What is Computer Engineering?

Here's a very cute example of Computer Engineering:

The robotic arm is a mechanical device, so a bit of mechanical engineering knowledge is needed. The ball takes a parabolic path, so a bit of mathematics is needed. The brains, or "brick", had to be created (electrical knowledge) and programmed (programming knowledge).

What other household devices would be fun to create?

Stuxnet

This video on the Anatomy of a Virus is really cool in 2 ways. First, the content is extraordinary. There is this spooky virus that can shut down nuclear reactors and is considered the "first virus as a weapon." Secondly, the presentation style is visually stunning.

How long do you think it took them to make this video? Have you ever used Vimeo?

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

Students write Android Apps

As an end-of-year project, some of my students, Ben, Boochi, and Samantha, choose to learn to write Android apps. They only had 2 1/2 weeks, but were able to put together a few interesting items.

They wrote an "excuse generator" which randomly combines words to sound like really high tech error messages, a decimal-to-binary converter, and a Pascal's Triangle generater of 1-8 degrees.

The Pascal's Triangle generater is published on The Market and can be downloaded for free. If you have an Android phone, my students would be thrilled to see it being downloaded and to have your comments/ratings.

High Tech Clothes

They now make dresses and shirts that double as a cellphone! Just make the movement with your arm to answer or call. (You know, the way you try to hide that you're on your phone from your teachers!) How convenient.

And there's other things happening. Check this out.

The Witness

The Witness - "the first movie in the outernet." It's like The Amazing Race only in a moive thriller. Participants actually live inside the movie by going to crime scenes with a smart phone and watching a video taken at that sight. They make decisions and follow leads throughout the city. And can even be terminated from the event.

You just gotta watch this to get it: http://www.youtube.com/embed/Yis6is8v9jA?rel=0

Just a matter of time before it comes to us!

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is now available for mobile devices (phones, tablets, iPods). Just point your phone's camera at a restaraunt, and it shows you its menu.

If you're not sure what Augmented Reality is, check out this short explanation from Common Craft.

If you want to write your own AR layers, check out the new developement site, Daqri.

This is as exciting as the invention of the internet! This may lead to the replacement of the internet. Who needs a desktop anymore?

What kinds of layer would you like to see written. So you're walking down the street and you want to know more about.....

Computer wins at Jeopardy

Computer Scientist created, programmed, and kicked-butt with their computer named Watson. Watson easily beat the very best humans in the game of Jeopardy. This was quite an accomplishment, and quite a collection of hardware.

Can you imagine spending years of your time on a project like this? Can you image being paid to do this kind of job?

Favorite Super Bowl Advertisement

So which was your favorite? You can view them here. I gotta say, watching Roseanne Barr get clobbered by the lumber in the 2nd quarter was a highlight of mine.

Also, the Groupon ads in the third quarter are getting a lot of grief for being tasteless.

Colleges using blogs to connect with their students

Here's a look at the 50 Best Ways Schools use Social Media. Most all of these schools use blogs, either through office school sources, or unofficial campus groups, to communicate their their students. That's a lot of web sites and messages coming at you. Eventually, you will need a "reader" like Google Reader to keep track of all this stuff.

Can you ever see yourself being a blogger? What topics would you find interesting to follow?

What do you know?

Provide us a link to something interesting you have read on the internet. It will be fun to come back here and read other people's posts. (No games, please. Remember to keep it "school-appropriate")

For example: Did you know that Anderson High School is haunted?

First Nintendo Wii, now Nintendo 3D (without glasses)

Even if you're not a fan of the Nintendo Wii system, you have to admit it was a game changer (pun intended). It changed the way we interact with our games. It brought games we never thought of into the possible. It mostly is for non-teens (both younger and older).

Now, Nintendo has a handheld device (3DS) that lets you see in 3D without the need for glasses! I heard it's pretty good too. What games would you like to see retrofitted to the 3DS? What new kind of games are now possible? How will gaming change? Wouldn't it be cool to combine 3D with body controllers?!?!!

Competition for iPad

The Tablet competition is heating up. The two that are looking to be top competitors are the Motorola Xoom (Android) and the Blackberry Playbook (RIM). With prices well below old-fashioned laptops, do you think you'd ever want one? Could you do your school/college work with just a Tablet and a word processor in-the-cloud (say Google Docs)? With video calling all the rage now, could you use a Tablet instead of a cellphone?

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?