Category Technology

Your Data, The Digital Era and The Future

Greetings person of the digital era! Let’s see how you store your knowledge, your wisdom, your data. Your (very very early) ancestors had word of mouth. Then came drawings and hieroglyphics and then written language and tools let words be inscribed on stone. Scrolls, books and analogue storage of text, audio and video followed. And […]

Wii love MEMS accelerometers.

For propellerheads: An article on IEEE's Spectrum Magazine about the man (and the technology) behind Wii's motion sensor controllers. Next stop: miniature gyroscopes!

Hosted in the States, Σούντ ιν Γκρίς.

Το ArsTechnica γράφει για μια υπόθεση που εκδικάζεται αυτόν τον καιρό στα ελληνικά δικαστήρια και αφορά μια σειρά από μηνύματα με θέμα τον δήμαρχο της Καρπάθου και τις (φημολογούμενες) ατασθαλίες του, σε δικτυακό φόρουμ. Ο δικτυακός τόπος, με θέμα τη Κάρπαθο, αποτελεί δημιούργημα ενός ζευγαριού Αμερικανών που ζούν μόνιμα στο νησί και οι οποίοι έχουν πολλάκις ασκήσει κριτική για τις πρακτικές του δημάρχου του νησιού. Μέχρι εδώ το όλο θέμα είναι παντελώς αδιάφορο εαν όχι τραγελαφικό. Το γεγονός όμως πως ο δικτυακός τόπος φιλοξενείται σε διακομιστές στη Φλόριντα των Η.Π.Α. και πως η ελληνική δικαιοσύνη κατα κανόνα δεν έχει καμία απολύτως δικαιοδοσία, αλλάζει κάπως τα πράγματα. Λαμβάνοντας υπ'όψην πως πολλοί έλληνες επιλέγουν υπηρεσίες φιλοξενίας στο εξωτερικό με κριτήρια τόσο την ελευθερία της έκφρασης που αυτές παρέχουν (σε αντίθεση με αντίστοιχες στη χώρα μας) όσο και το υψηλό επίπεδο και χαμηλό κόστος αυτών (πάλι σε αντίθεση με τις 'σουρρεαλιστικές' προσφορές φιλοξενίας που αντικρύζουμε από ελληνικές εταιρίες), η εκδίκαση κατοίκων της Ελλάδος βάσει περιεχομένου (άγνωστης προέλευσης) σε δικτυακούς τόπους στο εξωτερικό αποκτά, εντελώς διαφορετική βαρύτητα.

Canon EOS 1D Mark III.

The Mark IIIs are here! Well, at least the first one is. Oh boy: 10MP (perhaps not exactly impressive on its own, but...) combined with 10fps (!?), 110 frames in one burst. Wow! The rest is more or less expected: APS-H CMOS sensor, DIGIC III, a 3.0" LCD and the EOS Integrated Cleaning System also seen in 400D.
Canon EOS 1D Mk III

Getting a Used Lens

SLR Photo lenses are expensive. Good SLR lenses are very expensive, often exceeding the price of a mid-range Canon or Nikon DSLR camera itself. As I’m about to get a used L-series Canon EF Lens, I thought I’d share with you a checklist that I prepared to help me remember (and guide me on) what […]

IMDb redesigned

Besides a few minor changes over the years, IMDb hadn't been significantly revamped for the better part of a decade. Until today that is. There's one thing I'm not exactly getting here: why didn't they redesign the whole site? What's the point of incremental updates?

Blender 2.43 is out.

BlenderThe latest version of the premier open source 3d modelling application is here. Read the release notes, watch the feature videos and get it from blender.org! This version adds several interesting new features, such as Mesh Sculpting and Retopo tools. It also has numerous improvements in the renderer, particle system, animation system and compositing. Finally it seems so much faster on my PowerPC G5 hardware.

Peer Reviewed School Textbooks.

Here's an idea. Ignore the part where Jobs rants on teacher job security and how this drives the quality of applicants down; What's truly interesting is the opinion also expressed by others in the past: the replacement of textbooks by electronic, online, peer-reviewed information sources, offering up-to-date, widely accepted material to students. Something like Wikipedia (perhaps limited in scope and moderated) replacing what are obsolete and often partial textbooks.

The 'Hackintosh' experience.

These past few years have been part of a period in which the computing industry, for the first time after many years, has been in flux. The importance of web applications is growing everyday. Alternatives to well-established platforms and application software, often powered by open source software, are challenging the status quo and there was […]