Nick Ayre
My Ramblings
Googles Announcement at Taronga Zoo Sydney
Jan 25th
I read last week from Gizmodo’s article that Google was holding an event at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I thought this was strange because Australia never things from Google or Apple or anyone else based in America. Also it was held at the zoo?
Well today they announced that they are launching a new Google maps service relating to street maps. A Google Street view trike.
From Google Blog
“Our Street View Trike made its first outing in Australia today, taking a spin around Sydney’s beautiful Taronga Zoo. We’re really excited to have the Trike in Australia for the first time, because it will let us collect imagery of some of Australia’s most spectacular natural and man-made places that are off the beaten track – or, at least, set back from the public roads along which our Street View cars normally travel.”
The Street View Trike is a 110kg modified bicycle that can access many places a car cannot (such as bike trails, national parks and beaches) and includes a mounted Street View camera and specially-decorated unit and GPS system.”
If you would like to see a place imaged by the trike, Google is asking you to suggest places here
I hope they won’t be re-imaging my area with the street cars any time soon or I will have to get out there on my bike again.
Yeah they are actually me
Thanks to my sources
Adobe Flash Sustainable?
Jan 22nd
Adobe Flash has become apart of our daily web browsing as much as HTML has. But is it as important? Not really.
Flash has had the potential to become something quite great but the most useful thing it has achieved is being the standard for web video and some good online applications. Almost all web video is played through a video player running on flash. Probably it’s second biggest use is ads. Almost all the moving ads on the web today is built on flash even, website’s have been created using just flash.
“So with all the potential that flash has why isn’t it gaining web greatness?” Because its slow, even on modern Intel core 2 duo processors, after having a few videos open at the same time the computer can start to lag. Also normally when a website has been built using flash it takes forever to load and it just doesn’t feel as clean to use as the alternative.
“So why not something else?” Well their isn’t really any other options. Sure you can embed a Quicktime or a Windows Media video but it just doesn’t have the flexibility or features you can implement with creating your own flash video player. “Silverlight?” I don’t have enough experience with Silverlight to comment on it.
It’s not all bad. Flash applications mainly video players have been worked on and worked on most notable Youtube and Viddler’s video players. They both load quick and most of the time run great and have great features like annotations and time line comments. But they both suffer from the same problem and it’s how resource hungry they are. Just decoding flash is just not optimised well enough and his all lays on adobe. Also flash video isn’t a small file. Can be quite large.
“So the future is gloomy?” Actually no, and this is the whole reason I am writing this post, HTML 5, the new revision of HTML. A couple of it’s new features are audio and video. Youtube is demoing it here and I found it quite great. My CPU didn’t spike and for a beta product it was quite nice to use, I could use the video slider and it didn’t skip around (Youtube has fixed this to some extent but it still exists in it’s flash player).
“Great HTML 5 it is then.” ummm no, well not yet. HTML 5 is still quite new and the players still need to be built and popularity needs to be gained. The player that Youtube was demoing had no more features than a Quicktime embed.
Hopefully soon all the major video hosts will follow Youtube’s lead and start using HTML 5 because it sure seems much better than flash. I don’t think flash will die well not in the fore seeable future, their still are many online applications that use flash and you can’t forget flash games but adobe really need to optimise it.
Link Blog (Week 2 2010)
Jan 17th
This is my first post of my weekly link post, I plan on posting every week links I found interesting from the week. Doesn’t matter if it’s a picture, song, video if it’s on the web and it’s interesting it can join the list. If you find anything interesting from the week feel free to e-mail or twitter it to me. Thanks for reading and check out other posts from my blog.
The Saddest IMDb Profiles Ever – http://bit.ly/90UZxK
“Not every actor can have the filmography of Samuel L. Jackson or a Meryl Streep. Some folks only have one or two roles under their belts and those roles walk that fine line between sad and amazing. These are those IMDB pages.”
Chase Jarvis interview, Queenstown New Zealand | Cameralabs – http://bit.ly/86mkAO
“Chase Jarvis is one of the best-known and most respected photographers today, delivering commercial campaigns for clients including Apple, Nike, Volvo, Emirates and Red Bull. It was during his campaign for the Nikon D90 though that many of us were first introduced to his behind-the-scenes work. Across numerous tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates, many of us have enjoyed a fascinating glimpse into the work behind a commercial shoot.”
Apparently, Lithium Batteries Cure Constipation | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/8Xrjmc
“Who knew? Although, as Jason Chen pointed out, this ad would be really effective without the “a”.”..
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Earthquake in Haiti | The Big Picture – Boston.com – http://bit.ly/5afSCe
“Tuesday afternoon, January 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years – 7.0 in magnitude – struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The initial quake was later followed by twelve aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0. Structures of all kinds were damaged or collapsed, from shantytown homes to national landmarks. It is still very early in the recovery effort, but millions are likely displaced, and thousands are feared dead as rescue teams from all over the world are now descending on Haiti to help where they are able. As this is a developing subject, I will be adding photos to this entry over the next few days, but at the moment, here is a collection of photos from Haiti over the past 24 hours.”
Haiti 48 hours later | The Big Picture – Boston.com – http://bit.ly/60z1VA
“Two days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck beneath Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some of the massive damage is becoming more apparent. Rescue teams are arriving, aid groups are trying their best to battle huge logistical challenges, bodies are being identified, and some medical care is being given. Rescue teams from all over the world have joined the recovery effort, as the United States pledged $100 million in relief efforts. The Red Cross ventured an estimate of up to 50,000 deaths, as bodies at the local morgues overflowed into the streets. Collected here are some more scenes from this devastated region”
This Tetris Will Make You Vomit | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/4YZMOf
“We’re all hardcore fans of Tetris, here at Gizmodo. Or so I thought, until I played this remake of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System version. It’s called First Person Tetris, and it will make you sick. Or maybe not. It made me sick. A little. In the inside. Now I have a headache, after forcing myself to get up one level. Let’s see if you can stomach it. For more than two minutes.”
NYC teen arrested for making terrorist threats at Apple Store | Macworld – http://bit.ly/7JjkvD
“Teenagers make a lot of stupid decisions; it’s part of growing up, and we can all relate. Of course, sometimes the line between a stupid, harmless decision and a stupid, criminal decision can be blurry—but that’s certainly not the case in this story.”
Fact Of The Day: Chrome Runs On Goats | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/4QgVTn
“It’s a well known fact that Safari’s CSS engine runs on rainbows, unicorns and sugar, or that Internet Explorer 7 HTML renderer uses copious amount of babies’ blood. However, very few people know that Chrome runs on goats.”
PS3 Gets Fried In Mysterious HDMI Blaze | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/81D4w2
“What the hell happened here? Needless to say, it took a pretty violent incident to do this kind of damage.”
Genius Bar Horror Stories: I Got Screwed By The Genius Bar | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/55afVH
“We’ve put together a list of your Genius Bar horror stories. And oh my, are they horrible. Geniuses obliterating iMacs, covered in roaches, even stealing customers’ girlfriends. The evil Genius Bar is real. The five most terrible tales…”
Intel has blowout quarter as net income skyrockets 875% | AppleInsider – http://bit.ly/6NkVFc
“The company, which provides processors for Apple’s line of Mac computers, had total revenue of $10.6 billion, a 28 percent year-over-year increase. The company also recorded a record gross margin of 65 percent.”
The Ultimate Guide To Ebook Readers We Care About | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/5UBxrn
“There are too damn many ebook readers and it’s a struggle to figure out what’s worth buying and which reader will even survive the market. To make things easy, here’s our guide to the readers that matter – for now.”
Locals Complain Of Radio Tower Illness, Then Discover Tower Is Off | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/6yjqjE
“Villagers in Craigavon, South Africa, were convinced they were getting radiation poisoning from a broadband tower….”
The inside track on Apple’s tablet: a history of tablet computing | AppleInsider – http://bit.ly/8z6xhw
“Apple’s anticipated press event later this month is widely expected to debut a new tabled-sized device as a sibling to the company’s Mac, iPod and iPhone product lines. Here’s what has led up to the launch, and why the futuristic tablet hasn’t taken off so far.”
An Aid Worker’s First-Hand Account of Haiti’s Technical Challenges | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/5BXUl2
“Pierre Petry is a World Food Program senior ICT specialist with the Fast Information Technology and Telecommunications Emergency and Support Team. He’s currently positioned in Haiti, and posted the following to an internal WFP message board following the recent earthquake.”
Famous Knots Of The World Illustrated In Earbuds | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/7R05Zz
“I can’t tie a sheepshank knot off the top of my head, but more than once, I’m pretty sure I’ve tangled one by accident. (Yes, this is a Ford Sync ad, but it’s quite clever.)”
$US30 Camera Dolly Is The Most Useful IKEA Hack I’ve Seen | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/6EbbuW
“If you’re an amateur videographer who’s trying to save a buck here or there, give this IKEA hack a shot. It’ll leave you with a pretty cheap and – based on the test video – rather decent camera dolly”
Conan Puts The Tonight Show for Sale on Craigslist | Mashable – http://bit.ly/5L6U16
“At least there’s some more humor coming out of the NBC late night debacle. On this evening’s Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien joked that he’s putting the program for sale on Craigslist — while he still can.”
Silverpac’s Thermostat Has Touchscreen, Measures Electricity Usage | Gizmodo Australia – http://bit.ly/6IYRw9
“Most thermostats let you make your house warmer or cooler. The fancier ones let you program it for various times during the day. But the Silverpac takes things to a whole new level.”
Chuck Season 3 a success… For now
Jan 14th
A show that easily became one of my favorite shows of 2008/2009 was Chuck. I was given season 1 and caught season 2 mid way through. After season had finished and then learnt that the 3rd season was grim. Which I didn’t find all that surprising because the show is corny and quite PG at times but unhappy. I stopped checking on the show till comic-con when I discovered that the chuck cast had a panel and also discovered that the show was coming back for a 3rd season and also that the show had been saved by fans of the show.
So after a really long wait I found out via twitter the first episode of chuck was airing and then last night I found out that Ep 2 and 3 had aired. So now with all three episodes under my belt the only surprise I took away from the show is someone was actually killed with a gun and blood was involved. In the past the shows had explosions and guns shot as far as I can remember no one has ever been shot only hit. So the show is stepping away from it’s corny PG. I tried to find out what the episodes were rated but I couldn’t find them.
So how is the 3rd season of chuck? Better than ever. The seasons seemed to have a lot of changes but didn’t change at all which I guess the same with most shows. What did every one else think of it? Well from what I could understand from the LA Times article it went well.
Well I like the 3rd season every one else liked the 3rd season lets hope the ratings stay good and hope to see a fourth season soon (seeing this season is only nineteen episodes) instead of in a year.
What did you think of season 3 leave a comment below. If you enjoyed this article please tweet it out. Thanks for reading.
Here we go again
Jan 13th
This is my second attempt at creating a blog. This blog is just going to be a place where I can write about what ever. We’ll see how it goes hopefully this won’t be the only post.
