to a friend.

I’m going to continue to use both, and comment on which I like better.  I also am going to start to experiment with the developer APIs.  I have some ideas of some data that I want to place on a map.

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Your Identity on Pluto!

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It’s actually too late to sign up … but you could have had your name
included on a disc being sent via a spacecraft to Pluto! Be the first
one on your block to have your identity known to Plutonians? Click here to read more.

Send your name to Pluto. Want your name to be included on a list in a spacecraft headed to Pluto, and be returned to earth in 50,000 years? Click Here [The Hawker Squawker]

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Apple and User Interface

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Anyone who has followed the entire life of Apple Computers knows that they have been involved in several User Interface disputes and lawsuits.  The whole desktop idea was born from a visit to Xerox PARC.  Now it looks like Creative Labs has quietly patented the way that music can be navigated using the ID3 tag information.

The interesting part is that the Apple iPod might be in violation of this patent!  It will be interesting to see what comes of this … I have to admit that I like my iPod!

After patent, Creative examines all options. Creative Technology is “evaluating all alternatives” now that it has received a patent for music player interfaces such as those found on rival Apple iPods. [Computerworld News]

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Experimenting with tags in Radio

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I sat here tonight and did some hacking on Radio again.  I’m working on my RadioAtomBridge tool, but I also wanted to add some new functionality to the WYSIWYG editor … making it easier to add tags to  posts.

I added a new toolbar button, and wrote some code that allows me to enter a series of space-delimited words.  Now I can simply click the button, and enter words and hit enter … and I get the tag that you see below!

I’m not quite done with it … but it’s working.  I want to change the icon of the button, and I was hoping to figure out how to insert at the caret position … something that I just could not get working within an iFrame.  Oh well … I got closer!

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Motion Tracking with a Webcam

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In the worlds of ‘virtual reality’ and ‘augmented reality’ one of the
important technologies is ‘head tracking’ … knowing the orientation
of the users head.  If you want to create an artificial world, or
add an object in the field of view of the user, you often want that
object to ‘sit still in space’ allowing the user to move around the
virtual object.  In the past many of the systems were based on
gyros, or accelerometers, or even some ‘base station’ that the user is
near.

In recent years there is a lot more work going on with ‘video head
tracking’ or the use of a camera attached to the head of the user, and
using software analysis of the image being sensed to determine movement
and rotation.  I have seen some amazing demonstrations of using
this technique in the wearable computer realm, and the software is
becoming more and more available.

This article caught me off guard as the develop is now using this same
technique to create a virtual version of the ‘wooden labyrinth’
game.  This is an impressive application of the technology … all
implemented on off the shelf hardware!  What you can do with a
Tablet PC, a Webcam, and some software!

Casey hacked a Tablet PC with a Webcam to recreate wooden labyrinth game.

I had to get this one in. Phillip Torrone wrote me and said this Tablet PC hack is something I had to check out. I’m glad I did. Casey Chesnut did /cameraFlow. I wanna see this working.

Awesome.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

Public Distributed Sensor Networks

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I remember talking with Phil Windley
about one of his ideas to leverage OnStar
as a distributed sensor network. He posited that all of these
cars tend to have temperature sensors, some form of GPS, and the
wireless communications … they could be used to create a nationwide
temperature map.

Now here is another article about taking this further to use cell
phones as the source of distributed sensor information. Very cool
idea. Everyone carrying the right kind of cell phone could opt-in
to providing sensor data to one or more servers. A huge variation
on SETI@Home!

Let’s see … what would someone pay me to participate in this? And protect my identity …

Saving the World With Cell Phones.
Scientists work to turn mobile phones into a distributed network
capable of measuring pollution levels — and possibly detecting
biological weapons before they can be launched. By Rachel Metz. [Wired News]

RadioAtomBridge update coming

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I really have put off working on my RadioAtomBridge for a while
now.  It worked for me, and that’s what counts … right?  🙂

Well, over the last week, it stopped working for me … and I was
frustrated.  I haven’t seen any comments on the blog about it, and
so I figured that it was probably ok, but the more that I looked into
the problem it appears that there were two issues:

  1. It appears that Blogger/Google have lived up to their promise of
    requiring SSL/TLS to secure the ATOM posting.  This really does
    make sense, and I’m not against … I just didn’t want to have to edit
    code again.  But I have, and I am now testing this new version
    that I worked on last night.  If all goes well, I’ll post a new
    version for people in the next day or so.  Oh and another note …
    this is slowly becoming the Radio Blogger Bridge
    again since I am slowly hardcoding some things to work with Blogger,
    and removing some options.  I might see how easy it is to add an
    option for SSL/non-SSL … but don’t count on it.
  2. I also found that Blogger will not allow you to create a post
    that does not include a “title”.  So if you post, and the title is
    empty, it causes a java:Null Pointer Exception on their server. 
    Wonderful.  I haven’t yet fixed this, but am looking at what I
    might do … maybe force a default title of the time and date?

Anyhow … it was fun to get into Radio again … and it was also a
pain.  I hate that I have not yet found a fully supported blogging
tool that really does what I want it to do.  But I am working on
it!

Keep your eyes on the Radio Atom Bridge blog for update news!

Pandora … music by the masses

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Ok … this is a cool web site: Pandora

I know that it might be old, but I just found it and it’s pretty
cool. You enter a artist or song and it begins to stream music to
you that they feel fits that “sound”. The best part is that you
can then vote if you feel that a song applies or not … so that your
feedback continues to mold the genre of music.

I’m listening now for a bit. It would be cool if they did a “custom podcast” that I could download.