Posts tagged technology

Janicki Omniprocessor Turns Waste Into Water And Energy

0
10 years
by in FastNews, Recent Posts, TOTWs

After making his fair share of cash from starting one of the world biggest technology companies, Bill Gates has moved on to something more: saving the world. No, not in the cliche cape-and-spandex type of way, but more of a billionaire philanthropist type of way. He has already given billions and billions to charity, donating an astounding total of 95% of his life’s earnings and fortune to good causes. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is “Dedicated to improving the quality of life for individuals around the world. From the education of students in Chicago, to the health of a young mother in Nigeria, we are catalysts of human promise everywhere.” as it says on their website. There are so many things that Gates’ fortune along with a whole lot of goodwill can do and already has done, but the reason I’m writing this is because of Bill Gates’ most recent endeavor: turning poo into water.

No, I’m not kidding. Teaming up with a couple of pretty brilliant engineers, one of them being the Janicki Bioenergy CEO, Peter Janicki, Gates has tested the Janicki Omniprocessor, a machine that takes waste and sewer sludge, as Gates calls it, and out of that makes energy, water, and pathogen-free ash. Again, not kidding. Their goal, of course, is to create a machine that, when used in growing and third-world countries, is not only profitable to the entrepreneur that owns the machine, but also that can help the community. In the end, the person running the unit will get paid for not only the water and electricity, but also the ash and sewer sludge. This very well may be a big step up in global higher standards of living, bringing electricity and clean water to developing countries, as currently, it’s pretty hard to lift a country or area out of poverty and poorer standards of living.

This is how the machine works. A conveyor belt brings the sludge into the machine (which the entrepreneur is getting paid for) and dumps it into a large high temp tube, which boils the sludge. The tube is so hot (1,832 Fahrenheit), in fact, that the sludge burning doesn’t even smell, unlike pretty much every other alternative for disposing of that kind of waste. This process removes all the water vapor from the sludge, and the vapor then gets shoved through a high-quality filtration system, which then creates high-quality water. If you don’t fancy drinking something that was poop only a few minutes ago, just watch Bill Gates do it in the video above and maybe you’ll change your view.

Press Conference: William H. Gates III

Once the sludge is now completely water free, it gets thrown into a large furnace, that heats it up to so much that really hot steam rises out of it, going straight into a custom steam engine, which drives a generator, creating: you guessed it, electricity. This electricity gets put back into the system to help power it, but it also can be sent out into the community, for the benefit of everyone. The entrepreneur again gets compensated for the output, adding one more source of income for the hard-working Janicki Omniprocessor manager. And finally, the entrepreneur gets paid for the ash too, because hey, why not. (Actually, they just haven’t said why they compensate for the ash, maybe just to add a little more incentive, but they did make it clear that they do pay for the ash)

The Janicki Omniprocessor isn’t yet ready to be used in developing countries, and there are sure to be some kinks to work out, but they are preparing for a field test in Senegal to see how well the community interacts and works with the machine. But in general, the machine is a remarkable piece of engineering, and certainly has a great potential to help the sanitation of the rising populations in growing nations all over the world.

What To Expect In 2015 For Wearables

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

2014 finished with a bang, at least if you call USA and North Korea bickering over a Seth Rogen satire movie a bang. Besides that, 2014 was a year of smartwatches, bigger phones, and flat design at its finest. The new line of iPhones was released, with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus making headlines for their giant size (by Apple’s standards).  iOS 8 was released on September 17th, and Android even hopped on the software wave when they announced Android Lollipop at their recent Google I/O conference. The internet suffered many different hacks, leaks and viruses starting with Heartbleed and the NSA leak, and finishing with the Sony Playstation and Xbox hacks.  And offsetting the ever-growing smartphone size, smaller smartwatches are starting to take off in popularity, with Android Wear OS released alongside many new Android smartwatches from a variety of manufacturers.

The Smartwatches Of 2015

And that leads me to the biggest smartwatch announcement: Apple Watch. Last year I said Apple Watch would be a big highlight for this year, and it was. Well, at least the announcement was. Set to be designed in three styles, Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch, and Apple Watch Edition, the Apple Watch wasn’t actually released, despite all the press and hype even from a year back. The only promise Apple gave us was a public release of “Early 2015”, which promises to be a big event whenever it happens. As great as the release of the smartwatch will be, the first time Apple will be branching into a new vertical since Steve Jobs’ death, there will be some unavoidable consequences. For instance, there have been many smaller smartwatches makers, most prominently the “Kickstarted” Pebble, along Samsung and the Android gang’s watches. Some of the less well-funded makers will likely need to sell or potentially go out of business.

apple-watch-6_1

The fact is that consumers tend to favor sticking with their native tech ecosystem, , just as the product companies desire. It’s just easier. But also, with so much more money and development resources, Apple is hard to beat in terms of quality of hardware and software. It’s a little sad, as some of these startups and smaller watches were actually not that bad, but will still likely fall prey to Apple’s enormity.

More Wearables

So far in the progression of wearables, smartwatches have been the only successful niche. Smart glasses, such as Google Glass, were a lot like the segway. There was a lot of hype, but no actual use in daily life. For instance, Google Glass was a highlight of Google’s I/O conference, a special restricted public testing called the Explorer Program. With the I/O announcement, and the Explorer Program, the excitement level was high for the public release in the beginning of 2014. Unfortunately, when the public release did come, nothing really happened. Partly, this was because of all the controversy of Glass’ pretty much secret filming capability, leading to it being banned in many places. But also, the whole concept was to make a device that can seamlessly let you access the internet without pulling out your phone, but the execution of that idea lacked. First of all, the glasses looked geeky. I can’t lie, when you wear something like that you’re kind of throwing your  style out the window for technology. Also, the main control of the device is speaking, which doesn’t really work when in public, not because of the sound quality, but because you just look weird talking to no one, while staring blankly into space.

GoogleGlass_15

So, what comes next? As I’ve argued, smartwatches will become big whether the product is significantly useful out of the gate or not.  As the line of products grows, just as it did with iPhones way back when, their usefulness and quality will increase dramatically.  The key to a successful wearable is that it’s both novel and useful. Most wearables that have failed to succeed lost their battles because they weren’t useful enough, such as (most notably) Google Glass, some Kickstarter gadgets, and early smartwatches. Many concepts simply didn’t have enough features and interaction with the outside world to make a dent in our daily lives.  So it’s pretty hard to predict exactly what type of wearable will find the most success this year, though CES featured a few “out of the box” products that start to hint at what types of products might come out of blue in 2015: for example, mind reading.

Mind Reading

Ok, ok, maybe not exactly mind reading, but products like Thync, a small device you wear on your head that changes your mood using electrical pulses, and Mellow Mind, another headpiece that measures your state of relaxation and with music teaches you to relax, hint at a new branch of technologies working to understand, read, and even manipulate your mind. However whimsical, the popular neural-controlled cat-eared Necomimi may show a direction that consumer and lifestyle products are headed. As much of human existence has been focused on interacting with the world through our fingers, direct interaction via the brain is quite exciting. Not just for consumers, to see what will be made from them to use and marvel over, but also for entrepreneurs, companies and scientists, as a world of possibilities opens up. We often see technologies interacting with brains in sci-fi, whether it’s operating your home, high-tech simulated worlds, or much more, it really is amazing that we are already staring to go in that direction with CES 2015.  As scientists and engineers become more adept in their understanding of direct interaction via neurons and electrical pulses, we will hopefully reach a stage where all this practical interaction with technology will be possible, and sci-fi will become real once again.

Best Apps Of 2014 – Top 5

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

Nobody can doubt that we have entered a new era of technology: one recent study showed that the world now has 7.1 billion cellphone subscribers, 90% of the global population. By 2015, the study says, the number of cell subscriptions will surpass the number of humans buying them.

Increasingly, as complete the transition from the flip phone era to the smartphone era, we approach a point where you can’t really live without one. And what makes an OS for a smartphone good? The apps. Apps are the single and only thing that brings the best parts of an OS alive, giving you the freedom to do an almost infinite amount of things with your phone. So, with an enormous market, low barriers to entry, (e.g., a $100 Apple developer account and some programming experience) and the ability to go whatever your creative mind wants, there’s no telling how many great apps will pop up. Well, let me tell you: there are tons. So many good apps, in fact almost too many, that you really do need to search for the very best of them. So here I have listed my favorite apps from 2014, all ones I like and use frequently:

Winner: 1Password

Everyone has heard of the privacy and security scandals of this year: Sony, the NSA, iCloud – the list goes on and on and has made many nervous about their online security. If you’re like many, you probably changed your bank password and moved on. But in the back of your mind, you know having unique, strong passwords for each of your online accounts would greatly help your security. That’s where 1Password comes in.

The app is available on your computer, as a browser plugin, and as an app, and will let you enter all of your passwords, concealed all under one single, very strong password of your choice. Hence, “1Password.” Once you input your passwords, credit card info, and logins, 1Password will securely hold them for your use, making them available at your fingertips (literally – since you can enable Apple’s TouchID as an alternative login to the app).  The software can even generate a extremely secure password whenever you need to change passwords or create new accounts. I use it all the time, and it’s a great alternative to just remembering them. As it gets easier and easier to hack into personal information, it’s important to have secure passwords, and 1Password will certainly help you do that.

 

#2. Instagram

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Instagram is one of the most well-designed and user-friendly social apps in the App Store.  As someone who uses Instagram on a regular basis, I’ve found that there isn’t much that I dislike about the iPhone app.  While some just don’t get the appeal of constant photo-sharing, and I get that, but what makes Instagram so great for me is that I can connect not only with my network of friends, but also follow artists, sports teams and other interesting personalities.

But there are so many features that make the app so great: the top-class photo editing software; easy DMs; the ability to tag and comment people; the list goes on. I’m going to make this short, but if you want to read more on Instagram, read my full reviews HERE and HERE. But, in brief, assuming that you know at least 10-20 people already on the app, all the great social interaction features will surely make Instagram your favorite social media for interacting with friends.

#3. Monument Valley

This Escher-style groundbreaking game defies the common thought that video games can’t really be artistically beautiful. All the amazing optical illusions in this game really works your brain as you seemingly fly through a plethora of amazing scenes and places in the storyline. The great story combined with the beautiful art and easy gameplay makes, in my opinion, Monument Valley one of the best games ever for mobile. In fact, the only one thing bad about it is the short play length; playing non-stop, you can finish it in a couple of hours. Although, most of these complaints were squashed when the creators released an extra eight-level add-on called The Forgotten Shores. The game doesn’t have very much replay value, but while you are playing it, you feel like you’re reading a classic, timeless book. Only better.

 

#4. Drafts.

To start, I have to mention: Drafts is one of my most used apps, earning its position in my dock. There couldn’t be an easier app to take your thoughts, ideas and notes and export and send them wherever on the Internet you need. Simply, the amount of places you can quickly and easily take your plain-text notes and export them (e.g., as emails, as messages, to Twitter, to Evernote, to Dropbox, etc) is incredibly helpful and customizable, so much so that I rarely spend more than 10 seconds during each use, saving an incredible amount of time. It’s what productivity apps are supposed to do, and Drafts does it perfectly: saving your in-between time for working, relaxing or socializing, and making it easier to get your notes and ideas wherever you need them.

 

#5. Pocket Casts

I bet you’ve heard of the Serial podcast, and maybe even Start Up. Both are podcasts, one about a murder and the other an ongoing story of a startup podcast company. These two shows have reached far more people than the traditional podcast audience, with Serial even featuring in recent SNL and Funny Or Die parodies. I listen to both, and while I am, I’m realizing that there are many more podcasts available about pretty much anything, many of them very well produced. Thus my need for an app that helps me find, download, organize, and listen to them. My favorite is Pocket Casts.

Pocket Casts easily lets you find new podcasts, subscribe to them (alerting you and even auto-downloads the new podcasts) and listen to them, complete with reviews and summaries. A medium such as podcasts demands an app that’s easy to navigate, because just like music and TV, you want to get to your content as fast as possible, and Pocket Casts does a great job of doing that.

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Honorable Mentions:

Wordbase

Hyperlapse by Instagram

Clips

Phlo

Best Apps By Category For 2014 – Games

0
10 years
by in AOTWs, Recent Posts, TOTWs

Video games have always been a big market, from the times of pinball all the way to nowadays upcoming virtual reality helmet games. So, when a portable, always available platform popped up onto the scene, the gaming industry took full advantage. In Apple’s 2014 roundup list, 6 out of the top 10 paid apps are games, and 9 out of the top 10 grossing apps are also games. But, mobile gaming has reached a point that not just any game will make it big on the App Store. The standard of hit games have been increasing in quality, even to a point where is a company does a good enough job on a game, they can make a fortune previously only thought of for esteemed stock investors or successful business people. So, here are my favorite games from 2014:

Winner: Monument Valley

Combining MC Escher-like optical illusions and games, Monument Valley is a groundbreaking app in terms of UI and gameplay. The game follows Ira, white character donning a simple white pointed hat. You control this character, occasionally along with a tall, yellow character, to navigate through the optically riddled world of Monument Valley. To get from one stage to another, you usually have to fight your rational mind and get used to the optical illusions defying perspective and, well, everything, to get to the end of the journey. The art is just as beautiful as the game is fun to play, which is saying a lot, since this game was and still is my favorite iOS 8 game. Along with the first 10 levels, the makers of Monument Valley created a short expansion update to the app,($2 in-app purchase) adding an additional 8 new mesmerizing levels to explore and play.

Runner Up: Wordbase

Out of all the word games on the app store currently, I would say Wordbase is the best. I know, I know, that’s a big claim to make as there are already many popular word games out there. Just let me explain. Wordbase starts out looking like a regular word game, with on a bar of orange on one side and one bar of blue on the other, with squares of random letters in between. The goal is to, using stretches of connecting words via the random letters, to get to the other side. But, the trick is that you’re playing against a real opponent. When you make a move, you have to wait to see what move they make. Also, Wordbase adds a great strategical element when you consider that you can cut off your opponents word stream, so to say, by having your stream cut across theirs. I’ve been playing this game consistently for around three months, and each new game and its chess-like strategy keeps bringing me back. It’s a great game, and definitely one of the best of the year.

wordbase-masthead

Other Best Games:

80 Days

80 Days, the crowned jewel of developer Inkle’s collection, is a great app that stretches the boundaries between games and stories, reliving Jules Verne’s classic Around The World In 80 Days. While playing this brilliant game, you hop from city to city, trying to get around the world as fast as you can. While in each city, you can explore in a choose your own adventure type way, reading each scene and then deciding what to do. Also, you can choose which cities you want to go to, what type of transportation, etc. There are many parts of the story that makes it unique, and it’s certainly a revolutionary game in many ways.

80-days-screen-1

Out There

Out There, although not a particularly popular games, is one of the best strategy space games out there, along with games like Faster Than Light. Out There is more of an arcade variation of the classic ship managing game, where you have to keep the oxygen levels up, the fuel filled, and more. You do all that, along with collecting resources, following a quest to a certain star, meeting aliens, but none of these games last more than a couple days, depending on how good you are. For me, 9 out of 10 times I just accidentally don’t collect more fuel, but however you die, the game gives you a score based on a lot of different stats about your journey. Then you can try it again, to beat your record. The great thing about Out There is that the replay ability is higher than you would think, as every time you play the game, the story changes. The planets are different, the stars are different, and the whole gameplay experience is different. Out There is my favorite space game, and maybe even my favorite strategy game for mobile.

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Check back here soon to see the complete list of top 10 apps of 2014!

Top 6 Educational Youtube Channels

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

As everybody knows, Youtube is a gigantic resource of video of any kind – short film, instructional, comedy, talk show, pets, sports, entertainment, music, vlogs, adventure, news, historical, everything. And of course, educational, which is a growing part of Youtube, and one of my personal favorite categories. Although most of the top 100 most subscribed Youtube channels are entertainment, comedy and music, some of the best educational channels have been rising up the ranks. And so, after about a 1 and a half years of casual watching, I have put together what I think is the top 6 educational Youtube channels:

#1. Crash Course


(the video above is my personal favorite of the channel )

Crash Course, run by brothers John and Hank Green, is one of the best and most comprehensive archive of easy to understand, enjoyable and educational Youtube videos about any and every subject. From the history of life on earth, to Romeo and Juliet, to electrons, to Indus Valley civilizations, to you’re sleep and dreams, Crash Course’s brilliantly animated, written, and performed videos are a joy to watch and always interesting. Averaging about 10 minutes long, Crash Course’s videos give a complete view over the specific subject of that video, which is dependent on which of the 9 series the video is in: World History 1, World History 2, Big History, Ecology, Psychology, Chemistry, Literature, Biology, and Us History. Seriously, I can’t recommend this channel any more.

#2. Vsauce

Vsauce, unlike Crash Course, has very little animations, is much less structured, and has a tendency to go off on small tangents. (all the while interesting, I have to say) Created by Micheal Stevens, Vsauce is a channel that dives into different scientific, mathematical and philosophical questions in great detail. In so much detail, in fact, that by the time you’re done watching the video you have a whole new idea of what the question was in the first place. Vsauce’s unique style of filming and editing is very easy to understand, and has now became a trademark of the channel. (there has even been a Vsauce parody video made) If you want to be entertained, and like learning new and interesting things, this is a good channel for you.

#3. CGP Grey

CGP Grey is yet another very informative and interesting channel, but instead of actually filming someone, CGP Grey’s technique is just voicing over not super great yet still fun, enjoyable and understandable animations. CGP Grey, like Vsauce, goes over lots of different questions, none of them really having to do with anything. But, unlike Vsauce, CGP Grey’s questions are usually not scientific or philosophical but political, historical or factual. And although there is much less interpretation in CGP Grey’s videos, they are still as enlightening, and interesting, making you want to go tell everyone you know about some random fact like whether Macau is a country or not.

#4. Veritasium

Veritasium, a name derived from the latin Veritas, meaning truth, and the suffix ium, used often in the periodic table, is another great educational youtube channel. In total, the name means “the element of truth”, a common phrase and, of course, a reference to science and the periodic table. Run by Derek Muller, Veritasium is like a lot like Vsauce, but also very different. Most of Derek’s videos are about some sort of question, but instead of just explaining the question, the videos usually have Derek going out and experimenting, actually figuring out the problem for himself and for us watching. In the videos, he does a great job of explaining each experiment in a very simple way, so even if you don’t have a physics or some kind of scientific degree you can understand and get information out of all his interesting videos.

#5. Kurzgesagt – In A Nutshell

At a measly 330,000 subscribers, compared to 2 million of Crash Course and the 8 million of Vsauce, Kurzgesagt is a smaller channel that is devoted teaching the listener about lots of different topics, usually about science, astronomy and controversies like Ebola and Iraq. Like CGP Grey, Kurzgesagt is only animated, along with a voiceover, except Kurzgesagt’s animations are top class, in the newest flat style, seamless, easy to understand, and overall just fun to look at. Even doing some animations for the vlogbrothers, (John and Hank Green) Kurzgesagt’s videos are not only animation masterpieces but also very informative and interesting to watch.

#6. Minute Physics

One of the founding channels of the now popular drawing film technique, Minute Physics is a really great channel featuring interesting topics, mostly physics but also occasionally biology, geology and earth sciences.  All their videos are real time drawn (or now sometimes animated), and then sped up, with a voice over on top of all that. In total, the videos have very interesting material, along with the visualizations, which are very easy to understand as they are being drawn right at the right time. Overall, the channel has tons of videos, and in my opinion has the best physics videos on youtube for beginners. (or average people)

 

Honorable Mentions

Asap Science

Numberphile

Minute Earth

Bitcoin – What It Is And Why It Isn’t Ready

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, Speculations, TOTWs

Personally, I see Bitcoin as a interesting concept, but isn’t near close to a time where it can be used in everyday life. In case you don’t know, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, and the first of it’s kind. It’s a currency that is completely web based, and has absolutely no intrinsic value. If the value of bitcoin falls, you lose your money. The good side of Bitcoin is that, as I said, it is completely web based, and there is no way for when transferring Bitcoins for for any bank or system to play with it. It goes straight into the other person’s account, excluding taxes. Also, although this can be interpreted any way, but the way Bitcoin is created will gradually fall, making the amount of Bitcoins available for use the same from 2025 onward. When 2025 hits, no more Bitcoins will be produced, meaning no matter how many people are using Bitcoin the number of Bitcoins will always be the same after that.

bitcoin-225080_640

So that sounds great, but the cons on Bitcoin are substantial. To recap, the main goal that fueled the creation of Bitcoin was to make a currency that can be regularly used. Unfortunately, the problem with that is that 3 years ago, Bitcoin was worth 5 US dollars. Now it’s worth 445 US dollars. At least, that’s how much the select Bitcoin traders will give you. At one point, it was worth 1,200 dollars. With all the fluctuations in the price, with a uphill trend, who knows what the price will be. But if I had bought 3 Bitcoins back in 2011 for $15 and now they’re worth $1,500, I wouldn’t sell them. Or maybe I would. That’s the problem, they’re turning into a long term investment instead of a currency.

As the video above says, some people believe that the uses of Bitcoin isn’t apparent to us now, just as people in the 80s didn’t think that anyone needed computers to live a normal life. That is certainly possible, but it’s my opinion that in the current state of the system, it isn’t good enough to benefit society in a big way.

Also, there are some other problems, such as the theoretical ability to hack into your online wallet, or even the Bitcoin server, and steal the Bitcoins of many people. Sure, maybe the Bitcoin encryptions are good, but it’s hard to trust a online currency with all the hacking going on around us all the time. Sure, maybe the Bitcoin encryptors are a step ahead of the hackers, but I wouldn’t bank my life’s savings on it.Along with that, a secret key, or passcode, is used to verify access to all of your Bitcoins. If someone finds out your password, they can spent, transferred, or anything.

 

Bitcoin

Yet another design flaw is that Bitcoin isn’t really designed to be a currency, even though the creators want it to be. The reason for this is that the people who benefit the most from using Bitcoin isn’t small selection of people who actively use Bitcoin at the small selection of online and concrete stores, but the people who hold their Bitcoin, and who use it as a long-term investment. Again, this is a concept. If Bitcoin, or another virtual currency like it has a chance of becoming popular it has to find a way to reward the regular user, which will certainly take a lot of innovating and reiteration of the basic coding and structure of Bitcoin itself.

I’m still skeptical, as I expect everyone will be when adopting this type of money.  But, there may be a time when Bitcoin is ready to be used. Maybe, the amount of Bitcoins released will work out, the kinks in the system will run smoothly, the encryption is unhackable (something that will certainly take many years and be a big step forward for cryptography), the cons of the system replaced with more pros, and everyone will accept it. Just maybe. (see optimistic video above)

TOTW: Google’s Project Ara Modular Phone May Be The Future Of Smartphones

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

Behind Google’s expansive teams working on more open projects like their engine, Google Shopping Express and more, there are more teams, still big and including lots of people, just not as publicly known. Many of these projects come from Google X, Google’s top secret labs working to find creative and unexpected ways to fix our modern world’s problems. On of these projects that was released as a concept was Project Loon, a project bent on giving everyone is the world good cell connection using hot air balloons.  Crazy, I know, but if anyone could find a way to achieve that it would be the teams at Google X. Another one of the these projects is Project Ara, a modular phone that Google is working on with Phonebloks and Motorola, which of course is now part of their own company.

Project Ara has been going on for a while now, and is about to launch into phase 2 prototypes. The basic concept of this “modular phone” idea is that you can interchangeably take new features like a camera, an extra storage block, a big speaker, and more and switch them in and out with the blocks you already have in your phone. If you take all the block out of the Ara phone, there will be the basic block hull, on which you slide in all your chosen blocks in certain positions. That way, you never really have to throw out your phone. If a better screen is developed, buy the new screen and take out your old one. If you want more storage, just buy a bigger storage block. If you want more battery, buy a bigger battery block.

Project_Ara_scattered_parts

This won’t leave out third-parties, though, as they could make their own blocks such as flashlights, a card holder, whatever you could think of. The companies literally get to make a part of the consumers phones, which doesn’t usually get to happen, unless of course you work for Apple, Samsung, etc.

Also, the phone’s design will be a lot more customizable than most phones, as each of the individual blocks will be available in a couple different colors and patterns. And while I’m on the topic of customizability, Project Ara is definitely the most customizable phone made yet. Not only can you get the apps you want, but you can get whatever feature fits you. As I said before, this phone, if enough blocks are designed, could be the perfect phone for everyone.

ara-medium-front-and-back-with-modules

Sure, Ara may never have the same feel and smoothness as Apple products, or the number of features as Android phones, but it will be targeting an audience completely different: the people who use their phone in pretty much one or two ways, maybe relating to their job, and want it to be optimized for that reason. But, for Project Ara to actually compete in the smartphone industry, they will have to get a lot right; the feel of the phone in your hand, the quality of the blocks, the amount of third party devs they get into the project, the processing speed, the amount of blocks they make, the list goes on and on. But if they do get it right, Project Ara could be a new big competitor in the smartphone market.

Just a update on Project Ara, the Prototype 1 is finished, which successfully launched Android in a recent video uploaded(below). The next prototype is now in production.

AOTW: Wolfram Alpha’s Capabilities Will Blow Your Mind

0
10 years
by in AOTWs, Recent Posts

There is really no words to describe Wolfram Alpha. In essence, it’s all everybody thought the internet would be capable of back when it was first invented. It can do many practical things, and many stupid but entertaining things. Just what people are looking for. The app started as a site/app called Mathematica, which specified on math problems only. But, over time the functionaries and abilities of this wonder app grew and grew, until it covered everything from stocks, to TV stations, to astronomy, to sports teams, to celebrities. It is very possibly one of the most useful sites on the web. Wether you know it or not, you could definitely get good use of Wolfram Alpha.

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Wolfram is essentially a search engine. Well, a super boosted search engine of awesomeness. Of course, it doesn’t act as a literal search engine, since it can’t actually go on web pages, but it’s main function is as a type of search website. The whole app is based off of a search bar, in which you type in your inquiry. The ingenious algorithms of the program takes apart your writing in a way it can understand, and then inputs that to its database. For instance, if you write, “What’s the distance to Saturn?”, it will show you the interpreted input, which is:

Screen Shot 2014-10-16 at 10.42.03 AM

So in this case, it worked just fine. It shows you that the distance is 10.8 astronomical units, 1.004 billion miles, and the orbit around the sun is about 29 of our years. Along with that info, it shows us some completely useless information, but only useless because it’s to technical and complex for me to understand. In every question you ask, Wolfram Alpha tells you the answer, in amazing detail.

Like, a super incredible amount of detail. As an example, if you write “Google like curve”, it will show you this:

Screen Shot 2014-10-16 at 10.48.54 AM

 

Yes, you’re right. That’s a mathematical curve chart made to look like the Google logo. Ok, that’s cool. But that’s not all it does. It also gives you the exact mathematical equation used to get the curve. In the Google logo’s case, here is a small part of the equation:

Screen Shot 2014-10-16 at 10.59.05 AM

 

I mean, holy cow! That’s actual math! And that’s only about a fifth of the whole equation. It can do this type of thing for most object, logo or person it has a picture of in it’s database. Not to mention it only took it about, maybe, 1 second. This only starts to demonstrate the immense power of this engine. There are a couple drawbacks.

When Stephen Wolfram, the creator of Wolfram Alpha, was creating his engine, he probably wasn’t focusing to much on user experience. I’m not saying the design of the site is bad. It’s fairly easy to navigate, especially on the web version. But, the search engine itself could use a little, well, Apple-ifying. Made simpler and easier to use. Meaning, you can’t always depend on the engine upstanding you when you write in regular english. A long sentence with lots of conjunction words like or other unnecessary words like “and”, “that” and “what’s” all just confuse the system. There is an incredible amount of things and computations this engine can do. It will really blow your mind. But, in the times when you do think it could be helpful in average life, there’s a good chance you don’t know how to communicate to the engine what you want it to do.

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Stephen Wolfram, The Creator Of Wolfram Alpha

Overall, Wolfram Alpha is a outstanding website and app. Along with silly computations, as I mentioned before, the program can do many types of calculations that will help you in everyday life. No matter what your job is, there is probably a way Wolfram can help you. And if you doubt the gigantic amount of abilities Wolfram has, on the app there is an “Examples” bar, in which it has many different categories of professions, topics and more. In each category, many examples are listed of what Wolfram can do. You have to admit, the software is amazing. Wether or not it is useable on a daily basis, well, probably not, but it is helpful occasionally and is certainly fun to play around with.

 

TOTW: How To Learn Swift – A Web Guide

0
10 years
by in TOTWs

For a long time, Apple has used their native programming language, Objective C, to write all their apps and give developers an opportunity to code for iOS as well. Objective C is supposed to be a improvement on both C and C++, making it easier and faster for developers to write the apps that eventually make Apple the money they need to run. But back in the last WWDC in mid-summer, Apple dropped a bomb that nobody was expecting: behind the scenes, they had been secretly been creating a new, modern coding language from the ground up. And they called it Swift. Swift is a big improvement on Objective C, and as the Apple representatives showed off at the event, it’s new way of coding can shorten a 15 line code into a 5-10 line code.

So after the event, all the developers attending went home and learned Swift through the only way avaliable back then, Apple’s Swift manual they released at the WWDC, a medium sized booklet on everything to do with Swift. But, for beginners, that’s a terrible way to learn. It’s already been 6 months since the release, and many new apps are starting to pop up everywhere on the app store taking advantage of the couple different development software and new capabilities that were added into iOS 8, such as Metal, third party widgets, Sprite Kit and SceneKit, and more. So, now that the advantages of Swift and iOS 8 are apparent, it’s a good idea to learn the language, especially since it is supposedly much easier to learn than Python, Objective C or others. Nobody really wants to learn through the Apple manual, but luckily for us other third party courses have popped up over the internet recently, and I’ll highlight the best for you here.

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Team Treehouse – Swift Course

Although there are only a couple of ways to learn Swift, as the people that would be teaching you the language have only just learned it, Team Treehouse have done a very good job in a small amount of time. Team Treehouse in general is a web-course site, all on things to with technology; HTML, WordPress, Ruby, Javascript, iOS design, and more. All the courses are first-party, so the quality is great. It is subscription based, but if you are really going to use all their services to their full potential, meaning learn the basics of many skills needed in todays technological world, then it’s definitely worth it. The design of the site is fluid and easy to use, and if you’re like me, and have a hard time using badly designed apps and sites, you’ll have no problem. As I’ve taken a couple of the Swift courses myself, I can say a couple things about the way the courses are structured. First of all, the content goes fairly slowly, not to slow so that it’s boring, just enough so it’s easy to learn. This is great for people who Swift is their first programming language, for instance, me. Also, the course isn’t so, well, strict and confining. Like you can’t do anything out of what you’re being taught. Every so often, in between the videos explaining to you how to do certain things, there are challenges. In Swift’s case, there is a built in code reader, so you have to figure out how to code certain things via what you learned in the last video. It makes you put your knowledge to the test, something that might be missing in non- interactive videos or just plain writing.

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Udemy – A Variety Of Courses

Udemy, another online course website, runs a bit differently than Treehouse. It is a platform for third-party teachers, so anyone could potentially make a course a profit from it. The content in the courses isn’t necessarily to the same level as other courses such as Treehouse, but there are a couple courses that have gotten outstanding reviews. For instance, The Complete iOS8 and Swift Course: Learn by Building 15 Real World Apps by Rob Percival and Swift for Absolute Beginners by Tim Schneider both have 5 star reviews from many of the course’s completed students. The content of the courses might be very educational and interesting, but the platform doesn’t have a way for easy multiple choice questions and tests like Treehouse does, which I think is an important part of the learning experience.

SPv2HSLS

Text Based Tutorials

Both of the options above are not free, s0 if you are interested in learning Swift, but not spending the money, there are a couple options. For instance, there are some just text tutorials that you can read through and practice to. Swift Tutorial – A Quick Start and An Absolute Beginners Guide To Swift by Amit Bijlani, of Team Treehouse, are both examples of medium sized articles you can read to learn the language to start. But, if you really want to get deeper into the language, you will need to pay some amount.

A helpful that may be useful for the time you don’t want to pay is SoSoSwift, which takes articles from around the web about how to learn Swift and brings them together in one website for you to look through. Although this is an option, I would highly recommend the video courses, especially Team Treehouse, if you will actually want to start programming real apps.

And of course, if you would really like to go basic, you can always read Apple’s basic Swift manual, on their developer site here.

 

Apple September Conference Part 1 – Apple Watch

2
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

Every year, Apple always says that this new upgrade and this new release is the most significant since the release of the first iPhone. Everybody has heard it. Every year, you’re like, “Yeah, sure.” But this year, Apple may not be lying. At their annual September conference today, Apple released one off the biggest new hardware releases ever, apart from the release of the first iPad. Even though the iWatch (actually the Apple Watch, as it’s really called) was widely known to come out at this event, and very highly anticipated, Apple’s main tactic of somehow surprising everyone with their new features and technologies. Along with the Watch, two new iPhones were showed off, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the predicted bigger “phablet”, a 5.5 inch iPhone. All these hardware upgrades, and still Apple managed to release iOS 8, although they had already released it back in the WWDC. But, to start off, I decided that it’s only fair to satisfy your curiosity and get going with the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch

There’s so much to say here. To start though: the hardware. In essence, the Watch is a Apple-like version of most of the smartwatches already out there on the market. A upward facing rectangular screen is the main show of the Watch. As with all their other devices released today, the Watch has a curved body coming off of the screen, and coming back around to the flip-side of the wearable. Unlike other smartwatches out there, the Apple Watch implements a new technology as the main notification output, rather than the extremely popular vibration technique. The Watch has Apple’s new Taptic Engine, which allows the user to get notified by a literal tap on the wrist. On the bottom of the device, there is a little pad, also containing a GPS, Accelerometer and Heart Rate sensor, that can tap you on the wrist, and even tap you differently for different activities. For instance, it can tap you on the right side of your wrist to go left for walking directions, and on the left side of your wrist to go left.

On the right side of the watch, there’s two different manual buttons, both very important. The first button, located below the other one, is just a rounded off rectangular button that when clicked, brings up a page filled with little thumbnails of all your contact, which from there you can call and text.  The second button is really one of the things that sets Apple’s Watch from any other watch on the market. This button also influences the whole OS for the watch. And quite frankly, this button is a brilliant design element to add onto what is already there. This button is the Digital Crown. All watches have crowns, so Apple decided to add one in theirs. Except on the Watch, the crown does two things. It acts as the home button, so you just push it to go home. But second of all, the button acts a zoom. Practically the whole OS is based off of this capability, as that way more info can be put on the screen since no fingers are obstructing it. And this leads us to the OS.

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From what we can tell from the Keynote and videos released afterwards, the OS is built into “neighborhoods” of apps, which you and scroll and pan through using your fingers. Each app is a little circle, and the circles are arranged in a shapeless blob. Wether you can customize the placement of the circular apps on the black background hasn’t been released yet, but I’m assuming you can, as you are able to on any other Apple OS. To go to a specific app, you pan the screen so the chosen app is in the obvious center of the screen, and zoom using the crown. The screen zooms in, showing you the app’s page. Developers will have to use this feature of zooming in and out to travel between pages inside the app, as the photos apps does that Apple showed off in the Keynote. When you zoom in on the app, a collage of all your photos will appear, from which you can zoom in again to look at specific pictures, and swipe to go between individual pictures as the info is now big enough to have a finger in the way and not totally be obstructed.

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The screen of the watch is small, and that makes a problem to both the software and hardware designers at Apple. How to make an easy way give input or control without obstructing the screen. The first way is the crown, but there needs to be one more way, as it’s to hard to ask developers to use the zoom feature all the time. So they made a special technology only for the Watch that has to do with touch. Since your fingers are so big compared to the screen, the tapping interface can really only apply when there is only one big button on the screen, (no typing, all communications are done with voice dictation and word recommendation) and the info takes up the whole page. But, that may be hard to implement, so the technology they invented allows the device to differentiate a tap, a short touch on the screen, from a press, a longer, harder touch. That way, one virtual button can be used for two purposes.

Unfortunately, the watch won’t be available until early 2015, but as a teaser for what will come next year, Apple released the three different styles of the Watch that they have meticulously designed: Apple Watch Sport, Apple Watch, and Apple Watch Edition. The regular Apple Watch is the standard design, made from a stainless steel or a black stainless steel material. Another great aspect of the Watch in terms of customizability is the ability to easily remove one band and replace it with another. Since there are many different bands, if you buy, say, a sport fluoroelastomer neon green band, and that isn’t really appropriate for a meeting with the CEO of your company, you could exchange it with a silver chain Apple Watch band. Of course, the material of your watch will stay the same, but that wouldn’t change how you use it very significantly.

Overview

There is a lot of new and exciting technology packed into this relatively tiny device. The Taptic Engine, the touch/tap differentiator, the Digital Crown, and more. As has been widely discussed through the tech world, everybody knows the consequences of this release: the closing of many small tech companies. Start-ups like Pebble will fail, as all the money coming to them will immediately go to the Apple Watch. But for the consumers, the question is, is the $400 worth it?

The watch is meant to be a segway between your phone and everyday life. Many people have the unfortunate addiction of constantly checking their phones because of practically meaningless notifications from a variety of social networks and games. The way I see it, the watch would make you able to live you life without having to take your phone out of your pocket. Sure, you need to have your phone with you for GPS and Wifi, but other than that you can do pretty much everything else right on your watch without much effort.

Apple iWatch_interface_1

Now that’s great. But what’s the difference between the Apple Watch, and say, Android Wear’s line and OS? Well, for starters, the aesthetics are different. In my opinion, Apple software makes it easier for third party apps to be easily incorporated, as the Android Wear software doesn’t have an recognizable home screen. Also, Apple’s design is just more appealing to me, but that differs from person to person. But, the main reason why Apple is so successful, and can attract so many die-hard fans is that their devices work so well together, something that companies like Samsung and Google haven’t mastered yet. If you have a Mac, an iPad will work much better than a Nexus tablet for you. And if you have an iPad, a iPhone will benefit you greatly over a galaxy S4, especially with the new continuity feature in iOS 8. And if you have an iPhone, the Apple Watch is your best option.

Wether you get an Apple Watch or a Android Wear watch depends on one thing: wether you like Apple or Android software. The design, the features, the specs. If you have on product in the line, you will most likely get the other. Altogether though, the Apple Watch is a cumulation of many great design features and new technologies, and will certainly live on in the history of Apple as a great invention.

 

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