Ken McGuire

Category: Technology

Sometimes its good to know how to do something!

  • Proud of second place

    “We’re not number one, but we’re getting there”.

    Can anyone remember what company used that as a motto? Can’t for the life of me remember, but now it’s applying to Sandisk who are proud to state that they are in fact number two, but the company are making the most of being number two behind Apple in the digital audio player market in the US. With a marketing budget nothing like Apple’s, the hype alone could be their best marketing in itself.

    They do make exceedingly good memory cards, Mr. Kipling.

  • Volvo : Peace Of Mind

    It seems the fun never stops at Volvo when it comes to technological developments. According to engadget this morning, Volvo have installed heartbeat sensors as a security mechanism in the new breed of the S80.

    Why would you want a heartbeat sensor? To alert you to a loved one’s medical condition while you drive? No chance!

    The new Volvo S80 Heartbeat Sensor is designed to detect intruders heartbeats, to read their fear, and alert you via a wireless alarm on your key chain to the fact that there’s an intruder lying in the backseat waiting to kidnap you. Seriously. Begs the question of course that if s/he has already figured out how to get into your car without setting off the alarm that they might well have cracked the sensor.

    Peace of mind for the paranoid driver I think!

  • Take 2 in hot… coffee…

    I’d safely say that almost anyone who has owned a Playstation 2 or used one, has at some stage, tried their hand at the Grand Theft Auto series. I’ve been a fan ever since the top-down first version, and even that one was given a 15/18 cert when it was released in certain areas. Having grown up with the series on the PC and then trying my hand at the console when Vice City and San Andreas were released, I was astounded to hear today that Take Two Interactive are being sued, for a nice sum for hiding a mini-game within the PC version of GTA : San Andreas which depicts the main character in sexually explicit scenes, which can be controlled by the user. The minigame itself has been dubbed ‘Hot Coffee’.

    The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has taken Take-Two to court for deceptive business practices and making false statements in marketing the game, for its failure to reveal the extent of its sexual content.

    The smart thing is, Take-Two originally claimed that the scenes were added by hackers in the form of a mod for the game, until later admitting that the scenes and minigame were actually embedded within the original code. Big mistake there lads!

    Check this article covering the original story (pre-court case), mid last year. Did anyone else NOT know about this?

  • Camera Phone Crazy

    Samsung’s latest offering in the cameraphone market is more of a camera with a phone stuck on the tail end as opposed to what we’re used to seeing in the shops. And guess what…. they’ve only gone and upped the resolution on the camera to 7.7 megapixel!

    It’s supposed to be a phone for god’s sake! Its got a flash, and a TV-out function!

    This is getting silly…

  • Google Most Popular Brand

    While Apple have become the number one brand in the US and Canada, Google are now the top brand in the world (most influential) according to BrandChannel.com’s annual popularity poll which surveyed 2500 people across 99 countries. After a fairly good year, Skype is up there at number three in the world rankings with parent company and one of my favourite haunts, eBay, coming in ninth.

    Read all about it at MacWorld

  • RFID Logins

    I wrote a paper last year on the uses of RFID in a natural environment with a focus on personal privacy protection. Bit of a mouthful, but I find the topic compelling to be honest. Browsing CNN.com I came across this recent story on RFID implants (no, not the Page 3 kind).

    The article is based on a 29-year-old entrepreneur out of Vancouver (Canada) who along with 20 of his tech-friends have gotten RFID implants under the skin in their fingers, allowing them to interact with various RFID readers, part of which allows him to access his computer with a wave of his hand. This type of technology really knows no bounds. Can you imagine no passwords for your computer? No code for the house alarm, no keys for your car?

    Makes a very interesting read.

  • How an IT startup raises money

    So Meebo is out and about now as an AJAX powered IM client and the official meebo blog has some great honest posts about how the set upon raising money for the startup, a point of interest to some people around here!

    1. milk money, part one
    2. milk money, part two
    3. milk money, part three

  • Acrobat goes all 3D

    Having worked with Adobe’s product line the last 5 or 6 years through college and beyond, I find it interesting to see that they’re going 3D. As if eating up Macromedia wasn’t enough! They have created a high-end version of Acrobat, aimed at boosting sales in the manufacturing industry, that displays three-dimensional images within PDF documents.

    Acrobat 3D is expected to go public later today which will allow a person to create a PDF with embedded images from CAD style applications (like AutoCAD, Promis-E…. hmmm, Promis-E, the troubles with that one!). Of course anyone interested will have to off and update their copy of Acrobat Reader / Adobe Acrobat in order to get the use of it.

    From the release…. “Adobe developed the 3D product specifically for manufacturing customers who regularly exchange CAD files in the design process, said Rak Bhalla, senior marketing manager. Car manufacturers, for example, share their product descriptions and designs with their suppliers to get bids for component parts. ”

    I’ve been coaching my father of late on zipping and PDFing CAD drawings for the business, albeit on a 2D basis but I’d be very interesting in seeing the outcome of the 3D development!

  • Google On The Radio?

    Flick on 2FM and you’ll hear a bunch of Google adword adverts. Actually, you won’t. But I could be telling you that in a few months time, given Googles hugh presence in Dublin. CNET reports that Google have just purchased a radio advertising company and are looking to integrate the technology which helps “sell, schedule, deliver and report radio ads” with their existing AdWords service for advertisers.

    I’ve already seen evidence of Google filling newspaper slots with AdWords snippets (Chicago-Sun Times was one such paper, bless them for their American sports coverage, even with Chicago out of the playoffs). I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this would start Google FM or something along those lines as well. They may as well since they’re doing everything anyway!

  • PageRank Followup

    Having been speaking about Google PageRank last week, I came across this paper which should be of interest to those of you worried about how your site or blog is performing. It is a quite detailed breakdown of how the PageRank algorithm works and what it does. The paper was written by Ian Rogers and is certainly worth reading for anyone with an interest in the workings of that elaborate ranking scheme.

  • Nikon out of the film game

    I’m a Nikon user, have been for years, both film and digital. In the last 18 months however its been strictly digital, man how I love my D70. Nikon has just broken the news that it is to concentrate its efforts on the digital market.

    “Nikon will discontinue production of all lenses for large format cameras and enlarging lenses. This also applies to most of our film camera bodies, interchangeable manual focus lenses and related accessories,” it said in a statement on its British website.

    It will keep on a few of the higher end professional film cameras such as the F6. Nikon are currently the second largest producer of dSLR cameras (behind Canon) but my devotion remains with them. 95% of their sales last year was in the digital market (where cameras are concerned anyway) and I can understand why. Built to last, drive them into the ground, superb picture quality and processing. Sign of the times when one of the biggest camera manufacturers turns its back on film. Beginning of the ultimate end of film cameras?

  • Computer fun for Ken

    It’s here 😉

    Kid with a new toy, I think so. I’ll let you know how it goes anyway. What am I on about? Click for my previous post.

  • Of clothing and technology

    Popgadget reads that Levi, the jeans maker, have announced that they’re launching a new clothing line (or line of jeans I guess) which will see the pockets of the jeans lined with an ipod dock and control joystick.

    In fairness.

    Supposedly it will make your ipod more or less ‘invisible’ and hide that ‘iPod bulge’ in your pocket. Sort of begs the question, “is that an iPod in your pocket or are you….”, yeah you know what I mean. Hell if they can wire a bluetooth earpiece into the thumb and pinky finger of a glove they can do whatever they like with a pair of jeans!

  • Google Video Open For Business

    Its been a couple of days since Google’s keynote speech at this year’s CES but Google Video is up and running (the store part of it). If you hurry now, you can nab yourself a 45 minute episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine for only $1.99!!!

    Yes, that was sarcasm.

    Still, good to see it up and running! Wired.com is also reporting that users can set their own prices for content that they submit for sale, which could be quite interesting to some Irish organisations currently exploring options for delivering film content online? All this provided of course that the content creator gives 30% of generated revenue to Google itself…

  • More funding for Riya

    I blogged a bit about Riya late last year and TechCrunch is now reporting that they’ve just sealed a further $15 million bucks from an existing investor.

    For those of you who don’t know anything about Riya, check my previous post here. Their background is in facial recognition, tagging photos the way you tag your blog, or del.icio.us links so you can search your photos, and others, based on faces, locations, backgrounds etc. Word has it they’re still taking alpha testers too if you’re interested.

  • Jesus and iPods

    I don’t even own an actual iPod (in the sense of the word) but yet find myself posting about them again. This time of course, its entirely humerous, designed to lighten up your rainy Tuesday afternoon. Thanks to John for pointing this out.

    It begins…

    You know he has one.

    You know it’s the big 60GB model, loaded, flawless and gleaming and radiating a strange liquid ethereal glow and couched in a beautiful custom rainbow-colored biodegradable case made of clouds and eagle feathers and wine. And of course Jesus gets his iPods wholesale, given how he and Steve Jobs go way back, back to the time when Jobs was a scruffy twentysomething geek ever praying for revelation and God finally gave Jesus the green light to inspire the first Mac!

    And so it continues….

  • Socio-Techno convergence too serious?

    Random blog surfing for the evening brought by to sem | antics where I came across this blog post, Twelve Signs You’re Taking Socio-Techno convergence too serious.

    In the short time I’ve been blogging (ok, I set up in October last but I still feel like I’m new to the whole thing, it takes a while to warm up) I was alarmed to find myself laughing along, because I knew what they were on about. You normally see these type of posts in the case were “you were a kid of the 80s if…” etc.

    Read on though, for tech bloggers it should be fun!

  • Favourite Tech Things

    Everyone’s got their favourite techie things so I thought I would ask about, while sharing mine.

    I browse the internet with Firefox and blog with WordPress (1.5). .I’m running Windows XP on a PC I custom built a year ago which has geeky technie neon lights lining the inside of the casing (which has a lovely clear panel at the side too…). With Windows running and me browsing the internet, I tend to stick on Winamp to tune into some Internet radio (and by tend to I mean always). If I’m simply playing a CD or watching a video I’ll throw on Windows Media Player which is busting at the sides with extra codecs for different media types.

    When I get stuck into my blog (either kenmc.com or nflview.com) I have some handy plugins for WordPress running (here you go Kentar…) which include a good Technorati plugin, a handy del.icio.us plugin, a trendy autolinking plugin, and an extremely useful image uploader for posting my blog entries.

    The ads on the side of my blog are served up by Commission Junction and Tradedoubler, while NFLView.com uses a combination of Commission Junction and Google AdSense for the American market.

    I also track my websites statistics across 4 fronts – those provided by AdSense, CJ.com, Statcounter & Google Analytics.

    So there’s some food for thought!

  • iSee You

    What has a 3.6″ LCD screen, a rechargable battery, and can record DVDs, TV and a few other bits?

    Must be the new iSee, the iPod Video Recorder. I don’t actually own an iPod in the sense of the brand (still got my 20gb Creative Zen jukebox going), but this looks like a pretty good gadget. It won’t work with your 60gb 5G iPod, or anything below 4G, but anything inbetween is a peach – seemingly. Check it out over at Gizmodo.

  • Handsfree Skype

    Gone are the USB cables and being tied to the desk for Skype… nice one. Motorola released a bluetooth headset for Skype a while ago, but I came across this Skype handsfree unit this morning. It’s manufactured by USRobotics, who made my lovely 14.4k modem all those years ago, should retail for around €40, looks well on the desk….