Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs

BE WARNED!  I hurt myself laughing playing this, so be careful.

Quick Response Barcodes.

Have you ever seen one of those weird barcodes on parcels and packaging?  They are called Quick Response barcodes.  These barcodes are very similar to the ones you and I know of but the have the extra second dimension to save data to.  A post on Coding 4 Fun allows you to encode and decode these odd shapes (see here). You can put your name on things, add URLs to anything and even put small images in a binary format on everyday items.  Looks fun anyway.  I suggest you try it!

Managed Library for the WiiMote

This is nothing new but I've been toying with an idea. What if you made XNA based apps WiiMote enabled. For example on the XNA creators website there is a free download for a few game starter kits. I plan to extend the current Racing Game into a WiiMote controlled car game! (OK so this copies Super Mario Karts a bit but it will be interesting to see if it is relatively easy. If it is I'll post the mods I have made to do this!) Don't forget if you want to suggest some thing just post your idea as a comment on the most recent post!

Windows Seven Beta 2

Windows Seven beta has been released for a couple of days now. I have just managed to nget it installed after several courupted downloads. (A quick note: a work arround for a courupt download is to download the entire image at ONCE) Anyway the installation was a lengthly process. I chose to "Upgrade" which on my midranged Laptop took 3 and a half HOURS! Now that is done first impressions I have to say are outstanding. Only one driver problem for my printer but that will only require a quick visit to Microsoft Updae and I'll be done. There are many new features most interestingly the Taskbar. They have had quite an overhaul on the whole switching apps front. There are no longer long oblong buttons with the label of the process on it. Instaed they have chosen to scrap that in place of a "Grouped" idea. Basically they have put just the icon of the app and when you hover over it all the different windows within that app apear as thumbnails. These windows include tabs in IE8 beta which is included on the image. It is hard to see many faults surprsingly. In the couple of hours I have been using I have not seen a single UAC or a fault with the programs. In fact it is more stable than my previous Windows Vista OS. One quibble I do have is boot time. It would seem they have put more time into a pretty picture at boot than they have in the time itself. It takes a good 2 or 3 minutes to turn on a twice the recomended specs (almost exactly) I am diaspointed there is no option for an "On the fly" boot which just opens a browser app and conects you to the internet and I am sorry to say that I am yet to see any of the Kernal level speeding up they have done come through. Hopefully they will release a faster version for the release date currently set at June 2009. I will kepp you all posted on any further progressions! One final note if you want to downlad the beta I'd hurry. They limited the keys to just 2.5 million and the release was a while back. I hope you can all enjoy the testing.

Fire

OK so it's not hardware but it is fun!!!

Hackaday.com

This is a cool website that doesn't hack others or it's user (at least it doesn't appear too =D) Instead it is a website dedicated to changing one gadget into a better or different tool! Eg turn a wii into a laptop etc

Multitouch

Most of us have seen or heard of Multitouch displays (if not go here) and they are increasing in use: many laptops have them though mostly Macs, and the iPod touch famously features one.  But larger multitough displays are hard to make at a reasonably low cost.  That is until now.  Nui group, the same people that made the "Smart Board" have released tBeta, it is a free GNU program amd set of librarys that allows you to use multitouch at a low cost.  It uses a a webcam input to see highly contrasting areas of light and dark (eg a shadow a finger makes on a peice of paper) to create a point.  Many points can be seen at one time (dependant on the camera resolution) and these corespond to many points of interaction.  If you have a decent webcam and a projector (although not aboulutly nessecary it makes for a good efect) then it would cost around £25 ($45) to make the surface style table.  For more info visit http://tbeta.nuigroup.com/

tbeta preview from ~ on Vimeo.

Poll - Results to be posted at the end of this month

I'm starting a monthly poll, this months is: "What OS do you use?" Should be interesting!

Lego NXT

Firstly OMG, this stuff is so cool, I have been considering buying one for some time and I have become increasingly interested since Christmas, I have been researching them a lot on Youtube and there is even a dedicated blog to them on blogspot (here).  If you have looked at any sort of robotics on the internet you will know that the higher "bit" the processor in the Microcontroler (brain) the better the capabilities are. This has a 32 bit Processor, it is so powerful that it suports voice synthisis (it can talk on it's own)  It comes with 3 servo motors that have built in rotation sensors, and a variaty of other sensors.  It also has blue tooth so you can program it and control it without wires!  All in all it is a fun product, watch this space for a full reveiw of the product.

PS: The picture is Lego's not mine

Bump Top

Bump Top is a physics based desktop application which is really productive, visit www.bumptop.com for more information, but here is a quick picture:

Wii Projects

If you have a Nintendo Wii and want a new way to use it try some of the projects Johny Lee has made, from using it as an interactive whiteboard to a 3d display, the wiimote can be used for anything.  The best way to get started is to download glovepie, you can quickly write applications for the wiimote with minimal efort.  eg, here is a remote application for Windpws Media Centre.

//Calibrate your Wiimote!

//Place the Wiimote face up on a flat surface. Change these values until the

//debug line next to the run button shows zero for each axis.

var.xOffset = 4

var.yOffset = -31

var.zOffset = 6

//Set your Wiimote LEDs to your liking. Binary value, 1-15

var.leds = 6

wiimote.leds = var.leds

//Wait so a key isn't pressed millions of times a seccond!

wait 0.1

//Calibration Data

var.xRot = Wiimote.RawForceX + var.xOffset

var.yRot = Wiimote.RawForceY + var.yOffset

var.zRot = Wiimote.RawForceZ + var.zOffset

//

//Arrow keys

//

//Left

if wiimote.Left = true

   Left = true

   Left = False

endif

//Right

if Wiimote.Right = True

   right = true

   right = false

endif

//Up

if Wiimote.Up = true

   Up = true

   Up = false

endif

//Down

if wiimote.Down = true

   Down = true

   Down = false

endif

if wiimote.A = true then

    Enter = true

else

    Enter = False

endif

if wiimote.B = true

   Backspace = true

else

   Backspace = false

endif

//Play

if wiimote.2=true

   Ctrl+P=true

   Ctrl+P=false

endif

if wiimote.Home= true

   Backspace = true

   Backspace = true

   Backspace = true

   Backspace = true

   Backspace = true

else

   backspace = false

endif

if Wiimote.1 =true

   Alt+Enter = true

else

   Alt+Enter = false

endif

if (Wiimote.1 = true) + (Wiimote.2 = true)

   Alt+F4 = true

endif