NuttyNerd.TV
Anyone who thinks 3D is just a fad would do well to check out Panasonic’s HDC-SDT750. The first consumer camcorder on the market capable of 3D capture, you can add a whole new level of depth to those shots of your cousin’s wedding. If you don’t like the effect you can always remove the lens attachment and record in 2D…but that’s so yesterday.
via Joe.IE
We live in a hectic world. Alerts, alarms, and reminders prod us through our days with unforgiving precision. Challenging this pressure-filled environment, Carbon’s Domino Clock™ takes a simple, iconic object and transforms it into a new way to tell time. The concept is simple. Three larger-than-life dominoes are equipped with articulating “dots” that flip back-and-forth between black and white to keep time. They hang on the wall or stand free, communicating wirelessly as they quietly mark the passing hours and minutes. By subtly abstracting the idea of time, Carbon’s Domino Clock creates a more relaxing experience.
Challenging Expectations. While the idea itself is pretty straight forward, it challenges the assumptions we make about familiar objects. “People have a lot of immediate associations with everyday things, especially iconic ones,” says Joe Sullivan, industrial designer at Carbon Design Group, a Seattle-based product development consultancy. “It’s interesting to play with these expectations. In this case, we’re taking a well-known object out of its normal context and giving it new capabilities, allowing it to function as something completely different.”
“The numbering scheme on dominoes and dice developed as a way to represent numbers that’s immediately recognizable, so in a lot of ways it makes perfect sense to use it as a time piece,” explains Sullivan. “Everyone gets it, but the fact that we’re not used to seeing it in this context makes it unexpected at the same time.” It’s this shift in context that gives the concept a twist.
Fueling the Passion. The Domino Clock was one of a number of ideas bubbling up in the Carbon studio when it was selected to be a Carbon Passion Project. Similar to Google’s 20% Time, Carbon’s Passion Projects are designed to fuel the creative spark. “They’re a way to push the boundaries… to try something new, to take a break from the constraints of client projects and play a little,” explains Dan Blase, President of Carbon Design Group. “These projects foster Carbon’s culture of learning and play, and, at the same time, give our team the variety they thrive on.”
Making it Real. Simple ideas often require a good deal of work to keep them simple. “Form-wise, it’s a very literal reference to a domino, so 95% of the up-front heavy-lifting from an aesthetic standpoint is defined from the get-go,” says Sullivan. Once the form is set, the conversation moves quickly to feel and function. The reference to real dominoes plays heavily here as well. From their playful falling motion, to the weight of the ceramic materials in your hand, dominoes have very specific physical qualities inherent to them. “The clock wants to communicate these same qualities, from the materials down to the precise motion of the dots.”
If you imagine a domino scaled up to a foot tall, it would be quite heavy and have considerable inertia. “The mechanism that creates the motion needs a sense of gravity to it to give the flip the feel of falling,” says Sullivan. It was up to Eric Davis, one of Carbon’s mechanical engineers, to solve the challenge of creating a small mechanism that generated this slow movement, yet was very quiet. The additional challenge of powering thousands of transitions a day without burning through batteries meant Davis would need to design a custom actuator. Ultimately, he developed a mechanism that runs off a small, electromagnetic coil. “You might call it a ‘single-poled motor,’” says Davis. “The magnet and the iron move around the coil… opposite the way motors are usually designed.” The device can be fine-tuned to get just the desired flip speed. And, best of all, power is only required to initiate the movement, and not while the device is in either the “black” or “white” resting state. A more detailed explanation and video demonstration of the Domino Clock proof of concept prototype is available on Carbon’s site.
Wireless integration was another potential challenge, but Carbon’s electrical and software engineers have loads of expertise creating leading-edge wireless solutions for clients. Integrating low-cost wireless technology into the package is essential to fully realize the simple, untethered concept.
According to Sullivan, the collaboration between disciplines was critical to the successful development of the Domino Clock. “It’s really the same kind of thing we do every day for clients on far more complex projects,” says Sullivan. “Everything we did from the dampening grease, to the custom actuator, to the wireless communication was to maintain the simple original idea. That might have been lost if we’d had to hand the design off to someone else or if we needed to concede because we couldn’t solve one of those issues.”
Carbon’s Domino Clock makes an iconic statement as it subtly reduces the pressures of jam-packed schedules. The plan is for the Carbon team to bring the concept to life, with the first Domino Clock gracing the walls of their new studio in early 2011. After that, only time will tell.
via Carbon Design
Here in New York at Acer’s Global press event, the company’s talking touch. Lots and lots of touch. It’ll be introducing a veritable smorgasbord of equipment as the minutes roll on, but it’s kicking things off with its Windows 7-based Iconia dual-screen laptop / tablet, a device we’ve seen before. For all intents and purposes, this is Acer’s version of the Toshiba Libretto W105 (or that far-flung ASUS concept we saw at CeBIT 2009), boasting a pair of glossy touchscreens and no hard specifications to speak of. Naturally, you won’t find a keyboard here — rather, a virtual one will emerge from the secondary panel. There’s also a fairly slick media management system that’s obviously gesture based — some real potential there. We’ll be digging for details surrounding a price point and release date, but for now, have a gander at the image above and just imagine how it could revolutionize your life.
In related news, the company also teased its new Clear.fi media sharing system. As the story goes, it’s a cloud-based system that’s designed to play multi-format content over multi-platform devices, enabling any number of gadgets to talk to one another in order to make content visible and shareable with any other device. So far, it looks as if that could apply to movies, games, photos and music, but it’s a single-house affair for now. So long as there’s a router and a WiFi connection nearby, any Clear.fi-enabled device should be able to share, search and consume.
Update: The full PR is now after the break, and we’ve gone hands-on with the device right here!We’ve also scored the specifications — she’s running Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and is equipped with an Intel Core i5-480M / 560M / 580M CPU, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, a pair of 14-inch multitouch displays (1366×768 resolution), integrated Intel HD graphics (128MB RAM), VGA / HDMI outputs, an inbuilt microphone and a S/PDIF interface. There’s also a 320/500/640/750GB hard drive, Acer’s CrystalEye webcam (1280×1024 resolution), 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, integrated 3G WWAN, gigabit Ethernet, a four-cell battery and a total weight of 6.18 pounds. Closing things out, there are a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a single USB 3.0 jack and a one-year warranty.
via Engadget
Optimus Tactus by Artemy Lebedev is a unique keyboard concept that has no physical keys. In fact this keyboard is a display and any its part can be programmed to perform any function or to display whatever you wish.
The Optinus Tactus keyboard is very comfortable to use. Apart from its basic function, it can be used as an additional display. The keyboard supports a great variety of characters, even rare ones such as such as Ancient Greek, Georian, Arabic and many others. The only disadvantage of the device is that the user is very likely to lack tactile sensations while typing, however, most likely, the user will get used to such unusual typing very soon.
via Geek Project
We’re not quite to the point where everybody has a 3D printer sitting on their desktop, spewing out conceptual widgets and free energy devices, but by golly if we aren’t getting close. The ZPrinter 350 from Z Corporation is the latest, a (relatively) compact machine that uses easy snap-in cartridges of material and automatically recycles any waste created during production. It sports a 300 x 450 dpi resolution, can create objects that are up to 8 x 10 x 8-inches, and while its printing speed doesn’t exactly seem blazing (just .8-inch per hour vertically), that’s apparently the fastest on the market. All that for only $25,900! We can’t wait to see what Steorn will create with theirs.
via Engadget
Well, now that Christmas day is over, your camcorder is probably full of all those videos you've taken of unwrapping presents. What are you going to do with all those memories next, aside from just archiving them to your computer? Since we are still in the season of sharing, I think its a wonderful time to edit some of that footage you've captured and share it with with friends and family on YouTube.
If you're concerned about privacy, I will show you what YouTube setting are available to protect who has access to view your videos.
In this episode of NuttyNerd TV I am going to walk you through how incredibly easy it is to post your videos online.
Watch the iPad/iPod Version by clicking here.
The iPad is great for what it is intended for, running Apps. However, it does have its limitations, such as being able to run a full version of a traditional operating system, such as Windows or MacOS. This is because the iPad was never intended to be that kind of device. For the most part, you can do a lot on the iPad, however, if you need the full functionality of Windows or MacOS, then I have a workaround for you. It’s called LogMeIn. In this video, I am going to introduce you to LogMeIn and show you how it works.
Watch the iPad/iPod Version by clicking here.
In this episode of NuttyNerd TV I am going to do a short introduction and demo of a Drobo. A Drobo is a external storage device that you can connect up to your computer. What is unique about the drobo which sets it aside from your traditional external drive is that it offers robust data protection. It also has the ability to add additional drives or replace current drives with larger capacity ones on the fly if you start to run out of disk space.
Watch the iPad/iPod Version by clicking here.
If you ever lost your Windows Login password, that could be a very heart wrenching feeling. Don’t Panic! This process works for both physical machines as well as Virtual VMWare Images. I’ll take you through the steps.
1) First, if you are trying to recover / reset a password on a virtual VMWare image, you first mucy edit the *.vmx file that is found in your VMWare directory. Go to your VMWare image (on a Mac, right click on it and show package contents)
2) Next Open a Terminal Windows (Control Panels – Terminal)
3) Type sudo vi in the terminal window (Do Not press Return yet)
4) Next, drag and drop the *.vmx file into the terminal window and hit return
5) Edit this file and enter this information on the first line:
bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE”
6) Save and quit out of that VI session
7) Next download the Offline NT & Password Registry Editor from here
8 ) With you VMMachine shut down, start it and attach the ISO image that was unzipped from your download.
9) When your VM Instance Boots, you will be in the BIOS. Change the BIOS settings so that your VM Image first boots from the CDROM. Then Save and Exit changes
10) Reboot your VM image
11) A CLI (Command Line Interface) will appear.
12) Follow the steps outlined HERE. Pretty much take the defaults by simply pressing return.
13) Eventually you will see a list of system user accounts. Select the user you want to clear the password and clear (delete) that password.
14) Save quit and shutdown you VM image.
15) Edit the *.vmx file again and change: bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE” to bios.forceSetupOnce = “FALSE”
16) Save your changes and exit the VI session.
17) Reboot
18) Login
For the past couple of weeks I have been only using the iPad as my primary computer on the road. I want to see if it could replace my laptop and offer all of the functionality I needed on a day to day basis. I mean let’s face it, there are a lot of apps out there and we have to ask ourselves, what do you really get out of a fully blown out operating system such as Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Primarily, most of us use our laptops to connect to the internet, check email, generate documents in Word or Excel, upload photo’s to Facebook, manage finances, etc. All of which can be done on an iPad. I think we are so used to the idea that we need a traditional operating system to satisfy our traditional thinking. I would almost suggest that I think that the Operating System on the iPad is revolutionary in a since that it is completely different from the mainstream approach to computing or rather – our thinking of mobile devices. The Operating System it’s self is nothing revolutionary. We are used to having our data stored locally on our laptop and periodically we will back that data up, right ? I hope so. We are used to going to the nearest Best Buy and buying a software package and installing it on the computer from a CD that takes up a lot of space on our hard drive. I mean let’s admit it, it feels good (or sometime bad) to have a big box with lots of manuals and media for that new version of Office that came out. Not to mention the fact that the new software box smells good when you open it. I think we have grown accustomed to the fact that we need all of that stuff Windows or Mac operating systems has to offer. That is an old way of thinking. Why have we accepted long boot times, short battery lives, viruses, etc ?
The future of remote on the go computing is smaller, faster, more portable, access anywhere cloud computing. This is what the iPad is offering.
I think we will still have traditional laptops. But I project we will see more mobile devices like the iPad that will offer a more defined, simpler computing experience.
Benefits
1) No Boot times. Always ready.
2) While using Numbers (Excel), Pages (Word) or Keynote (Powerpoint), instant save. No more saving your document every few minutes.
3) Very long 12+ hour battery life
4) No mouse. Just use your finger
5) Lots of FREE apps
6) Very simple operationally. Grandma can use it
7) Easy to backup AND restore.
8 ) Standard interface. Every iPad is the same.
Disadvantages
1) Limited port connectivity such as USB
2) No Web Cam
3) There is no central Documents folder
4) Some compatibility limitations with traditional standard office applications
One would think that because of these limitations, you will not be able to replace your laptop. I dispute that. I believe you can. Admittedly, there has been occasions where I needed access to a MS Project file or something only my PC could do in which the iPad simply is not there yet technically. However, this has not stopped me from thinking that the iPad can and someday will replace portable computing as we know it today.
The Solution
I have tested many apps. There are a lot of great apps out there. Right now, I want to focus in on three apps that are an absolute must have on the iPad if you want to attempt to go completely remote. They are:
LogMeIn, DropBox and DocsToGo
LogMeIn is a software agent that gets installed on your computer at home that allows to to remotely connect to to from anywhere in the world using an internet connection. They have a free version thats works perfect in this scenario. Using the LogMeIn app ($29.99) available from iTunes, you can always connect to your PC at home, anytime, anywhere. I take it a step further and, using a product called VMWare I created a virtual machine running Windows at home on my desktop that I use for LogMeIn. So anytime I need to do something desktop specific in Windows, I can connect to my PC remotely and do it.
However, LogMeIn alone is not going to be complete with out DropBox. DropBox is a utility, (Free subscription for 2GB or less) that allows you to copy your files so that they are accessible anywhere. Any of your computers that has DropBox installed on it and configured will sync to your DropBox account. This includes your iPad. Your iPad can access your data on your DropBox.
But – having access to your data is not enough if you want to open your documents for editing. This is where DocsToGo comes into the picture. Picture it as a mini Office Suite on your iPad. It doesn’t offer all of the functionality that is available in a complete installation of Office, however, let;s face it if you are in the go and needed to edit a document, create a spreadsheet, etc., this is perfect.
One of the exiting things that the iPad or any future simular device has to offer that hardware that run solely on a Windows or Mac platform lacks is the growing developer base. Rather than relying solely on the Microsoft’s, Intuits, Adobe’s, etc to design and release a new software package, you have hundred of thousands of individual users developing software in a market that is exploding. It is much more economical for a individual to spend three or four weeks developing an App that meets a specific demand and sell for $1.99 rather than a huge corporation like Microsoft to devote the recourses in terms of development, marketing, packaging and distribution and compete in that same space. I think that some of the big players will continue (they already do) offer larger applications, at a higher price point.
I compare it alot like what Wikipedia would be like if only a few were to contribute to its content. However, open it to everyone and see how much more information and resources are available and all can benefit from it.
That’s enough for now. As you can see, we are well on our way to a new methodology in terms of portable computing. Like I mentioned earlier, I think we are going to see a lot of other vendors such as HP with their Slate, Dell and others offering similar solutions in the marketplace.
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