Roll it and Racer show Web Gaming on Chrome

To show off modern browsers capabilities - especially Chrome's - Google has launched a couple new Chrome experiments that show you mutiplayer and multiplaform gaming on the web, with Roll it and Racer.

The first one shows up a panel with different holes - each one with a score attached - that you have to aim for as you throw a ball. The novelty is that while the main screen is shown on your desktop Chrome browser, the controller is your smartphone. Once you "pair it up" (by simply typing in a code), you can use it to select the direction and "throw the ball" by actually swinging your phone - as it uses its motion sensors. Working in nearly realtime, it's a perfect example of how smartphones can act as advanced game controllers in games.




In the second game, you have a stylized slot car game with up to 5 players, where each one can be playing in either Chrome for Android or iOS, and where each device will show up just a portion of the racing circuit. You can place the devices side by side on a table to stitch the circuit together - though each device "position" needs to be set manually... maybe in the future it will be able to auto-detect its orientation relative to other devices and set it up automagically! ;)


[via Chrome]

Oculus Rift [First Impressions]

I usually keep most of my longer writing to my main tech blog (in portuguese), but in the case of the Oculus Rift, I think many of you might be as curious as I have been since the day I first saw it and immediately decided to back them on Kickstarter. Yes... after so many months of waiting my Oculus Rift have finally arrived!

There will be a lengthier and more detailed review later on, but for now I just wanted to share how it feels do be inside a virtual world with the Oculus Rift. Keep in mind I didn't even took the time to properly calibrate everything, I just plugged it in and jumped right in into the Tuscanny demo they provide (also played a little Team Fortress 2 since then. :)

The Oculus Rift really are in a class of their own - no other VR goggles I've tried before comes close. While other VR googles felt like you were just peeping through a couple of camera viewfinders, with the Oculus Rift you actually feel like you're in there! It really is a dream come true, and just like you would "think" virtual reality is/should be.

The response time to our movements has no perceptible lag - in great part due to the motion sensor being developed in-house specifically for the VR task at hand - and... it's simply amazing. For the first time, VR can be all it can be!

Unfortunately, there are also some disappointments... While I always complained about how old VR Googles had little resolution (back in the day you'd be lucky to get VGA 640x480 resolution), I was hoping the Rift's 1280x800 screen (split in half for each eye) would make that a non-issue. But unfortunately it doesn't. While those older goggles had lower resolution, you often had a display for each eye, and it occupied a lot less of your visual field. With the Rift, each eye's 640x800 view is spread a much wider field of view - like we want - but in the process it makes you see much bigger pixels than what I was anticipating.

Even tough it's the best you can have right now, the Rift is a "pixel fest" where you can easily see individual pixels (and even subpixels if you're picky about it - like I am). That really annoyed me a bit for a while... until you forget about it and once again feel like you're in different world! :) I can't tell you enough just how strange - in the good sense - it is to climb up to a second floor and look down!

For a mass market version, I think they really need to use higher resolution screens (it won't be difficult, as we know have 5" Full HD screen). The issue is... I think that even a FullHD panel may not be enough - if I had to make a guess, I would say the Rift would need at least four times the actual resolution/PPI in order for "regular people" to use it and be happy with it. With the trend in displays going precisely into high-ppi screens, I hope that can be put to good use into making a suitable display for the Rift v2.

Well... I'm already saying more than I wanted to - or I'll have nothing left to write about in the final review. So... that's it for now! :)

GeoGuessr - Where in the World are You?

In the pre-internet era we often had to resort to inventing our own games. Some of my favorites involved guessing countries based only on their flags (world maps were great for that), or naming countries with names starting with a specific letter. Sure... after a few game sessions we would run out of countries and we'd have to move on to other themes... but I still hold fond memories of those games.

Now, thanks to Google Maps and street view, we can have a much broader game board spanning the entire world and that will put your geolocation detective mind to work. In GeoGuessr you're dropped somewhere around the world, and you'll have to figure out where on a world map. The further you are from the correct spot the less points you get, and you have five rounds to go.

In the end, you'll get your score and a link you can use to challenge your friends to see if they can do any better than you for the exact same spots. Feel like having a go? Then try and see if you can do better than my - almost - 12,000 points! ;)

Apple I computer sold at Auction for over $671k

Most computer devices have one thing in common: as soon as you buy them they quickly begin aging - not so gracefully - and become obsolete within a couple of years. But, as always, there are exceptions where its nostalgic value greatly outweighs its component's value... as is the case with Apple's first computer, the Apple I, originally sold in 1976 with a "demonic" $666.66 price tag - a real bargain that got you a 8bit CPU running at 1Mhz, and 4KB of RAM (which you could expand to 8KB, or even an amazing 48KB - I wonder how much that would cost back then!)

If you though all these years later you could have such a machine for free... you'd be wrong. At an auction a working Apple I signed by Steve Wozniak has been sold for $671,400 - over half a million euros! That's more than enough to get you over 1000 iPads... but I guess there are things that can't be compared that way.

Although it's suspected that just a few dozen Apple I remain (Apple tried to get them back when it launched the Apple II the following year offering trade-ins and replacements), you never know what you might find in a garage sale somewhere. Maybe in the dusty card boxes in your attic you can have one of these highly valued Apple I computers... and the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if one of these day one fetched over 1 million dollars!

Now... if only all the 70's electronic devices would now be valued at over 1000x their original price... :)

Chrome Beta for Android gets Translate and Compression Stats

In case you're using an Android device, there are now even more reasons for you to try out the experimental Chrome beta browser - which gives you access to some of the features that will come to the standard version later on. If you usually visit websites in languages other than your own, you'll like to know that the Google translate bar has now been integrated into chrome itself. Considering how annoying the regular bar was when popping up on a mobile browser... that alone would be worth it. But there is more - or, should I say: there is less.

Less traffic and data usage. The previous beta introduced an experimental data compression feature, and now you can see how well it has been doing with a nice graph of your data savings.

This feature not only reduces your device's data usage, but it speeds up loading as well, as it uses a SPDY proxy that is able to multiplex multiple request and response streams in parallel over a single TCP connection to your device (keep in mind that HTTPS secure traffic will bypass the proxy and won't enjoy the same savings... but will give you more peace of mind in securing your private data.

For an average web page, over 60% of the transferred bytes are images. The proxy optimizes and transcodes all images to the WebP format, which requires fewer bytes than other popular formats, such as JPEG and PNG. The proxy also performs intelligent compression and minification of HTML, JavaScript and CSS resources, which removes unnecessary whitespace, comments, and other metadata which are not essential to render the page. These optimizations, combined with mandatory gzip compression for all resources, can result in substantial bandwidth savings.

Google Top Charts

Ever wondered what the world was searching for on Google? What are the most sought actors, cities, animals, brands, car brands? Now you can easily find out thanks to Google Top Charts. A place where you can find what are the hottest trends in Google's search engine... and therefore... the world!

Besides the many available sections (that allow you to find not only the recent search patterns but also the ones made in previous timeframes), you also get a nice visualization for real-time search queries happening around the world, and that you can adjust by clicking on the small grid on the top left corner from a single tile to a 5x5 grid (and suspiciously looking like Windows 8 Live tiles).



It does look nice though, and it's a nice suggestion to use as a live "screensaver" that keeps you informed about what's happening in the world. (You can restrict the results to one of several available countries, should you grow tired of seeing chinese and japanese queries popping up. :)

[via Google]

ClippingMagic - Remove Photo Backgrounds on the Web

Ever wished to do a collage of digital photos just to find out that you end up with horrible looking overlapping photos? Wouldn't it be nice if you could cut out just the things you want to select so you could - for instance - replace the background of a photo of your trusted pet on the bathtub, and place him on a nice sunny beach backdrop?

Sure, you can easily do it using photo editing software like Photoshop... but let's say you're using a friends computer, and you don't even want to install any extra software on it. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do it in a browser?

Well... actually you can. Check out this amazing ClippingMagic.

You just need to drag and drop your photo, and then select which parts to keep and which parts to remove. If you have nice contrasting background and foreground elements, you need only do it in "broad strokes" and let it do most of the work for you. It isn't always perfect, and you may need to zoom in and tweak it a bit, but for the most part it's as easy as it will ever get... and it's only a few clicks away in your browser.

Chrome 28 gains Richer System Notifications

The upcoming Chrome 28 will not only be the first Chrome using the new Blink engine - leaving behind the long time collaboration with WebKit - but will also mark the beginning of a new era for web apps and web services with richer notification capabilities that can popup even if you're not running Chrome.

These new notification will show up in a notification center on Windows and Chrome OS, allowing you quickly scan through what happened even when you've been away from the computer, and just like the notifications on Android, you can initiate actions immediately (like answering an email) from there. Being on a separate notification center also means they'll keep showing even if you have no open Chrome window.

Similarities with Android notifications don't stop there, as you can also get exactly the same kind of notifications: like image previews, or collapsible and aggregating notifications that combine multiple notifications into a single item.

Of course, you'll be able to select which notifications to receive and their priority, so your life doesn't end up being ruled by the popping up of notifications all the time. If can't wait to try this out, you can get it right now, using Chrome Beta.

Scanadu Scout shows us our Medical Future

If you think there's isn't anything else that could possibly be crammed into smartphones, that now have FullHD screens, high-resolution cameras (two!), motion sensors, GPS, temperature sensors, and even barometric sensors... Maybe you'll want to consider what this Scanadu Scout has to offer - and most importantly, just how much it may affect future mobile devices.

Instead of adding features that are nothing but a gimmick for you to show off, the SCOUT is a health monitor that allows you to track things like your temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and even blood oxygen level (among other things).

To use it you need only place it on your forehead for a few seconds, and you can then see all the info on your smartphone or tablet.

It isn't exactly cheap ($199), but one can imagine it to be just like GPS devices. A decade ago, GPS systems were expensive devices only a few could afford; today, you have it even in the least expensive smartphone devices and you don't even think about it. I bet a decade from now, our mobile devices, whatever they may be (tablets, smartphones, smart glasses, smart watches, smart clothing, etc.) will be able to monitor everything about out health, alerting us to potential problems before they reach a critical level.

What will come next? Maybe by then we'll have technology that will allow us to heal our own body should the need arise!

So, you don't have to worry about "not having anything more" to put into our smart devices. There's still a long way to go.

Microsoft Unveils Xbox One

As promised, Microsoft has finally unveiled the next Xbox, that won't be called Xbox 720 as some were counting on but goes back to the beginning, marking a new era: the new Xbox is the Xbox One. The presentation felt kind of weird - leaving more questions than answers, and showing just about what was already expected - leaving me (and other) wondering why MS decided to do this at this moment, when it ends up promising to show much more less than 3 weeks from now on the Xbox event at E3.

So... what can we expect from the new Xbox?

Flickr now offers 1TB of space for Photos

Yahoo seems to have noticed Flickr was needing an overhaul... and what a great overhaul they did! If you, like many others, simply stopped using it because it looked tiresome and dated, you'll now want to give it another chance. Just take a look at the before and after shots and tell me what you think:

Yes... Flickr is now really oriented to photos, and they now use up most (all?) the available space. Long gone are the text links and wastful white space... and that new design can also be found on the new Flickr Android App. But I'm yet to tell you the best part: Flickr now offers 1TB of free space so we can all stop worrying about whether we should upload our photos in full resolution!

1TB of free space is unheard of, and I can only liken it to the time when Gmail offered 1GB of free space (back in the day that was also revolutionary) - and now it seems like the terabyte is new the gigabyte!

If 1TB isn't enough, you can double it... provided you're willing to pay $499.99/year; though you can also just get rid of the ads for $49.99/year. For comparison, Google now offer 15GB of unified space but if your want 1TB of space you'll nee to pay $49.99... per month (that's roughly $600 per year!) - though Google allows you to upload unlimited photos as long as they're less than 2048 pixels wide.

You'll have to wait and see if this move will work out for Yahoo... but I can tell you that after a couple of years without visiting my old Flickr account, this made me go back and install the Apps. Looks like this year's vacation photos will find their way into Flickr! :)

Jolla Readies First Smartphone for Year's End

Is there enough room for yet another mobile platform? The people that were working on Nokia's MeeGo think so, and they joined up to form a new company - Jolla - and kept working on their new Sailfish OS, that is now making its first public appearance. The first Jolla phone with Saiflish OS can now be pre-ordered, and is promised to be delivered before year ends.

The Jolla smartphone has a 4.5" HD screem, dual-core CPU, 16GB + microSD, 4G/LTE, replaceable battery, 8MP camera, and a mysterious "The Other Half" attachment that will allow you to add/change features by snapping some kind of special case/cover. More importantly though, is that the Sailfish OS will be able to run Android apps - which will certainly make it a lot less frightening than jumping on board a new platform that will surely struggle to find developers willing to make native apps for it - especially in the initial phase.

Jolla will cost 399€ (about $513 USD) and can be pre-ordered right now for 100€ (that will be redeemable when you buy the actual smartphone later on). But for now that offer is available only in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy.

Do you think Sailfish and Jolla will have any chance against Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry? Is there really enough room for all?

How to use a Dynamic DNS Service

The internet is a huge place, and just like in the real world, the computers connected to it need an address in order to find one another - just like we have our home address in order to receive mail. That is called the IP address, and is usually represented by a 32 bit number, displayed and a four number sequence separated by dots:

(This is for IPv4 address, which has now "run out" of address even though it allows for 4 billion addresss - for IPv6 things get trickier, as it upgrades the system to 128bit addresses, allowing for truly astronomical number of individually addressable devices.) But we're not talking about IP addresses today, so... let's move on.

So, your home computer has an IP address (you can easily find out which by visiting a site like What Is My IP), which you could use to connect to it remotely using something like Remote Desktop, or VNC, or for whatever other service you might want (including a web server to host your own personal website), or maybe you just want to check out our things are going by watching your home IP cameras. But the problem is that most home internet connections won't give you a fixed IP address. Meaning, today you have this IP address... tomorrow you might have a different one.

That's where dynamic DNS servers come in. As you've probably have noticed, when you want to visit a site on the internet, you won't type it's IP address on your browser address bad (though you can!) - no, we use more easily rememberable names, like google.com or ebay.com. Those names serve as aliases to the IP address, making it easier for us humans to navigate the web, and leaving the "translation work" to the machines, that have to look up to what IP address each of these names connects to using a service called DNS (Domain Name System) .

To solve our problem, there are dynamic DNS services that allow us to create a more easily rememberable name, that our computer can update whenever its IP address changes. So, you might create something like "myhome.dyndns.org" and have it point to you current IP address... and tomorrow, if the IP changes, you can have a small program running on your computer that will update it accordingly.

Most modern routers can even do that for you, requiring you only to set it up with the service you use and your account data.


Now... why did I bring this up now?

I've been using Dyn (ex-DynDNS) for years, and I've been quite happy with it. It began as a free service, but has since gone "paid only" (there are still other popular services that offer free accounts like No-IP and freedns.afraid.org), and although free accounts have been left alone... they've now changed the rules.

From now on, free Dyn account users will be required to manually login monthly in order to keep their account active. Don't get me wrong... although I think it's a bad decision, I'm not "annoyed" by their decision. In fact, it was just the "nudge" I needed in order to become a paying customer: I use their services daily (accessing my home computers remotely, my IP cameras, etc.) and don't mind paying for it at all!

I only think it's a bad decision because there are certainly many thousands of users that have had their computers/routers/etc. setup by friends using the dyndns services and left "untouched" over the years... and that will now stop working without any "notice", and the resulting frustration might prompt them to switch to another dynamic DNS provider.

If you rely on DynDNS and what to keep using it; for existing Dyn free users, you can upgrade to a VIP account for only $10 in the first year (use the VIPUPGRADE discount code). If you're a new user, you can get a 15% discount using the RFE3B91BJP code.

Hangouts Easter Eggs

So, you're trying out the new Google Hangouts (which you can already enable in Gmail by the way) and you want something "cool" to show your friends... Google has you covered, as they didn't forget to include some curious hidden easter eggs in the new Hangouts.


For now, these only work on Google+ and the Hangouts Chrome Extension, which means we can't use them  in the mobile version neither during video calls, but... do try them out. You just need to type:

• /ponies - a pony running across the chat
• /pitchforks - angry mob
• /ponystream - several ponies (but showing up only in your own window)
• /bikeshed - changes the background color for everyone
• /shydino - shows up a little shy dinossaur
• konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter) - changes the local background (and if you have a chromebook pixel, it will also make the multicolored LED bar go into party mode for a while! ;)

The New Google Maps

Google's I/O opening keynote was filled with announcements (it took over 3h!) and there's lots of new stuff to go around, some of them available right now, as the new and improved Google+ and Hangouts messaging system (with a some drawbacks that we hope to see fixed soon). But today, I'll be focusing on the new Google Maps (which should only be deployed a few months from now, but you can request an invite to try it out sooner).

Google maps were/are incredibly useful, but they sure were becoming a bit old-looking. Google has now fixed that. The new maps are now given the scale they deserve, filling up the entire screen, and the results are show on hovering panes and in the map itself. As you select each result, the map changes accordingly, highlighting related information, while fading out less relevant info/roads/etc. One other thing that is sure to make lots of fans: you can now easily compare different transportation methods, so you can see how much faster/slower you'll be should you choose to take the bus/train/etc. The new maps also have integrated street view and google earth imagery - so you can see "everything"  without ever having to leave your browser window. It's also more intelligent, dynamically rerouting you during your navigation should a traffic jam popup on your preselected route.

The new maps will be available on the web, Android and iOS... and I can't wait to get it. (Some friends have already received the invitation for the new maps, but I'm still waiting for mine - I guess Google might be giving priority for intensive Google+ users... which... I'm not. But using blogger daily for several years should also count for something, right?)

Researchers Hijack Plant Photosynthesis to Generate Electricity

We're still waiting for a revolutionary way to generate clean and endless energy in order to let go of fossil, nuclear, and other "dirty" ways we currently use. And when it comes to solar power, why not look to the examples we have in our own backyards, that are the culmination of millions and millions of years of evolution: plants!

Plants may not look like much, but when it comes to solar efficiency, there's nothing close. A plant can achieve nearly 100% quantum efficiency, converting each incoming photon to an energy carrying electron - compare that to most common manufactured solar panels, that are just 12-17% efficient. So, researchers at Georgia University have decided to hijack the photosynthesis process and let the plant to most of the work, while they reap the benefits. By modifying some proteins, they've redirected the converted energy to the outside before the plant uses it to create glucose for itself.

This means that in the future, solar maintenance and green initiatives might end up requiring more gardening skills than the "technical" ones we currently used to. But as long as it gives us green, clean, and sustainable power... what's there not to like about it? Can you imagine using a solar power simulator where you input your power requirements and in return you get what kind of plants are most suitable for your location and how many you'll need to generate the required energy? It sure would give a much more literal meaning when it comes to "green energy", and it may happen sooner than we think.

For what is worth, I can't wait for solar power (and other "green" energies) to become the norm rather than the exception. In Spain, for the past few months, renewable energy generation has accounted for more than half of the total power generation - though most of it comes from hydroelectric plants, and just a few percent comes from solar power - but as technology evolves... Maybe in a few decades, we'll see solar power reaching the top spot when it comes to power generation.

Apple sued for Defective iPhone Power Button

We might be on the verge of a new "antennagate" incident for Apple, this time related to the iPhone 4 power button. Apple is being sued over faulty power buttons on the iPhone 4, which make it stop working roughly about a year of normal use - leaving it just out of the one year warranty period in several countries.

Apple is accused of knowing that there is a real problem with the power button mechanism, but that it kept quiet and did nothing while people bought it with 2 year contracts on operators like AT&T. Making its customers pay upwards of $99 to get it fixed, or resort to "assistive touch" features to use a virtual lock button and learn to live without a physical power button.

If the following YouTube video might serve as an indication, there are over 800,000 people that saw "how to fix the iPhone 4 power button". And I suspect that the same thing might happen even in newer iPhones (a friend of mine has alreade faced identical problems in both his iPhone 4S and iPhone 5!)

Is Apple about to face a new "power-button-gate" incident? Or... how do you feel about a $500-600 device failing due to poor engineering of the tiny mechanism responsible for the power button?

Google Unifies Cloud Storage and Gives you 15GB of Free Space

How would you feel if you paid for 100GB of cloud space on Google, but found your Gmail account was unable to receive any more data once it reached 25GB? You could have 100GB for Google Drive and Google+ Photos, but your Gmail account would be stuck on 25GB. Now, Google is finally cleaning up this fragmented storage system and will unify storage space among all services, giving you 15GB of total storage for free that you can use any way you like - whether you'll use it all on Gmail, or all for G+ Photos, or anything in between.

You can manage it all in the new storage management page, where you can see how you're using up your space, and you'll notice that the old 25GB option is now gone. Now you can either keep the free 15GB account... or will have to go to the 100GB option at $4.99/month. You'll also notice that while this option previously offered 100GB + 25GB for Gmail, you now get "only" 100GB... meaning you'll lose 25% of space for the same amount of money (though I do prefer that these 100GB can be used freely).

If you're a Google Apps user, you get 30GB of free space.

This change is being deployed right now, and might take a few weeks to reach you - but sooner or later you'll see your Gmail account stating you have 15GB of space to use. (And I imagine that this also marks the end of the ever growing space limit we had on Gmail).

Samsung to Deliver 1 Gbps "5G" by 2020

If you though 4G/LTE networks were fast and were quickly catching up cable and fiber networks - there's even cases when you can use a 4G connection as your main internet connection, with speeds up to 150Mbps, faster than most cable connections (and let's not even talk about DSL) - you'd certainly also now that FTTH (fiber to the home) operators are also ramping up their speeds. If you're willing to pay for it, you can get 1Gbps of internet access... provided you live in a "fiber area".

Wireless networks can more easily reach areas where cabled connections aren't available... and it may soon go head to head with even the fast 1Gbps fiber networks. According to Samsung they've already achieved 1Gbps mobile download speeds with 5G technology, a technology they say to be ready for commercial operation by 2020.

Even considering real-world speeds will be a lot less - even if you consider half of it it's still a respectable 500Mbps - it seems we'll soon be reaching a milestone that, just like modern CPUs provide "more than enough" power for most common use scenarios, connection speeds will soon achieve the same.

With a 1Gbps connections, streaming or downloading a 100GB "Ultra-HD" movie could be done in less than 15 minutes... even if you are away from home. Will 5G mark the end of the cabled internet access? We'll still have a little over half a decade to find out.

Among the Sleep [Game]

If you're tired of playing first-person-perspective games where you're put in the shoes of a ultra powerful mean killing machine, what would you think of a change of scenery - a much scarier one, I might add - that puts you in the body of a two year old child? That's what this Among the Sleep is trying to accomplish, and from what we can see already... it deserves to be fully backed on Kickstater.

There's less than a week remaining and they're still a few thousand dollars. If you like games and fell in love with the visuals (like most people I've shown it to), do consider helping it come to fruition. With as little as $20 you'll get a digital copy of the game - and I've already done my part, "buying" one for me and another to offer as a gift.

We need more people developing games they love, instead of (more of the same) games that come out every year and simply change the number in front of the title hoping to cash in on gamers. If all it takes to make this team's dream become a reality are $20 - and we get a nice game in the process - is there any thing else to think about?



To make it even better, the game will have Oculus Rift support, for a truly immersive experience:

ISS Moves from Windows to Linux

In space there's no room for errors, and although the laptops aboard the International Space Station are not mission critical, they'll now say goodbye to their trusted Windows XP and say hello to a more reliable and secure Linux OS (Debian 6). The switch from Windows XP to Linux will enhance the security and reliability of onboard laptops.

If you think being in space would mean these Window computers would be safe from earthly worms...  you'd be wrong. There's at least one confirmed incident when these computers were infected by a "digital worm", when a russian cosmonaut brought his infected laptop (in 2008) and it quickly spread to the other PCs. With Debian, it's far less likely a rootkit/virus will somehow get into their machines - as well as it gives them full control to patch the operating system as they see fit in the upcoming years.

Hopefully, no one will be doing a "rm -rf" onboard... :)

(rm -rf is "delete everything" command... and is considered one of the "no-no" commands for Linux newbies)

Usable Ubuntu Phone is Imminent

When we first saw Ubuntu Phone, the concept looked nice but one couldn't help but wonder if it would have any real chance on the market should it take another year or so to become available to the general public (and each passing day making it harder anda harder to compete with iOS and Android). Now, Canonical shows us it's really pressing the fast forward button on the Ubuntu Phone, and it hopes to have it in a fully workable state by month's end - where "workable" means, it will be enough to be usable as a daily device.

This means:

• You can make and receive phone calls
• You can make and receive sms messages
• You can browse the web on 3g data
• You can browse the web on wifi
• You can switch between wifi and 3g data
• The proximity sensore dims the screen when you lift the phone to talk on it
• You can import contacts from somewhere, and you can add and edit contacts
• When you update your phone your user data is retained, even if updating with phablet-flash

Looks like Ubuntu Phone might be joining the mobile party sooner than expected... and as long as its webapps work alongisde Firefox OS web apps (we don't need any more fragmentation heading to the "web devices" do we?)... I think it may really have a fighting chance, at least for all those not currently satisfied with the existing platforms.

Google Glass on a Field Trip to CERN

Google's Glass may suffer from many limitation inherent to a first generation device that is still being "explored" to see how it can best fit our needs and our world (a basic interface, lousey battery life, etc.) But even so, it doesn't stop us from imagining the kind of things that it makes possible, as perfectly illustrated by Andrew Vanden Heuvel, a physics teacher that uses the internet to reach schools and students that otherwise wouldn't have access to these classes.

Andrew uses his Google Glass to take us on a real trip around the LHC on CERN, and although his passion for physicis and teaching making him a great teacher whether he was using Glass or not - one can't stop but wonder just how much of our society it might end up changing.

With everyone connected, wouldn't it make total sense for students and teachers to be able to connect whether they're on the same room or continents apart? How about seeing just how "one day in the life" of a people in another country is? Glass may be looked upon as placing your digital world in front of your eyes... but in the process it may very well shows us there is a vast new world out there, worth exploring.

Add Events to Google Calendar from Gmail

Scheduling events in Google Calendar will now be easier than ever if you happen to spend most of your time on Gmail. When you receive an email with a date/time reference, Gmail will now detect it's a date (underlining it with a light color) and allow you to quickly add it to your scheduled events.

To ensure you won't be overbooked, it will even show you a preview your schedule for the day, so you can see if there's something already scheduled for that same day/time - and allow you to quickly tweak the time so you can fit it in your schedule.

As a last "nice touch", the newly created event will include a link to the originating email, so you can easily keep track of things and quickly find out relevant information. It's a nice improvement to the "create event" option we already had on Gmail, but that forced us to blindly input the date and time manually. For now this new feature is only available for US english users.

Movies vs Real Life

We all know most movies take certain "creative liberties" when it comes to portraying what life is on film. Some of them have now become so common that we don't even dare question it's feasability in the real world. But that's exactly what you'll see in the following (funny) video, where several common movie sequences are show as they are on film... and as they would most probably be in real life.

Having seen this... I do wish every movie would have a "realistic version" of it in the extras section of the DVD/Bluray! :)

Epic Citadel Running on Javascript now Available

A while back we saw Unreal Engine 3 ported to Javascript and running inside a browser. In case you didn't believe in it, you can now see it with your own eyes, as the Epic Citadel demo is now available for everyone to try - although it's highly recommended you use the latest Firefox (development version) to ensure the best performance (and keep in mind most other browser aren't supported, or... crash - as it's the case with Chrome; though they're trying to fix it).

It's still the first steps, but one can already imagine every game to be platforma agnostic and running inside your browser. No more worrying about buying game for Xbox, or PlayStation, or Windows, or Mac. You'll just fire up your browser and play.

Hopefully, that will also ease developer's lives, as they'll no longer have to worry about cross-platform ports and development. Meaning games will also be able to be cheaper, and thus less prone to pirating.

... It still may take a decade (or more)... but I think it's pretty clear we're heading that way - and I'm glad for it.



[via Mozilla]

IBM Makes Atom-Sized Short Animation

It may look like a child's first attempt at stop-motion animation, but once we realize we're looking at individual atoms dancing on a copper plate, things suddenly take a whole new dimension. This short animation movie (actually, the "smallest" in the world as confirmed by the Guinness World Records) was made by IBM - which have been playing around with atoms for quite a while now - by moving around carbon monoxide molecules (1 carbon atom + 1 oxygen atom) on a copper plate.

One can't stop but wonder this kind of technology will allow, once it advances to the point of getting out of the lab and into marketable products (for reference, most chips today are made using 20-45nm, or greater, resolutions - with Intel promising 14nm chips for 2014; a helium atom has a diameter of just 0.1nm). Can you imagine the tiny electronics we have today being minimized hundreds of times further?

... Just don't expect it to arrive soon. As you'll be able to see in the "making of" video... the equipment required to make all this possible is still at a stage similar to the first computers (that used to take up entire room). But... you can bet a few decades from now... you might have atom sized storage and atom sized processors in nearly invisible devices spread all around us (maybe even inside us?)




How did they make this? Check the "making-of" video next: