CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-04-08 03:02:14 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

I just found out we were just rated one of the top 10 rookie FIRST Robotics Challenge teams in the Nation! Wow! Big shout out to +Bryan Smith and the team. There's even a press interview -- FIRST championship here we come!

2013-03-27 14:57:44 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

The high school robotics team I've been mentoring was awesome last weekend! So awesome that we unexpectedly earned an invite to the National Championships in St. Louis, MO!

Here's a short video that explains what the competition is about:
2013 FIRST Game Animation - Ultimate Ascent

And here's our robot in action [#4501 with the red bumpers and large NASA logo]:
2013 FIRST Robotics Long Beach Regional Match 72

2013-04-10 18:08:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Detlev Schwabe and 1 other was tagged in Keith Kiyohara's album.

2012-12-07 04:38:20 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

ArcBotics == Skynet??!

My hexapod robot kit from a Kickstarter project arrived today. But nowhere did they mention that it was "self-assembling". The singularity is upon us!

2012-12-05 19:00:22 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

As one of my teammates put it: "whoa."

2012-11-17 21:14:15 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

If you get the chance, checkout #ingress (by searching). I'm amazed by the creativity shown by people interested in getting an invite to the game.

2012-11-15 16:08:25 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

The effects of the Niantic Project are starting to be felt...

2012-10-06 18:46:23 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Building Rube Goldberg-machines is cool, but please don't try this at home, kids!

2012-09-27 20:40:55 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Haven't posted a lot lately because things have been busy with my new project. My team has some real interesting things under way. Some of which I can't talk about ;) But I'm proud to let the world know about our "Field Trip" app from my Northern California stablemates:

Go on a Field Trip today! 

2012-08-26 15:39:09 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Like many baby boomers, reflecting on what it meant to witness the first moon landing on TV. I ran across these hi-res Apollo 11 photos from the original "moonwalk". I had not seen the majority of these pictures before -- I really like the "you are there" immediacy of the images.

2012-08-01 12:45:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Very cool reinterpretation of Google Street View! Reminds me of the olden days when you could only "draw" with teletype characters. You young'uns can google 'teletype art' and 'asr33' to understand what I'm talking about...

2012-06-12 00:54:32 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

With upcoming graduations on my mind, I ran across this. I hope every high school graduate gets to listen and learn from this speech. His candor is remarkable and delivered with humor. Just a couple of the gems:

"Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That's 37,000 valedictorians ... 37,000 class presidents ... 92,000 harmonizing altos ... 340,000 swaggering jocks ... 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs,"
 
"Even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you."

"Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you."

2012-04-30 16:37:14 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Teaching a Lego robotics course has been a blast! Here are some of the creations being displayed at the school's science fair.

2012-04-04 19:19:58 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

The cloak of invisibility has been lifted from the Google[x] project I've been working on. The future is here! Almost ;)

2012-03-14 15:36:38 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Today, as you all know--as you've probably been planning for months--is Pi Day. Between now and then, we are extending a special offer: a one year subscription to Scientific American Digital for the ridiculously low price of $3.14. That comes out to about 234.35 tons of great science per penny. To subscribe, follow this link. Please make your payments to the first two decimal places only...

2012-03-13 19:41:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Sports cars don't usually thrill me since: 1) they're not even close in the performance dept. compared to race cars (see lateral acceleration); 2) $$$. But using technology forbidden from racing such as "movable rear wings, adaptive suspensions, and torque vectoring" definitely piques my interest. What would it mean when a street car can outperform a race car?

2012-03-04 01:10:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I've posted a number of videos on quadrotors and the amazing things they are capable of. Featuring the professor in charge, Vijay Kumar, here is a cool TED talk discussing how they maneuver, navigate and cooperate with each other.

2012-03-03 01:32:56 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Guess I'm a nomophobe -- wonder if it's curable? Hope not...

2012-03-02 15:06:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I guess not all quadrotors are menacing -- these play music!

2012-02-27 15:31:53 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

I saw this for the first time on the Oscar telecast last night. Always a thrill to see something I've worked on show up on TV.

First I'd like to thank the academy and my family and of course, Goog... [Orchestra starts playing]

2012-02-17 17:28:57 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

I want a green license plate!

"Autonomous test vehicles will display a red license plate, Nevada officials said. If and when the technology is approved for public use, the cars will carry a green license plate."

2012-02-14 18:53:06 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

New Google+ iOS app, now with Instant Upload!

A new version of the Google+ iOS app is rolling out to the App Store, and it comes with one of your most requested features: Instant Upload! Once enabled, all photos and videos that you take are automatically uploaded to a private album on Google+ -- ready to share with your circles, or the world.

Other cool features in this release include:
- The What’s Hot stream
- Shake your phone to send feedback: Google+ Update: Shake and Send (Sexy) Feedback from your iPhone
- Various bug fixes and performance improvements

You can download the latest version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google/id447119634?mt=8

We look forward to seeing your beautiful pictures on Google+. Do keep the feedback coming!

* Instant Upload is only active while the Google+ iOS app is open, and for a briefp... more »

2012-02-13 14:19:47 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Fascinating article on using a small current to improve certain kinds of brain functionality. The article appears to be well-researched with many references to research papers. Even more surprising -- the top search results for "2-milliamp current" are postings in electronics forums asking how to construct such a device using a 9V battery.

2012-01-18 18:50:42 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

2011-12-07 00:14:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Minecraft and LEGO fans, please do not flip out! If these sets ever come to be, we'll do our best to get them in stock, but it's still in the approval phase and it's not yet licensed. Make sense? Okay, now you're allowed to flip out.

2011-11-22 05:21:39 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Computer nerd humor. And, yes, I thought this was both cool and hilarious!

2011-11-17 05:12:24 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

When there is not enough time in the day, perhaps I just need faster appliances. I think this one will be fast enough.

2011-11-05 22:19:55 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

The GoogleLA Photo Space Project made it's debut Thursday night! Takes 3-photos of you and you pick the best one. Some image processing to isolate you from the background and then composite you into an infinite line of all visitors. An email is sent with a link to your place in the line. You can share this link with your friends -- hopefully on Google+.

The Photo Space Project will become a permanent self-service exhibit at our beautiful new office in Venice, CA. We have high hopes this will be installed at other Google offices around the world!

I think party-go'ers had a lot of fun with this last night. Check out the scrolling panorama: http://photo-space.appspot.com

The team and I worked hard to get this ready for the grand opening - we're happy with the results! We hope that you will have a chance to visit and take a picture or two! +Ken Arthur +Pam... more »

2011-10-26 15:36:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Seeing clouds move so suddenly and with apparent purpose would have been mind-blowing to see in person. I would not have been surprised at all to see the large alien spaceship show up next.

2011-10-25 15:55:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Super busy at work, but I should probably take time out to observe National Greasy Foods Day. I think the idea of French fry-coated bacon is hilarious!

2011-10-19 21:48:35 (0 comments, 10 reshares, 3 +1s)

Building with Lego Mindstorms can be so much fun! I once built a cube solver based on the plans from this site, TiltedTwister.com. A great project since it only took a single kit to make. But that version takes minutes to solve a cube.

This thing on the other hand is mind-blowing! An amazing job of construction and lego engineering since it's hard to get MindStorms projects to be that precise and that fast.

2011-10-15 02:11:59 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

NSFW dialog, but definitely brought a smile to my face. It reminds me a lot of different conversations I've listened to that we taking place in languages that I didn't understand.

2011-10-13 16:09:57 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Not so flashy flash-mob. I like the idea of an understated, but beautiful performance suddenly showing up somewhere. Especially when it happens in a place that I have visited.

2011-10-12 15:54:16 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

This kind of industrial design has always intrigued me. Perhaps if I wasn't into software, I think that hardware and especially model-making would have been a very fun career path.

2011-10-10 15:45:33 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Guitar Hero/Rockband with a REAL guitar? As in bring your own acoustic or electric? I'd better work harder on getting off of Santa's naughty list. I wonder if this is the future of music self-instruction...

2011-10-08 17:36:16 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Hope that I can do this at 90 with my wife. Fortunately, we still have decades to learn to play the piano.

2011-10-08 01:05:58 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

+Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb highlights some of the fantastic minds behind Google+, including 22 of the women who have made the code you interact with every day. The article is in honor of Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating stories about women working in science, technology and math. Thanks to Marshall for the story.

Many many more women (and men) are behind the scenes plugging away at making this service possible.

2011-10-07 19:27:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

How many of these things crawling around would it take before you start yelling "get me out of here!"?

2011-10-06 01:34:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Like all other techies, I'm thinking about Steve Jobs and Apple. Here's a truly prophetic, 24-year old video. It's really unbelievable how much the 'Knowledge Navigator' video got right. "Knowledge Navigator predicts touch technology, the iPad, iPhone, Skype, FaceTime — and Siri. All in one talking, well-dressed device".

And yes, I can personally vouch that this video came out in the late 80's ;)

2011-10-05 15:41:42 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

This makes me wonder how they did it. I'm guessing tweezers and really really thin sheets of something. Regular paper would be much too thick and resilient.

2011-10-03 23:51:43 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Robots that move like animals must trigger something in the primal parts of the brain. Technology like this, used by the military, will probably be less deadly than a UAV-launched missile, but it is somehow scarier.

2011-09-28 03:39:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I'm excited to see the "sharing circles" feature that I worked on launch today. For your enjoyment, here is a circle containing some of my favorite technology journalists.

Andy Hertzfeld shared a circle with you.

2011-09-27 01:07:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Learned this word yesterday on the airplane -- fortunately in a magazine article ;)

"Nonversation

The type of conversation held with another person when you really do not wish to talk to them. It consists of short and to the point replies which do not add to the conversation and make it hard for the other person to continue. It is usually to try and convey politely that you do not have the time for this oxygen thief who insists on bothering you."

2011-09-24 19:59:59 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Take photos from 50,000 ft using trash bags, helium and a budget of $50? Count me in!

Seems like a very fun school project, but I didn't see where they got permission or clearance to launch such a thing. I suspect that they didn't ask...

2011-09-23 02:15:17 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

The beauty of millions of years of evolution @ 1000 fps. It's absolutely eerie how steady the owl head remains throughout the entire flight. Watch at 1080p and you can almost count the individual barbules of the feathers.

2011-09-22 14:23:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

#googleplusupdate #googlephotos

Hi, I’m +Chandrashekar Raghavan a Product Manager on the Google+ Photos team.

Sometimes you find a particular photo in an album that’s worth sharing with others. It might be the perfect sunset shot from your beach holiday, or a humorous photo from a friend’s party.

The ability to share a single photo from an album is one of our top feature requests and today, we are launching a new feature that will allow you to do just that! Inside the lightbox photo viewer, you’ll now see a “Share” button below each photo. Click “Share” to share just that photo, not the whole album.

We hope you enjoy using this feature; keep the feedback coming!

Thanks to +Karen Liu for making this feature happen!

2011-09-21 13:56:02 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Technology is neither good nor evil, it is an enabler. 3D printing is a very cool technology which is an example of this. 3D printing is like taking your ink jet printer and instead of laying down a single layer of ink, it lays down a very thin layer of plastic or other material. By repeatedly printing over the same places, the thin layers can be built up into 3D structures.

Good: 3D printing can be used to mimic natural structures like bone to make things stronger and lighter by varying the density. Thicker and stronger on the outside; Porous and lighter on the inside. Instead of a solid concrete column, you can make it both lighter and stronger by making it bone-like.
http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/997-Variable-Density-3D-Printing-and-the-Potential-for-Architecture.html

Good: Instead of mimicing mother nature, why not create the parts directly? Artificial blood vessels... more »

2011-09-21 02:36:35 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Via Pandora, I've been listening to a lot of old Bill Cosby comedy recordings (just create a "Bill Cosby" channel). I used to love listening to him as a kid -- I thought he was hilarious. As an adult, I enjoy him just as much and can now really appreciate how gifted a storyteller he is. I've been sharing Bill with my 9-year old son in the car, and he just loves it!

2011-09-20 16:34:09 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

The preparation phase for a release is often referred to as a ‘sprint’, with everyone working together and running full speed ahead. Usually, right after launch there’s a period where we pause to catch our breath, say hello to family or friends we’ve been neglecting, and listen to the market reaction to gauge our next move. Those of you who have followed my posts closely have probably gathered that for the Google+ Mobile team, the sprint hasn’t stopped.

In the 3 months since field trial began, we’ve announced over 10 new releases on our Android, iOS, and web app platforms. Today, I’m happy to show you that the momentum has just kept going, and the latest releases are full of great features - many of which we prioritized based on your feedback. I wrote up my thoughts around some of the exciting things we’re launching in a post for the Google Mobile blog, which you can read here:

htt... more »

2011-09-19 18:30:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Our planet from a different perspective. My favorite part is the lightning in the clouds below!