Category Archives: Tech

Tech

I’m Listening

Quietz! I hearz sumpin coming...

Quietz! I hearz sumpin coming… (Photo credit: pjern)

Voice control of computers has been a dream since before Scotty tried to chat up an Apple Mac in that Star Trek film and now processing power is enabling it to be a reality even though it is still comparatively basic at the moment; even Apple’s Siri is a human-friendly front end of what is effectively a search engine.  Both Siri and Android’s voice actions allow commands to be given to the devices and although they are pretty good at recognising what you ask them to do it’s still not an artificial intelligence.

Nuance, the company that created the technology behind Siri, are working on voice recognition systems that don’t need to be told when to listen (by a tap or a voice command like “Hi Siri”, “Xbox listen” or “Computer?”).  These systems are always listening, just waiting for you to say something that it might be able to do something about; just mumble “I wonder what the weather’s going to be like at the weekend” and your phone will instantly have the weather news for you like the world’s fastest personal assistant, never having to be asked, always ready with the answer.  The idea has great potential in streamlining device use, or customizing the information shown on services like Google Now.

But how annoying could it become if you’re having a normal conversation or even talking to yourself and your phone lights up “sorry, I didn’t catch that, do you want me to find something for you?”  to which you instinctively say “no, I wasn’t talking to you.”  Even more annoying is when your phone replies “oh, well if you’re going to be like that.” and sulks for two days.

No doubt the software will eventually have ways of detecting whether there is more than one voice being heard so it can ignore questions that aren’t directed at it and just sit there making notes about what you and your friend, relative, partner or cat are talking about in case it can find something relevant should it be called upon but there could still be occasions when it may go off and search for something that it shouldn’t perhaps.  Will it apologise for getting you into an embarrassing situation based on something it heard on a tv show?

Of course this will have the conspiracy theorists worried that it’s sending everything you say to the government but that’s inevitable, they probably also think the government’s reading their emails too.  Now where’s my phone hiding?

[Gizmodo UK]

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Jubilee Britain, Science, Tech

21st Century Hobbies & British Pi

English: Extract from Raspberry Pi board at Tr...

English: Extract from Raspberry Pi board at TransferSummit 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has been said that having a hobby is a particularly British thing, when I was younger I used to spend evenings listening to REM albums while building model aircraft – many of which still linger in my mum and dad’s attic along with my old school books.

In the past some people have collected stamps, cheese labels and even old street lamps (which looked more like street theft in the BBC documentary on hobbies I’ve just watched while thinking about the subject of this post).  All these activities though gave people ways to enjoy their leisure time and as we reached the end of the twentieth century technology was playing its part in hobbies whether it was in building kit computers, programming home computers or playing video games whose graphics required a kind of leap of imagination that would be unthinkable to today’s Call of Duty playing generation of gamers.

Hobbies were something to be wanted, something to share and talk about.  Today though many of us grown-ups at least don’t have hobbies possibly because of the vast array of distractions from TV and the internet (and yes I’m aware of the irony.) 

Ooh, QI’s on the telly, er, be back in a bit…

I have heard people saying that their hobby is buying and selling things on Ebay, others that when they’re not watching TV or down the pub they’re on Bingo or Poker sites so the prospect of making money is a major driver rather than the satisfaction of making something or completing a collection.

One area that had been fading but is now bounding back is computing as a hobby – and typically it’s a British invention that is leading the charge.  Raspberry Pi began as an attempt to reverse the decline in the numbers of students going to Cambridge to read computer science which had once been the domain of many hobbyist programmers.  A group at Cambridge identified that something had changed in the way young people used computers; they were being taught word and excel in ICT lessons at school (when I was at school I was taught about mainframes) and at home they used games consoles and PCs rather than the ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s of the eighties where part of the enjoyment was typing in your own programs.

What was needed was a modern Speccy – a low-cost computer that could boot Linux and be programmed to do whatever you wanted.  The computer was designed and even before it went on sale its low-cost and versatility sparked the buried creative juices in hobbyists across the country and it has sold fantastically well and is soon to be Made in Britain too.  The foundation set up to develop the computer has also had enquiries from developing countries where such devices can provide access to technology previously unavailable.

The little one-board computer will be finding its way into a myriad of homebuilt projects in the years to come as well as its original use in encouraging the next generation of British tech engineering pioneers.

[Raspberry Pi 2.0  Gizmodo UK]  [Raspberry Pi Games Platform BBC News]

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Science, Tech

Worldwide Collaboration & Amazing Discoveries

English: The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) begi...

English: The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) begins its separation from Space Shuttle Discovery following its release on mission STS-82. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As more of the world’s population is permanently connected via broadband to the internet the potential for distributed computing and collaboration on projects increases.

Already projects such as Seti@Home have used computers belonging to members of the public who’d signed up to the programme to background process signals received from space and other similar projects are in operation; Wikipedia is edited by an army of volunteers the world over as well as individuals who may only use their own specialised knowledge to create or edit a particular page; and researchers have been digging information from the vast resources of Google Earth.

Now ESA have opened up the archives of Hubble space telescope imagery to the public so that previously unprocessed data could be unveiled in all it’s glory.  The volunteers were unpaid but prizes were given for the best images to emerge from the process, those involved were simply doing it for the challenge and the chance to make a new discovery.  One such volunteer, Judy Schmidt, did discover an object that would have otherwise remained unseen in the immense vault of data.

A sample of the images can be seen over at Gizmodo UK and ESA’s site.

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Tech

Still a Place for Paper

English: Moleskine notebook and diaries. Белар...

English: Moleskine notebook and diaries. Беларуская: Нататнік і штодзёньнікі Moleskine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some time ago I wrote about a small notebook you printed out from your PC, now Moleskine and Evernote have buried the paper versus digital debate and produced a digital compatible notebook.

Previous attempts have involved clipboards that record your pen movements, pens that record, well, their own movements and entirely digital tablet-type virtual notebooks.  The new books however use specially formatted paper that can be photographed using the Evernote app and will then be instantly available in a searchable form in your digital notebook.  Stickers can even be used to instruct the app where to save the page.

Best of both worlds?  Could easily be.

[Techcrunch via Gizmodo UK]

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Tech

Apps The World Needs

2Lens toy camera

2Lens toy camera (Photo credit: slimmer_jimmer)

Forget universal translators and apps that make it look like your phone is a cheap toy camera from 1973 while allowing you to say “look how cool I am, I’m a real photographer because my pictures look so authentic”, the world needs apps for people (like me) who can’t remember other people’s names, those who can’t motivate themselves to use the gym membership they bought and the many who really need to prove that the person they’re listening to is very, very wrong.

Gizmodo has made the call, now we need brave developers to step up, any takers?

[Gizmodo UK]

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Tech

Phone Phun & Games

oranges

oranges (Photo credit: WGyuri)

Today a tale of my phone upgrade to help out anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation.  Last Saturday I collected my new phone – a shiny, newly released Sony Xperia Tipo, took it home, rang up Orange to arrange to have my number transferred from my old sim to the new one then waited the normal two to twenty-four hours for the Sim Update to arrive.

Nothing.

I Restarted the phone and waited.

Nothing.

I called Orange customer care, the third person I’d spoken to so far over two calls finally tried calling my number and came back and said “it’s just going to answerphone.”  “I know” I replied.  “I haven’t had the sim update.”  She said she’d send the update text again.

Nothing.

So I called again tonight.  The chap I spoke to asked me straight away where I’d bought the phone from, I told him I’d bought it from the Orange Website and he immediately told me what the problem was, confirmed my order number and details, rectified it, apologised for the situation and within a minute I had a working phone.

The problem?  Phones ordered via the web direct from Orange are blacklisted until you call to activate or transfer them, the first person I spoke to on saturday should have noticed this and unblocked my phone.

So if you’re having trouble activating a phone bought directly from your network (this may also be true with other UK networks) ask if it’s been de-blacklisted properly.

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Science, Tech

Aerial Archeology

Argentinan Satellite SAC-A is deployed from Sp...

Argentinan Satellite SAC-A is deployed from Space Shuttle STS-88 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever since the military first looked at an early aircraft and thought “I wonder if we can use that to see what they’re up to” technology has steadily improved aerial surveillance.  From film cameras in high-altitude Spitfires to top-secret satellites that, of course, aren’t looking at anything and don’t even exist, honestly, that mini-space shuttle was just for research.

Recently though aerial and satellite photography have become accessible to anyone with internet access and as well as giving people the opportunity to see their house from above, or just lazily spending an afternoon following old defunct railway lines this massive resource is being used to locate topographical features that aren’t immediately obvious from the ground.

Archeologists have known for some time that buried structures can leave traces on the surface such as lines in grass or subtle dips in the ground but now both professional and amateur researchers are finding intriguing structures across the world.

One such discovery was recently made by Angela Micol, a satellite archaeology researcher from North Carolina who has found two sites in Egypt that appear to feature previously undiscovered pyramids.

So the satellites and planes may be occasionally photographing us now but they can help us to find our past.

See photos and article at Gizmodo UK.

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Design, Tech, Typography

Why WordArt Must Die

It’s no good, I can’t take it any more, I can’t bear the sight of one more rainbow coloured 3D abomination sprawled across the top of an advert or email like the vomit of some hideous creature.  I can’t hold back the need to scream when someone says, full of pride “oh, you design adverts, have a look at my business card, what do you think of that?  I did it myself in Word, look it has 3D text!”

Please, for the love of all that is good and pure in graphic design, please Microsoft remove this feature, beloved of those who want to do their own ads or business cards on the cheap (or don’t know anyone who’ll knock up something on the side), from your otherwise excellent products.

It goes like this, someone buys a computer for their business, gets Office, plays around with it and sees this WordArt thing and, being inexperienced in design, goes overboard with the “special effects” and slap on some clip art for good measure.  They may think it looks bold and distinctive but tends to look cheap.  Good design should look good and be functional, there are guidelines that help publications stand out, look professional and be readable or informative.  Not using too many fonts is one, not using WordArt is another.

Yes it’s perhaps fun to use for a local fete or notice board item advertising your next company bowling night but on anything intended to make a business look professional it just looks unprofessional, customers can infer that little effort and expense was put into it.  In many ways WordArt is like many tools – a well-intentioned piece of software misued horribly.

Keep the wizards – they can guide people to a nice piece of artwork, hell even I’m using a template for this blog myself because I’m an old-fashioned paper layout designer and haven’t got to grips with coding websites – but ditch the WordArt – take it out back of the Campus, where you took old Clippy, and put it out of its misery.  Please.

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Bag Fiend, Tech

Bag Fiend: Woz’s Backpack Edition

Steve Wozniac

Steve Wozniac (Photo credit: bbriceno)

I thought I had a lot of stuff in my laptop backpack when I travel, you know, laptop, PSU, Mio PDA/GPS (I know, Windows Mobile how 2007, pah), MP3 player, leads, mouse, adaptors etc…

Gizmodo though have had the opportunity to rummage through the contents of the backpack that Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple) carries when travelling.

See the picture and a full list from the man himself here.

[Gizmodo UK]

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