Teknovis

A nice infographic on Internet usage by Visual.ly (click image to see larger version):

Internet Usage Worldwide (Copyright Visual.ly)

(There are many other very interesting infographics on that website also!)

It has been a while since I blogged, so I am going to ease back into it…

I read today that one of the local authorities in Ireland is going to provide free electric car charging! See Electric car charging points proposed for Ennis Town in draft bye-laws.

I think that this is a brilliant initiative!

Tags: Ireland

I have always wanted to invent (or at least be one of the first to use) a new technology related word! Well, now I think that I have a good one – installups.

Installups are routine installations and upgrades that your operating system does. They generally make little sense to non-technical users, and they frequently occur at unsuitable times.

In fairness, credit for this word goes to a female friend of mine who recently told me:

I had to wait for ages in work last night for my laptop to do its installups.

She was referring to her Windows 7 laptop :o

Remember – you first read about installups here ;)

Tags: Windows 7

I came across a very interesting US patent recently – US 6,283,658 – Chapstick Dispensing Apparatus.

Its abstract is as follows:

The chapstick dispensing apparatus provides convenient use and asymmetrical, tactile geometry, aiding manual determination of the disposition of the device. The cap for the chapstick dispensing apparatus is slidably, pivotably, or hingeably attached to a housing so that no separate cap is present with its accompanying risk of loss or of being dropped. The housing is generally asymmetrical and may have an asymmetrical series of tactile protrusions to help determine the disposition or attitude of the chapstick dispensing apparatus, even though manual dexterity is limited as by gloves or mittens. A cover having a cap and finger cradle may slidably engage the housing to open or close the dispensing apparatus. The lip balm product is disposed within the housing and may be ejected or retracted by an ejector such as a threaded rod and turnwheel or an elevator controlling a platform. The housing may form a channel for the lips to facilitate application of the lip balm product. The cover may pivotably or hingeably attach to the housing and form a snap-fit in conjunction with the housing and/or oppositely opposed finger grips present on the housing. A lanyard ring may also provide additional utility by allowing the chapstick dispensing apparatus to be hung around a person’s neck or wrist.

The most representative figure is:

Chapstick Dispensing Apparatus

So why is this patent so interesting? One of its inventors is well know by another name for other reasons :o

If you need another clue, the inventor is Carlos Irwin Estevez (click the link to reveal his more well known name)!

As somebody pointed-out to me, there is an interesting opinion piece about it in Charlie Sheen’s Patent: Not Winning!.

Yes – you read the title correctly! A team of researchers from Duke University has built a gigapixel camera for the US Department of Defence. The approach it has taken is to create a curved sensor (probably best understood from the drawing below). I think that is very interesting!

Gigapixel Sensor (Copyright Digital Photography Review)

You can read about it, and see a sample photo, in One-shot gigapixel camera offers a future beyond flat sensors and Megapixel Camera? Try Gigapixel.

I noticed that DCU has recently launched a new computing degree (B.Sc.) titled Problem Solving and Software Development (PSSD). The novel thing about it is that entry is achieved by showing an aptitude for programming rather than by the traditional exams results method. For more information see DCU School of Computing launches new degree to produce top programmers.

I think that it is a really great idea, and I hope that it is a success! Of course, I assume that the course will be suitably tailored for entrants that have a natural aptitude for computing!

Tags: DCU

I received this from somebody recently:

Standards Expert

Apparently it is consistent with the sender’s perception of me!

There has been a lot of discussion recently about one of Apple‘s latest granted patents – US 8,223,134 Portable Electronic Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Displaying Electronic Lists and Documents. For example, see Apple granted ‘the mother of all smartphone software patents’.

I actually think that the patent is being over hyped. I would not be overly concerned about infringing it, because its independent claims are very narrow.

Tags: Apple

I updated to Firefox 14.0.1 over the weekend. It does not contain any new user features, but there have been several security enhancements. See the Release Notes for the complete details.

In particular, I like the following two enhancements:

• HTTPS is now used for all Google searches. That should prevent network administrators from eavesdropping on searches ;) Image searches are particularly fun ;) See Rolling Out HTTPS Google search for more details.
• It is no longer possible to spoof the HTTPS icon using the favicon on a fraudulent site. I think that this was really necessary to protect ordinary computer users. I also like the way that the real domain name is highlighted to prevent fraudulent URLs. See Site identity UI updates for more details.

For more general reporting on the upgrade see Firefox 14 arrives with “secure search” and Firefox 14 Hides Your Searches from Prying Eyes.

The only downside the the upgrade has been that my favourite theme, Silvermel, no longer works :( Hopefully this will be rectified soon!

Tags: Firefox, Google

There was an article in the media during the week describing how people are charged more for sending SMS messages in Ireland containing accents. See Texters charged for the síneadh fada.

Personally, I do not see the problem here! If you are sending characters that are outside of the normal character set then you should expect to fit less characters per SMS message (or else pay more for more SMS messages)!

I had the opportunity to discuss this with some Spanish, Polish, and Italian friends yesterday. Some of them said that they get charged more for using accents on their home networks, and others did not know. More interestingly, none of them use accents when sending SMS messages either because it is too slow or akward to find the character, or because it is never needed to understand the message. It was also pointed out to me that this is the same in English, for example, where people use “u” instead of “you”.

Tags: Ireland, SMS