San Diego Comic Con 2018 (Images)
Category Archives: geeks
TPN Crew Picks at 2016 CES
Jamie Davis is joined by Daniel J. Lewis and Michael Day. They discuss their personal picks from 2016 CES.
Michael talks about a spoon that is designed to automatically compensate for involuntary movements, allowing people with Parkinson’s Disease or Cerebral Palsy to feed themselves.
Daniel talks about the IK Multimedia iKlip A/V, a sophisticated mounting device that allows a smartphone to be used as a light-weight, single hand-held video recorder with a wireless lav microphone and real-time audio monitoring. It should be available in the second quarter of 2016 and should be priced around $100 or under.
Nick Demayo’s pick was the GymWatch Sensor, a Bluetooth-enabled device that you can clip on your arm that is able to detect range of motion, speed, etc. to ensure you are exercising properly and can report data back to an app on your mobile device. The app can graphically display your range of motion on your mobile device and also tell you verbally if you need to speed up, slow down, etc. to ensure maximum exercise impact. The GymWatch Sensor sells for $149 and $289 depending on model.
Jack and Michael like Dog and Bone Bluetooth LockSmart, a Bluetooth-enabled padlock that sells for $89.95.
Jamie found a ThinOPTICS flat smartphone-shaped pod that sticks to the back of your phone case that stores flat built-in reading glasses. Through the use of FlexGrip technology, the ThinOPTICS teading glasses securely stick to the bridge of your nose without arms and stores flat in the back of the phone case when not in use. The ThinOPTICS pod sells for $24.95. Or choose a phone case version to fit your phone for $38.95.
Jamie Davis is the host of Health Tech Weekly at HTWeekly.com. He is a nurse, paramedic and health journalist.
Daniel J. Lewis is the host of the award-winning podcast about podcasting, The Audacity to Podcast. Daniel helps others launch and improve their own podcasts for sharing their passions and finding success.
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Six Ways That Sound & Light Bend Your Brain
In a culture fascinated with the supernatural, it’s refreshing to see that tangible science can trump even the most fantastic effects Hollywood can conjure. Wandering around the Internet this morning, I followed a thread of videos through YouTube depicting some amazing effects sound and light can have on liquids and solids. Or, more accurately, how our eyes can be “tricked” into seeing things that might not really exist as they seem.
Check out these six mind-scrambling videos and see how sometimes the weirdest things about life happen right in our brain and not on the big screen.
http://youtu.be/DGSU5rcHmRQ
Personal favorite (and the one that started this early morning foray into YouTube)? The Static Water video. Read the comments on the video for explanations on why this happens. Enjoy!
Scientists Need To Stand Up
If you were to draw a Venn diagram of the whole of science, I’d like to think that us geeks fit in there as a subset. Many of us come from a scientific background and appreciate science, scientific method and the benefits it brings to humanity. This isn’t to say that we don’t value art, but rather we have critical approach to life that uses evidence and method rather than doubt and misinformation. Theories aren’t always right but we value the outcome when they are disproved.
Regrettably science and scientists have often failed to engage with public, either retreating into academia or else becoming the boffins in the backrooms of organisations that capitalise on their work. The Internet has given plenty of space for pseudo-science to become widespread and thought of as fact. Validated research and evidence rarely gets the weight it deserves.
The New Statesman has published an excellent article on how the scientific community needs to take a look and learn from other social groups such as gays and blacks which have managed to get the respect that they deserve. Scientists need to stand up and speak out against pseudo-science and misinformation.
The UK’s Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington said, “We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality… We are not – and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this – grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method.“
Geek Fashion
Just because you are a geek (or a nerd), it doesn’t mean that you can’t be a fashionable geek. Fortunately, geek is in this year as is blue, don’t-cha-know, and the 2modern blog have put together some of the latest accessories that are achingly hip and trendy.
Celebrate your inner geek! Most of the stuff is available from Etsy for not very much money.
OTT Tsunami
We’ve been hearing quite a lot about Internet-delivered video content lately. Trends sometimes seem to advance slowly over a long period of time but then tumultuous market shifts seem to happen overnight.
Blockbuster just filed for bankruptcy. Blockbuster was unable to reconfigure their business structure to compete effectively with Netflix. It seems that Netflix has won the ongoing war.
Streaming video and video podcasts have been around for several years – these are not new ideas. However, what is new is the proliferation and increasing popularity of set-top boxes.
Back in the 1980’s backyard satellite TV dishes were a hobby among people that were looking for something different and as many choices as possible. That quest for choice ended up going mainstream in the form of commercial cable and satellite providers offering hundreds of channels.
Starting in 2004 people began experimenting with Internet-delivered content in the form of podcasts. I believe that podcasting happened as a direct result of broadband availability getting to a certain critical mass, combining the existing elements of RSS, MP3’s, etc. into a new form of communication. This new form of communication offered something very different along with unprecedented levels of choice.
Internet-delivered content of all kinds is rapidly becoming mainstream.
I believe 2010 is the year of the app. Apps suddenly seemed to have come out of nowhere to seeming to pop up on every device imaginable. Why the sudden popularity of apps? Desktop and laptop computers have been around for a long time, along with full-blown applications. What has really happened is that computers have now shrunk down to the point where they not only are in our pockets in the form of smartphones, but they are also showing up in HDTV sets and plenty of other devices. These devices we are running these apps on are actually quite powerful computers in their own rights.
There is now a wide variety of content that is heading for every computer-enabled screen you own, especially your HDTV.
Amazon Kindle E-Books
Shortly after getting my HTC Evo phone, one of the initial apps I downloaded from the Android Marketplace was the Amazon Kindle app with the idea I’d probably check it out at some point. Weeks went by, and I pretty much ignored the app.
Yesterday I was talking to a good friend that is in the process of formatting e-books for an author friend of his, including formatting the books in the Kindle format. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned to him once again that I needed check the Android Kindle app out. He pointed out that there were free e-books available in the Kindle format on the Amazon website, including many books from 1922 and before that were now in the public domain, so after I finished his call I went on Amazon.Com with my computer and started digging around in the Kindle Store area of Amazon. Sure enough, there seemed to be plenty of free e-books available, so I started adding them. To get the Kindle app on my phone to synch with my Amazon account couldn’t be easier, I simply entered in my email address and Amazon password into the app. Any books in my Amazon storage area are quickly updated to the app.
Sure, some of the free books weren’t exactly my taste, but I was able to open them on my phone and finally see how well the Kindle app worked. Hummm, not bad – not bad at all. To make a long story short, I ended up finding a current book I really liked and purchased it for $9.99.
What a pleasant surprise I was in for. Reading a Kindle book on my HTC Evo is actually a good experience. The text is quite legible. The surprising part is that twice now I’ve carried the phone with me into restaurants and was able to easily read using the phone while eating. Of course, the HTC Evo has a handy built-in kick stand that allows the phone to sit on its side at an angle. I can eat and then periodically lightly touch the right side of the screen in order to make the Kindle app advance to the next page. The Kindle app even synchs the latest page I’m on back to the server, so if I open the book up again either on my phone or on my laptop, it opens up right at the exact page where I stopped reading.
At this point I have no plans on buying an actual Kindle, however I suspect I will be buying more Kindle e-books in the future. I often carry my phone around with me wherever I go, and because of the way the Kindle app works across all Kindle apps associated with my account, I have instant access to every Kindle e-book in my Amazon account storage area on every associated Kindle installation. There are often times I end up having to cool my heels waiting on something, and it’s incredibly handy to be able to use that otherwise often wasted waiting time reading. Ten minutes here and twenty minutes there really do add up over time.
All of this talk about, “Oh, the iPad has killed the Kindle” is bogus. Amazon has been very smart to put Kindle apps out for as wide a variety of devices as possible. Even if they don’t sell that many Kindle readers, the Kindle format e-book is a huge Amazon win, both for Amazon and for consumers like me.