Ron Guest

Hey kids we got your back

Cajun fried pickles - nom nom

What I should be doing…

Awesome news for us Apple TV owners! You can now purchase content directly from your Apple TV and then view it. Previously if you wanted to purchase content you had to use your computer and then stream it from the computer. Now it is all cloudified :-) Even better you can browse previously purchased content (i.e. purchased on your computer or iPhone) and stream that to your Apple TV. This should have been included from the beginning but glad it is finally here.

Oh, and they’ve added direct Vimeo support. I don’t care but you might…

Very nice! A cable that allows you to connect your iOS device to an Arduino. It is an Apple-approved cable so no jailbreaking required. Let’s see what we can do with this baby…

Make: | $59 Cable Lets You Connect iPhone to Arduino — No Jailbreaking!.

I imagine I’m like most folks. There is no way I have time for 3 or more social networks in my life. And while integration between services and the ability to “cross post” helps me keep more than one somewhat up-to-date the reality is the differences amongst the social services is so large this simple approach is fundamentally flawed.

Google+ has potential. One of the biggest needs is to quickly get a critical mass of users (hey, that means YOU need to join). If that happens and Twitter indeed starts cramming ads down my throat in the timelines I’m sure Twitter will be the one I drop (keeping FaceBook as well).

This summer, Twitter ads will get harder to ignore

Furled flag? Nope, our napkins ready for dinner

Lytro has developed a technology to allow you to select the focus point in photographs after taking a photo. This isn’t a sharpening technique but instead is a fundamental capture of light field information that allows amazing post-processing results. What’s really cool is the company states this technology can be applied to virtually any camera technology including smartphones and point & shoot cameras. They’re planning to introduce their first camera by the end of the year and ultimately license the technology. They’re claiming cameras with their technology will be competitively priced. It will require a new image format for the “raw” data and specialized post-processing software. Still, this will be some amazing tech if it lives up to the hype. Visit the Picture Gallery for a demonstration. 

Light Field camera

As I discussed in a recent post, the relative performance and stability of WiFi to 3G/4G/LTE is going to dictate an ever-expanding role of WiFi for smartphone and tablet users. Building out cellular data networks is just too costly and slow (largely due to permitting) to keep up with demand. GigaOm has a great article today on Japan’s KDDI plan to use of WiFi to supplement  their cellular network.

Wi-Fi: It’s the other cell network — Broadband News and Analysis.

Refreshment

Some of my favorite things…

UFOs

A prior post talked about a lightweight and reliable method for sending push notifications from an Arduino to a mobile phone. In this post I’ll to describe my application for the notifications.

When looking for project inspiration I saw a couple of designs for monitoring a postal mailbox and sending a notification when the door was opened (e.g. when you get new mail). Those didn’t seem very useful but they did tickle a notion I’ve had of knowing if my garage door was left open for a period of time. I see this happen regularly in our neighborhood and it sometimes results in the loss of bicycles, tools and once even a car. In the spirit of truth-in-posting we once left ours open all night. Fortunately nothing was taken. Now on to the build…

The parts list, other than a basic pullup resistor and some wire, is pretty short and consists of

• " target="_blank">Arduino Uno
• WiFly WiFi Shield
• Arduino Project Enclosure
• Arduino Wall Adapter
• Magnetic Proximity Sensor, and
• A pair of Screw Terminals

In simple terms the goal of the project is to send me an alert if the door is open longer than a specified period of time (e.g. 15 minutes) and to send me an update if the door closes after that time period. Quite simple eh? I also implemented a “health check” that enables the Arduino to ping my server periodically. A script runs on the server and if it doesn’t hear from the Arduino it too will send an alert letting me know there has been a monitoring failure. After all what good is a security device that fails silently?

If you’re interested in a project like this let me know and I can give you the source code (sketch).

[slideshow]

Although I’m surely in the camp of folks who’d love unlimited high-speed Mobile data (3G/4G/LTE/…) for the rest of my life I recognize that isn’t a viable business model.  Although Wifi service is also becoming metered the offered capacities and performance at a given cost are superior. It simply costs less to provide a specific level of service using this type of technology than using Mobile spectrums. Not only is the up front cost lower but the ongoing costs of keeping up with new technology is lower as well (i.e. upgrade costs). Time to market is another issue as AT&T has publicly stated multiple times one of the reasons they can’t keep up with demand is the inability to gain rights to add new cell sites or upgrade existing ones. We should ultimately expect a Wifi descendant to be our primary “un-wired” technology with Mobile spectrum providing service when we are “in the gap” between Wifi connections.

Wifi investment would be climbing rapidly now except for one thing - much of the public Wifi infrastructure is owned by, yes you guessed it, companies like AT&T who are presently milking Mobile users for as much money as  they can. It’s the Mobile data users who are propping up their revenue stream as legacy technologies erode. They don’t have much incentive to wean users from expensive Mobile data plans hence they currently only favor Wifi in places like Times Square and Super Bowl venues where Mobile spectrum is utterly unable to deal with the demand.

But as I stated in the opening, the relative infrastructure costs will ultimately cause them to switch horses.

Facing data caps, consumers keep turning to Wi-Fi — Broadband News and Analysis.

If you haven’t dry roasted peanuts at home you should. Delish!

The Wii Trance

Happy Elephant

Blue Angle

Eyes on Daddy

Modern Thinker ?

Little brother doesn’t want to be left out

One proud daughter

The article from TechCrunch details the findings of a British developer who inadvertently discovered a great way to exploit expired domains to gain access to a person or company’s email accounts and other online services. This very simple technique, which requires no hacking at all, can easily yield access to Amazon accounts and banking services. Google and other companies really need to raise the bar to make it more difficult for people to claim email accounts and service accounts.

Security Breach: Here’s How Expired Domains Expose You To Embarrassment And Theft.

Fire!!! Nah, but junior liked seeing the truck

What’s keeping me going