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Posts Tagged ‘Yawn’

Wiimote-controlled ‘Jazari’ robot percussion takes us back to our tribal, Nintendo-hacking roots

We’ve seen the hacker-friendly, Bluetooth-based Wiimote used for so many purposes by now that it’s hard to get excited about just any amalgamation of accelerometer-based fun. Patrick Flanagan’s ‘Jazari’ project breaks past the yawn factor with a veritable museum’s worth of robotic instruments, which are all controlled from a pair of Wiimotes and some rather intelligent software. It all seems a little too complicated to be live-controlled, but as Patrick himself explains in true music nerd detail, there’s pretty much a button or a twist or a tilt behind every bit of the wild djembe, bongo and cowbell stylings that make up Jazari’s “steamfunk” (his term) music. Check out both videos after the break.

Continue reading Wiimote-controlled ‘Jazari’ robot percussion takes us back to our tribal, Nintendo-hacking roots

Wiimote-controlled ‘Jazari’ robot percussion takes us back to our tribal, Nintendo-hacking roots originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ITG xpPhone gets a price, more pretty pictures

ITG xpPhone gets a price, more pretty pictures originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boxee keyboard makes searching TV content fast

D-Link’s Boxee Box is an Internet-connected console for television. It’ll play Hulu content, CBS, ABC, Netflix, YouTube, and lots more onscreen. But with all those options, surfing through menus with a TV remote will try your patience.

The keyboard was announced a few minutes ago in a blog post tied to the ongoing 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a few minutes ago. The device is meant to be used from a chair or couch while watching TV.

“When we started designing the Boxee Box remote we wanted something simple like the 6-button Apple Remote,” a Boxee employee identified only as Andrew wrote. “As we began adding features to the Beta it became obvious that for people to really get the most out of the box it was going to need to do more than just point and click.  Rather than subject anyone to another on-screen keyboard we decided the Boxee Box should benefit from a full QWERTY keyboard like you might have on a mobile phone.”

Pushing alphanumeric input onto a separate keyboard adds more hardware costs to the product, but the resulting setup — a QWERY keyboard and minimal-function remote — looks a lot more welcoming than yet another all-in-one remote yawn.

But watching the trends in mobile devices, it seems inevitable that someone else will design a remote that has only a touchscreen, on which buttons and a keyboard can be displayed as necessary. It seems inevitable now that the show floor at CES 2011 will be wall-to-wall touchscreens.

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Twitter and Me! Why It’s The Only Social Media Tool I Use.

With all the excitement about the Crunchies awards, I thought I should cast my ballot: Twitter. No, not because it’s the best product (I think Android is), but because it has impacted me the most. To young TechCrunch readers, this post will seem pretty lame. An old professor trying to seem hip by writing about social networking. Yawn. But I’ve never been a fan of social media. I have more than 500 connections on LinkedIn, but have never invited anyone to network with me. I’ve never used LinkedIn to ask anyone for an introduction. I never had a blog (I find it much more effective to write for BusinessWeek and TechCrunch). I never had a Myspace account (does anyone still use Myspace?). Even when I signed up for Facebook, I did it reluctantly because I kept getting friend requests and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

But Twitter is a different. I get a stream of concise notes from people who want to bring things to my attention and from news outlets. I can follow anyone who seems extraordinarily interesting (and doesn’t tweet about brushing their teeth every morning). I can read up about people I’m not following any time I want. And I get immediate feedback to my ideas.

I didn’t feel this way a few months ago. To me, Twitter seemed like another silly tool for kids to tell each other how much alcohol they had just consumed. But a respected professor of journalism at Columbia University, Sree Sreenivasan (@sreenet) kept sending me emails suggesting I sign up for his webcasts on Twitter for journalists. And he kept telling me I would “be a natural” on Twitter.  Why would I send streams of short messages to people I don’t know, I wondered? Sree insisted I try it. So I did. And he became my first follower.

It was pretty lonely at first, tweeting to myself, and I was rapidly losing interest. Having six followers (two of which wanted me to check out their sexy pictures) seemed pretty embarrassing. Then BusinessWeek’s former community editor, Shirley Brady (@shirleybrady) came to my rescue and tweeted to ask her followers to follow me. Soon I had over a hundred people to talk to and it didn’t seem so bad. But my tweeting quickly went beyond conversations and into new and better ways of accomplishing tasks.

Last July, my research team published a paper about the backgrounds and motivations of entrepreneurs. I created a slide show on this for BusinessWeek. One reader asked me a question which haunted me: what is the difference between a small business owner and an entrepreneur? I had assumed that everyone who starts a business was an entrepreneur. But the more I researched this topic, the more obvious it became that there was no clear answer.

So I went to my new friend: Twitter.  I asked my followers if they could help me solve this puzzle. Before I knew it, I had received several insightful responses. I ended up writing this BusinessWeek piece which featured Sue Drakeford, Miss Nebraska 2001 (yes, she does tweet). Since then, I’ve had my Twitter followers help me with most of the articles I’ve written. They provide a sounding board, valuable feedback and examples. I’ve quoted several followers who offered themselves up as sources (see my last post on stealth companies – Preetam Mukherjee(@_marcellus) was one of my followers as was Alex Kosorukoff(@alexko3), who I highlighted in a post about the Founders Visa).

More recently, I’ve been getting demands from my Twitter followers for articles. My post on selling and why everyone in a tech company should have sales training came about after a series of Twitter requests. I’m writing a piece on women in engineering which is inspired by Women 2.0 founder Shaherose Charania (@shaherose) and Cisco CTO, Padmasree Warrior (@padmasree). And I’m writing a follow-up to the post on stealth because twitter followers have been bombarding me with questions about protecting intellectual property. I’ve joked that my Twitter followers seem to be setting my research and writing agenda these days and it’s not that far from the truth.

So, Twitter has become a very useful tool. I hope I never become like Sarah Lacy (@saracuda), though. On our recent trip to Jaipur, India, she tweeted while sitting on an elephant. I kid you not. She wanted to let Twitter founder Evan Williams (@ev) know she was the first to do this.

At present I have 3600 followers and they keep coming out of the woodwork. Many are amazing people. I follow only a few because I can’t keep up with all the conversations. If a follower looks very interesting I do try to at least read some of their tweetstream. I click on their names on Tweetdeck and read their last 20 posts. I have a few people I like to read closely for different purposes and topics. In that way, too, Twitter is amazing as its the most efficient mechanism I have ever seen to allow me to peruse the thoughtstreams of others who live all over the world.

I firmly believe that of all forms of social media, Twitter (or more accurately, microblogging) is the only one that could have achieved this sort of effect. Writing a full blog post is time consuming and comments can be lengthy. Who wants to read or police all of them? IM is essentially a one-to-one communications tool. Facebook has elements of microblogging but it’s not really the kind of place where I want to share thoughts about immigration reform, if you know what I mean. With Twitter, I learned it in an hour, became proficient in a few more, and spend no more than 20 minutes per day on this. Because the message size is so concise, I find people say important things (or silly things, but at least they are short silly things). So Evan and Biz, you have my vote for the Crunchies, guaranteed.

Editor’s note:  It should go without saying that Vivek doesn’t get any special votes for the Crunchies other than what any TechCrunch reader gets.  You can vote for your favorite startups for the Crunchies here. And you can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Gboard: The keyboard Gmail users have been waiting for?

I’m not terribly interested in most of the devices that could hypothetically improve interaction with my MacBook. An ergonomic keyboard? Yawn. A mouse? Whatever. But there’s a new product called the Gboard that I can’t wait to try out.

The Gboard, as you might be able to guess, is a keyboard made up of buttons for the different keyboard shortcuts in email service Gmail. So instead of mousing and scrolling around the Gmail site to accomplish different tasks, or learning the keyboard shortcuts in Gmail, you just hit a button to search, to reply, to archive, to delete, and so on.

I like the idea because my work life is really built around Gmail (I probably spend more time in my work Gmail account than anywhere else on the web), yet I still haven’t learned the keyboard shortcuts. Anything that makes me more efficient in dealing with email would be much appreciated. It’s supposed to be easy to set up (just plug it into your USB port and turn Gmail shortcuts on), and is priced very reasonably — only $19.99.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a Gboard to test before tonight’s launch, but I’ve been told one will arrive in the mail first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll be sure to report on my impressions. You can buy a copy for yourself at the Gboard website.

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Paul Kent gives TUAW the latest news about Macworld 2010

Filed under: Macworld, Odds and ends, TUAW Interview

As a Mac-head who has attended the Macworld Expo and Conference on and off since the late 1980s, I met the announcement last December that Apple would no longer attend the event with a big, jaw-breaking yawn. Personally, I never attended Macworld for the Apple display, which was overcrowded and staffed by Apple employees who usually knew less about the new products than I did. The keynotes were usually a highlight, but hard to get into, and without Steve Jobs as the “star,” it just wouldn’t be the same. My reason for going to Macworld has always been the same; to see great new software or hardware made to work with Apple products, meet with manufacturers and developers, and to enjoy the camaraderie of the large group of buddies I’ve made at Macworld Expo in the past.

So, when I saw that registration for Macworld 2010 had opened, I immediately jumped on the website and signed up. To me, it’s a no-brainer to attend the original and only US conference that is all about Apple. Macworld Expo has been around for 25 years, and all indications are that it will continue for as long as the Macintosh and other Apple platforms exist. Yesterday, I talked with Paul Kent, General Manager, Macworld 2010 and Vice President of IDG World Expo, about Macworld 2010 and how preparations are coming along for the show.

Continue reading Paul Kent gives TUAW the latest news about Macworld 2010

TUAWPaul Kent gives TUAW the latest news about Macworld 2010 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monkey see, monkey do: computer animations make chimps yawn

What makes yawning so contagious? Empathy, as it turns out, causes us to respond to a friend’s boredom. Children as young as two can display the basic capacity to understand how others feel, and respond accordingly, and several studies have indicated that this trait is so ingrained that we even respond to computer-generated animations, cartoons, and puppets. 

Empathy isn’t only limited to humans. The chimpanzee and many of our other primate relatives are fully capable of processing complex emotions and behaviors. Chimps can also learn new abilities by watching their peers’ actions and copying them. Matthew Campbell, a post-doctoral fellow at Emory University who studies primate behavior, and his colleagues wanted to see whether chimps identify with computer animations the same way they do with expressions from real-life animals. The (perhaps) surprising answer: yes, they do. The results are reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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HTC Hero for Sprint hands-on and impressions

When we first caught wind of HTC’s Hero coming to Sprint, we were more than a little hopeful that the issues we experienced with the European version would be alleviated. If you’ll recall, we had a bit of a love-hate affair going on with the chinny, wine-drinking iteration of the Android-powered phone due to a seeming lack of horsepower required to push HTC’s totally amazing Sense UI. In the last few weeks, we’ve heard lots of chatter about the forthcoming Hero update and the wonders it would do for the speed of this phone… but unfortunately there’s no such luck in the US, CDMA version of this device.

So, the point here is we were planning on doing a whole new review to showcase the differences between the old and new version of the Hero, but there really aren’t any besides the obvious physical changes. Sprint has added some great new apps, like its visual voicemail, which works like a charm (oh by the way Coleen, you got that job — maybe you should give them your new number too), and Sprint Navigation, though it’s also muddied up the mix by including the yawn-maker NASCAR app. Of course, this phone provides a full-on 3G experience, unlike the European version (for obvious reasons), and Sprint’s network seems as snappy as ever — general web browsing was a noticeably more enjoyable experience, for instance.

Here is what we can say about the phone: the industrial design of this version versus the older model is a marked improvement, chucking that awkward chin shape for a proper bottom half, and rearranging the hard buttons so that you’re not constantly getting your hands cramped up. We also have to mention the trackball, which is the most comfortable we’ve ever used. While the performance is still not where we think it should be, the Hero is an awesome addition to Sprint’s growing line of serious contenders in the smartphone game. If that new update is all it’s supposed to be (and if Sprint is expedient in bringing it to market), many of our complaints should be quelled — and this will be the killer device we know it can be.

Gallery: HTC Hero for Sprint hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones

HTC Hero for Sprint hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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