Author: Matt Byrd (Page 32 of 33)

      The World of Technology is Really Scaring Me Today….

      June 8, 2012 /

      Are you like me and would love to wake up even earlier in the morning just to go nearly kill yourself by running a few miles, and have to come back in a hurry so you can spend the rest of the day at work, but just can’t find a good jogging partner?Well if that’s your excuse (and believe me, it is a great one) then I’ve got bad news. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is working on a flying  robot that can be programmed to keep pace with you and become your morning jog companion.

      The Joggobot (those wacky Australians…) can be programmed via a smartphone app for pace and height settings, and then uses a built in camera to follow a marker worn by the jogger in order to constantly stay ahead of you. The device is meant to be a motivator to runners, and give them something to chase after and run with.

      Is anyone else frightened by this invention? It reminds me of that villian’s machine from “The Incredibles” that could learn from all the heroes it defeated in order to become stronger for the next wave. Not to mention its basic design is essentially a machine that you are supposed to run from. I was convinced this would be the scariest bit of robotic propeller jet technology I would find today, but I was dead wrong.

      Yes that’s a flying cat. Depending on the type of person you are, that image either causes you to laugh or shriek in horror at the danger that device poses to the poor kitten. But if you knew the full story, you’d understand that the only option is to scream in terror and run far away from your computer. Because that isn’t just a flying cat. It’s a flying dead cat.

      It’s called the Orvillecopter and was created by a Dutch artist named Bart Jansen. When his beloved cat Orville died, Bart was so stricken with grief that he attached propellers to each of the cats paws and made it into a copter so that it would stand as a tribute to the person it was named after, flight pioneer Orville Wright.

      Maybe we should just be thankful we didn’t get to see the invention Bart would have come up with if it was named after snack pioneer, Orville Redenbacher.

      So yes, I admit that between training robots to match, map, and surpass human athleticism, and people turning their once loved pets into aeronautic exhibitions, today’s tech news is starting to scare me a bit. In fact, the whole ordeal of today’s news makes me yearn for a simple classic evening. You know, one where I can just retire to my quaint zombie proof home.

      And of course eventually find myself tucked away into my comfy, classic, self making bed.

      You know, the simple things.

      Uncategorized

      Ford’s Looking to Make Driving Music Social With “Just Play”

      June 5, 2012 /

      Living in New York, I’ve made the increasingly necessary decision to never, ever own a car while in the city. As such I rely on walking and public transportation to get around. It’s certainly an ok option, but I miss driving around on a quiet night with some good friends and just listening to music. While an iPod is nice to have during my commute, there is no music listening experience (outside of a good concert of course) that can recreate how much fun it is to listen to music in the car.

      Well unfortunately for lowly pedestrians like me, Ford is now looking to make that experience even better. They call the feature “Just Play” and it was created during the 24 hour “hackathon” at the Facebook campus. Just Play works with Ford’s voice activated Sync feature, and allows you to connect with your smartphone and Facebook app to share music with your friends. So whatever they are listening to, you can listen to as well and vice versa. Ford themselves acknowledge that it’s a “simple idea”, but there is some potential for this to incorporate other applications like Spotify and Pandora to create a driving music community experience that hasn’t really been around since the hey-day of rock on the radio.

      Plus it just sound like fun.

      Audio

      Is This the Greatest Coffee Mug on the Market?

      June 1, 2012 /

      In my usual hunt for an interesting and unique bit of technology news to share with you, I must admit that I came up blank. Technology is always shifting and moving, but unfortunately, some days it does so like sand in the wind, and on others like a glacier at sea. This would be a glacier day.

      In fact, the most interesting thing I stumbled across was actually… a new coffee mug.

      This isn’t just any normal mug, though, but a mug that has an LED indicator on the side in the form of a battery charge icon. If you pour in a beverage above 96.8 Fahrenheit, about the temp of a typical cup of coffee, then the indicator fills up to the top as you pour, and then goes back down as you drink. The gag of course being that as your energy depletes, so does the mugs.

      Some are already calling this the coolest nerd mug on the market. I honestly wasn’t going to dispute this opinion until I did some research and found that the field of novelty coffee mugs is surprisingly strong. In an effort to try to lend some finality to this debate then, I found some of the best novelty cups I could and measured them against the battery mug.

      The Toilet Mug

      Maybe the original “Outside the Box” mug. This is for the guy who may have left the frat house, but refuses to abandon the cheap laugh now that he has to be “grown up” or…pffft whatever.

      It may be a classic gag, but once the novelty of letting coworkers believe that you are drinking from a toilet ends, so does the use of the cup. Since I put that timeframe at anywhere from an hour to a day depending on the size of your office, I give the battery mug the edge.

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      accessories, Lifestyle

      Can Facebook’s Buffy “Stake” Its Claim In The Smartphone Market?

      May 28, 2012 /

      I swear, that’s my last bad “Buffy” pun.

      Various news outlets from The New York Times to the BBC are reporting that Facebook is reconsidering an entry into the smartphone market.

      For some time now, the social media giant has teased the idea of launching a phone of their own. However, early reports indicated that the project started and stopped several times until it was ultimately determined that the actual complete process of making a phone from concept to manufacturing was harder than anticipated, and the idea was scrapped.

      Now though the project seems to be back in earnest. Codenamed “Buffy” (which is odd considering Buffy was a TV character that slayed things that were better off left dead), the smartphone’s hardware is reportedly going to be worked on by HTC Corp, while Facebook will internally handle the software development, which could include an independent operating system. To help get the phone out by its alleged 2013 target date, reports are that Facebook is looking for former Apple and other high end smartphone developers to add to the team, of which they may have already hired almost half a dozen.

      Everything revealed so far has suggested that Facebook is taking this project very seriously. The word around the company is that Mark Zuckerberg is worried that if Facebook doesn’t make a play to start its own phone service, that it will become just another mobile app and get lost in the shuffle of the new world order of smartphone superiority. Not to mention that Facebook could lose out on advertising revenue if it starts being accessed primarily through a third party device.

      Facebook still carries a lot of name value, and its internal app market could potentially be very popular if kept exclusive to its new phone, but I still think this sound like a case of overreaching. If the initial conclusion was that smartphone development was going to be too complex just a year ago, I don’t know what could have changed their minds in the meantime. Well, besides that slightly embarrassing public offering fiasco of course.  But if this is all an effort to extend Facebook’s reach enough for them to wipe some egg off of their face, things could turn ugly.

      Mobile, News

      Apple Owners Rejoice! Free Apps Are on the Way

      May 25, 2012 /

      Since spearheading the Android App Market and launching the Kindle Fire, Amazon has seemingly been on a mission to promote themselves as the kinder, gentler Apple alternative. While stopping shy of ever viciously calling out their rival, the message is clear that they believe themselves to be more of a service “of the people” than their counterpart. One of the ways they have done this is by offering a Free App of the Day service that allows its users to snag a free download of an app selected by Amazon. Ranging from games to useful services, it’s a must have feature that, until now, has provided Android owners with another feature to rub in the face of the iMasses.

      I say “until now” because it looks like the empire has caught on to the rebel plans.

      Yes, its happy days again Apple owners. Apple is now offering its own free app service, only this one will be a free app of the week and not of the day. The good news is that the first app of this service is the brilliant and addictive “Cut The Rope: Experiments” game, which went from “should be essential” to “no conceivable reason not to download” courtesy of the new promotion. Not content to just borrow from one rival, though, Apple has also introduced an “Editor’s Choice” feature (seemingly a replacement for their staff picks and game of the week features) that highlights the newest and best apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The initial showcases are Facebook Camera, “Extreme Skater,” “Air Mail” and Sketchbook Ink.

      Of course, all jokes about theft are actually jokes. Developers have been running their own free app promotions since the start of the market, and independent sites have been offering the same, as well as highlighting the best new apps for the same period of time. In truth it is refreshing to see Apple offer these services on their own, and considering that the Apple app market is richer and fuller than that of its rivals, even an app a week instead of one a day is an astoundingly good deal that should produce something of must have quality each outing.

      Although it should be noted that the “App of the Week” feature hasn’t officially been confirmed as a permanent addition. However since they’ve launched a new Twitter tag for it, not to mention those large banners for the service on their site, things look good. It’s going to be interesting to see if Apple looks at the success of this initial offering to judge if it will continue in the future. It’ll be interesting because we can’t know if Apple will look at giving away lots of free merchandise as a positive marketing ploy, or the root of all known evil.

      Again, joking.

      Apple, News

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