GeekwithEnvy

Richard Vincenti Jr

Hmm That Clock Looks Familiar

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With iOS 6 came many new changes, but one change has Apple paying up for it’s new clock image. The clock image looks identical to a clock image owned by the Swiss Federal Railway service.iOSClock

The Swiss Federal Railway Service was happy to see the design being used but they were quite upset to see its clock design featured on Apples new iOS release without their permission. Fortunately, it seems that Apple and the Swiss Federal Railway Service have settled their issues with some type of licensing deal. The amounts being paid by Apple to use the image have not been released.

All of this comes at a time when it seems like every company is out for blood in this new, ‘wild west’ of portable technology. Every detail of every product including it’s software is under scrutiny, and in this case it’s definitely an infringement on Apple’s part. Often though the answers aren’t so obvious and we begin to question just what should and should not be patented and protected by the law.

One example of something that I think should be universal to all touch devices is the gesture. Gestures are an absolute necessity for any touch device and trying to come up with anything else to replace the “original” set of gestures is just silly. Nick Wingfield, a content contributor for the New York Times, likened recreating gestures to placing square wheels on a car. I’m not saying that Apple shouldn’t get any credit for initially incorporating these features but locking them down and trying to pull them away from competitors is silly, at least for gestures.

Either way I’m glad to see that Apple and the Swiss Federal Railway Service have reached an agreement.

Veritasium and Things We Can Learn From a Slinky

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VeritasiumLogoAs a geek, science is just a daily part of our lives and it’s really cool when we get to see science put on display in an beautiful way so we can look on in awe. Fortunately for us geeks there is a YouTube channel dedicated to showcasing the beauty of science,  it’s called Veritasium.

If you haven’t seen Veritasium then you’re missing out on some really great videos. I have stumbled upon a video that showcases a simple slinky and surprisingly there is some very interesting science at work.

There are many things in the world around us that happen so fast that we completely miss them. Our interaction with the world around us seems instantaneous but that is just our  perception of things. If we slow things down a bit, perhaps with a high speed camera, we begin to see our world very differently.

I have always enjoyed watching high speed footage of everyday actions and I have learned quite a bit by spending time observing things in slow motion. The high speed camera itself is a tool, just like a microscope or a telescope, that allows us to observe things that we can’t normally see with our naked eye.

In an amazing and intellectually provocative video posted by Veritasium, a slinky is dropped from just above eye level and the fall of the slinky is then captured by a high speed camera. Once the slinky begins to fall, something unusual begins to happen; the bottom of slinky remains in place while the top appears to collapse in a downward motion. How is this possible? Watch the video below to find out.

 

For more great videos like this head to the Veritasium YouTube Channel.

Handheld Gaming and Mobile Quietly Moving In

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Ever since the mid seventies we have had hand held gaming devices that we could bring with us anywhere and as with anything in technology, these little devices have changed a lot over the years.mobile gaming 3d concept - smart phone with gamepad

When I think back to the first handheld gaming experience I had, I remember playing Frogger on a Tiger electronic handheld gaming device. Not too long after, I got ahold of my first Nintendo GameBoy and it was one of my favorite gaming experiences. I am not alone in my love for the original Gameboy line up which included Tetris, Mario and although it was difficult to play, the original Castlevania. I also had the luxury of owning a Sega Game Gear which was somewhat ahead of it’s time.

Today we have handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PSVita, which are great ways to game but another strong competitor has started to move in to the handheld gaming territory, the cell phone. The cell phone over the years -as I have mentioned in earlier posts- has previously never been noted for it’s amazing gaming capabilities. Actually, many graphing calculators had better gaming than most of the cell phones on the market. Most early cell phones featured snake or Tetris which we saw again when the next generation of color LCD screen cell phones came out. These newer games usually ran on java and actually started to look a little better but let’s not kid ourselves,they mostly sucked.

Cell phones weren’t even close to being considered any type of competition for devices like the Gameboy, in fact they weren’t even in the same class, there were strictly handhelds and cell phones (mobile gaming). However, the lines have now basically been erased and the term “mobile” gaming encompasses both cell phones and handhelds.

I have to ask though, when did this happen? Well, most of my personal experience comes from using devices like the original iPod and eventually the iPhone. The gaming  experience on the iPod in later versions, (iPod video) was also done quite well and this is when I began to see a future for gaming on these new devices.

Gaming on devices like the iPod and Samsung Galaxy, is extremely popular these days and it looks like these devices have started to take over mobile gaming. Just look at games like Angry Birds, what device would you say is most likely being used to play this game?

How we know things have changed-

When you look at the latest handheld devices like the Sony PS Vita, we see features that were previously only available on devices like the iPhone. 3G, GPS, front and rear facing cameras, and even motion sensors are all now standard components for handhelds. Another point to consider is that I see many more people with their phones in hand on a daily basis than any “gaming only” device and for good reason, we need the cell phone capability, it’s how we survive these days, so it only makes sense that we would prefer to game on them. An added bonus of developers getting their games on a cell phone OS is that you can reach an audience that would otherwise remain unreachable, a large group of people who would never buy a device like a Nintendo Gameboy but would definitely  own a cell phone. It’s all in the numbers and app purchases are huge, the amount of games sold on the App store is impressive and it shows where consumer attention is.

Mobile gaming has never been better than it is today and it’s largely due to the impact of these new cell phone devices. As history shows us, it takes competition to drive forward innovation and creativity. With the addition of all of these new ways to interact with your applications, like motion control and touch,we have seen changes in gaming that we haven’t seen in years and we can now interact with our games in a way we never would have thought  to be possible in a mobile form factor. Again, the mobile gaming space is not any different than any other in that it’s driven by competition and I would argue that without devices like the iPhone, mobile gaming may look quite different today. There has never been a better time to not only create a gaming app but any app, and it’s all thanks to the latest evolution of the mobile gaming space.

 

 

Red Bull Stratos

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StratosLogo

If you haven’t heard the Red Bull Stratos team is working on something quite amazing, they are pushing the limits of todays technology by making it possible for Felix Baumgartner to survive a free fall from a height of 120,000 ft above the Earth’s surface.

Felix is carried to these amazing heights inside a capsule which is attached to a high altitude ballon that when filled with helium is 550 ft tall. The pressurized capsule will protect felix from sub zero temperatures and provide much needed oxygen as the air begins to become very thin to virtually nonexistent at these heights.

Felix Baumgartner has already survived two earlier test flights, one at a height just over 70,000ft and a second jump from over 90,000ft. The third and final flight will have Felix jumping from a height of 120,000ft, which has never been done before. Felix could be the first human being to reach supersonic speeds without a vehicle as he will be falling at close to 700 mph.

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Joseph Kittinger was the last person to perform a jump like this on August 16, 1960 from a record breaking height of 102,800 ft. The project that had Joseph jumping from these heights was named project Excelsior and was comprised of three jumps. The first jump almost killed Kittinger as his equipment failed which rendered him unconscious during free fall and he began to spin rapidly allowing him experience up to 22 times the force of gravity, which was also record breaking. If it wasn’t for the automated parachute system he was equipped with, he would most likely not survived.

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The purpose of all of this is to collect scientific data and test a new generation of space suit technology and even though this jump will be record breaking, the team has mentioned that  the overall goal is mainly focused on the data.

Complete details of the mission can be found here.

GeekwithEnvy Podcast Now Available on iTunes

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I am extremely excited to announce that we have launched our first podcast into the stratosphere! GeekwithEnvy Podcast Icon

If you don’t have time to read all of our latest content, just want GeekwithEnvy on the go, or maybe you just don’t like to read stuff! Well, now you’re in luck! Now you will be able to subscribe to and download the new GeekwithEnvy podcast!

The New podcast will be updated weekly and will feature highlights from the GeekwithEnvy website and other geeky news of the week from around the web.

A new link has been added to the GWE homepage for the new podcast series!

Check out our new podcast and subscribe to keep up to date. You can obtain the GeekwithEnvy Official Podcast on iTunes now.