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Top 8 exciting software (or "A list of software programmers want to work on")

Here’s a collection of some of the best (non-secret!) software projects out there at the moment. Some are available for you to play with right now and I’ve attached links to these.


Photo manipulation to 3D
A pretty slick demonstration of what we can expect to see in the near future. 3D world objects created from 2D photos:

There is a great demo of this software using photos from the Space Shuttle here:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/NASA/default.htm

You will have to install an early version of the software (and you can only use Internet Explorer to see it.). Once it is installed you’ll find some buttons in the top right. Make sure you click the “Fly around” and similarity view, as well as just clicking on the main window.

They know what you are drawing
This is a simple demonstration of what could be a powerful tool for all kinds of projects. Just draw your objects on the page (or “touch wall”, see below) and the software knows just how they will interact. This one shows the power of gravity on a few doodles:

There is no demo for this yet, but keep watching the “Assist Sketch Understanding System and Operation” project at MIT for more.

Touch is the new click
Using the mouse is old hat, what you should be doing is using your fingers, and yes, that does mean more than one.

“Jeff Han” is one of the most famous tech guys out there and has really made the multi touch screen a reality. Check out his presentation at TED below.

You may have seen this technology on some of the very latest mobile phones, the iPhone being one of the more well known.

Jeff has now started his own business around the “touch wall” which is an obvious enhancement to the touch screen:

Objects and computers talk
The next step is to get all objects to communicate seamlessly with the computer, again all by touch. Microsoft bought out “The Surface” based on some of the work for multitouch, but enhanced with new sensors to recognise all kinds of real objects.

The concept isn’t really new (and appears a little buggy in places), but it has come together nicely in “The Surface” and looks like it is pretty usable. It is currently being sold to some commercial outlets, so expect to see it at your local restaurant or bar or where ever there is a table!

Here is a similar idea but with objects storing different applications. Each of them is able to interacting with another:

Desktops get real and funky
Here’s a cool idea for making the normal desktop much more intuitive. First make it look 3D, then make all the files act like paper might on a real desktop, like bumping in to each other or stacking up:

There is no demo of this yet but there are similar projects around if you would like an example, just don’t expect the functionality of BumpTop just yet.

And here is a demonstration of a really funky desktop, which I should also add is very usable. The desktop is courtesy of Ubuntu and Compiz:

I’ve used this program at home and you can get it by downloading the latest version of the operating system Ubuntu and then switching on some of the advanced Compiz features. You can find more information about it at the Compiz website here:
http://compiz.org/

All of the above
Now I don’t know about you but a lot of these systems borrow from each other and it is not hard to imagine all these technologies joining forces to create one awesome computer system – That, my friends, is called seeing the future!

Other Useful links
BumpTop: www.bumptop.com
TED: www.ted.com
Ubuntu: www.ubuntu.com

Let me know…
… what you think of these projects and what exciting projects you’ve come across too.

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Webshot woes.


Penguin
Originally uploaded by akademy

Just recently I’ve decided to move my photos from Webshots to Flickr. This post was actually created inside Flickr.

The photo of the penguin is one of mine, taken at Amsterdam Zoo in 2006.

I won’t go into the details of why I decided to move just now, but basically I just felt that Flickr and its community appeared to look after my photos much better than Webshots were.

Click on it to see some more of my photos.

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eStory Telling

I came across a quite unique idea on
http://www.dailylit.com/index

It has a collection of free online book to read, but it delivers the content in a quite unique way.

You register to recieve the book of your choice, then that book is split into lots of small sections which are then emailed to you or connected into your own personal RSS feed. You can set how often you want to receive the sections.

As they say on their FAQ:

“…if you are like us, you spend hours each day reading email but don’t find the time to read books.
DailyLit brings books right into your inbox in convenient small messages that take less than 5 minutes to read.”

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Google Vacking – See the world!

I was going to do some University work today but then I came across the latest Google Hack.

It isn’t as illegal as it sounds though, it just involves you searching for certain terms using google.

Start with this: inurl:view/view.shtml.

You’ll see (mostly) a list of ip address (the four numbers with dots e.g 123.654.12.1) These are actually addresses to numerous surveillance cameras running around the globe. Click on one and you’ll see a live view of where ever its pointing.

Basically this works because one of the companies that sell video cameras has a setup program that creates a path of view/view.shtml. Simple.

You can also use terms like: inurl:”axis-cgi/mjpg”. This one comes up with actual images not live video feeds, but use your imagination and you can probably find the video feed (try this: remove everything after the first part and type in “/view/view.shtml” and see what you get)

Some of these videos have controls so you can pan and zoom them. I’ve noticed a lot of these seem to be actually surveillance cameras (as in Big Brother…) such as watching people in the centre of town – a lot must be controlled at some central base by a human sitting at a bank of screens… have some fun with these nosey people and keep panning the videos all over the place!! (See who givens in first…)

See them before they get locked down! Enjoy.

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My life online…

Well, as you do in those quiet times at work…. I just googled myself – which means I put my own name into google and see what cae out (If you want a go don’t forget the quotes around your full name)

And, just on the first page there’s about 6 relating to me. (It helps if you have a one in a million name… no, I’m not telling you….)

The last item on the search page located a comment I entered four years ago on a website I was into then. It all seems to be pretty dead now, the last news update was back at the end of 2004, the last “clinging on” comment in their Forum was four months ago…. isn’t it sad when software ideas don’t make it…. I wonder how many more website exist in the after life…

(PS, it was this one if your interested! http://www.3dna.net/ – A 3d world to control your computer buy – it’s good for a quick laugh, I quite like the basketball game in the default area…)


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New technology

I’m bloging from my n93 phone wirelessly with the help from my wireless cable router. It’s very nice and essential for my wii. Oh, did i not mention i’ve got one of those!

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NTL Broadband update

Continued from earlier post.

So my broadband lasted only four hours before it stopped working. I didn’t realise it had gone down because I was busy trying to get my wireless router to connect – I thought it was a problem with that – I spent several hours trying to get it to work then gave up and left it for another day.

The following day I tried to connect again, but now I noticed the “ready” light was flashing – there’s no information anywhere about what that means, no documentation or scribbles on the modem – anyway, I thought that can’t be good, so I phoned them again (Call number 4). They said there was a problem and it would be fixed by 15:00 the following day. Great, I thought, but there’s nothing I can do about that now, so I was forced to wait.

The next day at around 17:00 I get a call on my mobile from NTL, stating “When would be a good day for us to come around to install broadband?“, “What?!” I thought, and told them I already had it. “Oh”, he said, then I told him about the problem I had yesterday,
“Ah, he said, are you at home now? “
“no”
“when would be a good time”
“I’ll be home at 6”
“Oh, unfortunately I can’t come out then, but I might be able to find a evening engineer to come in”
“OK, that would be good”
“I’ll ring you back in 5 to 10 minutes then”
“OK, thanks”

Later that evening (19:00) still not heard anything back broadband still not working. I have the last guys mobile number (which I was seriously thinking of posting here…) so I ring him – no answer, but I leave a message even though I doubt he’d phone – (he hasn’t a week later). So then I phone NTL Broadband again (call 5). They say,
“Yes there’s a fault on the line it will be fixed by 15:00 tomorrow” (And I’m sure this is the same guy I spoke to yesterday)
“OK, I had a call from a guy earlier who said he was going to come around”
“We never send engineer people around to houses sir.” (So then I’m thinking some guy phoned me pretending to be an engineer, but the guy on the end didn’t seem to care in the slightest.”)
“So you can guarantee 15:00 tomorrow then?
“15:00 tomorrow”
“Thanks”

That was Thursday night, I know it wasn’t working Friday morning, but I couldn’t try it till Sunday – and I’m glad to say it was working, and still is.

#flag: NTL, Broadband, problems

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Installing NTL Broadband

Well I’ve now got Broadband – and only £10 per month (Although thats a 12 month contract so if I move it’s going to be expensive. ) And I’ve gone with NTL.

The reason behind the NTL choice this is simple – the flat I’m renting already has an NTL line in, a BT line would cost around £120 to be installed, and as you might guess, I’m not willing to pay any company to install something of their’s in my house, then charge me a fee per month to keep it there…

Here’s what I had to do to get NTL broadband .
– First I went to their website and signed up online.
– Next they phoned me to arrange an appointment.
– They agreed to come round only five days later – but they couldn’t give a time more precise than “between 12.00pm and 5.30pm” (which then changed in a text message they sent to “between 12.00pm and 6.00pm”) – so I had to waste half a day of my holidays to wait at home.
– They turned up at a 1.00pm (and as it was already installed) they stuck a wire in a box on the wall and attached a modem to it, then left. (So, 15 minutes of my lunch break could have covered this…)
– Now all I had to do was install the software and attach the modem.

Installing the software. So the idea is you install from a cd they provide and plug it when your told to. This I did. several installer screens later I got “Error 204, call 0870 48…”, with no other options than “close” available. So, even though I hate calling any tech help I did, and after a lengthy several minutes of “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” recorded message I got striaght through to a person and they solved my problem by doing something to the registration their end. I just had to reinstall. Great.

Installing the software again. Run through the installer again, and didn’t get any error (horah) so I could now register my details. Click OK – “Error 602. Call 0870…”. Right something else wrong, Suppose I’ve got no choice where’s that phone again, “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” (blah blah blah). So I explain the new problem (“It say’s Error 602, and nothing else). Now they want me to open up Internet explorer and go to an IP address (which makes me think I alrady have access…) So I go there and I fill my details in again, this time I can’t have my original login name (it must be taken… probably by me…) so I go through this while the lady stays on the phone, everthing seems OK, then they say “SO, I’ll leave you to finish that off now, all you’ll have to do is keep clicking OK” – now if that’s not the kiss of death I don’t know what is… – anyway I hang up and continue.

Registering. I click OK – Horah, every thing seems OK! , I click OK again – “An error has occured please contact technical support…” – you might guess I’m getting a little annoyed now – So I ring technical support again. “Hello, welcome to NTL Broadband support…” (blah blah blah blah bl**dy blah). Now when I get through the first thing I say is “This is the third time I’ve rung you..”, OK now she wants to put me on hold while she checks what the problem is, so I sit listening to “Lift music + Hi, Your call is important + lift music + We are recieving unusally high… + “if you have access to the internet please go to”… ) She comes back and says OK everything should work now – I ask if she can gurantee this, apparently she can and she’s willing to stay on the line while I fix it… I take the risk of believeing her (as I’m paying way to much for these calls from my mobile – I don’t have a landline)

Re-registering (Login name now different again), click OK, click OK, click OK…. the suspense is killing me… click OK. IT WORKED! Time to go to the pub me thinks…

(And just for the record, I did feel the people on the end of the line were trying to help – they were courteous and plesent, even if they were talking from the other side of the world very late at night. The last girl eveb sounded like I really nice person… but thats a different story)

And if your curious of how long it stayed up for: More storys coming soon… (Anyone care to take a guess?

#flag: NTL, broadband, internet

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Moving home to the same address.

Just moved house! Well, actually I’ve just moved webpages, but for some reason I think thats almost as exciting…

I am definately in a much better position than I was before. I had my website hosted my my broadband provider which meant if I wanted to move (or had to move) providers I would have to set all my website and emails up again – as it happened my new (real) house can’t get BT as it has NTL so I’ve had to move it.

After a quick looking around I decided to go with www.streamline.net . They have some really good features, everything I want, and they seem pretty cheap too. I only bought it yesterday and told my current (PlusNet) providers I didn’t want to host it with them. By this morning FTP, email and website were all there waiting for me.

I’ll do future updates on how streamline handle it from now on.

#flag: “Streamline.net”, plusnet, “broadband provider”, “website hosting”