Non-Prophet

Man Flies Across English Channel Using Jet-Pack

Okay, great. Jet-packs have finally arrived. When do we get a chance to get our hands on the commuter version?

bbcnews.com:

A Swiss man has become the first person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing.

Yves Rossy landed safely after the 22-mile (35.4 km) flight from Calais to Dover, which had been twice postponed this week because of bad weather.

The former military pilot took less than 10 minutes to complete the crossing and parachute to the ground.

The 49-year-old flew on a plane to more than 8,200ft (2,500m), ignited jets on a wing on his back, and jumped out.

Pillcam!

I don't think that there is anything cooler than a tiny camera which comes in pill form and is intended to be swallowed. This could be the ultimate party game.

pillcam.com:

Welcome to PillCam.com where you can learn more about the PillCam® video capsule - a tiny camera in a pill that when swallowed takes pictures of your gastrointestinal tract. PillCam® capsule endoscopy helps doctors find the cause for symptoms that don’t seem to go away such as stomach pain, diarrhea, weight loss, rectal bleeding and anemia. Unlike some other tests, the PillCam® procedure does not require sedation, takes place right in your doctor’s office and allows you to go on with your normal daily activities.

The Mojave Experiment

This advertising campaign by Microsoft strikes me as entirely bizarre. The concept seems to be informing people that Windows Vista doesn't actually suck, and the thrust of the effort is how much of a surprise that is to common people. They go about proving this via a scientific survey of people's responses before and after a scripted demonstration. This is absurd. If you can't impress folks with a demo of a broken OS that is scripted you aren't trying. I've been trying to get my MacBook (which runs OS X and Bootcamped Vista) networked with my media server (Dell Vista box hooked to my TV monitor) and it has been hard. If you want to know how to do it -- and I haven't yet pulled off even the Vista to Vista file sharing to my satisfaction -- the best tutorial I've found is here, and it includes using regedit.

So The Mojave Experiment eh?

The Mojave Experiment:

What do people think of Windows Vista when they don’t know it's Windows Vista? To find out, we disguised it as "the next Microsoft Operating System" codenamed, "Mojave" so regular people who've never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves.
Primary Results

94% of respondents rated the “new OS” codenamed Windows “Mojave” higher than they initially rated Windows Vista before
the demo.

0% of the respondents rated the “new OS” codenamed Windows “Mojave” lower than they initially rated Windows Vista before
the demo.

Of the 140* respondents polled (on a scale of 1-10 where 10 was the highest rating):

* The average pre-demo score for Windows Vista was 4.4
* The average post-demo score for the “new OS” codenamed Windows “Mojave” was 8.5

Google Chrome Goes After Windows

The idea of replacing the traditional model of computer operating system + application and replacing it with a web browser that gets all of its applications off of the web is truly an intriguing concept. It seems like it would work for most things, especially with off-line access to those downloaded applications, but I can't help to think that there will be some enormous performance hit somewhere along the line. Google documents should run great, but what about something like Photo Shop or Half-Life?

computerworld.com:

A beta version of the open source browser, called Chrome, is set to be available today. Chrome includes a new JavaScript engine that Google says will power Web applications better and faster than other browsers. Google Gears, which will provide offline access and local storage for Web applications, is also embedded in the browser.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, said Chrome could be the key piece in Google's effort to convince users to replaced packaged software with Web applications.

"This is the potential threat that Microsoft has been worried about since the 1990s," he said. "You've got Web apps running inside isolated processes. It really sounds a lot like Google trying to take the Web application model and make it more viable as a replacement for the desktop PC application model. This is Google trying to really push applications to the Web and make that the way people do computing."

Photo-realistic Computer Generated Person

One of the technologies that has not been achieved thus far is the generation of a computer generated human, including computer generated voice, which is indistinguishable from an actual human filmed with a camera. Things have come a long way in the last 10 or 20 years, and they still have a way to go, but here is an example of some very impressive technology. I can't wait for the day in which we can't tell the real from the created.

iPhone Blogging is here.

In about three minutes I can now post from my phone to NP. Cool.

WWDC 2008

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while, I've been in San Francisco at the 2008 Apple WWDC learning a mess about programming the iPhone. The conference has been very good so far, with some seminars being a bit too much of a review of things everyone here probably already knows, some blazing through difficult material so quickly that I've been left confused, and some are just about right. By far my favorite thing I've been able to to so far is sit and work with the actual engineers who wrote the software that runs on the iPhone. This has been wonderful. Having these guys sit and help me work on my dumb test applications has been fun. They're great. The iPhone is really a very cool little device.

Tonight they threw a bash surprised most everyone by having Bare Naked Ladies play for the party. Those guys actually know more about Apple products than I do. They made jokes throughout the show about things like the Apple Newton and how each successive OS release will be represented by a successively "rarer" and "more exotic" member of the cat family. (OSX 10.6 is named Snow Leopard) They rocked. My brain is full.

Win XP Reaching End of Life?

Considering that Windows Vista was released on 1/30/2007, and almost a year and a half later there is talk of ways in which folks will be able to still purchase Win XP you'd think that Vista was a total and complete mess. Is it? Or perhaps the Win XP install base is so huge that there are literally millions of folks that naturally resist change, even when purchasing a new computer? I'm not sure.

I have a Vista machine from Dell running as a media server in my home. Initially I found the thing revolting as the amount of bloat-ware that came pre-installed was truly mind boggling. After spending several hours removing it all, and getting things set up the way I like, I haven't had any major complaints. Some of the pop-up information windows are a bit ridiculous -- such as when you plug in a pair of headphones you get a pop-up telling you that you have done so. My overall impression is that Vista is a lot like Win XP running some kind of silly desktop theme. No big deal.

Yahoo!:

As concern over the end of the road for Windows XP reaches feverish levels, Microsoft appears to be caving yet again on its timeline for killing off the popular operating system, which would ultimately force people into upgrading to Vista. The latest news comes from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, reacting to criticism at a news conference on Thursday, who said "XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments."

So basically, Microsoft says that if it smartens up, it might add to XP's lifespan. So... how about it? Well, Microsoft stopped short of announcing a higher corporate IQ, so as of today the June 30 deadline stands, but don't be surprised if we get another extension in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, PC makers may force Microsoft's hand, as they are taking the rare step of openly combating Microsoft's encouragement and demands that vendors move from XP to Vista. HP, Dell, and Lenovo have all said they will downgrade operating systems on new machines from Vista to XP at customer request and will continue to do so until 2009 (specific ending dates vary).

A Culture of Software Updates

It seems to me that over the last year or two we have entered an era of early continuous software updates. I have 4 computers at work (2 OS X Leopard, 2 WinXP) 2 at home (one OS X Leopard/boot-camped Vista and one Windows Vista) and between the 6 of them I seem to be continuously asked to update something. I mean if it isn't OS X, then iTunes wants to get freshened up. On Friday alone I updated Java on my XP machine, the iPhone SDK on 2 machines, Leopard wanted a couple of quick fixes, Aperture 2.0 decided the time was right to go to V2.1. Some of these downloads are massive.

Don't get me wrong, there is something nice about knowing that your favorite app or OS is being fixed, maintained and upgraded. The process is almost effortless, with the exception that Vista wants you to re-boot and gives you the option to do it now or get reminded again in less time than you'd like. But there seems to be a culture that has emerged that has caused me to spend more time clicking that I approve EULA's and on "OK" buttons than I do dealing with the spam menace. Can't these things just run in the background, or at least give me the option to flat out opt-in, and only hear about upgrades on applications that I deem as critical?

Super3Boy to the Rescue

Some of you have heard me talk about my occasional passion for the free 3d modeling program Blender. It is truly an awesome application, allowing you to make 3D art and animations worthy of a Pixar film. There is one fairly large hurdle that must be overcome to enjoy its chocolatey goodness though, it is a bear to learn. The user interface initially comes off as a confusing maze of endless screens and options. The concepts are difficult to understand for the newbie 3D modeler. It is enough to send even the most enthusiastic entrant running away frustrated.

Fear not though, help has arrived. In what I've found to be the most user friendly and accessible set of tutorials available, Super3Boy has made it almost easy to get started modeling with Blender. He's made a series of videos and put them on YouTube that walk you through some of the basic techniques. He sounds young too, like a kid. Part of the fun in watching these movies is hearing this kid wonderfully describe the current topic while taking you through the Blender interface. He's entertaining in that way in which we love to marvel at a child protege play a violin, not to mention the constant thought spinning in the back of your head guiltily reminding you that if this kid can make a tutorial surely you can learn this damn thing. If he isn't actually a kid, my apologies. Perhaps he has the inverse of the vocal condition of that "Chocolate Rain" dude.

His video tutorials are all here. He maintains a blog here, and he even encourages folks watching his tutorials to ask questions and to post their Blender renderings on his BB found on his Nystic.com forum. The entrepreneurial little bugger is also working on a DVD containing more in depth tutorials that will be release shortly. Keep an eye out for it, I know I'm going to.

So now you can stop thinking that Blender has too much of a learning curve to bother with. Super3Boy has it in the bag and serves it up in an easy to digest pre-masticated package.

Those who aren't familiar with Blender, check out what some artists are doing with it.