www.ZEQVI.com

The future of our computers.

Dan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:15:01 +0000

Where is our computer’s progress going? What are they going to look like in few years? Today I would like to give you a shot on my thoughts about this topic.

First of all, I hope, everybody has already realized that speed of our computers isn’t important anymore. For people who surf the internet through the work day, watch YouTube or listen to music computers are already way too fast. As a matter of fact, even an iPod, nowadays, can do everything a usual user need. Speaking of people, who do powerful stuff on a computer, like 3D modeling or video compression, speed of any computer is not enough for them. Mostly, because requests of any decent feature take all amount of processor and memory power available on a user’s computer. Unless it is on a cloud…

Lets make it clear. What is a cloud computing? First of all, it is a lot of computers. They all are connected together. Usually it is a whole data centers or even few of those. However, the interesting part is that end user doesn’t see all that. He gets a virtual computer, as he used to, but with almost unlimited computing power; with terabytes of space and crazy connection speed to the rest of the Internet.

Why was I explaining this technology? I was doing that because I believe that in a nearest future we all will have dumb computers that can only run a browser and will be connected to the internet. The rest of the movements will perform on a cloud.

Fortunately, I’m not the only person who think this way. The biggest step into that direction was made when Google announced a Google Chrome OS. I believe, everybody’s heard of the Google Chrome. If not, you should definitely check it out. Anyway, the point is that Google is going to pull out an operation system which will contains only a browser and nothing else. At the very beginning it will only runs on Intel processors. It makes a lot of sense, since we’ve got an Atom (very low power and fast enough processor for everyday needs).

At the end of the day, we’ll all have a computer with wireless broadband modem built in it and Google OS on it. It will be connected to the Internet all the time, and our “Big Brother” Google will hold all our data on it’s servers.

Anyhow, is it a good thing or a bad thing? We simply doesn’t need an answer for this question. First of, because we are already doing it, at least, by uploading out photos to Facebook or Picassa. Secondly, it IS going to happen, whether we want it or not. It’s just the matter of time…

When have you lost your virginity?

Dan — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:11:38 +0000

   Here is one story that turns out to be told and retold thousands and thousands of times in a wide variety of different contexts.

Download MP3 (2MB • 3:05 min) via www.MacFolkloreRadio.com
   This is also an original text of the story itself.

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble   When Bud told us in early December of 1981 that he had to leave the Mac team to go back to Seattle to keep his place in medical school, both Burrell and I were pretty shaken. We were worried that we couldn’t pull it off without Bud and that we’d get some authoritarian manager instead, who would wreck the unique spirit of our team. We expressed our concerns to Steve, who promised us that we’d have a big say in hiring the new manager, and that he would personally protect us if a situation like the one we were fearing ever arose.

   In January, we began interviewing candidates for the software manager position. We had high standards and expectations and interviewed a number of outstanding people, like Ed Taft (who became one of the first employees at Adobe) and Tim Mott (who helped start Electronic Arts), who for one reason or another didn’t take the job. But we also interviewed some more mundane candidates, which could sometimes get pretty wild if Steve decided he didn’t respect someone.

   For example, Burrell, Steve and I interviewed Angeline Lo’s former manager, whom she highly recommended. As soon as the guy walked into the room, I knew it was going to be problematic, because he seemed extremely straight-laced and uptight, dressing more like an insurance salesman than a technologist. He also seemed very nervous as he fumbled at our first few questions.

   I could tell that Steve was losing patience when he started to roll his eyes at the candidate’s responses. Steve began to grill him with some unconventional questions.

   ”How old were you when you lost your virginity?”, Steve asked

   The candidate wasn’t sure if he heard correctly. “What did you say?”

   Steve repeated the question, changing it slightly. “Are you a virgin?”. Burrell and I started to laugh, as the candidate became more disconcerted. He didn’t know how to respond.

   Steve changed the subject. “How many times have you taken LSD?”

   The poor guy was turning varying shades of red, so I tried to change the subject and asked a straight-forward technical question. But when he started to give a long-winded response, Steve got impatient again.

   ”Gooble, gobble, gobble, gobble”, Steve started making turkey noises. This was too much for Burrell and myself, and we all started cracking up. “Gobble, gobble, gobble”, Steve continued, laughing himself now.

   At this point, the candidate stood up. “I guess I’m not the right guy for this job”, he said.

   ”I guess you’re not”, Steve responded. “I think this interview is over.”

The story via www.Folklore.org
Special thanks to Derek Warren and Andy Hertzfeld.

Multi touch human interface

Dan — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:00:19 +0000

This is just hilarious!

See more at www.multitouch-barcelona.com

“Tricycled” Google Street View

Dan — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:31:17 +0000

I hope, everybody is already familiar with Google Street View. If not, go to check it out here maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview first.
This feature become real because Google cars with cameras on the roof traveled all over around. Here is a usual Google Street View car, by the way.

Since Google captured and recaptured all major cities in the US and Europe, they decided that they need a new level of access to street images, more flexible, more space efficient. Finally, they came up with the idea to equip a bicycle with all devices they need to make pictures for Street View.

The only difference between equipment of a car and tricycle is a power generator, simply, because bicycles normally don’t have battery.

Thanks to this device, now Google have got an access to parks, squares and small streets, where car couldn’t go; and we,ve got more images on Street View.

Flying peace of Tech.

Dan — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:12:08 +0000

What is this devise? Will you ask. It looks so sophisticated and unusual, almost like an UFO. The only Lumix camera is catching our eye. In fact, it’s a remote controlled helicopter model. It’s just made in a different way; the way Lamborghini is different from Toyota. So, what is the difference?

First of all it has six independent motors. (Usual helicopters has one or two.) It also has 11 sensors, including gyroscope, acellerometer, barometric pressure censor, compass and GPS.All this fancy equipment provides remarkable, easy and sharp way to control a helicopter. DraganFly engineers say that anybody can control this helicopter, even a person, who’ve never tried anything like this. The main advantage of it’s control is that it’s stabilizing the helicopter, whenever you are not forcing it to tilt. In general, it means that whenever don’t you feel confident about controlling machine, you just simple release all controls and the helicopter hang in the air. Moreover, because it has GPS detector, you can switch a holding position mode and the device will hold the exact same position in the air as long as you need.

Anyway, what for do you need all this control conveniences? The main purpose of this model is to make pictures and videos from the air. Let’s pretend that you want to sell your house and you have 12 acre of property. The best way to show, how big it is, is just make pictures of it from the top. Unfortunately it’s pretty hard to do it by yourself. As minimum, you’ll need to rent a small plain and a photographer. With this helicopter, you can do all this by yourself. Device can lift up to 2lb.(1kg.) of weight. Which can be an HD camcorder or a good Lumix photo camera. By the way, the helicopter itself, weights only 4lb.(2kb.), which means it can grab a half of it’s weight, and it’s very good.
Finally, when you get it with any king of camera, you will get a colored real time picture on you remote control, while a helicopter is in the air. You are also able to see the battery charge, gps coordinates (latitude/longitude), as long as some other service information. Another cool feature is that you can control the angle of the camera. It attached to tiny engine, which can tilt it at 90 degree angle. It means that you can make pictures straight down or at front.

The down side is that this device is quite expansive. To be exact, the base pack costs $15,000. I think you can get a discount if you are getting it for educational purpose, but I’m not sure. Moreover, you can’t just buy it in a store, you have to order it and wait for an answer.

One more thing, the helicopter can be folded into a tube and conveniently carried.

You can find more videos, photos and information about this amazing device at www.DraganFly.com

24 clocks goes to one

Dan — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:44:25 +0000

Swedish designer made a gigantic clock, which consists of 24 analog clocks and shows time in a digital way.

1 clock" title="24 -> 1 clock" width="393" height="140" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-640" />
I’ve already wrote a post about “pixeling” pictures on buildings. Here is pretty much same concept. He displays numbers with other watch’s arrows. Whenever time is changing, clocks are rolling their arrows and showing new digits. Here is the video, how it works:

He’s even been able to reproduce a simple font with these watches.

These are some more pictures of this clock:

Designer’s website link: www.humanssince1982.com
*I strongly recommend to visit it.

Future Home from Microsoft

Dan — Sun, 17 May 2009 07:17:44 +0000

Microsoft has a whole department of featured projects. Unlike Google, they has more physical devices there. Like this one. It is an entire apartment, filled with projected touch screen interfaces.

It provides to display full colored images on almost any surface, like a cooking table, or a wall. The devise also listens to your voice commands and watches for your moves. This ability provides quite a bid of possibilities; starts from reading bar codes from a food, and ends with controlling for amount of flour in your dough. It can also do interactive games, of course showing video, and a lot more other things.

Here is a video, showing what these guys’ve got out there:

Buildings Pixel Art

Dan — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:17:29 +0000

All screens work with the same principle: Entire screen consists of small colored dots (pixels), which are flashing in a different way, depends on what picture do you want to display on a screen. You can apply this principle to almost anything you want. For example, building’s windows. Mostly, they are located in a perfect geometric shape. So, why not? All you need is to install few different color lamps into each room and control all of them, by one device.

Here are some videos of implementation of this idea:

Microsoft strikes back.

Dan — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:39:38 +0000

The war field between Microsoft and Apple is getting hotter and hotter. Today, Microsoft announced a new commercial about cheapness of their laptop PSs. Here is the video:

As always, the link for more Microsoft commercials: www.youtube.com/user/WindowsVideos

Now Apple is trying to catch up with an AD

Dan — Wed, 13 May 2009 06:17:55 +0000

Yesterday I wrote a post about Microsoft’s commercials against Apple. It is quite funny, but today Apple just showed up whole three new commercials about Mac-PC competition.

Here are these commercials:
PC Choice Chat

Elimination

Customer Care

You can find more of these at www.apple.com/getamac/ads