Amit Schreiber's Blog | ืืืืื ืฉื ืขืืืช ืฉืจืืืืจ
Required background knowledge to read this post:
Now that you have the background, here’s the interesting modern geek story of the second processing key revelation.
It’s been many years since these two giants shared the same stage. I doubt there’s any introduction I can write that will suit the magnitude of this event. Like most reviews, I also felt the respect they have for each other, very unlike the perception of rivalry we have when we think about Microsoft vs. Apple. Gates and Jobs share a long history starting from the beginning of modern computing. This is one talk you really shouldn’t miss.
The talk has an introduction and seven parts, for a total of around an hour:
0 (introduction), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Google has a new feature for Google Maps: Street View. Although it’s not a new feature on the Internet, when Google does it everyone gets excited anyway. So here’s one sample of Street View of what it’s like to drive on The Washington Bridge in New York.
But of course, there are people out there crazier than me, looking for weird, funny, interesting and even sad stuff on Google Street View. Here are 15 of the current findings.
Google, as usual, have put in a little easter egg (what’s a computer easter egg) of their own in Street View: the entire Google Maps team standing outside as the Street View vehicle takes shots. (via Digg)
I wrote about advances in user interfaces a few times (here and here). Then I wrote about Apple’s iPhone (here), which is coming out in less than a month in the US. All those posts have one thing in common – the user interfaces in them are multi-touch and gesture-based.
The new player in this field is Microsoft, which just introduced Surface, a new multi-touch, interactive tabletop display. It interacts with available media sources and allows users to interact with it using their hands. The demo videos are, of course, amazing. One thing I thought was funny in the videos was when the handsome young man and woman sit in front of each other in a pub and then, naturally, start playing with the computer on both sides of the table.
If you’re looking for a crappy search engine, there’s one right at acrappysearchengine.com (go ahead… click it… it’s not a joke). This search engine gives you results mildly related to, but not exactly, what you were looking for. The inventors’ reasoning is:
How can you really claim to explore the web when your search engine only returns the results you are looking for?
I think they’re somewhat right. For example, I was interested in finding GDB front-ends so I went to Google and looked for some. The 9th result I got (note: you might get a different result) was the UPS debugger, which declares itself as “not a GDB front-end”. I clicked the link and found a very interesting project I never heard of before.
Getting an opposite result to “GDB front-end”, namely “NOT a GDB front-end”, turned out pretty good for me. Now I know that if I run into trouble with GDB, I can also try UPS.
So maybe it’s not such a bad idea to have a crappy search engine.
I previously mentioned Sony’s not-so-customer-friendly past behavior (previous post link). In short, Sony always wanted to create their own, non-compatible standards, so they could comfortably lock-in consumers to their products. The range of products this applies to is extremely big, which is to me a proof that this is a company strategy.
Here’s why I decided to add Sony to the evil companies featured on this blog (along with HP, the first evil company I wrote about): If you need a replacement screw for your Sony speaker, it will cost you 82$ US. And as you can see from the picture – this is a special screw. It’s a screw-the-customer screw, I’d say. (via Digg)
I’ve been trying to find something new to listen to. Luckily, two Prodigy “spin-offs” are about to become available, so they automatically make good candidates:
When I saw a link to an article that talks about reducing email overload, I went right ahead to read it. I didn’t realize the CNN article talks about getting and sending more than 100 emails per day. I don’t even get a quarter of that in my busiest work days. I still think the 10 tips in the article are very good. (via Digg)
I previously wrote about “Thanks, No” (previous post link), the very useful service for letting people know they’re sending you useless emails. Now comes Fuck Off, I’m Busy, a website to (not so) gently let someone know he/she is annoying you with instant messaging. (via Digg)
James Randi used to be a magician and went by the name of The Amazing Randi. He was a “trickster”. Later on, however, he devoted his life to demystifying those who claim they have psychic powers. He is well known for challenging Uri Geller’s and Peter Popoff’s powers (video link), Homeopathy healing (video link) and many many more.
I recall seeing a show about James Randi’s offer to pay 1 million dollar to whoever proves the powers of Homeopathy, and judging by the James Randi Educational Foundation website, that prize is still up for grabs.
James Randi is like a modern Mr. Spock. He pursues logical explanations and is willing to challenge anyone who claims to have abilities that negate logic. A very interesting man, to say the least. You can see more videos of James Randi here.