Apr
24
2009
What happens when the music industry’s dirty little secret is used on the news? Hilarity, that’s what. The Auto-Tune is the music industry’s audio version of Photoshop. It’s allegedly been used to fix the off-key singing of Britney Spears, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill and was used to create the yodel-esque effect in Cher’s 1998 hit [...]
Apr
20
2009
The late Hedy Lamarr is a key figure in why you can surf the web wirelessly, talk on your cellphone hands-free using Bluetooth, and guide torpedoes to their destinations. Her name wasn’t always Hedy Lemarr. She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Keisler in Vienna to a successful banker and her pianist mother. Louis B. Mayer [...]
Mar
25
2009
We laughed when they put cameras in our cellphones but now use them extensively. We shrugged when GPS chips appeared in our Blackberrys but wonder how we lived without them. And now we learn more than half of us don’t give a rat’s ass about watching television on a 2.3″ screen. For now. With apologies [...]
Mar
14
2009
We learn how one of the Atari’s biggest flaws didn’t keep it from being one of the history’s most successful video game consoles, and why Pac Man looked like crap. When the designers of the Atari 2600 gave the console only 128 bytes (not K, but bytes), they didn’t have enough memory to include one [...]
Mar
05
2009
This five minute video shows the latest in computer aided manufacturing — prototyping a car using foam, resin, and a lot of noise. It’s hyp-mo-tizing. From Wikipedia.org: In modern CNC systems, end-to-end component design is highly automated using CAD/CAM programs. The programs produce a computer file that is interpreted to extract the commands needed to [...]
Feb
20
2009
I’m not trying to imitate Batman, but some days it feels like I’m wearing his Utility Belt. Y’see, I’m one of those guys who wears his cellphone in a belt holster. Yes, it’s geeky. But what’s the point of having a cellphone if you don’t hear it go off in your briefcase or when you’re [...]
Feb
20
2009
Programmer and Windows Mobile enthusiast Jeff Hainsworth warns us a great update to the interface on WinMo phones ain’t so great in the Great White North. Windows Mobile-based cellphones have notoriously bad interfaces. It’s like Bill Gates crammed all the existing Windows interface ideas designed for keyboards and mice onto screens too small to be [...]
Feb
03
2009
Does the Pentagon not watch movies? The main purpose of the massive super computer will be to run nuclear simulations to determine the safety of America’s decaying thermonuclear war machine. The problem we have with the nuclear stockpile is similar to one you might have at home with a car you’ve kept in the garage [...]
Jan
30
2009
Canadian Eran Cantrell (pyxelated) has turned her remarkable composite into the cover of an upcoming book. I’m interpreting this to be a commentary on our “plugged in” present — be it iPods or otherwise. How long before we plug-in visually, too? The Calgarian uses Photoshop and a Wacom tablet to do most of her work. [...]
Jan
24
2009
The way you use a computer today is the direct result of something that happened 25 years ago today. And we clear up a misconception about a famous Apple ad (video included). I’ve always said that I was never more productive than when I was using my first Macintosh. I used to to create fancy [...]
Jan
20
2009
An alarming trend towards normal continues, Michael fears the Americans will steal his baby pictures, and we learn why a bigger hard disk isn't necessarily better.
Jan
20
2009
It’s been proven in the tech world time and again that First Mover Advantage is never an advantage (think Netscape vs. Internet Explorer). But the kids over at Engadget are cookoo for the Palm Pre, a smartphone from the people who brought you the world’s first true PDA, the Palm Pilot. Apple has since dominated [...]
Jan
20
2009
I offered to bring a former colleague’s website into the 21st Century using a “Content Management System” (read: blog software) from WordPress. The site is pretty powerful. Charts zoom, keywords create on-the-fly links to other articles, visitors can create accounts, email questions to Lou, and vote on a series of polls. Behind the scenes, Lou [...]
Sep
15
2004
I’ve spent a few days playing with my new toy, the iPod portable MP3 player from Apple. I’m really impressed with how powerful it really is — and that surprises me.
