Technology

Pretty awesome demo of HTML5 on Chrome.

Go there to watch a tree pop out from under your house (if you input your address). In fact, go there to watch your entire neighbourhood get dominated by trees as they pop up from nowhere.

Official Google Blog: Update on Google Wave.

Oh hey, look it’s pretty much dead. I always wondered what Wave would be used for…

So, my current Panasonic Lumic DMC-TZ6 is pretty much running on its last legs. I dropped it at the beach late last year while trying to solidify melted chocolate in the sea (hey, it worked). I’m actually quite surprised it didn’t just die on me just then. But mrm, after I dropped it, I got home, cleaned the sand out of the lens as best I could, and threw the camera into a tub of rice (rice is a dessicant, and I hadn’t sufficient reserves of silica gel).

It worked perfectly for a few months, then the lens cover jammed. That in itself wasn’t a deal breaker – it was just mildly irritating having to open the cover whenever I wanted to take a picture, and explaining to other people why my camera would give them black pictures. I actually shopped around to see how much a repair would take, and it was several hundred, which isn’t really worth it…

But recently (yesterday) my LCD screen started flickering like the was no tomorrow. I think it’s a backlight problem, and it’s pretty drastic. It’s almost impossible to align images and use the zoom well without the backlight, since it’s almost impossible to see. I’m actually quite devastated, though admittedly what I did was pretty drastic… not many things would survive a dunk into salty, sandy water well at all! So all in all, I’m impressed with Panasonic. It’s a really good camera, and I think I’ve made good use of it over the past not-quite-a-year-yet. I’ve taken a lot of good photos with it (shutter count, or equivalent, is 5,114 as of this post) and a lot of memories are nicely done .

But I think it shall be high time soon for a replacement. I’m unsure of what to get right now, but, hey, number-17 is relatively techy, so I’ll see what you all think Poll and some options after the break.

→ read more

This won’t be very in-depth, or excessively informative. Grace might find some of this useful. =D

→ read more

My mind is blown. I don’t know how long this has been out, but apparently, its onto v1.1 Beta, so this thing must have been out for a few months.

For those of you who don’t know the purpose of Google Goggles, its an image recognition system. Take a photo of a location, text in a foreign language, logos, and lots more other stuff with your mobile, and it’ll be able to return details of the location, translate the text, return details of the company logo etc. In short, if you’ve watched Eden of the East, THIS IS THE EDEN SYSTEM. :wah:

Screw Windows Phone 7 Series. No amount of pretty, intuitive UI is going to win me over from this. Android is where it’s at.

For more info: Google Goggles

For those of you that don’t know, Cloud Computing is the posterchild of Web2.0 (what many perceive to be an incorrectly named standard, as there is no official version number of the Web).

BUT, what Web2.0 does represent is the ability for increased user interaction with websites, to tailor them to have what they want, when they want, and how they want it.  However…. there are some drawbacks… → read more

This is really hilarious stuff. These processors are like a piece of metal, and the fan is some plastic contraption thing. I wonder how this slip-up occured? There’s also Engrish on the box.

More here and here.

An example of a HTPC, from Wikipedia

First, NOTE: if you have a PS3 please disregard lots of this post. The PS3 is more than adequate as a media centre, and there is no use buying a new PC or plugging an old one into your television really.  Unless you want the advantage of the XBMC software.

Media centre PCs, also known as Home Theatre PCs, basically let you watch movies, listen to music and view pictures. So how are they different from normal computers? Well, they are normally connected to a television rather than a normal computer monitor, and can be controlled using a remote control (usually). But even if your PC isn’t connected to a television you can still enjoy some of the benefits from the media centre software, as you will see below.

So this is a guide to help you choose a PC to use as a media centre, connect it up, install the software you need, and finally organise your media so you can easily access it on your media centre.

→ read more

This was an interesting read, for the kicks of it. http://torrentfreak.com/static/The-Speculative-Invoicing-Handbook.pdf. It’s not very new (posted about a month ago) and you may have seen it but I only found it then.

While I don’t think it particularly applies in Australia, I’ve always been slightly interested in legalese and so on. That said, I recently reapplied for an FOI – so we’ll see how that turns out. I must say it’s also a relatively effective scheme on the part of the copyright people =].

Also, Hans – WordPress 2.9.2 is available! Please notify the site administrator.

Link

Well that’s extremely helpful. They could have done that last year, when I was with them. I’m actually still with them as of now, but my contract expires in about a months’ time, at which I very much wish to switch to another ISP. Optus cable is rather overpriced for what they give you. I pay, what, $50 a month for 7GB of data, to which uploads also count. I get capped pretty quickly, even with just normal browsing and non-internet-intensive-activity – e.g. I don’t surf youtube or download anything. My internet is fast (I get 20,000kbps on a good day, since very few people in my area have cable) but its download quota is pitiful. At least they don’t charge money if I exceed my 7GB.

lol. I remember living with dialup until year 12. That was rather painful.

So hmm. What plan should I get? Since I’m on cable now, I probably will have to pay setup fees and get a new modem and so on if I get ADSL2+ (it’s available to me). TPG does sound like excellent value, but you know… they have issues . Or I could do what Lawrence did and get moar data. But I have no idea how he did that.

Recommendations? I’m not a heavy internet user (when I have been on a 15gb plan, I don’t use up all that data) but that’s about all. I have about a month left – ideally I’d start setting up the new connection before I cancel my cable, since otherwise I’d probably be a week or so without internet.