Two freewares that you shouldn’t miss
Well if there is 1 thing that is present on everyone’s PC is multimedia stuff. ie song, photos and videos. Now people have habit of keeping one software for managing each media type. e.g. For viewing multimedia files… winamp or media player are defacto standards. But when it comes to image viewers or media converters (video en/decoders) people really have bad choice.
Even I was one of those that were never satisfied with my current software. Either it was featureless or was ugly on the eyes. But recently two softwares have made room in my permanent collection, and best of all both are freeware. Try them out you wont regret it:
- FastStone Image Viewer – Forget AC/DC or whatever else thing you use use this for instant full screen previews, with gallery strip and tools activated when you touch screen corners. A typical browser mode also supported with neat skin. Freeware image browsers don’t get better than this.
- MediaCoder – Feed up with high cost Video Converters, that either leave anything missing or feature or a too complex interface then try this. Video types supported are mobile media (3gp), Flash video (flv), Podcasts (mp4), PSP Video and all other kind of typical avi codecs (xvid, divx, wmv etc). And if thats not all.. it all comes in a nice easy interface FREE of cost.
Mouse with LCD screen
Buying unique gadgets is one thing, but hacking gadgets to make them unique is a charm of its own. This guy did a cool project of using a Nokia 6610 LCD screen to display statistics and photos on a mouse.
He fitted the screen on the mouse, added three extra wires which went up to the serial port and data for LCD comes from there. Serial port isn’t blazing fast to stream media but is good enough for images and statistics display. Although practical use isn’t much, moreover your hand would be covering the screen most of the time. But still it shows how to make some cool LCD addition to your other gadgets.
Details and guide @ LogiNoki
Israel using Cluster bombs
Human Rights Watch said it had photographed M483A1 artillery shells stored on the Israeli side of the border, which deliver 88 cluster sub-munitions per shell and have a failure rate of 14 per cent, often leaving behind dangerous unexploded shells. “Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, said in a statement. “They should never be used in populated areas.” An Israeli army statement said: “The use of cluster munitions is legal under international law..”
Well I think everything is legal for them since the world has seen that they pay no heed to either UN’s requests for cease-fire; or any other humanitarian request for not killing innocents.
Read more @ AlJazeera
Mossad: Hezbollah still armed and loaded
Israeli intelligence agency Mossad’s head Meir Dagan said Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas were still capable of fighting with Israel at the current level for a long time, local newspaper Ha’aretz reported on Friday.
However, Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagreed with the Mossad judgement, saying that the Lebanese Shiite group had been seriously damaged, the report said.
Read more @ People’s Daily Online
Spam Art
This guy has one of the weirdest hobbies. He uses the absurd things in his algorithms to make beautiful digital artwork. Or at least his weird “no-explanation” site looks like that he does that. As an example he used ASCII values form spam/junk mails to control a growth of fractal based algorithm that produced flower/plantation shapes instead of fractal.
I just hope he had given a more detailed explanation of how he accomplishes these. Still the artwork is worth a look.
See Alex Dragulescu site @ SQ
How-to make a digital compass
Recently I saw a compass software in mobile of one of my office colleague and dear friend (who goes by the nick “Zeero Error”). That software didn’t work well, but it got to my notice that I don’t have any idea how “digital” version of this centuries old navigation tool works. So, in search I even stumbled upon this site which has describes how to make a 16 point accuracy digital compass.
Read the details @ McCody Compass project
Growing Chairs
Using ancient grafting techniques and a few basic tools, Richard Reames shapes living trees into furniture and sculpture near his home in Oregon for clients worldwide. He is the author of two self-published books, How to Grow a Chair: The Art of Tree Trunk Topiary with Barbara Delbol, and Arborsculpture: Solutions for a Small Planet, published in June. His work was on display this summer at the World Expo in Aichi, Japan.
Read his interview and See his work @ Cabinet Magazine
E3 Game Expo to be scaled down
The Entertainment Software Association confirmed Monday that it plans to scale back the size and scope of E3, the video game industry’s largest trade show.
The event, which has been held each year at the Los Angeles Convention Center, attracts tens of thousands of journalists, exhibitors, retailers and others. E3 has long been known for the mammoth booths of exhibitors like Electronic Arts, Activision, Sony, Microsoft and others, and the ESA’s statement suggested that the show would no longer feature booths of that scope. The aim of new evolution would be to accommodate more developers and allow more content while easing the financial investment required by developers to participate.
Details @ CNet
Ban on blogs… Pak, India. now US
Children in the US could be banned from using any website in schools and libraries. The “Deleting Online Predators” Act tries to limit the access paedophiles have to social networking sites, which have become hugely popular with children. The act, which has already been approved by a large majority in the House of Representatives could affect sites social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, as well as other sites like Amazon and blogs.
Pakistan and India put such bans on blogs to stop people from reading material which were not in interest of the governments or against their religions. Whereas the US ban is target to save children from “unlawful sexual advances” and from “Online Predators”. But currently the categorization of ban is too broad and may become a serious hazard for public.
Read details @ Pocket-Lint
Phone based Credit Card
By next year, you’ll be able to pay simply by swiping your cellphone a few inches from a cash register, with a new wireless standard called Near Field Communication. An NFC chip in your phone will send your credit-card number—stored on your phone or on the chip—by way of short-distance radio waves. An electronic reader at the checkout will decode the number and ring up your purchase.
Unlike radio-frequency identification (RFID) and other existing contactless payment systems, NFC chips allow two-way information exchange by rolling an RF transmitter and reader into one five-millimeter package. That means the chip can also take in data, such as a receipt zapped to it by a cash register or a bus schedule from a tag embedded in a bus-stop sign.
You don’t even have to buy a new phone. When it hits stores next spring, the miniSD-card-size adapter from SanDisk can add NFC to any smartphone with a Symbian operating system when it hits stores next spring. The first pay-by-phone option should roll out later this year, with more applications to follow.
Watch some photos of its usage @ Popular Science
