Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Amazing Space Station footage of volcano eruption on Russian Island

Amazingly co-incidental picture from the space station of a volcano eruption on a remote Russian Island.  The item that impresses me the most is the shockwave of the explosion is pushing the clouds away!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1195215/Stunning-pictures-hole-clouds-astronauts-witness-volcano-eruption-International-Space-Station.html

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Palm stumbles onto the magic bullet?

Whether it was conceived in grand strategic plans or purely accidental, Palm's choice to build a phone upon Linux without hardware DRM is, in my opinion, the magic bullet to the Smartphone wars.

They havent pulled the trigger yet, however, when the GSM version of WebOS shows up on the scene, this may be the dawn of a new era of smartphones.   Given the momentum and activity of the "homebrew" community behind this already (and its only limited to Sprint customers in the US) I believe once this hits GSM, the homebrew community will explode.

It isnt necessarily the Phone hardware,  the WebOS UI, or the fact that it runs Linux.  Its the combination of those three elements coupled with the lack of the draconion DRM that is making this a slow hit.

Apple's on-stage joke this week about the 18 apps for the Palm may have been funny at the time, however, running a single slimed down OpenOffice app is worth thousands of "Fad Apps"

The destiny is not in the stars however as Palm has not officially come out with a policy regarding the homebrew efforts.  I would only hope they will take their time and make a wise decision.

Dynamic Multitouch Tactile Displays

Quite a title, eh?  Just a little glimpse of what CMU is up to with providing a tactile touchscreen display.  Very cool stuff that Im sure we will see "innovated" by a larger company in the near future.

 http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/prototype-display-combines-touchscreen-morphing-buttons/

Mars rover Opportunity experiencing drive problems

It would appear the end is somewhat closer for both Spirit and Opportunity mars rovers.  Spirit is still stuck in the sand and now Opportunity is experiencing problem with the right front wheel.   This is not the first time a rover has been stuck or had a wheel problem, however, the significance of these events seems to be far greater than the last time.  JPL is being very cautious with the simulation of extraction of Spirit and hopefully that effort will pay off.   Good luck!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#opportunity

Find a location on Google Maps by Lat and Long

http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php


Sunday, June 7, 2009

Palm Pre Tips

Screenshot

"You can take a screenshot of whatever is on screen by pressing orange key + shift + P all at the same time. It creates a screenshots folder in Photos and saves the image. Also you find the image in the USB partition when you hook up Pre as a USB drive."

Timed and Hard Pause in Dial String

t = 1 sec

p = hard pause (select next sequence to dial)

Call forwarding

Just dial *72NPANXXNNNN (Area Code, Exchange, Number) to start forwarding; *720 to stop.

ex. *727045551212

Palm Pre Accessories

Stylus

http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php

Skin

 http://www.bodyguardz.com/Palm_Pre_p/palmpre.htm
http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/palm-pre-cases-screen-protectors-covers-skins-shields.php

Friday, June 5, 2009