Let's Talk Tech
Virgin Galactic looks to be on track to deliver commercial space flight next year!
SpaceShipTwo completed its second test flight today at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The little spaceship which could was ferried up to 40,000 feet where it’s boosters took over and it climbed to 69,000 feet and hit a top speed of Mach 1.4. Seriously impressive numbers for a commercial craft.
Hit the video below for some “science fiction becoming reality”.
Here’s the deal. It doesn’t matter how good a phone is. A single handset, or a couple of phones, the mobile phone market is viscerally competitive. Without an ecosystem surrounding your products, and an established reputation in the market, consumers will be wary. We’ve been burned too many times before. I still mourn HP/Palm for example. Poor webOS…
Anywho, Thomas Zilliacus speaks openly and candidly about his plans to form a new company to utilize Nokia talent to build Android handsets. Following a failed Nokia takeover, Mr. Zilliacus  is forming Newkia with plans to marry Finnish hardware design with Google’s operating system.
I welcome more competition, but pairing good or great hardware, even while piggybacking on Nokia’s build reputation, isn’t a sure-fire recipe for success. Any company walking into the smartphone arena has to demonstrate their ability to compete over time as well. That said, I’m tentatively very excited to play with a Newkia if and when they actually arrive.
Thomas Zilliacus on Channel News Asia, to form Newkia (video interview)
Pretty straight forward folks. If you’re lucky enough to be rocking Glass, then you’ll want to update the MyGlass app. The update allows you to control Glass using your phone.
Apparently, controlling Glass through taps and head tilts isn’t always ideal, and now utilizing Glass’ screencast capabilities, you can spread out the Glass UI on an Android handset instead.
Plus there are “Bug Fixes”. So. You’ll probably want those too.
When Robert Downey Jr. retires from playing Tony Stark they should just follow Elon Musk around with cameras. A normal day for him is science fiction for the rest of us plebs.
Anywho, wouldn’t it be great if Iron Man’s garage were an actual real life thing. You move designs around by waving your hands through the air. You interact with models using advanced 3D optics, then have the ability to render and construct that design right there. Yeah. That’d be cool.
Well Musk and his engineers at SpaceX went and pretty much made it. Using tech like LEAP motion controllers and Oculus Rift goggles, designers are able to interact and manipulate models via gestures. Plus they can then build those models using 3D printers in the lab. It’s incredible stuff, and Elon “Man of the Future” Musk himself spends a couple minutes walking us through their advances.
All of these separate technologies are starting to come together, and it’s starting to look really cool.
(via TechCrunch)
Yeah. Some hot, sweet, S-Pen action!
Sammy’s Youtube channel just posted this six and a half minute long video introducing the Galaxy Note 3, and spending some time walking around all the new features.
The video details the new design, the updated hardware, and then showcases some of the new quick control actions like Air Command and Action Memo. If you’ve been curious about what the Note 3 has to offer, this video should answer a lot of questions.
Click here for our full coverage of Samsung Unpacked from Berlin!
***UPDATE***
Wow Samsung! Get a room for those two!
Not to be outdone by themselves, or anyone else on the internet reviewing tech, they just dropped this EIGHTEEN minute video showing of the combo of Galaxy Gear + Galaxy Note 3. Geez… I guess  I don’t even need to bother reviewing this stuff anymore…
Ok.
I’m geek enough to really enjoy a good tear down video. The first computer I ever took apart was an 8088 running DOS. It’s in my blood. I like knowing what’s inside my magic boxes. NVIDIA has taken a somewhat novel approach to opening up their Shield portable gaming console (one of my favorites from this year’s E3 btw).
When they said they were going to show us an “exploded” view of Shield, who knew they would take that literally…
My friend Tom Costello is a working actor in LA, and he was kind enough to sit down with me to chat about his experiences using his Nokia Lumia 520.
I hope to continue this as a semi-regular series on how real people (not tech bloggers) incorporate tech into their daily lives. You can catch our first Real Person Review of Marie talking about her Galaxy S4.
We had a few teething pains with Google Hangouts getting the interview started, but it settled down once we got to talking.
I really want to thank Tom for sharing his experiences, and to keep track of his projects, please check out his IMDB profile:Â http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1843641/
Oh Canada.
Apparently this video, which skewered how cable companies and ISP’s do business ruffled some feathers, and it’s currently blocked due to a defamation complaint up north. Bummer. It’s also frustrating as it calls into question how companies can silence dissent and satire using these automated copyright and defamation tools. Recently, several of my videos were flagged because I included a clip of Night of the Living Dead in them. NotLD is in the public domain, but someone copyrighted a new work incorporating part of the clip I used, but I digress.
I’ll have to save this ire for a proper rant editorial. Honestly I’m just covering this story to re-post this video which makes me laugh. That and I’m currently going through some issues with Time Warner Cable, and this is hitting particularly close to home at the moment. Enjoy (unless you’re in Canada)!