Archive for Applications
November 14, 2007 at 11:12 am · Filed under Hardware, Peer-to-Peer, Industrial Design, Online Marketing, Social Networking, Applications, Games, User Interface
The One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC) XO laptop is on sale in the U.S. by way of their “Give One Get One” program. Sales kicked off on Monday (November 12th) and will be running until November 26th. As if getting your hands on the XO to kick the tires isn’t enough, T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary WiFi access at their HotSpots for all donors. From the OLPC site:
This is the first time the revolutionary XO laptop has been made available to the general public. For a donation of $399, one XO laptop will be sent to empower a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving).
It was also announced last that Maxis (Electronic Arts) has donated the original SimCity game to the project, allowing for free distribution of the addictive classic which was originally developed for the Commodore 64.
Don Hopkins created a UNIX variant of the game in the past and has been advocating the use of SimCity for educational purposes for years. Hopkins commented on a Slashdot article earlier this year:
“The goal is to enable the open-source community to renovate SimCity and take it in new educational directions, by applying Seymour Papert’s ideas about constructionist education, Alan Kay’s ideas about interactive user interfaces and object-oriented programming, Ben Shneiderman’s ideas about direct manipulation and info visualization, and many exciting ideas about multiplayer games, blogging, storytelling, game mods, player created content, and lessons learned from World of WarCraft, The Sims, Spore, etc,”
The cause sounds noble. One way or the other games will make it to the OLPC. Let’s hope the educational angle triumphs.More about SimCity on the OLPC XO from Don Hopkins:
Tags: $100 laptop, Applications, Commodore 64, Don Hopkins, Education, Electronic Arts, Free, Games, Games in Education, Hardware, HotSpot, Industrial Design, laptop, Maxis, OLPC, Online Marketing, Peer to Peer, Quick Hits, SimCity, Social Networking, Spore, T Mobile, The Sims, User Interface, WiFi, World of Warcraft, WoW, XOShare This
November 9, 2007 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Industrial Design, Hardware, Programming, Applications
Bug Labs is bringing a mashup mentality to hardware by way of a series of modules which snap together not unlike the way Legos would. The BUGbase and the BUGmodules don’t look like children’s toys, nor do they look like Radio Shack geek tech. They look like something you might pay good money for at BestBuy.
Ease of development is emphasized. Projects begin with a BUGbase which is described on their web site as “…a fully programmable and ‘hackable’ Linux computer…” Examples of modules you can snap to the base include a GPS unit, a Digital Camera/Videocam, a Motion Detector, and a color, touch-sensitive LCD screen.
Bug Labs envisions device building as an experience that can be enjoyed by both the novice and the advanced do-it-yourselfer. Since the hardware clicks together, the next engineering challenge is the underlying software. A description of the software environment from the BUG site is quoted below:
BUG is built entirely with open source software. BMI, the BUG Module Interface, attaches devices to the BUG. Device-based services and applications are dynamically available based on which modules are connected to the BUG. Higher up the stack is Java, which hosts a service-oriented component runtime called OSGi.
As the development community shares their hardware and software creations a programming-free scenario also emerges. In a recent podcast Bug Labs’ CEO Peter Semmelhack describes a future where a builder combines a few bricks together and interfaces with the BUG SDK where (s)he is presented with the top applications currently being used for that hardware configuration. Software can be downloaded onto the device without the need to start from scratch.
The BUGbase, aforementioned modules and SDK are all slated to ship before the end of the year.Interested? You may want to catch BUG Labs speaking at SXSW 2008. For more information including a list of additional modules visit the BUG Labs web site.
Tags: Applications, BUG Labs, BUGbase, BUGmodules, Hardware, Industrial Design, Java, LEGO, LEGO Mindstorms, Lego NXT, Lego RCX, linux, Open Source, OSGi, Peter Semmelhack, Programming, SXSWShare This
September 24, 2007 at 1:14 pm · Filed under Web Applications, Applications
Going to be the first on the block to upgrade to WordPress 2.3? Not so fast!
There’s a few things you might want to consider before making the leap:
- Can you perform the upgrade somewhere other than your live blog? I know, I know, everything is going to go great, but, what if something does go awry? You probably can’t afford to lose your blog for a few days (or more), so do your upgrade on a development server and be sure everything is tested before you push to production.
- Don’t be paralyzed by your plugins. WordPress 2.3 is not compatible with all WordPress plugins. Check to be sure your plugins are supported in 2.3 before flipping the switch.
- Are you using a tagging plug-in? Well, WordPress 2.3 has taken the tag movement to heart, and tagging is built-in in 2.3. If you go the tag route, you’ll need to modify your theme.
Just a few things to consider.
Tags: Applications, Blogging, Web Applications, WordPress 2.3, WordPress ThemeShare This
September 18, 2007 at 3:55 pm · Filed under Web Applications, Analytics, Beta, Applications
I tried reasonably hard, but never got a Gatineau beta invite. Yet. There are supposedly sending out the first salvo of them next week. In the mean time, we can all glean some insight into what Microsoft’s got under the hood—at Web Analytics Day Ian Thomas from Microsoft stepped up on stage for what turned about to be the first public presentation on Gatineau.
Tags: Analytics, Applications, Beta, Beta Invite, Gatineau, Microsoft, Web ApplicationsShare This
September 5, 2007 at 12:05 am · Filed under On the Web, Hardware, Applications
The popularity of my posts regarding the Mac, Apple, Parallels Desktop and the iPhone kept me blogging on those topics. That chatter has in turn been diluting the conversation that should be taking place here.
So, I’ve carved out another space on this big series of tubes, and this time it is just for those Apple topics. Please visit On a Mac for a continuation of the conversations which started here as well as new Apple-related content altogether.
Tags: Apple, Apple II, Apple Lisa, Apple Support, Apple TV, Applications, Hardware, iLife, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Lisa Office System, MacBook Pro, Macintosh, On the Web, os x, OS X Disk Utility, Parallels Coherence, Parallels DesktopShare This
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