Day #1 Beta - Little guy’s big day = More info from an empty desk
Marco has a temporary case for now, so we can start testing some geo-fences and its accuracy using Google Latitude to provide frictionless updates. Also, we’ll definitely humanize the output to be more readable.
First working prototype complete! (Taken with Instagram at Milwaukee Makerspace)
(Source: mmassie)
The Milwaukee Makerspace will be putting on a 1-night workshop on Processing, on February 23rd. This 3 hour workshop will briefly cover the basics of Processing and then dive into a collaborative team project. We will link peripherals like Wii Controllers & Balance boards, PS3 controllers and mobile accelerometers to unite on a single art piece.
The wooden sunglasses frames that I designed are on this weekends Make:Magazine weekly Flickr roundup. Thingiverse has also been updated to the proper frame size. Check it out!
First day playing with the Laser Cutter.
UPDATE:
Posting Sunglasses project progress at the Milwaukee Makerspace
Links to my template for your own download on Thingiverse
If there was a streaming ad company that offered the ability to target ads by location, could we open up streaming blackout and location restrictions? Would sporting event broadcasters be more open to streaming globally?
Currently the companies that are pushing ads on streaming networks are either the station themselves (Watch Hulu, while watching Hulu) or national brands that have less concerns about location, as long as they ban it for outside national IP addresses. ESPN is just showing you a black, “Be back shortly” clip. Clearly networks are struggling to figure this out, when it should be easier than what their current over-the-air tools offer.
It seems that there would be an opportunity for a ad company to manage and deliver streaming ads based on users location and potentially login info. This gives relevance and targeting to the ads that are on the screen during air time. This provides an even better model than what broadcasters provide to the companies buying air time today. In this option, if a venue wanted to stream the events, only local/relevant content will be displayed - instead of a spot for a UK cellular company to be shown to a pub full of folks in Los Angeles.
I understand that there is value in holding a US show for a year to keep hype high before rebroadcast in foreign countries, but sports is different… it would be the equivalent of replaying the Weather Channel from last week.
Taking inspiration from this lamp idea (left), by Andreas Müller - the lamp goes from on -> dims -> off according to its orientation to pointing North. I’d love to build a variation (right) that uses a servo motor to automatically point the needle itself at whatever the object of your affection.
[video]
Name Plate 2.0 (for the multi-location worker) Update: It may help to explain - I work in two different campuses and I often asked what campus I’ll be working from. So while I am working on a physical device with the some of the crew at Milwaukee Makerspace. I dropped an NFC tag behind my nameplate and programmed it to link to my Google Latitude account. Tap my nameplate with your NFC enabled phone and you are instantly show where I am at that point in time.
UPDATE: Posted a short YouTube video showing how it works: http://youtu.be/buy-H9ee-Rs
Adding Weather and Traffic to Trip Directions
I am kicking around - draft mock-up above - some feature options for adding two other factors into Google Maps (Directions): Weather and Traffic. By leveraging weather and traffic data throughout the route, a Google Trip feature can refer the optimal travel time to save on time and gasoline.
A little background - Last week we took a road trip to DC and this weekend we headed on a short trip up to Madison to visit a friend. This got me curious about how often do people take road trips (over 2 hours)? I typically don’t, but realized that there are a lot of college students and people in general that have a car/flight limit - under 3 hours and they drive, over they look to fly. We mapped out most our trip on Google Maps and I do like the new social options of sharing trip data with others in Google+. I got to thinking about the other influences that affect driving times.
Love to hear how often you’ve taken road trips, over two hours and just generally if you have feedback.
A new chrome experiment puts digital books on an infinite bookcase, in your browser.
Studies in the home were adorned with the inhabitants kills/treasures - for hunters it was the heads of trophy beasts, for the bookie it’s shelves and shelves of books.
Because of that mindset I feel the only way to completely convert a bookie over to digital content is for projectors to beam a digital representation of their kill onto a wall. Using NFC they could then tap the book on their shelf with their digital reader to read it… or till LED paint comes around.
(Source: mmassie)
![Trying out FaceOSC [Github link]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsumqvF5VY1qc5vc1o1_500.png)
Trying out FaceOSC [Github link]
Finally got to take some shots of this book.
Congrats, again, to Suzanne Ginsburg on the release of: Designing the iPhone Experience
Pick it up here on Amazon.com
Imagine the cities noise, CO, traffic and temperature data gathered if the Copenhagen Wheel was outfitted on every Alta bike in NYC’s bike share program
Putting these hubs on personal bikes although attractive to people like me, would open the inbound flow of urban data immediately if efforts were to combine with a community bike share program. Slightly modifying their current model by creating a quick pairing feature - from wheel hub to mobile device - allows the user to still retain their data, but also not be tethered to an individual bike.
I’ve heard a lot of input about how Google+ may, or may not, disrupt the likes of Facebook and Twitter. From my viewpoint, and looking at what I open more lately, what about Tumblr and Posterous?
Tumblr is sometimes referred to as the more than 140 character Twitter with a rich user base as its strength. Alternatively Posterous has been referred to as a simplified Wordpress. I love Tumblr myself and as pics of “Hipster Puppies” enters my G+ timeline, I can’t help but get the feeling of deja-vous.