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Technology Notes - 29 July 2009

Isaak Kwok — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:38:07 +0000

[Twitter](1), as you know, is increasingly becoming popular tool used by many, even to the extent that the British government is now ‘urging civil servants to use the micro-blogging site’, according to [BBC](2). The Cabinet Office, which has a [blog](3) for digital engagement, has published the [20-page document](4). Do go have a read.

In addition, Twitter recently posted a [Twitter 101 guide for businesses](12) for companies who are considering using Twitter or have just started using the service. You might want to zoom right into the [case studies](13) section, which I found most useful.

Speaking of using technology, a [couple from Sweden made quite a big error in their use of technology](5). They were planning to travel to the isle of Capri, which is in the south of Italy, but ended up in the industrial town of Carpi, which is in the north. This was because they had misspelt the name in their car’s GPS. And they only found out when they went to the tourist office in Carpi to ask how to get to the famous Blue Grotto in Capri. Hmmm … note to self: must remember to check my spellings when I input information into my GPS.

Not sure if you have heard about people being allergic to Wi-Fi waves. Apparently, there is an increasing number of people afflicted with such an allergy, known as [Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity](7), and it causes the persons to feel sick, dizzy and confused. One such person is top UK DJ Steve Miller and he says he to stay home in his 18in-thick granite walls to stay safe, from [The Sun](8). As for me, I’m not sure if I can live without wi-fi as our router is just too far away from the computer so wi-fi is the only solution for us.

On to some good news with the use of technology. When Apple announced their new [iPhone 3GS](9) in June at the annual WWDC keynote, they also introduced this new service called ‘Find My iPhone’. ‘Find My iPhone’ is powered by [MobileMe](10), which you’ll need to subscribe on an annual basis. The power of the technology makes use of both GPS as well as cell tower triangulation to located where the iPhone is. In this [story](11) (from Mashable), a teen and his dad had their iPhones stolen after their car and 4 other cars were broken into. When they arrived home, he remembered that he had activated the ‘Find My iPhone’ and tracked it. He managed to track the phone to a particular address and phoned the cops. The cops promptly appeared at the address and arrested the family there. They were known to police and now police had the evidence to prosecute them. So, if you have an iPhone and MobileMe, do remember to activate the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature. It might come in useful someday.

[1]: http://www.twitter.com/
[2]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8171597.stm
[3]: http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/
[4]: http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/post/2009/07/21/Template-Twitter-strategy-for-Government-Departments.aspx
[5]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8173308.stm
[6]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Grotto
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity
[8]: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2552553/Wi-fi-waves-make-top-DJ-Steve-Miller-sick-Steve-Miller-aka-Afterlife.html
[9]: http://www.apple.com/iphone/
[10]: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/
[11]: http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/find-my-iphone/
[12]: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/
[13]: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/cases

Technology Notes - 29 July 2009 originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on July 29, 2009.

Solar System is the Biggest Junkyard

Isaak Kwok — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:34:38 +0000

The white dots in the graphic above represent a orbital garbage in the Low Earth Orbit that NASA is tracking.

ScienceNews has posted an article explaining how the trash is monitored and why it can be really dangerous as most pieces are flying at more than 20 times the speed of sound. An example is a piece of trash the size of a tiny marble can have as much energy as a bowling ball going at about 805 kilometres per hour.

(via Boing Boing)

No related posts.

Solar System is the Biggest Junkyard originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on October 5, 2008.

Embedding YouTube Videos into Google Docs

Isaak Kwok — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:19:34 +0000

Google just announced that you can now insert YouTube videos into any documents in Google Docs. Besides YouTube videos, you can also insert images and text captions.

What is more interesting is the ability to embed your Google Doc presentation onto your blog and it can be of varying sizes. This seems like a direct competition to the current market leader, SlideShare.

Although I haven’t tried this yet, I’m sure it will be useful for the sharing of resources.

Do give it a try!

Embedding YouTube Videos into Google Docs originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on May 7, 2008.

Isaak’s Links - Online Word Processors and Other Stories - 10 March 2008

Isaak Kwok — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:30:15 +0000

- Forget Word: 13 Online Word Processors
A comprehensive listing of some of the more interesting online word processors available. I’ve personally used Google Docs, Buzzword and Writeboard. The mainstay for me is Google Docs because of its integration with the rest of the Google apps. However, I must say I’m very impressed with the UI design of Buzzword, which makes use of Adobe AIR.

- Social Media Will Change Your Business
An update to their original article “Blogs Will Change Your Business” in 2005. Very informative, particularly if you are quite new to the idea of social media.

- The Wisdom of the Chaperones
Interesting article on Wikipedia, Digg and other Web 2.0 entities on Slate.

- Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond
A presentation done by Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb at the Media08 conference in Syndey.

Isaak’s Links - Online Word Processors and Other Stories - 10 March 2008 originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on March 10, 2008.

Hilarious Video of Bill Gates’ Last Day at Microsoft

Isaak Kwok — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:51:11 +0000

YouTube Text Link

A really hilarious make-believe video of Bill Gates last day at Microsoft that was shown during his last keynote at the CES 2008. He managed to get quite a number of celebrities to ‘star’ in the video such as Bono (of U2), Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Gore and a couple of others that I didn’t recognize.

Go watch and have a good laugh.

(via Career and Kids)

Hilarious Video of Bill Gates’ Last Day at Microsoft originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on January 9, 2008.

Nintendo Wii Bowling Championship for Seniors

Isaak Kwok — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:33:41 +0000

A very serious looking bowling competition amongst 4 teams from the Erickson Communities, a provider of retirement communities. A very slickly produced video, indeed. But what was more remarkable was the enthusiasm and seriousness of the seniors in their participation of the bowling championships. I must add that the video has been very slickly produced.

I’ve got a Nintendo Wii at home and it definitely has made gaming more fun as Wendy also enjoys playing on the Wii, much more than when we had the Xbox. So, it isn’t just me playing. We also have friendly tennis matches and bowling competitions. :)

(via Nintendo Wii Fanboy

UPDATE: The second part of the tournament is on YouTube now.

Playing for Change - Music Video of “Stand By Me”

Nintendo Wii Bowling Championship for Seniors originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on October 5, 2007.

CAPTCHAs Are Good For the World

Isaak Kwok — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:24:14 +0000

Read this article on BBC News about the technology of CAPTCHA (or Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart), which was originally designed to separate humans from computer bots.

Interestingly, besides stopping automated bots from spamming, CAPTCHA also serves a higher purpose of helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts.

These old books and manuscripts are initally scanned by OCR software, but because of the poor quality of the original documents, the OCR software is not able to decipher the words. So, what the Carnegie Mellon University researchers (they were the creators of CAPTCHA) did was to make use of these words to be used as CAPTCHAs (or in this case, they are known as reCAPTCHAs). And when you key in the correct words, you are essentially helping the Carnegie Mellon team to digitise another word from an old book or manuscript.

So, the next time you have to type in one of these CAPTCHAs, don’t dread it as you’re helping in the digitization efforts of researchers of old books and manuscripts.

Coffee is Good!!

CAPTCHAs Are Good For the World originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on October 4, 2007.

Wish I Was Staying in This 75-year-old Lady’s House

Isaak Kwok — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:40:21 +0000

Well, when I first read this report via Digg, I thought to myself what was so special about a 75 years old lady who was using a computer for the first time and surfing the web.

What’s special is not that she’s an old lady who become internet-savvy, but the speed of her internet connection. Her broadband internet connection that is supplied to her house is at a blistering 40 Gigabits per second (that’s 40,000 Megabits per second, I think). In comparison, my home broadband internet connection is at a maximum of 12 Megabits per second. And the fastest broadband internet connection available in Singapore is 100 Megabits per second, which is still 400 times slower.

Just to put things in perspective, the huge broadband pipe into her house can allow her to watch 1,500 high definition HDTV channels all at once. Or if she decides that there’s nothing interesting in any one of those channels, she can download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds. Whoa!

Time for me to pack my bags and head to Sweden! :P

UPDATE - 19 July 2007: Apparently, the total cost of equipment for the internet broadband connection is at least US$250,000. This is not inclusive of the special fibre optic cable being ‘pulled’ to the house. Plus most of the gear used are not even used by most of the telcos around the world. Guess I’ll just have to be happy with my 12Mbps connection.

Wish I Was Staying in This 75-year-old Lady’s House originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on July 16, 2007.

Interesting Use of Technology

Isaak Kwok — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:32:36 +0000

Here’s an interesting mix of old and new technology.

Old technology in this case is an old newspaper box where people used to buy newspapers from. New technology is a Mac Mini and flat screen monitor. Combined you get a digital newsstand that pulls information directly from the internet for display.

You can read how this is all put together on Scott Walker’s blog. Scott Walker happens to be an assistant managing editor at Birmingham News.

Technorati Tags: internet, mac, newspapers

Interesting Use of Technology originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on June 25, 2007.

Microsoft’s ‘Surface Computing’

Isaak Kwok — Wed, 30 May 2007 11:00:00 +0000

Fantastic demo on something that’s going to be prevalent in our homes in the very near future at an affordable price. Now, they just need to find the applications that can make use of the technology to its fullest.

Text Link

(via Gizmodo)

Technorati Tags: microsoft, surface computing, technology

Microsoft’s ‘Surface Computing’ originally appeared on Isaak Kwok dot Com on May 30, 2007.