Technology Information

Raymond.CC Blog - TreeCompare is a Lightweight Folder Comparison Software

Raymond.CC Blog - TreeCompare is a Lightweight Folder Comparison Software


TreeCompare is a Lightweight Folder Comparison Software

Posted: 28 Jun 2011 12:00 AM PDT


About a week ago WordPress announced that attacker has gained access to 3 popular plugins (Add This, W3 Total Cache and WPtouch) and has made unauthorized changes to the plugin by adding malicious backdoor codes. This is indeed very dangerous because installing the backdoored plugins can cause the website to get compromised by the attacker. [...]

Raymond.CC Blog - Workaround to Enable Google Toolbar for Firefox 5.0

Raymond.CC Blog - Workaround to Enable Google Toolbar for Firefox 5.0


Workaround to Enable Google Toolbar for Firefox 5.0

Posted: 25 Jun 2011 12:00 AM PDT


I only have a couple of add-ons or extensions installed because Firefox is already a memory hogger. They are Google Toolbar, LastPass and Lazarus. The features that I find very useful in the Google Toolbar is Translate. It enables me to easily translate words or even the whole webpage from a foreign language to English. [...]

An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System: "Tales of Things" allows people to record multimedia stories about objects, linked via QR or RIFD tags.

An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System: "Tales of Things" allows people to record multimedia stories about objects, linked via QR or RIFD tags.


An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System: "Tales of Things" allows people to record multimedia stories about objects, linked via QR or RIFD tags.

Posted: 17 Jun 2011 04:34 AM PDT

The following article about "Tales of Things", an interesting augmented memory app, was recently selected for review by Personal and Ubiquitous Computing:

An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System
Ralph Barthel, Kerstin Leder, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Angelina Karpovich, Martin de Jode, Chris Speed, University College London /  Loughborough University
After watching the following videos and exploring the Tales of Things website, I am sure that this sort of technology will have many uses in education.  Wouldn't it be fun to have a "tales of things" project for a homework assignment?!

In the following video, Chris Speed discusses the Tales of Things project:


Tales of Things Beta: Connecting anything with any media, anywhere!


Below is a video of how an old Fisher Price teaching clock can become part of a "tale of things":


RELATED
Tales of Things: The Internet of "Old" Things:  Collecting Stories of Objects, Places, and Spaces (pdf)  Ralph Barthel, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Martin de Jode, Benjamin Blundell, CASA Centre For Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United Kingdom







In case you missed this: Microsoft Releases Kinect SDK Beta for PC

In case you missed this: Microsoft Releases Kinect SDK Beta for PC


In case you missed this: Microsoft Releases Kinect SDK Beta for PC

Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:45 AM PDT

Kinect for Windows SDK Beta!   IT IS TRUE!!!!!


My Kinect and PC are waiting for my summer project.    What a great opportunity to "practice" programming over my 5 week summer break..... I already know C#, and I've done a little game programming (ie. AI for Game Development - using XNA Game Studio Express- it has been a while).  
Skeleton tracking image
I have some cool ideas for basic games that might be good for the students I work with who have autism spectrum disorders... and some ideas that might be fun for my grand-baby.  I can't wait to have time to code again!   


Here's some info from the Microsoft Kinect for Windows SDK Beta website:


"The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a programming toolkit for application developers. It enables the academic and enthusiast communities easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running the Windows 7 operating system."


"The Kinect for Windows SDK beta includes drivers, rich APIs for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking, installation documents, and resource materials. It provides Kinect capabilities to developers who build applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010."


This SDK includes the following features:


Raw sensor streams
Access to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.
Skeletal tracking
The capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.
Advanced audio capabilities
Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.
Sample code and documentation
The SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.
Easy installation
The SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets)."



Nicholas Kolakowski, Application Development News, 6/16/11


Summer Blogging Plans - Lots of interesting updates -Sony's Tablet video(s), more to come...

Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:54 AM PDT

I've been wrapping up the loose ends of the last few weeks of what turned out to be quite a busy school year,  so I haven't posted in about 10 days!    I have lots to cover, including interesting updates about a variety of tech companies I follow.


Today, I'm sharing a video from Sony that highlights the features of the company's iPad-like tablet in a creative way:


The video is the first of a 5-part campaign to promote the S1 and S2 Android tablets  For more information:


Sony Teases New Tablets With a Mysterious Video
Stan Schroeder, Mashable 6/17/11
Sony Launching 2 New Tablets, Both Run Android Honeycomb
Jolie O'Dell, Mashable, 4/26/11


Here's a previous teaser:

"Here's a preview of our two tablets - codename S1 and S2.With the S1 designed for comfort and S2 built for safe portability Sony enters the Tablet arena with two very distinct offerings."-Sony

Note: If you are a new visitor,  I work as a school psychologist in my "day job",  which can spill over to evenings and weekends at times...  I returned to school to take computer and technology courses back in the  '00s,  and started to blogging because it was a requirement for one of my courses.


I never stopped.  


My blogs still serve me well as on-line filing cabinets, since I have a fairly wide range of interests and I like to drill down deeper into topics that strike my fancy.  I'm curious that way.  Because of my interest in interactive multimedia technology,  most of my posts include video clips, photos, and links to interesting websites.    

A few interesting tech links from Experienta/Putting People First and HCI 596 Blog

A few interesting tech links from Experienta/Putting People First and HCI 596 Blog


A few interesting tech links from Experienta/Putting People First and HCI 596 Blog

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 03:00 AM PDT

No time for reflective blogging today, so here are a few interesting links!


The future of the TV Experience 
(Article discusses Blink, a media industry magazine)


Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces Conference (DPPI 11)

Cambridge Consultants: Patients Want More User-Friendly Medical Devices
Levent Ozler, Dexinger, 6/3/11

Internet of things blurs the lines of bits and atoms
Katia Moskvitch, BBC News, 6/2/11


NESTA: Hot Topics: Digital You-Discussion about Telepresence

Hot Topics - Digital You from NESTA UK on Vimeo.


NESTA is the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts


RELATED
The following links provide a wealth of resources related to emerging technologies and human-computer interaction:
Experientia - Putting People First blog
HCI  596 blog 
"This blog is for the HCI 596 course being taught at Iowa State University through it's Human-Computer Interaction program."
NESTA 

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