Using Kinect to Surf the Net

Hackers at MIT have combined MS Kinect's body moving software with Javascripts for surfing the net. They call it Depth JS. It is a browser extension that allows users to navigate the web using hand gestures. What other applications would be cool to use without a mouse or keyboard?

DepthJS from Fluid Interfaces on Vimeo.

Lunapic - Fun Picture Editor

This is just too much fun. My student, Dylan, showed us lunapic. You upload your picture and then there are really fun things to do to it.

Cellphone with a Heart Beat

Here's an interesting TEDTalk about the future of cellphones. Instead of making humans better at technology, how can we make technology better at being human?

This PhD student suggests a cellphone that has mass, shape, and empathy. Enjoy

http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/FabianHemmert_2009X.mp4

What applications can you see of this technology?

School should be like a Video Game

There's a school in NYC that has teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and a profession game designer, Katie Salen, to make school like a Video Game.

For example, a math teacher was playing a pac-man like game and the students where to see if they could find the pattern in how the enemies moved and then plot that on a graph. OK, they were 6th graders, but still, it's an interesting idea.

Instead of letter grades or numbers, their report cards say “pre-novice,” “novice,” “apprentice,” “senior” or “master.”

Here's the whole story behind Quest to Learn if you'd like to read more.

What high school lessons could be taught as a game? How would you like it if all your classes used video games somehow?

Pants on the Ground guy - Dead or Not?

Internet rumors have been flying about the Pants on the Ground guy, Larry Platt, being dead. The rumor had him approaching a group of men, with low pants of course, and singing his famous song. They then beat him to death.

It does appear this is not true. But only a rumor. Though the extent of effort to propogate the rumor is amazing. Photoshopped pictures, multiple websites, and or course the human element that keeps us guessing.

What do you think? Is Pants on the Ground guy dead? What other "stories" do you hear so many times that you take them to be true?

The Mosquitto - Not Just a Rington

Howard Stapleton is the man who made The Mosquitto sound file that many high school students use as their ring tone so their parents and teachers don't know they're texting. It works because as we age, our hearing range decreases. Most people over 25 can not hear The Mosquitto. In fact, Howard can hear it. He made it with the help of his 4 year old daughter.

Now, adults are using it to shoo unruly teenagers from hanging out near their stores.

This may seem controversial, as all people have the constitutional right to assemble. But what if they are drunk, loud, and harrassing others?

Here/Read the entire interview here and tell me what you think? Should the shop owners be allowed to use it?

Hard Times calls for Saving Ink Toner

My boss sent out an email to us explaining how some fonts use less toner and asked us to set one of these as our default. I know we've fallen on hard times, but this just seemed drakonian to me.

On the one hand, it is an easy do-it-once task that does have benefits, so why not. On the other, really!! It just caught me so off guard. Maybe because the email was titled "TGIF".

Anyways, here are the most ecological fonts:

Century Gothic, a particularly light, thin font, uses about 30 percent less ink than Arial, according to a recent study by Printer.com. Other cheap fonts: Times New Roman, Calibri, and Verdana.

Sony's MOVE will take motion-control gaming to the next level

Sony will be selling it's MOVE component for the Playstation3 this fall for $100. MOVE is a motion-control system, like Wii, but with a 3D component. It is getting lots of buzz in the gaming world and has a 3D version of Killzone 3. One reviewer said, "the jet-pack wearing enemies seemed to be floating midway between our heads and the screen. We couldn't help leaning to the left of right to dodge their fire." And, before you ask, "yes" you have to wear those red/blue glasses.

So what about it, Microsoft? What are you gonna do for the XBox?

A Fun Read

Just heard about Fan-fiction, a site where anyone can be an author. Check it out and read a few!

Then if you feel adventurous, write your own story and upload it and see how many people read it. This is a fantastic way to express yourself and to see if you like writing for pleasure.

There's even a mobile version for those of you with smart phones. So the next time you're bored, but away from your computer, you can still have something fun to read.

Would you ever be willing to use something like Fan-fiction for turning in a school assignment? How would that change the amount of time and energy you put into the assignment?

May the 4th be with you - International Star Wars Day

This new "holiday" is going viral for people who like the Star Wars movies, books, etc. It's an excuse to dress up as your favorite character from the franchise and get your geek on. Here's a link to more info on how it got started. There's even a Facebook "event"

Mostly, I just liked the play on words (force v fourth).

Google Chrome Rocks!!

I just downloaded Google Chrome and I love it! It is sooooo fast. And it has wonderful options like typing searches or URLs in the same box and right clicking on address in any web site to map them. Yep, I'm a convert.

Sharing Earbugs is Gross

Is it just me, or do others find sharing earbugs to be unsanitary. I had a student who wanted me to hear something he was listening to, and he handed me his left earbud. Couldn't do it. I held it up to my ear, but I couldn't put it inside me ear. It just grosses me out.

I see pairs of students sharing earbuds all the time. In fact, there have been studies that show this creates a bond and demonstrates a level of trust between friends. Sorry, friend, I don't want to share ear wax.

Years ago, we learned not to share combs because of head lice. I wonder what you can catch from an earbud?

Visual Basic is related to District 9

In VB class today, we were studying creating menus. You name menus with "mnu." About 10 mins later, Ben shouts out, "That's from District 9!" Whaaat???

He's right, MNU is the MultiNationalUnited company that was running the show in the movie.

I guess we're running out of 3 letter acronyms. What others have more than one meaning?






Hi Brandon

This Shirt will get you Dates

Here's an actual link to the 3 Wolf Moon Shirt you can buy on Amazon.com. Scroll down to the Customer Reviews for a huge laugh. I really feel embarrased for the people who created the music video.

Thanks, Matt!

Inside Joke

If you know a little about Java and if you saw Avatar, you'll love this FoxTrot comic strip!!

Computer Engineer Barbie

Computer Engineer Barbie, complete with glasses, blue-tooth headset and lap top. I like it! I wonder if Computer Engineer Ken would look like Bill Gates or Stephen Jobs?

Olympic Cowbell App

Say you're at the Olympics and you're watching Lindsey Vonn race and you want to encourage her. You're not going to take off your mittens and clap, that would be too cold. So you ring your cowbell. But wait, you forgot your cowbell!! No worries, "there's an app for that." Cowbell2010

Seriously. This .99 cent app for iPhones will make a cowbell sound when you shake it.

Cat Face

I needed a pick-me-up today, and my students Sam and Ben suggested Cat Face. You just got to watch it to understand, I can't explain it.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/catface/Cat+Face/

Superbowl Ads

Superbowl Ads, which is your favorite? My AP class decided the "Doritos Play Nice" one was the best.

Oh yeah, and Congrats to the Saints

iPad, Really?

I don't know that much about Apple's new hot product yet, the iPad. But I just can't get past the name. MadTV did a spoof of the iPod way back in 2005 that was called the iPad. I can't post it here, because it's not quite school appropriate (search YouTube for yourself) but needless to say it had to do with "female" things.

It may be that the iPad, with its iTouch features and its netbook features and its eBook Reader features will be a huge sucess. But the name is a complete joke. You can tell there were no women on the marketing team.

Would you pay $500-$800 for the iPad? If you have one, what cool things does it do?

I leave you with this quote from Steve Jobs, "It's so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone" Oh my!

What is this: &

In Visual Basic, you use the "&" sign to put two strings together. I was calling it the "ampersand" sign and noone knew what I was talking about. The students call it the "and" sign. They call the "+" sign the "plus" sign.

So just to show I'm not loosing my marbles, check out wikipedia and see that I'm not making this up.

What do you call this: &

Avatar - iMax 3D

Finally got to see Avatar yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The iMax 3D experience was fantastic. I may never be satisfied with a regular movie again.

The special effects were special. You really felt you were there. You could feel the forest around you. It was a beautiful place. The characters and world were deeply developed. The premise, history, and interconnected-ness of all things was a message we can all use.

The story line was predictable, but aren't they all.

Avatar was a life dream of producer James Cameron, who spent 20 years and $250 million of his own money to make it. The total cost was somewhere around $500 million, but looks like they'll make their money back in no time. Viewer turn out has been, well, special.

Have you seen it? What did you think of the technology in it (cryogenics, aviation, cloning, "linking") or the technology to make it (3D movies, human animation, computing engineers)?

Which is your favorite Flash Movie

We have been learning Flash in my Web Design class. The students had a project to create a Flash movie of their own choosing. The minimum requirements were:

• Recognizable scene
• 5-10 seconds long
• At least 2 different symbols
• at least 1 guided motion twen
• Stop action and Replay button

We'll be using this link to vote for our favorite on polleverywhere.

Which was your favorite and why?

Are you new? Rookie mistakes by Veterans

I found this very funny in my class today. This is the end of first semester. So we have had class for 90+ days together. And every day we work on programs and at the end of class we save our work onto our "home" drives. This is a networked drive different from the "C" drive. It gives students privacy, so others can't see their work.

One student must have saved his work on the "C" drive by mistake. But he was not sitting at the same computer today.

Another student said, "Are you new?" It was the funniest thing I heard all day. Thanks, Mason, for making my day.

Paper Wads and other high tech stuff

Today we were using polleverywhere to review for an exam. The students had worked out their answers to a multiple-choice worksheet and we were voting for the best answer and discussing the results.

Then the network went down.

So to continue the review and to keep it fun and engaging, we wrote the letters A,B,C,D on the board and threw paper wads at our answers!

It's a good thing the network came back up 10 mins later, because we were getting tired of throwing. Thanks, Matt, for the idea. And thanks, DJ, for tossing them back and then getting them in the garbage.

Google Chrome and Netbooks

Google takes another blow at Microsoft by putting their own operating system, Chrome, on their new netbook platform. Netbooks are the future and Google is poised to rule that future. Is Microsoft asleep?

Netbooks are very light and small computers that don't have much local power (so no gaming) but can do everything on the web. So if you're comfortable with working "in the cloud" (like your word processing documents), it's all you need. And they're priced around $100

Chrome is the operating system that replaces Windows and since it only has to do internet stuff, it is configured to work really fast over the net. Independent studies have confirmed it is faster than Internet Explorer and FoxFire

I guess the only question is whether people will become comfortable working "in the cloud". What about you? Are you ok with putting all your stuff out there? Are you worried about security? About privacy? About redundancy?