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Archive of "Tech" Category
Music is my Roller Coaster
There’s a cool article on TechSpy written by Jonah Lehrer of Wired called “The Neuroscience of Music”. The Wired piece, in its turn, pulls from a Montreal study on the stimulus of music – the pleasurable stimulus.
Suggesting that there’s a happy relationship between music and that lovely brain chemical dopamine, the best part of the whole thing:
According to Meyer, it is the suspenseful tension of music (arising out of our unfulfilled expectations) that is the source of the music’s feeling.
Listening to a great song isn’t unlike that climb of the first big hill of a roller coaster, the hush broken by creaks and anticipatory gasps at the summit before culminating in an explosive rush. Thank goodness for tension.
GUNNAR Optiks Review
GUNNAR Optiks try pretty hard. They use capitalization and deliberate misspelling more recklessly than an internet troll. Additionally, GUNNARs (capitalization required) make a lot of bold, eye-related claims from creating a micro-climate to curing the world of DEF (Digital Eye Fatigue) and CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome, not the drugstore). The materials assert that half of American adults and 90 percent of our kids are suffering with DEF and CVS, “eyestrain, blurred vision, dry and irritated eyes or headaches, caused by exposure to digital screens.” With stats like that, it’s time cancer took a backseat. After sifting through the press materials and generally self-important blarney, I’m left with hunting glasses for nerds – but that’s not a bad thing. (more…)
ZTGD Weekly Review Wrap-Up Episode 6
The sixth episode of the Wrap-Up covers a handful of reviews including Brutal Legend, NBA Live 10, Osmos and a host of others.
Thanks for watching, guys!
Whistle Blowing
While reading up on Woot Wine, I was besieged by this Business Software Alliance ad:
It pretty much creeped me out. (more…)
My Crystal Ball is Motion Controlled
“Motion Control”, a phrase now so ubiquitous it has darn near lost its sexy. In the wake of the Wii’s rampant success with the casual-friendly Wiimote, the compression of titles into mini-games, and a family-friendly image, motion control is a veritable poster child for gaming. Arms spread wide in welcome; motion control promises none of those terrible and complex button combinations of old and instead offers animated movements, calorie-burning, general waggling and lots of laughter. Smashing through your LCD TV and the too-serious face of gaming, is our future motion controlled?
Apple Eyes EA
Ok, so forget Cinco de Mayo, today is Apple takeover rumors day! This one, from TheStreet, has Apple buying out EA;
Adami noted that there is chatter that Apple (AAPL Quote) is eyeing Electronic Arts(ERTS Quote) as a takeover target.
“Adami” is the Fast Money man Guy Adami, and his predictions are…well let’s just say, Apple Rumor Shenanigans, Round 2.
Hands Off Our Data!
On the other side of the Atlantic, PM Gordon Brown is moving forward with plans to monitor internet usage in the U.K. T-enterprise has created Hands Off Our Data! in a parody of the struggle between the Labour Government and Conservative Party. You play as Conservative leader David Cameron armed with a raygun and tasked with destroying data mining spiders – the spiders are played by Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
Twapple?
According to Owen Thomas at Valleywag, your Tweets may get a fruity twist:
Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it’s Apple that’s closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million.
A source who’s plugged into the Valley’s deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose.
And from my own plugged in source, there is an “uncanny resemblance between the twitter clouds and the mobileme cloud”. Yeah, I’m calling shenanigans on Owen Thomas.
On Twitter and Giving
I love Twitter and its micro-awesomeness, and with the recent Ashton v. CNN followpalooza Twitter isn’t the stuff relegated to the geek corners of the net. I think my Mom even knows about it (love you, Mom!). The great battle of the Twitter titans brought more to the public eye than 140 characters or less – charitable giving tagged along for the ride, too.
Recently, I held my own (jesting) follow war – a humble race to 100. In this mini-aplusk match-up I offered my donation to MalariaNoMore – in the portion of $10 for 100 followers. It was good fun, but in the end one of my followers quipped that “You should be donating regularly regardless! >=[” (angry face included). He’s right.
Thing is, I do donate “regularly regardless”, but the reaction raised an interesting internet point – what happens when we make private things public? It just didn’t occur to me that I was placing myself and something as gauche as money matters in the public eye, no matter that the public was relatively small. It was an important realization, and one without a tasteful counter – short of some bizarre disclaimer about my finances and charitable appropriations. I don’t fancy myself alone when I say I would just rather keep private giving private!
Charity is a personal thing (and, personally, I think it is right to give of your time and money as means allow), however, when brought into realms like the twittersphere it is more – with all the potential of an electric charge. This very public kind of charity can be viewed as discouraging, but I think it is really the lens labeled “humbling”. Social media and today’s tech are avenues for great things, and for those of us in the thick of the geekery they are our natural paths. This is more than a PR angle for the gaming and geek crowds – this is an opportunity to increase the potential of our tools. Whether it be to Child’s Play or the local shelter, blood bank or dinner for a neighbor, however we give, give cheerfully.
The next round – to 200 – goes to Heifer International and some baby chicks.
Adobe’s plugin for Photoshop CS4 to disable canvas rotation via the trackpad
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. THANK YOU.
This plug-in disables the multitouch gesture for canvas rotation, as well as the gestures for zooming and flick panning. Canvas rotation remains available through the Rotate View tool, and Photoshop is otherwise unaffected by the plug-in.
Self-healing polymer? Contact Galactica!
Ars has an interesting piece today about a self-healing polymer that could be used to create scratch-resistant iPhones.
In today’s issue of Science, Biswajit Ghosh and Marek Urban from the University of Southern Mississippi present a new polymer design that can employ UV light from the Sun to activate a latent self-pair capacity. Their strategy involves using the combined functions of three chemical components.
At the core of their design is polyurethane, which is an elastic polymer that already has decent scratch resistance. To enhance its ability to withstand mechanical damage, Ghosh and Urban added two more components, OXE and CHI. OXE has an unstable chemical structure (a four-membered ring containing three carbons and one oxygen) that makes it prone to being split open. CHI is UV sensitive.
The idea is that, if the polyurethane gets damaged by a scratch, the unstable ring structure of OXE will open to create two reactive ends. Then, UV light can trigger CHI to form new links with the reactive ends of OXE and thereby fix the break in the polymer.
Ghosh and Urban purposefully created scratches in films of their polyurethane-CHI-OXE material and tested to see if it mended itself under UV light. When they placed the damaged film under a 120 W fluorescent UV lamp, the scratches became negligible within half an hour. This repair reaction can work under a variety of conditions, ranging from dry air to high humidity.
They estimated that the UV lamps used in the experiments generated about a 0.3 W/m2 per nm power density, which is only a little more than what the Sun gives off on average (0.25 W/m2 per nm). Thus, they propose that the repair would take about the same amount of time under sunlight. Of course, the time of the year would matter—the process could take much less time under the harsh summer sun or much longer on a gloomy winter day.
The ability to use natural sunlight for self-repair and the simple design are advantageous, but this polymer system still needs some work before it can be released commercially. For example, the authors must figure out what happens if a second scratch occurs directly where a previous scratch was mended. They also need to determine the shelf life of their three-component polymer.
Mending scratches on pretty tech with the power of sunlight – can it later be employed for greater damage like cracks, breaks and battlestars? Cool stuff, right up there with self-cleaning socks.
Separation of Tech and State
Capital Hill is slightly less geek relevant: Cyrus Krohn (formerly of MS and Yahoo) of the Republican National Committee tendered his resignation last Thursday. Don’t worry, before he left he got members of the GOP on Facebook and Twitter. Woot.
Safari 4 Public Beta
Daring Fireball has a fantastic post about Safari 4′s public beta. I’m grateful for his detailed feedback, in large part because his readership is significant enough that Apple may be tuning in.
Among his complaints? The progress spinner doesn’t really indicate progress. I agree this is a pitfall, but what I am most pleased with is the time he has spent detailing the many problems with the tabs. The scope of his considerations is way too much for me to fully appreciate on a Sunday afternoon beyond a general “uh-huh, you go Gruber”. So if you, too, are enraged by the tabs or want to read more on the grievous problems with their palette, check out what the man has to say.
About
I’m Community Manager for N4G and Admin for the NewsBoiler Network, home to N4G, TechSpy, AnimeShinbun, FilmWatch and 11×2. There’s more words strung together on the N4G Blog.
Check out my about.me profile!
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