Ken McGuire

Category: Technology

Sometimes its good to know how to do something!

  • Antitrust To Cost Microsoft Another €899m

    MicrosoftFour years ago Microsoft were fined €497m (as in million) by the European Commission, the company at the time ordered to release key parts of it’s Windows code to other developers. In 2006, the company were fined a further €280m. Today it emerges they’ve been stung for a staggering (in lay mans terms) sum of €899m, the EC finding Microsoft guilty of not handing over code and breaking an EU anti-trust ruling.

    The sum equates to $1.4bn which works out at what, around 3.5% give-or-take of the total offered in Microsoft’s proposal to take over Yahoo? At the very least it would pay for a B2 bomber.

    Whatever way you look at it, it’s still a huge chunk of cash to pay out, though I’m certainly interested in where this €899m will wind up. How about €899m worth of free software for schools in Europe?

    In the press this morning, however, one might draw the idea that Microsoft would be challenging the imposed fine as they see it relating to issues resolved in the past.

    We are reviewing the Commission’s action. The Commission announced in October 2007 that Microsoft was in full compliance with the 2004 decision, so these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved,” the company said in a statement. As we demonstrated last week with our new interoperability principles and specific actions to increase the openness of our products, we are focusing on steps that will improve things for the future,” the company said. (via)

    You think the EU could step in and ask Apple to check their currency conversion rates at all?

    This morning’s press release attributes the €899m fine to Microsoft having “charged unreasonable prices for access to interface documentation for work group servers“.

    Check here for history on the antitrust case with Microsoft.

  • New MacBook Pro Rolls In

    MacBook Pro 15″ ModelThe Apple store is getting a bundle of new products and price cuts of late – the arrival of the 32gb iPod Touch, the price cuts to the iPod Shuffle (1 gig model now available for €45 online) and the arrival of the MacBook Air. Now it’s the turn of the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models.

    I’ve been a MacBook Pro user since December 2006 (seems like a lifetime ago now) and of all the laptops I’ve owned and used over the years I have to say it’s the best piece of computing kit I ever put money into. That said, if I was in the market for a new laptop, then the new MacBook (or Pro) models would be my first port of call.

    In the Irish Apple Store you’ll find the MacBook starting from €999 while the MacBook Pro starts from €1799. Though if you want my advice, buy foreign… it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.

    The 15 inch MacBook Pro model (of which I’m using) now comes with 200gb HD space as standard, processor upped to 2.4GHz (I’m on 2.16) and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 128MB SDRAM.

    Move up to the next model (2.5GHz 15 inch) and you’ve got yourself an extra 50gb HD space and your graphics card gets bumped up to 256mb (extra 400 euro). The real sweetness is in the new 17 inch model, busting out a screen resolution of 1680 x 1050, 250gb HD, LED backlit screen option and graphics bumped up to 512mb on order.

    The MacBooks too have some nice new additions, again with processor, HD and graphics all getting a boost.

    Each model ships with 2GB RAM as standard and multi-touch (via MacBook Air) has also been added.

    Check here for MacBooks     and here for MacBook Pros on the Irish Apple store.

  • Mourning My iPod No More

    Now playingThere’s few things in life I go anywhere without.

    House keys.
    Wallet.
    Mobile phone.

    Since September 2006 you can also add a 60gb video iPod to that list. In my pocket, in my bag, in work, in the van, on a bus, on a trip to Canada, on a trip to Germany – wherever I went, the iPod followed.

    It had been a month since I’d seen it. I’d used the iPod (as I always do) in setting up the rig for the night, check sound levels, quick pan left and right and put it away. Collecting the gear the next morning, I grabbed the iPod, put it into the van (or at least thought I did) but it never made it back to Kilkenny. Any boxes, bags, anything small enough to hold the device have long been emptied.

    Hell, even at the weekend I unscrewed the lower panels in the back of the van just in case it had some how slipped in behind them.

    Alas, no.

    Flash to Monday of this week and I was hovering with my finger over the publish button on this post, which ultimately had a different outcome. In Monday’s post I would have talked about how the iPod was an extension of my being. Like a lost puppy it followed me absolutely everywhere – gigs, walking around town, working out, around the house, in my camera bag, in work, in the van, never leaving my side. I would have talked about how strange it is to get attached to a digital device. I’ve had phones I’ve loved, laptops I’ve loved but when something *just works* and shows no sign of needing an upgrade or update, provides great battery life (through care), hasn’t a mark on it (bar some wear on the back) and does everything I need it to do, then obviously I’m going to get attached to it. That said, this is the iPod I upgraded the firmware on.

    Plus at the time, it was a considerable investment, breaching the 450 euro mark (yes, in typical Apple fashion it wasn’t long before they announced the 80gb slim models but there you go…).

    Ever since the secondary school days I’ve had some form of portable music player sitting in my bag – hell even go back to primary school days where I would accept sitting through slower renditions of my favourite songs because the batteries in my walkman weren’t totally depleted. Walking to work in Waterford my minidisc would sit happily in my pocket. On the bus home from college by Creative Zen Jukebox would provide me with some musical interludes between conversations. But in the 18 months I’ve had my iPod it never left my side.

    Yesterday I would have talked about how it was time to look for another iPod. I didn’t necessarily need wifi, but maybe it would be interesting. I didn’t necessarily need to go to a 160gb classic model, but maybe the extra space would come in handy some day. However, I had also resigned myself to the fact that replacing my iPod would, in the present climate, have to take a lower priority on the list of things I’ve got lined up. Plus, if I was going iPod touch route I’d certainly try and organise something overseas rather than pay Apple’s silly exchange rate where US$1 = €1.

    But, no more.

    Rummaging through a bag of XLR cables needing to be repaired on Monday (and stuck with a tube of masking tape around it) the mourning of a device turned to sheer joy. Battery drained, marked up from the tape (comes of with cleaning) but a full charge via USB and the world is back to normal.

    I think I’d been physically upset at losing the iPod, such is my attachment to it. Or at the very least angry with myself for having misplaced it to begin with. How it ended up in the bag is beyond me as I certainly didn’t put it there – I wouldn’t mind only I’d been through that bag before and had it out at two gigs since.

    At least now I can empty iTunes of all the podcast content I’ve downloaded.

  • Testing MaemoWordPy

    (more…)

  • Topics, No Posts In PHPBB3 After PHPBB2 Conversion

    Saturday night / Sunday was spent doing a total forum upgrade on KilkennyMusic.com, moving from phpBB2.0.22 (legacy) to phpBB3.

    In doing the upgrade I needed to install a new copy of phpBB3, change a few URLs, download my phpBB2 database locally, convert it to the phpBB3 standard (due to timeouts on the server), upload the new database and everything was supposed to be grand.

    I won’t claim to know everything about the ins and outs of phpBB’s database structure but I’d have a fair idea of where things go.

    Flash forward an hour or so, the forum goes live once again, replying to old posts is no problem, some of the avatars missing (no big deal, only 3-4 of them site-wide) but new topics were posing a problem.

    The posts were appearing, visible in their respective forums, times and authors correct, but clicking on them would tell you the topic didn’t exist. A quick search on Google revealed nothing so some time was spent digging through the database when I noticed the topic ID’s weren’t being set in either the X_topics or X_posts table (where X denotes your phpbb3 table prefix).

    The cause of this, possibly happening during the conversion, was the topic_id field in X_topics not incrementing on posts. i.e. the field should be set to auto increment, thus solving the problem of their ID’s being set to 0.

    If you’ve got access to phpMyAdmin, log into your database, select your X_topics table (by clicking on it’s name) and hit the ‘structure’ tab when your table loads. Edit the topic_id field (pencil icon in the row) and in the extras column, add the option to auto increment.

    Presto, your posts start reappearing.

    If you’ve made posts yourself (as I had done) you’ll need to set the topic IDs manually through the database as you can’t access the post from the forum in order to delete it. In setting the topic’s ID, browse your X_topics table and sort the order by topic_id (descending). Your faulty topic should have an ID of 0, so replace it’s 0 ID with the next number you see in the sequence. e.g. You sort your table by ID in descending order and see the sequence 3412, 3411, 3410. The number for your new (and presently faulty) post should be 3413.

    The posts table was fine, the post IDs auto incrementing as they should have done, but the post wasn’t picking up the topic ID so you’ll have to enter the same topic ID into your X_posts table – that or delete the post, it’s up to you.

    Having assigned the proper topic IDs in the database, the posts reappeared online while setting the topic_id field in X_topics to auto increment prevented the problem from raising it’s head again.

    Confused? Or have you had better luck with your conversion?

  • Don’t Rush A Podcast (Or Podcast On An Empty Stomach)

    “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” (via), such was the case last night in recording the 7th PlaylistMix.com podcast. When recording the KKM podcast there’s a schedule we adhere to – Wednesday nights, start around 8:30pm, no problem. With PLM it’s pretty much the same – Monday nights, start around 10pm, record, review, tweak, bounce, upload by midnight.

    Knocking off work before six yesterday I figured I’d have plenty of time to get home, record and release the podcast before heading to a meeting for the Rockfall Festival (kicking off this week in Kilkenny). Alas, in my attempt to change the schedule and rush the podcast I came across the following…

    • I crashed the PC after recording the first segment – shownotes and everything else are on the Mac so the only activity the PC is doing is recording.
    • Moving the mixer used for the podcast (small Xenyx 502) introduced a low hum into the recording – given I wasn’t paying attention to the cables on the floor I failed to realise the XLR from the mic was bunched up over the transformer on the power cable for the mixer, hence the interference. Only after recording the first two sections did I notice this (mic channel lowered in my headphone mix). Scrapped that.
    • I wound up with an eye on the clock, wondering how late I could leave it before hitting the road to race the entire way across town for the meeting.
    • I went straight from the office to Studio B, no food after a long day which made me edgy in the chair (which was picked up on the mic with chair squeeks)

    With about five minutes to go, I jumped into the van, hit the meeting, went home via local chipper for a number seven pizza with no mushroom and relaxed for a bit. About 10pm I found myself sitting back at the helm in Studio B, more relaxed, let the mic run and thought to myself – yep, happy with this one. Gone were the chair squeeks, gone was the hunger, gone was the thought of having to run anywhere.

    When I set out the Playlist Mix schedule a month ago I figured Monday night would be the best opportunity for me to record the show and I guess I’m right. I tried to change it for the one night and it went pear shaped.

    So, my tips to you if you’re recording a podcast…

    • Relax, be yourself
    • Don’t rush the production – it’s not like it’s a live show, and you’re still going to get it out on time.
    • Don’t podcast on an empty stomach.
    • On a tech side – if you’re using a mic > xlr > mixer setup, make sure your mic cable is away from any power sources or anything that could cause signal interference! Took me a while to figure out that simplest of rules!

    The result?

    Listen to Playlist Mix #7 (Download 33mb)
    [audio:http://www.playlistmix.com/podpress_trac/web/14/0/podcast007.mp3]

  • New OS2007 Hacker Edition Released For Nokia 770

    The phone goes off beside my head this morning… 53 new messages (surely to God some I just haven’t read since last night – there can’t have been that much activity between 4am and 9:30am!) but one of those messages, via Conor O’Neill on Jaiku, points to Maemo.org’s announcement of a new release of the OS2007 Hacker Edition for the Nokia 770.

    Great news in some parts, still no Skype support or Adobe Flash browser plugin while Media Player is “still buggy”. File Manager is reportedly working fine but there’s no sign of the Mozilla browser in this release, unless you want to add it in manually.

    Lost for testing time today as I’m waiting on a health report from one of the bands coming down for the KKM gig tonight (leaves me a little up in the air) but I’ll get around to adding this update during the week. Interested in hearing any immediate feedback.

    Check it out here for download.

  • DemoBar Next Thursday In Dublin (Logos & Links)

    As part of the FOWA roadtrip, DemoBar hits Dublin next Thursday evening (September 13th) at the Ely HQ (Dublin 2, Dublin City, Hanover Quay Docklands – see Google Map here) with the ten companies on display being

    • mySay
      mySay is a phone service for staying in touch with friends. It’s a single phone number that lets you record updates for your friends to hear, listen to updates from your friends then stick a widget on your blog or web page so your friends can hear you when they visit. I’ve registered and tested mySay, the turnaround is instant and can see this as a real useful service.
    • Loudervoice
      Loudervoice allow the publishing of structured reviews to your blog, aggregating user reviews into a user and search friendly environment where each review can be rated by and related to other bloggers. (note: I’m enjoying using Loudervoice for newly launched webreviewr).
    • Glowday
      Straight from the horse’s mouth (ala Daniel Becker, GlowDay), “GlowDay power embeddable surveys, from simple one question polls to complex multipage questionnaires. Surveys are delivered either as widgets or hosted pages. Survey Designers have full control of layout and presentation and can include images and videos for added impact. A survey can be shared for others to use or improve. Results can be analysed and compared to results gathered by others. Our Service is Free”.
    • Nubiq
      Nubiq develops software solutions that enable communities to use mobile technology in their business and social lives. Nubiq will be demoing both Zinadoo and Mobiseer at DemoBar. College friends of mine involved here, had a poke around at BarCamp Waterford and liked what I saw, albeit I’ve no use for a .mobi domain.
    • PutPlace
      PutPlace is software that will find, organize and publish your digital life to the web so that you can share it with friends. Looking forward to seeing the eventual public launch of this, its been in the pipeline for some time.
    • Pixenate
      Pixenate is online photo editing software that you can use stand-alone or integrate into an existing photo-sharing or photo-printing website. Tried and test, great as an online photo editor. Easy to use, great quality results.
    • JustRoutes
      Launching at DemoBar, JustRoutes displays available public transport options between user specified locations.
    • TouristR
      Discover places through the eyes of others. Share travel experiences, book deals, research destinations and so much more. TouristR I’ve been following since the beta and like what I see. Nice interface, nice concept. Interesting guy to listen to as well (Jan Blanchard)
    • Lukulu
      Lukulu design and develop bluetooth based marketing solutions for the music and venue industries.
    • Polldaddy
      PollDaddy is a free online tool, which allows you to create polls and place them on your website or blog, or anywhere online that you can paste a bit of HTML! You can also place links to PollDaddy polls in your emails etc. I’ve been using PollDaddy for a few months now on LiverpoolAccess.com, integrates well with the site and enjoy option of direct linking to poll on PollDaddy.

    Some of the names are familiar to me, some of which (Glowday) I’ve not heard of. I won’t be in Dublin for this FREE event, but if you’re around from about 6:30pm onwards drop into the Ely HQ for a few beers, catch some demos and enjoy a quality evening out in the company of some great people.

    Update: realised I should schedule posts a little better 🙂

  • Touchscreen iPods Today? How about WiFi?

    iPod, Touchscreen The Way Of The Future?Well the rumours are rife but maybe we’re on the verge of getting touchscreen iPods. Then again, people are rumouring that the Beatles back catalogue is going to be made available on iTunes. People will always rumour! But then again, that’s what happens when Steve Jobs sends out the press invites to a media day in San Francisco where big announcements on the Apple front are expected to be made.

    Now, whatever about the iPod getting a new lease of life with a touchscreen interface courtesy of the iPhone, I’d like to see some kind of wireless connectivity – how about giving us Bluetooth access or WiFi access – or better still, both. The line between the iPod and the iPhone will eventually blur into one but with the new breed of iPods on the horizon, I for one would like to be able to use my iPod without having to panic every time I don’t see the iPod cable lying around (come to think of it, I’ve got NO idea at the moment where my cable is).

    The event is scheduled to kick off around tea time today (means no distractions in work!) so it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of it.

    Actually, maybe an inbuilt FM receiver would be nice too… get the radio going.

    More on Fox, Newsday.

  • Intruders.tv Very Welcome In Ireland

    Intruders.tv Very Welcome In Ireland

    While there’ll likely by a flurry of blogging activity now that Conn‘s press embargo has well and truly been lifted I’ll throw my two cent into the ring and welcome Conn and Edgecast’s launch of Intruders.tv in Ireland.

    I’ve only recently gotten to know and speak to Conn (yet to do it face-to-face but that’s what PodCamp is there for!) but everyone involved in the Irish blogging and podcasting scene will know and recognise the quality of work that Conn produces so there’s no reason why Intruders.tv shouldn’t be successful.

    From the press release…

    As a startup in its own right, it’s not surprising that Edgecast Media is attracted to the subjects of technology and entrepreneurship. Company founder, Conn O Muineachain notes that, ‘the current wave of internet business activity has been called “Web 2.0”. The epicentre, as you would expect, is in Silicon Valley, but the impact is worldwide. Internet tools like blogs and social media are fuelling an ideas revolution, and developments in broadband, web and mobile technology are facilitating the growth of small startups in places as diverse as Alaska and West Cork.’

    Intruders.TV is itself a global initiative with a local focus. It is a worldwide network of video blogs, each providing an insight to technology and entrepreneurship in their localities. Edgecast Media Ltd holds the Irish franchise for Intruders.TV which already covers UK, France and USA, and is planning to launch in Italy, Spain and Canada by the end of the year.

    Intruders.tv launches with a great video interview featuring Conor O’Neill (Loudervoice / Blognation).

    So to Conn for carrying the Irish franchise, once again the very best of luck and here’s to some great new Irish tech videos and interviews coming our way!

  • An Interesting Fact About Me

    I was ‘memed’ a while back to do something on seven random facts about myself and haven’t yet gotten around to it but I’ve managed to pull one for today. August is turning out to be a crazy month for me and we’re only into the second week. I’m neck-deep in preparations for Cannibal! The Musical which kicks off on August 22nd and this morning received my “pen pic” for the director’s profile which contains an interesting fact, or humourous at least.

    Ken doesn’t stop, ever – if he drops below 50mph he’ll explode, however if he ever reaches 88mph he’ll go back in time.

    Though Ross is trying to be funny in relation to the pen-pic, he’s also drawing on fact (something he gets on to me a lot about) and I think it’s only when you see it in print that you realise you have to find a way to slip under 50mph from time to time! All that started this weekend with selling my Electric Picnic ticket so at least I’ve got one weekend between August and September when I can do *nothing*.

    I reckon while Cannibal! is in the works I’m hovering around the 87.99mph mark but it certainly gets the adrenaline going!

  • Test Post From Nokia 770

    Just a little test post from the Nokia 770 internet tablet from within WordPress.

    Noting that no buttons showing for links, images etc. I’ve the visual editor off as a standard.

    Can’t select a category either…

  • OS2007 Hacker Edition – Is That An N800 I See Before Me?

    Nokia 770 as a Nokia 800

    Nope – its still the 770, but this morning I followed a link out of Paul Browne’s post on upgrading the N770 to an N800 (OS2007) and presto, you’re looking at a new interface. Called the ‘hackers’ edition of OS2007 you’ll need to input your 770’s WLAN code here in order to get the upgrade. The binary is hosted by Nokia so I can’t imagine there’s too much to worry about in the security of the download (or at least I didn’t worry anyway).

    So, what do you do?

    1. Back up everything on your N770 as the update will restore the tablet to Nokia 800 factory settings
    2. Downlad and install the Nokia Internet Tablet Software Update Wizard
    3. Download the binary for the OS2007 Hackers Edition for the N770 (the .bin file once you’ve clicked through the hackers edition link and entered your serial) and save it to a location on your computer.
    4. Run the install wizard and change the path to the binary to your local copy of the hackers edition.
    5. Continue and follow instructions when prompted on inserting USB cable / powering on and off device.

    That is pretty much it. The whole install itself should take less than two minutes and the device will reset itself on completion. When you boot up the next time you’ll notice a brand new Nokia N800 interface and the tablet identifying itself as an 800 model.

    Things to note…

    • No problem in pairing up with bluetooth devices again (spotted my K800i straight away)
    • No problem connecting via WiFi again (simply re-entered my wireless key)
    • Some flash renders but you won’t be watching YouTube videos straight off the bat
    • Noted that the grazr seen here on Eirepreneur renders well and works lovely on the new Firefox based browser.
    • Could be me but text input seems faster. Application switching speed shows no notable increase
    • gMail appears to be fine and smooth (bar missing contacts); Google Reader doesn’t like me and Google Calendar is a disaster…

    If I spot anything during the course of the day I’ll be sure and update…

  • Pimped – MacBook Pro Now Green

    I mentioned last week that I had ordered a Seethru case from Speck Products for my 15″ MacBook Pro… well, it arrived yesterday and the afore mentioned laptop is now green.

    The casing does add a bit of additional weight to the laptop – not much – but enough to make the screen start dipping itself when low enough (i.e. when you’re closing the lid). Other than that though it is quite durable and perfectly capable of keeping scratches off the laptops original surface.

    The cover itself clips on and off no problem and is well ventilated on the bottom so should be no problems there. Having ordered it on the 26th of July to arriving via UPS yesterday I reckon thats a pretty good turn around. Wasn’t expecting it at all until at least next week at the earliest. Happy with purchase? Yep.

    More on flickr…

  • Paddy’s Valley, Irish Times, Page 16

    Paddy’s Valley gets a mention in the Irish Times today. If you’re not a paying subscriber, you can enjoy a few days free trial of the digital edition here.

    Laura Slattery writes on page 16 that ‘Tech Firms Get Backing For US Trip’, plugging the trip, quoting Conor O’Neill, referencing James Corbett and making mention of TouristR and RelevantM. Nice little snippet to get on the side of the page (beside the big photo of Calisto Tanzi).

    If you haven’t a clue what Paddy’s Valley even is, check here.

  • Going, Going Green – Pimping My Macbook Pro

    Last Friday night I fired an extra gig of ram into the Macbook Pro I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique (apologies, but I’ve got a Monty Python buzz going today). The MBP was purchased in an Apple Store!

    Green Macbook Pro CaseAnyway, with the extra gig of memory bringing the count to 2GB the laptop has been restored to a zippy state offering me better handling of the likes of Garageband and other intensive applications I hold. For my next trick, I’ve decided to go green – laptop green that is and lime green more to the point. I’ve ordered myself a 15″ SeeThru Case for the Macbook Pro from Speck Products. With the case and shipping the cost comes to just over the €50 mark but I feel it gives a good opportunity to personalise the laptop and protect the shiny silver casing it lives in.

    Speck offer a variety of cases for mobile phones, iPhones, iPods and other MP3 players and I only recently discovered their offering of Macbook Pro cases. The case itself is a coloured, see-through hard casing that snaps on top and bottom of the MBP, with rubber feet for the bottom as well.

    Should be a nice way of standing out from the crowd (and keeping the laptop from scratching in transit).

  • Sony Ericsson K800i Speakerphone

    An open question to any owner or user of the Sony Ericsson K800i – is there any way (that I’m missing) of upping the speakerphone volume on the K800i? I’ve got the phone sitting in a cradle in the van just on the dashboard unless I move the phone to right under my chin (while not driving), the speakerphone function is useless to me. I’ve the called volume maxed on the phone when I’m in the van and would rather be able to use the speakerphone in the current cradle as opposed to splashing out on a bluetooth setup for the van.

    Is there a possible firmware hack or anything of upping the speakerphone volume? Anyone else having extreme difficulties with it? I’ve had the phone since last October and love it to bits, from a review point of view the speakerphone volume is the only bad point I can raise about the K800i even at this stage.

  • Sky Box Office Just Too Easy

    Purchasing something through Sky Box Office is way too easy.

    After what has been a hectic weekend away from the internet (thanks largely in part to working non-stop with The Devious Theatre Company ahead of the show opening this week, coupled with The Guggenheim Grotto appearing with KilkennyMusic.com on Saturday) I managed to find some down time last night. Of course, I should have been asleep but there was a few of us who needed some unwinding before stepping into the technical fray tonight in the theatre. As such, I decided all spur-of-the-moment like that it would be a great idea to watch WWE Vengeance on PPV.

    Six guys gearing up for a night of wrestling which only started on Sky Box Office at 1am. Thoughts of beer, loud music, roaring and shouting – but no. Winding down was more like popcorn, m&m’s and a load of tea until 4am this morning.

    The thing is, ordering on Box Office was way too easy. You press the box office button on your Sky remote, select what you want to watch on PPV and press ‘select’ to order it. Within 3-4 button presses from start to finish you can order what you want. I’m assuming of course that last night’s charge (€21.95) will get tacked on to my direct debit at the end of next month but I am just surprised at how easy it is.

    I would have been plenty happy to have to enter a series of codes, magic password, credit card details, something that required some element of security – but no, Sky have just made it WAY too easy for me to do this in the future. Thankfully of course there aren’t any curious PPV folk at home or children crying out for the latest release on Sky Movies but if there was I reckon I’d be in trouble.

    The easy process of course made for a great night, the Sky box switched over automatically at 1am and we all settled in for a three hour fest that was more like a ten-year-old’s birthday party. Talk about reliving parts of your lost youth! Yet so enjoyable was last night that we’ve decided to make it a regular thing. There’s not much better than hanging out with great friends for a few hours watching mindless TV – even if it is at four in the morning!

  • Photosynth & Flickr (Video)

    Sure, the news might be a little old but having been introduced to this video at lunch time today I figure its worth a blog, if only for me to come back later and watch it again and again. Having been tracking recent Surface developments, I was given a link to this TED presentation on Photosynth (out of Microsoft Live Labs)

    Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. “Perhaps the most amazing demo I’ve seen this year,” wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.

    The video is a presentation by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, working at Microsoft Live Labs. I figure, if you combine something like this with something like Surface, you’re asking for trouble (in a damn good way).

    If you’ve not seen the video already, give it a watch, you might well be impressed. The integration alone with Flickr is quite outstanding.

  • Big Brother For Irish Startups

    Here’s an idea (stemming from my day-long thoughts about video podcasting)…. something like Big Brother for Irish startup companies? Take a co-working style environment, film the whole thing, run it for about ten weeks, at the end of each day you get a video blog post from each of the representatives of the startup. Coupled with that you also have daily video podcasts nicely edited together with interviews from the startups, business advisers and consultants, along with footage from the day throughout the centre. Massive online presence, healthy capital reward at the end of the run for investment in your business….

    Would put a massive focus on the startups in question, shed some good media spotlight on the businesses prior to launch and make for some interesting TV. Throw in a few chickens and cocktails (read comments on previous post) and some fun ways to unwind after a 16-hour work day…. you never know!

    If anything it would make for some interesting TV don’t you think?