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Archives: June 2005

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June 30, 2005

Where 2.0: The Role of the First Spy Satellites

Ron Ondrejka gave an amazing presentation at Where 2.0. Ron was Project Photogrammetrist for the imaging and mapping systems on CORONA, LANYARD, and KH-9 “Big Bird” (MAPPER). 1960-1983. His presentation had early imaging satellites with emphasis on their contributions to mapping and targeting. They didn't use computers for the spacecraft or payload design of CORONA, for navigation and commands, or for the early years of producing maps. Link.

iTunes 4.9 supports PDF enclosures

Looks like iTunes can slurp in PDF attachments. While I'm not a big fan of PDF, everyone can usually read them and we often post chapters and MAKE articles in PDF. So, going forward I'll try it out and see what happens. Don't forget to add the MAKE feed to iTunes 4.9 (Click here and click SUBSCRIBE) Link.

TiVo Announces Developer Challenge Winners

TiVo announced the winners for its HME Developer Challenge contest today. The grand prize winner is AudioFaucet (nee iSee iTunes) and its author Kyle Copeland, who will be receiving a Segway for his work. AudioFaucet provides control over iTunes for people streaming music using an Airport Express (or a really long audio cable) using TiVo's Home Media Engine platform. Link.

"Network Link" - The Killer App for Google Earth

I'll have a HOW TO and examples soon, but check it out-- This is the hidden Gem of Google Earth. Adding a "Network Link" allows you to fetch KML data from remote servers. It does this in two ways, Time Based or Location Based. So *anyone* can add dynamic data to Google Maps. Geotagged Flickr, del.icio.us a more! Link.

Build your own Chat-Cord

Voice over IP is taking over the world and I also like the idea of calling for free… The problem I’ve experienced so far is the fact that you always have to use those cumbersome headsets. When it would be possible to use your standard phone for this application, the experience of VoIP would be much more like the real POTS (plain old telephone system). Link.

HOW TO Build a String Thing

String Thing 22 Building String Thing: Laser Pointers and Vibrating Rods: What's great about the String Thing is two-fold: first, it's an ingenious design, and second, Ben rigorously documents how he did it, including some false starts. The steel rods are a "stroke" of genius: using magnets, the rods "vibrate" as you play them for physical feedback, while a sophisticated combination of laser pointers and webcams calculate your finger position. [via] Link.

Google Maps Hack - For the Empire!

Following the release of the Google Maps API, we spent an hour or so and put together this map depicting Star Wars Imperial ATAT attack on Palo Alto. Yay for remixing. Link.

GPS Drawing

John writes "I was reminded of this site by your mention of Google Earth and GPS. It shows a technique of making drawings by carefully tracing out a path while recording the GPS position. Other drawings are made as a side-effect of another activity, such as skydiving". Link.

DIY podcasting PHP script for sharing MP3s

If you want to podcast your mp3s but you don't want to figure out blogging, RSS, MIME enclosures, just use this single (free) PHP script to turn your folder of mp3s into a bonafide podcast. Thanks Canton! Link.

June 29, 2005

Indoor GPS? Try a TV...

Todd Young from Rosum Corporation showed off their new location technology which uses commercial broadcast television signals to provide reliable location outdoors, indoors, and even in dense urban areas. Rosum TV-positioning can serve as an augmentation or replacement for GPS. Link. They sell these devices and it could be used for any indoor location device.

Parabolic Heat Transference Case Mod

Very funny, read the whole thing- Computer equipment, as you may know, produces heat. Sometimes the heat is so excessive that computing performance is hampered by what's known scientifically as supreme erraticus behavicus as brought about by supreme heaticus... Link.

Linux on iPod » Mini 2G Support

iPod Linux is faster on a Mini, that's weird. These newer minis have a PP5022 at their core rather than the PP5020 seen in other new iPods. This allows for much better power consumption and slightly faster processing. At 75Mhz they’ve been kicking out BogoMIPS of around 37, compared to 32 for the PP5020 and 16 for the PP5002. Thanks Michael! Link.

Where 2.0: Lighting cool tech

My favorite part of Where 2.0 (besides the IRCing) has been the Lighting cool tech session. Parachutes and Firefighters: Colin Bulthap from Squidlabs- they also showed a preview of a Magic window to view "meta" about the real work. 22-Story Art: Richard Greene from MOTO Development Group. and Reinventing Wi-Fi Community: Sean Savage, Project PlaceSite Link. I'll have some pictures tonight.

MAME on the PSP

Everyone's favorite arcade emulator is hitting the PSP thanks to all the homebrew stuff going on. You'll need to use the ole' swap out Mem stick or the newer tools to load the program(s). There's only one game, but it's a start- you can also run SNES now...Previous HOW TO. [via] Link.

Where 2.0: A9.com Maps (Beta)

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Amazon's A9 photo mapping service has a bew beta- I really like the new interface and the way the pictures scroll in opposite directions as you mouse over. Pretty solid stuff. Here's the Seattle area. Link.

Where 2.0: Old Maps...new tools

David Rumsey did a walk down map memory lane, it was really amazing- Drawing on his personal collection of over 150,000 historical maps as well as his work with geographic information systems, David Rumsey shows how information of all kinds has been mapped and will be mapped in the future. Link. I'm going to get his book Cartographica Extraordinaire.

Google Maps API released...

Google have just launched their API to the fantastic Google Maps. There's some excellent thing people produced by hacking with pre-API Google Maps code. Let's hope the launch of the API opens the flood gates...[via] Link.

Where2.0: A9 and photos of the State Department

Amazon's A9 has a video from when they were capturing images in Washington, DC for their image enhanced search engine. Turns out, the driver of the GPS, wireless enabled truck stopped in front of the State Department- a half dozen security folk showed up, asked questions for about a 30 minutes, the time lapse video the A9 engineer has was funny and scary.Link.

The Sunlight Table

The Sunlight Table uses the research carried out in the difficult environment of call centers to provide insight into the wider context of stressful and sedentary office based work. The table brings natural light into workspaces and creates discrete interactions while working, encouraging a dialogue between work and nature, re-establishing a connection with the outside world and creating small opportunities for delight and interaction. Link.

Drawing with Google Earth and a GPS

I'm on my way to the Where 2.0 conference, I'll be hosting an area at the Where Fair with all my GPS projects I've been up to. Coincidentally, Google released Google Earth (free) and I downloaded it and started to tinker. The plus version ($20) allows you do use a GPS so of course I'm already working on a 3D GPS drawing project. Here's a quick video of how it works (6mb QuickTime MOV). Link.

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