WolframTones: Generate a Composition
update: [tb collection]
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Siddharthapillar
recreating movement
Recreating Movement is a computer program for analysing film sequences and has been developed within a diploma thesis.
With the help of various filters and settings Recreating Movement makes it possible to extract single frames of any given film sequence and arranges them behind each other in a three-dimensional space. This creates a tube-like set of frames that "freezes" a particular time span in a film. By using the keyboard the viewer can browse through the sequence of frames, chose any kind of view of the sequence of frames and influence the displayed frames directly via a displayable menu bar.
The project is to be understood as a design approach, and not a finished product. It describes various scenarios and provides an overview of the possibilities of displaying film sequences three-dimensionally.
See shockwave demo.
Kinda reminds me of the Trafalmadorians. 'Siddharthapillar' comes from this post.
Recreating Movement is a computer program for analysing film sequences and has been developed within a diploma thesis.
With the help of various filters and settings Recreating Movement makes it possible to extract single frames of any given film sequence and arranges them behind each other in a three-dimensional space. This creates a tube-like set of frames that "freezes" a particular time span in a film. By using the keyboard the viewer can browse through the sequence of frames, chose any kind of view of the sequence of frames and influence the displayed frames directly via a displayable menu bar.
The project is to be understood as a design approach, and not a finished product. It describes various scenarios and provides an overview of the possibilities of displaying film sequences three-dimensionally.
See shockwave demo.
Kinda reminds me of the Trafalmadorians. 'Siddharthapillar' comes from this post.
Wired News - AP News
Wired News - AP News
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.
Monday, March 24, 2008
[citation needed]
biphenyl.org
One of my favorite quirks about [Wikipedia] are the little [citation needed] tags that users can place in an article, indicating that a dubious claim needs a reference. One day an idea struck — what statements are more dubious or outright ridiculous than those in advertisements? Thus, an OM project was born. I had 250 8×2 inch stickers printed, which I handed out to friends, who circulated them further. In true wiki fashion, the final placement of the stickers is a collaborative effort, now distributed and anonymous. If anyone sees one somewhere, please make a photo! I’ve been tagging my photoset on Flickr with citationneeded and wikiffiti — more should start showing up in the next few weeks. I’m also providing the source Photoshop file (or as pdf) for anyone who wants to print their own batch. Note that you may have to resize the canvas or change the image mode to CMYK depending upon the print service used.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
YouTube Coming to TV, With TiVo the Gateway
New York Times (h/t j-me-j)
Pick up the remote, turn on the television and watch YouTube.
The blurring of the television and the computer, envisioned by technology enthusiasts for years, advanced another step on Wednesday when TiVo, the popular maker of digital video recorders, announced an agreement with YouTube that will deliver millions of Web videos directly to users’ TV screens.
“TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s vice president and general manager for content services."
Pick up the remote, turn on the television and watch YouTube.
The blurring of the television and the computer, envisioned by technology enthusiasts for years, advanced another step on Wednesday when TiVo, the popular maker of digital video recorders, announced an agreement with YouTube that will deliver millions of Web videos directly to users’ TV screens.
“TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s vice president and general manager for content services."
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Watch YouTube Videos in Higher Quality
Watch YouTube Videos in Higher Quality
YouTube has formally announced that it started to re-encode its videos in higher quality. "You may have noticed that we're now giving you the option of watching some YouTube videos in higher quality. We're making these streams available on certain videos, based upon the source file uploaded to us, and over time you'll find a greater percentage of the library is available to view in higher quality."
Two weeks ago, we learned about a trick that triggers the higher quality videos, if they're available: append &fmt=18 or &fmt=6 to a YouTube URL. Now you can choose the higher quality as a default option by going to your YouTube account settings and changing the video playback quality to "I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it's available."
The new setting is equivalent to appending &fmt=6 to the URL and you get 448 x 336 FLV1 videos with audio encoded at a sample rate of 44100 Hz, up from 320 x 240 FLV1 videos with audio encoded at 22050 Hz.
YouTube's philosophy seems to be about making sure that most people can watch videos, even if they have slow Internet connections.
Labels: YouTube
Friday, March 14, 2008
iPhone iPod: Shuffle & Random settings
BrainLog - iPhone iPod Shuffle and Random, and a Real On-the-Go Playlist Bug
The iPhone iPod application also has "shuffle" and "repeat" modes, as well as an explicit "shuffle" action on lists. However, the method to activate them is more subtle, and the icons that indicate you are in shuffle or repeat mode are not always on the screen.
In fact, the icons and the buttons to turn on these modes are the same thing. To turn these modes on or off, or to see if the modes are on or off, tap the album art on the Now Playing screen to bring up the "scrubber" (the position indicator/widget). The repeat indicator/button is to the left of the scrubber, and the shuffle indicator/button is to the right.
The iPhone iPod application also has "shuffle" and "repeat" modes, as well as an explicit "shuffle" action on lists. However, the method to activate them is more subtle, and the icons that indicate you are in shuffle or repeat mode are not always on the screen.
In fact, the icons and the buttons to turn on these modes are the same thing. To turn these modes on or off, or to see if the modes are on or off, tap the album art on the Now Playing screen to bring up the "scrubber" (the position indicator/widget). The repeat indicator/button is to the left of the scrubber, and the shuffle indicator/button is to the right.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Beginning of the iPhone Rebirth
Technology News
How Intel's Atom Will Recreate the iPhone/iPod Touch Class of Products
The problem with all of the smartphones, including the iPhone, is they try very hard to have laptop-like capability but all fall short. The two leading products are the RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) Latest News about Research In Motion BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone.
These two products define two distinctive roles (BlackBerry for business and iPhone for fun) and most folks would probably like one product that could do both. For the BlackBerry, it is e-mail, contact management and calendaring that cause it to win in its segment. For the iPhone, it is music, video and a wonderful browser (plus great marketing and a great user experience). Neither of the products is particularly good at what the other does, which is why both did very well last year.
Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Mobile platform comes close to what BlackBerry provided (generally only falling short on hardware right now and actually a better economic choice) but still falls short of the user experience provided by the iPhone. Depending on the hardware, it does provide a blend. Right now, however, even the HTC Touch (which sold half as much as the iPhone) or the HTC TyTN II, which is arguably closer to the ideal, don't get the excitement that seems to surround either the BlackBerry or the iPhone.
How Intel's Atom Will Recreate the iPhone/iPod Touch Class of Products
The problem with all of the smartphones, including the iPhone, is they try very hard to have laptop-like capability but all fall short. The two leading products are the RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) Latest News about Research In Motion BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone.
These two products define two distinctive roles (BlackBerry for business and iPhone for fun) and most folks would probably like one product that could do both. For the BlackBerry, it is e-mail, contact management and calendaring that cause it to win in its segment. For the iPhone, it is music, video and a wonderful browser (plus great marketing and a great user experience). Neither of the products is particularly good at what the other does, which is why both did very well last year.
Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Mobile platform comes close to what BlackBerry provided (generally only falling short on hardware right now and actually a better economic choice) but still falls short of the user experience provided by the iPhone. Depending on the hardware, it does provide a blend. Right now, however, even the HTC Touch (which sold half as much as the iPhone) or the HTC TyTN II, which is arguably closer to the ideal, don't get the excitement that seems to surround either the BlackBerry or the iPhone.
The iPod touch, which could be -- but isn't -- the perfect BlackBerry accessory to create the perfect solution, showcases a product class that better focuses on connected entertainment but it still falls short of the ideal.
What Intel's Atom platform promises in either its standalone or Centrino configurations is a product that could do what each of these products individually does well in a single small offering.
This will put power in your pocket that has only been seen in laptop computers and could turn the iPhone and iPod touch into pocket Macs.
I'm not sure we yet realize just how revolutionary this will be because the existing providers have done an amazing job of working around the limitations of the existing technology and getting stuff that probably shouldn't work to work reasonably well.
The iPhone and iPod touch are nearly impossibly good, but once we can move to an x86 technology base -- which is what Atom promises -- the limitations go away and this should be like taking square wheels off of racing car in terms of what will be possible once this platform hits the market next year.
This should also create stronger competition, but so far only Apple and RIM seem to get that, to be successful, you have to have great hardware, a great and complete user experience (including the back end), and strong demand-generating marketing. The last two things seem to be lost on a lot of vendors right now.
I think the result of Atom for small computers, smartphones and entertainment devices will be as revolutionary as the personal computer initially was and well worth looking forward to.
Friday, March 07, 2008
iPhone update ...
Apple Tweaks iPhone for Business Uses
Business on The Huffington Post
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Inc. wants the iPhone to become a business e-mail gadget _ and a portable video game machine that might also help users manage their health records.
Cupertino-based Apple unveiled new software Thursday that reflects its intensifying effort to court business customers and placate third-party developers who want to build iPhone applications but have been locked out. A beta version of the software went out Thursday; the full version will be available in June.
* * * *
Business on The Huffington Post
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Inc. wants the iPhone to become a business e-mail gadget _ and a portable video game machine that might also help users manage their health records.
Cupertino-based Apple unveiled new software Thursday that reflects its intensifying effort to court business customers and placate third-party developers who want to build iPhone applications but have been locked out. A beta version of the software went out Thursday; the full version will be available in June.
* * * *
To help fuel development, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has created a $100 million "iFund" to support new companies developing the next generation of applications.
Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, who's managing the fund, said he's particularly interested in funding applications in health care.
"That should be enough to start about a dozen Amazons or even four Googles," said Doerr, who helped fund both companies in their infancy. "And if we're running out of money we'll run around and look for more."
Apple has forecast that it will sell 10 million iPhones by the end of the year, giving the device roughly 1 percent of the worldwide cell phone market. In January Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company has sold 4 million iPhones since they went on sale June 29.
The iPhone has claimed 28 percent of the U.S. smart phone market since its release here in June, according to Jobs. But many businesses have shied away because they want the device to work better with their corporate e-mail systems.
To woo more business customers, Apple said Thursday it's tweaking the iPhone to support Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange software, which addresses a key weakness in the gadget and puts it in more direct competition with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Palm Inc.' Treo smart phones.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said the software update will give iPhones the security and integration of e-mail, calendars and contact lists that businesses have been demanding.
"This is a great, great way to solve all those requests," Schiller said.
One thing noticeably absent from the presentation, however, was support for IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes e-mail package, another program widely used by businesses. IBM announced in January that it was partnering with Apple to make the software work on iPhones, but there was no mention of the partnership Thursday.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Google Built-in Calculator
 | To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you'd like done into the search box and hit the Enter key or click on the Google Search button. The calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and conversions, and physical constants. Try one of the sample expressions below, or refer to our complete instructions for help in building your own. |
These sample queries demonstrate the utility and power of this new feature:
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