CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-06-14 08:26:26 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Pi-tea the fool!

via q4nobody on b3ta

2013-06-13 18:01:20 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 17 +1s)

2013-06-10 21:27:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

#ios7   Did anyone else find the demo text in iOS7 a little hard to read in places?

2013-06-08 16:38:02 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 21 +1s)

A lovely day to kick back and enjoy the sun and the view.  The 'pet' featured in this photo is the emu that we hatched on Easter Day.  "My, how you've grown!"
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107330528562005281406/posts/AJZyY5EtPBy

2013-06-07 12:41:04 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Seriously, +Google+ Developers, this post-truncation flaw is really irritating!

I'm sure you can spot where the text could feasibly flow if you look hard enough at the image... :-)

2013-06-06 21:01:48 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is nifty.

2013-06-04 08:07:30 (4 comments, 4 reshares, 16 +1s)

Best Boat Name Ever?

2013-06-03 21:30:00 (7 comments, 4 reshares, 11 +1s)

The effects of Special Relativity can be quite a confusing thing to understand, but this game lets you see its effects by reducing the simulated speed of light, and hence lets you get to grips with relativistic effects at lower speeds.  Very cool - and open source too :-)  Game download links for Win, Lin and Mac are in the following article: http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
Beware though - I began to feel quite sick as the effects of relativity became more pronounced!

2013-06-02 08:25:33 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 9 +1s)

Spectacular images of individual carbon atoms and the bonds between them!  Pictured below are three connected benzene rings.
#amazingworld   #sciencesunday  
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-first-ever-high-resolution-images-molecule-reforms.html#jCp

2013-06-01 15:29:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Longer battery life and enhanced graphics for your next Windows 8 portable http://bit.ly/10PvQh1

2013-06-01 12:38:12 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

I dont often post animated gifs, but when I do...
So my colleague +Charles Douglas-Osborn sent me this today. I have to say, when I see this I can hear the music in my head. Awesome mod!

2013-06-01 11:20:04 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Really sad news, folks: Andrew Scott Reise, co-founder and developer for the virtual reality company Oculus VR, which makes the VR headset Oculus Rift, was killed in a police chase in Santa Ana, Calif., ABC reports.

Reisse was not involved in the incident; he was a bystander who got hit by a car at a crosswalk during the chase Thursday.

http://mashable.com/2013/06/01/oculus-rift-andrew-scott-reise/

2013-06-01 10:47:53 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Coming soon, to a living room near you! #xboxone   #drm  

Also: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111333123856542807695/posts/GW44qwk2m8x

Please note that this is humour, and not something Microsoft are going to do at launch :-)

2013-06-01 09:17:22 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

"New Camera Sensor Eliminates Need for Flash" thanks to graphene: http://mashable.com/2013/05/31/camera-sensor-eliminates-flash/

I don't think anyone would currently rate the low-light performance of their phone's camera (or, say, Google Glass) - but this could provide the answer.  If the new material fulfils its promise, it'll make our current-generation cameras look decidedly second-rate.

With applications of graphene ranging from better batteries, to better transistors, solar panels, displays, sensors...  it seems to be a miracle substance.  I, for one, welcome our new graphene overlords.

#googleglass   #graphene   #technology   #camera  

2013-05-31 16:16:38 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

More "Auto Awesome" magic?  I've seen Google+ auto-create animated gifs from several images, but this is the first time I've seen two separate photos automatically stitched together.  That's really rather neat :-)

2013-05-30 12:52:55 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

The Open University - providing distance learning before it went mainstream.

Back in 2000, the Open University allowed me to complete a university degree in Computer Science and Electronics whilst working full-time to support my family.  I fondly remember coming home to find a huge box waiting for me one day, containing an oscilloscope and signal generator.

I'm so happy that I had the opportunity to continue with my studies when I couldn't attend a physical university like my peers.  It's really exciting to see the OU and other online education providers provide this opportunity to a wider audience, largely thanks to advances in technology.

2013-05-29 17:04:14 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

New GMail?  I use GMail as my lifeblood, so I hope the changes aid my productivity rather than detract.  

It looks as though they're promoting the Smartlabels labs feature into prime position.  This tool automatically sorts out promotional, notification and social e-mails without having to set up myriad mail rules.  It's been tremendously beneficial to me, and I'm sure others will enjoy it now it's more accessible.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.co.uk/

Regardless of these improvements, there'll probably be a huge amount of howling from people aggrieved that things have been changed on them!  T'was always thus...

2013-05-28 08:34:32 (8 comments, 4 reshares, 19 +1s)

I watched Iron Man 3 the other day, and despite the whole ridiculous premise of protective armour which can somehow prevent internal organ damage in a crash, I could suspend disbelief...  However, when they did a scene which used IP addresses outside the possible range, I took umbrage!  Why do film companies have such a hard time doing 'computers'?

2013-05-27 14:18:36 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Absolutely fantastic work!  In a related thought: I wonder whether Google use (or plan to use) OCR to read text within images at any point.  I would love to be able to search history Dilbert cartoons a little more easily!

Edit: As +Markos Giannopoulos points out, the algorithm does OCR too!

2013-05-26 08:47:28 (4 comments, 5 reshares, 3 +1s)

Another day, another wild and wacky piece of hardware to make VR more immersive!

via +Chris Pirillo 

2013-05-26 08:21:04 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I might well be the last person in the world to discover this game, but xkcd led me to GeoGuessr - a game which asks you to guess your location based on Google Street View.

http://geoguessr.com/

Sometimes (as shown in the screenshot below), I'm not even sure how to begin!

http://xkcd.com/1214/

2013-05-24 10:18:16 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

This is the environment of the future.  If you could add haptic feedback into the mix, you'd have the basic components of a holodeck. #oculusrift   #kinect  

2013-05-24 08:42:09 (8 comments, 4 reshares, 5 +1s)

Amazing footage of a fire across the full length of a railroad bridge in Texas, and its subsequent collapse.

"A railway bridge across the Colorado River between San Saba and Lometa in the US state of Texas has burned down and collapsed.

According to local media, firefighters spent 15 hours attempting to extinguish the blaze, before deciding to let it burn out.

The railway is understood to transport freight and it is estimated it could cost up to $10m (£6.6m) to rebuild."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22641179
via +Dirk Talamasca 

2013-05-24 08:14:22 (5 comments, 6 reshares, 19 +1s)

How mysterious!

2013-05-21 20:24:59 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

"Tea, Earl Grey, hot."

NASA is funding a 3D food printer!  Star Trek replicators at home could have seriously amazing implications!

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350948/nasa-funding-3d-food-printer-pizza

2013-05-21 18:21:51 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Xbox One Launch: Just a round of iterative improvements?

Is this really the best we could hope for after 8 years of the old Xbox? The original Wii was the last time I thought "Wow, that's innovative" in the console space.

2013-05-15 07:52:05 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 9 +1s)

This morning's time waster is brought to you by a simple search for Atari Breakout using Google Images.

http://images.google.com/?q=atari%20breakout

I tried doing a similar search for Crysis, but I don't think Google have implemented that yet :-)

2013-05-13 19:24:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

+Chris Hadfield Legend.

#commanderhadfield

2013-05-12 10:59:58 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 10 +1s)

An interesting live map of Wikipedia updates - At the moment we're getting an update every 30 seconds to the English-language Wikipedia (on a Sunday when most of America is still asleep).

It'd be interesting to see what happens when a major (or controversial) event takes place...

http://rcmap.hatnote.com/

2013-05-11 08:26:19 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

I'm so pleased to see that +Allie Brosh is still with us.  

She hadn't posted anything on her fantastic blog "Hyperbole and a Half" for 18 months, since the insightful "Adventures in depression" in 2011: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

This has now, thankfully, been followed up: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

For anyone that's suffered with depression, I'm sure a lot of what she's been through rings true.  For those who have been lucky enough to maintain a positive (or neutral) outlook through their lives, I'm sure it all seems a bit hard to believe and self-centered.

One thing it does make you realise is that for all the cheery personas you encounter online and IRL, you can never be 100% certain that's the way they honestlyfeel ... more »

2013-05-06 17:04:22 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

JS1K competition 2013 spring champions! 

The top 10 entries for one of the geekiest competitions on the web - JS1k, have just been announced. Interested in finding out what kind of crazy JavaScript experiments one can stuff into 1024 bytes of code? Despair no longer and check out the winners (http://bit.ly/15qMpHf).

My favorite is Strange crystals II (http://bit.ly/12bg69B) from Philippe Deschaseaux - the crazy mine cart animation running below (BTW Philippe also has a making of series of blog posts http://bit.ly/10gLI05).

But I also adore the Synth Sphere (http://bit.ly/11bsL0x) from Noah Weninger, which just might be the smallest music synthesizer with real time FFT ever made. You can even create your own music with it.

#html5   #javascript   #webdevelopment   #competition   #js1k

2013-05-04 13:37:40 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

I don't want my stream to become one big Oculus-Rift-a-thon, but just watch this video and tell me it doesn't fill you with that same sense of joy you get when encountering something truly awe-inspiring.

via +Henk Poley

2013-05-04 11:35:50 (12 comments, 4 reshares, 16 +1s)

Victorian gender stereotypes are apparently still alive and kicking.  Perhaps I should write a letter to Tesco explaining how my daughters are top of their class in chemistry, and that their aspirations go beyond household chores.  Or perhaps that would only confuse them.

The saddest thing is when I notice my daughters repeating these stereotypes themselves.  They certainly have an uphill struggle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat

via +David Jones via https://twitter.com/LetToysBeToys

2013-05-03 15:51:49 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 11 +1s)

Words cannot describe how much I'm looking forward to Oculus Rift maturing into a consumer technology.

http://kotaku.com/kotaku-takes-the-oculus-rift-for-a-spin-486679107

So everyone's already clocked onto the possibilities for immersive gaming, but there are opportunities for other things as well:

* Multiple monitor arrays.  Why surround yourself with lots of physical monitors?  When Rift (or similar) matures and becomes 'Retina' resolution - you can see as much virtual monitor space as you desire.
 * Teleconferencing / social networking / hangouts can be immersive.  There must be a better 'online meeting' experience in there somewhere.  Meeting in a virtual world?  Why on earth not!  (And I'm talking much, much better than Second Life!)

Can't wait.

2013-05-01 08:15:21 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Could advert algorithms be taught to feel a sense of irony or exploitation when they make placements like this?

Bagram airfield crash 29 apr 2013

2013-04-28 10:38:04 (10 comments, 3 reshares, 18 +1s)

A prime opportunity to ensure you've got a working handbrake.  What's the worst that could happen?

"Here’s a lone excavator hard at work on top of the 12-story Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel in the Chinese city of Taiyuan. The slender, triangular building has a very limited amount of roof space in which the excavator’s driver can manoeuvre, yet manoeuvre he must if the building is going to be eaten away down to ground level."

Amazing!

http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/08/high-anxiety-rooftop-excavators-tear-down-from-up-top/

2013-04-27 11:42:25 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

My two-week review of Google Glass: it all depends on the price

This week I gave five speeches while wearing it.
I passed through airports four times (two more in a couple of hours).
I let hundreds of people try my Google Glass.
I have barely taken it off since getting it other than to sleep.

Here's my review after having Google Glass for two weeks:

1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It's that significant. 
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations "who would buy this?" As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of "wow" or... more »

2013-04-19 20:52:19 (0 comments, 10 reshares, 6 +1s)

Great little idea of a crowd-generated music video: your cursor position is added to everyone else's.  

http://donottouch.org/

An interesting social experiment in conformity.  Oooh, check out the rebellious (or hard-of-thinking) people breaking the rules :-)

2013-04-16 22:36:44 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Who says Twitter Bootstrap sites all have to look the same?  You need this theme!  http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/

2013-04-14 17:57:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Never judge a movie by its cover.  Especially when its cover is shared by a billion other movies!  http://www.demilked.com/popular-movie-poster-cliches/

2013-04-13 09:22:03 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Concorde Prototype 002 - first flew in 1969 and made 196 supersonic flights.  It ushered in the fastest age in passenger transport which is now, sadly, well behind us.

This was taken at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton, UK, yesterday.

2013-04-12 19:15:39 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I think MyPaint might just be the best natural painting application since Corel Painter. It's just lovely, cross-platform, and free:

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

Oh, and I think I've regressed to my younger years and become slightly obsessed with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots...  Have a quick doodle from this evening.

2013-04-10 18:51:36 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

D'oh! I've been doing it all wrong!  No wonder none of my air-dropped pigeon messages have been getting through.

http://www.retronaut.com/2010/09/method-of-wrapping-carrier-pigeons/

2013-04-10 17:24:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

RIP Bob Edwards, pioneer of IVF. There aren't many people responsible for creating so much human life!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-22091873

2013-04-10 09:35:10 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Google Streetview Hyperlapse

Ever wanted to automatically take a trip using Google Streetview, without having to constantly click on the road ahead?  Well now you can!

http://hyperlapse.tllabs.io/

Tech stuff: It's all in Javascript so you can download the source code to play with the framerate, camera movement or other shenanigans here:
http://www.teehanlax.com/labs/hyperlapse/

2013-04-09 20:21:47 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 9 +1s)

LEGO Star Destroyer Destroyed By LEGO Kraken!

So LEGO makes an impressively large model of the Star Destroyer from Star Wars. But like the original, it's a little on the... dull grey side.

Iain Heath came up with a way to spice things up.

Why not have your LEGO Star Destroyer attacked and torn appart by a giant LEGO space Kraken... or KR-KN since this is Star Wars?

Works for me!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ochre_jelly/

2013-04-06 09:57:47 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

32 bit open source ARM system with Bluetooth v4. Fully Arduino IDE compatible. Size of a fingernail. Single-unit cost in the $20 range.

We're getting to the point where even tiny embedded applications are no longer limited by CPU or cost — this thing is plenty powerful enough for real-time vision processing for example. Instead we're limited by our knowledge; we don't yet know how to do many of the things we want.

2013-04-06 08:49:24 (6 comments, 8 reshares, 14 +1s)

Could this spell the end of #caturday  for our intrepid feline?  Tune in next week to find out!

via reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/1brn30/oh_god_no/

2013-04-01 08:25:50 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Guardian Goggles: with proprietary anti-bigotry technology!

(Funny, but I wouldn't be surprised if this sort of thing became reality one day). #googleglass   via +Ian Watson

2013-03-31 15:48:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Today is World Backup Day - a good opportunity to make sure your website is backed up!

To celebrate Backup Machine are offering a 25% discount on any of their website backup packages, for the lifetime of the package!