Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category:
Wordpress 2.5 image upload issue
Like tens of thousands of other blogs on the web, this site is run on the Wordpress blogging platform. Today I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5, which seemed to work great, as I use Firefox. It turns out, however, that others who I installed Wordpress for are having issues with uploading images using Internet Explorer 7. I Googled this issue and found that it’s not an isolated problem. Hopefully, it’s an issue that will be fixed in the next few days, as we seem to get Wordpress security updates on a regular basis and they can roll it into one of those. Here’s a link to a fix for this issue until then. The best fix, however, would be to simply switch to using Firefox instead of IE. At the very least, you should have both browsers installed on your machine.
Here’s a video that gives a quick overview of the new features in Wordpress 2.5 for those who are interested:
Another minor problem I’ve encountered so far is that it’s easy to accidentally post a page instead of a blog post. For some reason when I clicked on “Write” to create this post, it defaulted to creating a new page instead.
New York cab of the future?
Mar. 20 – Ford unveils a taxi cab concept that’s short but tall, offering lots of storage space.
The cab is 30 percent more fuel efficient than current cabs.
Fred Katayama reports from the New York International Auto Show.
Robo-chop
Mar. 25 – Fighting robots battle for supremacy in the latest of Japan’s Robo-One Championships.
More than 100 humanoid robots were entered for the two-day contest which, at the end, saw less than half still standing and divided between heavyweights and featherweights.
Dinosaur wows the techies at CeBIT
Mar. 5 – Pleo the robotic dinosaur proves to be a star attraction at the CeBIT annual computer expo in Germany.
Pleo was designed by its creators, the Californian company Ugobe, to emulate the appearance and behaviour of a week-old infant Camerasaurus.
It’s being marketed as a household pet.
Helen Long reports.
The ‘Morph’ mobile of the future
Mar. 7 – A concept phone now on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art demonstrates Nokia’s vision for how handsets might evolve.
The Morph concept is the result of a collaboration between the Nokia Research Centre and Cambridge University’s nanoscience centre.
Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports on the likelihood of it becoming a reality.
Bad news for acrade fans: Wii kills Japanese arcade industry
Arcades, a Japan staple for over 30 years with cutting-edge video and games, are under attack, hit by the success of Nintendo’s Wii console.
Once a testing center for next-generation games ranging from “Street Fighting” to dance, major industry players like Namco Bandai are closing arcades as potential patrons stay home.
America’s arcade industry was killed by the original Nintendo in the eighties but Japan’s arcades have been fairly healthly until now. This is depressing news for fans of arcade games, as the few new games that make it to the U.S. each year almost all originate in Japan. Less video arcades in the world mean less game developers making new games.
The ironic thing is that this ends up hurting the console makers like Nintendo as well, as many of the greatest console games over the years got their start in the arcades. It’s yet another testament to the domination of the Wii that the Japanese now prefer to stay at home and play Nintendo instead of going to their high-tech arcades, which have been a large part of youth culture for decades now.
Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote
Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrates another innovative use for the Wii Remote in this cool video. I’d love to see some game developers incorporate some of his ideas. Find out more about Johnny Lee’s Wiimote Projects at his official forum or development blog. He’s also the guy that came up with the $14 Steadycam.
Neuros OSD: Much cooler than Tivo
Tivo dominates so much of the digital video recorder market that sometimes products that are infinitely more innovative don’t get the attention they deserve. One of those products is the Neuros OSD, a device that lets you record from live TV, DVDs, VHS tapes, or any other device that you can hook up to a TV. It can save that video in a format suited for playback on your TV, your cell phone, an Ipod, or a PSP. And you have a choice of methods to store your video, including external USB hard drive, networked PC, SD card, Pro Duo, or Compact Flash. The Neuros can also play videos from the Internet (such as Youtube) and media that you have stored on your home network.
Basically, for those of us that like to watch our recorded videos on our portable devices, the Neuros eliminates the need for a PC to do this. They’ve basically taken out the step of getting the video on your PC and then converting it to the proper format. The device is also attractive for those looking for a quick and easy way to convert their VHS and DVD libraries to a digital format.
As it stands, the Neuros OSD is a device best suited to tech nerds, however, once they perfect the user interface, I see this device being mass-marketed to consumers as a way to record from commercial DVDs. There’s definitely something attractive about the idea of having your entire video library store on one small device and accessible with the click of a remote button. Not only that, as portable media players become a larger part of our daily routine, devices like this become a great time saver.
How to download videos from Youtube and similar sites
One of the most common questions people have when browsing sites like Youtube is, “How can I download these movies to my hard drive.”
The answer is quite simple. Youtube and similar video sites convert all movies uploaded to their servers to Flash format. Flash videos end in the .flv extension. You can’t download these videos in your browser by default, but it is possible if you have the right plug-in installed and you’re using the right browser.
What’s the right browser, you ask? Well, that would be Firefox, of course. Firefox is a free alternative to Internet Explorer and a superior product in just about every way. Why anyone would voluntarily use IE exclusively when Firefox is available is a mystery to me. Anyway, if you want to download Youtube videos, you’re going to have to download Firefox first and then read on.
Do we really need a device to tell us what a dog is thinking?
Scientists are working on a device that will interpret what your dog is trying to say when he barks at you. Is this really something people need? Is it that hard to understand your pet? My dog has 3 or 4 different barks, and they’re all pretty obvious to me. One means “give me your food or else,” another means “let me outside or I’m going to pee on the carpet,” and then there’s the really grouchy one he makes at my wife that means “lift me up on the bed now, I’m too small to jump but I can still poop in your shoe if you don’t do what I say.”
I think this is a waste of time and technology. What we really need is a device that would figure out why women like my wife insist on bringing annoying, yapping little dogs into our homes.
