And they call me an Engineer

I recently posted about an iPhone App from Fonix for handling voice-dialing with the iPhone.  The app still isn’t out, but Fonix recently released a demo video of the application.

Check it out:

It looks great.  My only remaining issue is initiating a voice command.  It appears I will still need to be looking at my iPhone and tap the application in order to start the voice commands. I’d like to be able to tap the button on my bluetooth headset or a physical button on the iPhone.  Ideally, Apple would open up the iPhone home button to be assigned to third-party applications (currently it will only open your Contact Favorites or the iPod interface).

All in all, I’m excited for this app to finally hit the App Store.

The electronic eye takes photos in a 3D space rather than flatted in 2D

You know you’ve dreamed about it.  You want a bionic eye.  Everyone does.  Since you were a kid watching The Six Mission Dollar Man, you’ve dreamed of the day when bionics could become a reality.  Most of the bionic parts of Steve Austin already exist in some form (although not usually exceptionally powerful).  But the bionic left eye has been rather elusive.

Your dream may soon be coming true.  Researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University are working on a camera that could some day replace a human eye.  With a similar form factor as the eye, it could easily fit within a human eye socket.

It’s the curve of the camera that makes it most like an eye.  Unlike most cameras that often blur or minimize the focus of parts of the image on the outer edges, this new curved technology allows an image to be in focus in all parts of the image.

Check out the additional photos on CNET.

Lee Majors has nothing on us now.

Second Life (an online virtual 3D world) has been around a while now.  It’s incredibly popular and even has its own economy.  You can enter Second Life and “live” a life completely different from who you really are.  It’s somewhat of a game, but it mimics real life as much as possible. Companies (mainly IBM) have been known to hold virtual meetings or conferences within the Second Life universe.  But the main problem with Second Life is you have to download a rather large installation program and have to have some decent hardware to run it.

Second Life is about to get it’s first real competitor, LifePlace.  Not only does does the virtual world look more amazing and real (and slightly unsettling), but all the visual imagery is rendered “in the cloud.”  There is no installation.  You will visit LifePlace through a web browser and all the rendering is done on the server side.  So even if you don’t have amazing hardware with the latest and greatest graphics card, you will still be able to partake in the amazing world to be. You will even be able to stream it to a mobile device (the video below was captured on a Palm Treo). The technology is developed by a company called OTOY.

Gizmodo and TechCruch both have articles about LivePlace, but it’s the video that really does the talking.

Remember, if you can’t see the embedded video. View the original posting.

Another one of those, “Wow! Science is cool,” moments just happened in California.  In Berkley to be more precise.

Researchers as the University of California, Berkeley have for the first time demonstrated the ability to cloak three dimensional objects!  Cool!

I mentioned this before, but didn’t think it would become a reality so soon.

The science involved here is amazing.  This is just another example of science finally catching up with Science Fiction writers.

The findings of the research will soon be available in the journals, Nature and Science.

When the original iPhone first came out, I posted a review after just a week or so of use.  One of my major complaints was the lack of voice dialing.  When Apple announced their SDK, I had hoped that someone would build a third party application to do just that.

My hope was answered by a Salt Lake company called Fonix, known mostly for their speech recognition software.  A few days ago, they announced an application, Fonix iSpeak, to not only do voice dialing, but also voice commands to control other parts of the iPhone.

Oh yeah!  I hope they don’t try to charge an arm and a leg for it.  If they keep it reasonable, then that will be one of the first apps I aqcuire from the AppStore.

Ratchet up the stocker fears.  Google has just released Street View for Salt Lake (including Utah and Davis Counties).

Some of you may recognize the following locations.  I’ll post about the fears and privacy concerns later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some people say that Apple Macintosh users are elitists. If that’s the case, I just became rather elite.  I’m now typing this on my shiny new MacBook Pro.

On Wednesday, I started a new job at the Wasatch Front Regional Multiple Listing Service (WFR).  When I started, they gave me the choice of what kind of computer I wanted. I had the option of a laptop, desktop, PC, Mac, etc.  I’ve had my eyes on a MacBook Pro for some time (since OS X came out and I realized it was built on BSD), but just never had enough guts to spend a lot of money on something I might not really like.  So I let the company spend that money. ;)  First thing I got when I got to the office on Wednesday morning is a bright shiny 17 inch MacBook Pro.  And I quickly got to work configuring it and making it my own.

Read the rest of this entry »

You know the feeling.  You’re right in the middle of something important on your laptop.  You’re in deep concentration and nothing should interrupt you. Then all the sudden… [BEEP].  That dang battery warning. It seems like you just barely charged the thing.

Laptop batteries are what make laptops so amazing.  But at the same time, they seem to be the first thing to degrade on your brand new laptop.  Even if you forked out the extra money for a 12 cell battery and you can work for a full 4 hours without a charge, it never seems like enough.

Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you’ve heard of Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Bly-ray and HD-DVD are competing technologies for the next generation in home video. The video and audio coming from these technologies is incredible. Can you tell the difference… nope. They are pretty much the same. And as home video tech goes, welcome to the latest format war.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I got a new server. While trying to get the email handling installed, I became very frustrated. Not only did managing the email consume a majority of my server administration time, but it took a lot of bandwidth just dealing with the spam I received. Because I’ve had my main domain (acucore.com) for over 7 years, it gets a large amount of spam.

But with the introduction of IMAP for Google Email (including their free gmail.com email service), Google has opened up a whole new world for me. In addition to the gmail.com service, Google has a service called Google Apps (previously Google Apps for Your Domain). It allows you to use several Google services (including email, calendaring and docs) with your own domain. This is ideal for small businesses.

Read the rest of this entry »