Casetop: A cradle display case for your mobile phone

The world of computer users are swiftly moving to mobile phones and tablets since they are packed with powerful processors and healthy amounts of system memory and storage.  A significant drawback or limitation they have is when users want to use them for lots of writing and feel confined by the cramped keyboards or get fed up with one or two finger typing. Similarly, but with some exceptions, many mobile phones lack much in the way of adequate screen real estate.

John Andrus realised he had a solution to these issues by inventing a go-between gadget, he calls a Casetop, which is a netbook-like LCD display panel, keyboard and battery pack combination that uses your smart mobile device for it's computing power.

Casetop is universally compatible with most mobile phones and tablets that have Bluetooth and a video out option, except for windows phones since they don't have a video out port on their devices.

Check the video out after the jump.

Chasing the storm - empowering time-lapse film

Just as a thunderstorm can take a day to build, so to can it take less than an hour before it unleashes a plethoric tirade of havoc, some, more dramatic than most others!

The fluidity of natures meteorological architecture often fills us with a sense awe and wonder when conjuring weather gathers within our sight path. None more so entertainingly present in Nathan Kaso's empowering short time-lapse film "Chasing the storm", shot around the Plenty Valley and Yarra Valley in Melbourne's outer east, (Australia).

Wide open landscape panning, squeeze sped and slowed, altered time lapse sequences elegantly married to Lzn02's delightful 'Fleur De Lune' sound track, and unfortunately all too short!

In case your interested Nathan Kaso captured his raw video footages with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17-40mm f/4L, 24-105mm f/4L camera then processing in Lightroom and lAfter Effects softwares.

Drobo Mini: Adroit external data storage system

Key to all data is deciding whether your data is worth keeping. This post is for all who wish to save data at all costs, effectively and with as little inconvenience as possible.

Ok, so in something the size of a deli sandwich, the Drobo Mini, loaded with three 2.5inch (63.5 mm) one terabyte hard drives and weighing in at about 3 pounds (1.3 kgs), either sits neatly on your desk and or robust enough to withstand baggage handling in your travel bag.

Among the many technical features - are  hot-swappable drive bays  - no carriers or screws needed to insert drives  - an innovative design allowing drives to click in and out like a ballpoint pen, notwithstanding that it’s the world's first high-performance and protected portable storage system.

Here to give you a more thorough explanation of how you can integrate the Drobo mini into your working or living environment is, the following video review courtesy of George Crump, lead analyst from Storage Switzerland:

The really significant feature of this device is how so little, indeed, if any, attention, is needed during it's operation. The device is in fact a slave robot, continuously updating your data, and depending on how you set it up  automatically shuffles data between it's loaded drives.

The Drobo mini is the "fastest portable storage array—with cutting-edge Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity and can be loaded with solid state drives (SSDs)."

To read and discover more of all the rigours specifications and technical information of this adroit little tech critter, head on over to John P's One Mans Blog.

100,000 Stars A Google Chrome Experiment

is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood of our region of the universe, which was created within the Google Chrome web browser environment.

"It shows the location of 119,617 nearby stars derived from multiple sources, including the 1989 Hipparcos mission. Zooming in reveals 87 individually identified stars and our solar system. The galaxy view is an artist's rendition based on NGC 1232, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way."

One can choose to navigate automatically by clicking on the Tour button at the top of the page. Alternatively one can choose to manually pan the map with one's mouse. With a mouse button held down and arcing the mouse around one swing the whole complex and or moving the mouse in or out enables zooming. The tall vertical bar on the right of the screen allows one to push towards the focus of the map our sun and solar system or sliding the bar towards the bottom of the length reveals an edge of the Milky way galaxy.

The creators of this interactive map warn that accuracy is not guaranteed and does not comply with reality standards of interstellar navigation. this stimulating web toy was programmed by some space enthusiasts at Google. The delightful music is by Sam Hulick, whose work you may be familiar with from the video game, Mass Effect. The track is entitled “In a Strange Land” and is used with his permission.

A complete list of references used in conjunction with making this interesting star chart our found by clicking the question mark in the bottom right hand corner.

Delightful Animated Document tour of an email

High tech company Google delivers the goods again by showing us exactly the path an email takes after one clicks the send button. And wow what a maze of tubes and paths interpreted every now and again by a server farm exchange and sent on its way to the next.

I was dutifully surprised as you surely will be by the sheer number of twists and turns and blocks of servers every one's single email takes and some emails are delivered within some instances seeming to appear in some ones inbox in less than a second.

"Google is creating a better web that's better for the environment. We’re greening our company by using resources efficiently and supporting renewable power. That means when you use Google products, you’re being better to the environment."

So go watch the journey your email gets delivered with an equally delightful minimal set of sound effects through their animated document. It's worth noting that your interaction is required as each browser window traverses the width of your browser window with each arrow to the right, requires clicking to continue, (otherwise described as intuitive browsing).

Although the amount of green energy displaced by Google servers might in some cases seem negligible, it's generally enthusing to notice they're asserting the need to switch to carbon neutral technology, albeit there're also likely receiving lower costs benefit in doing so!

NASA's Natural Hazards Earth Observatory Website

Averting and or planning a strategy to avoid the frequent loss of life, utilities and possessions that occurs after and or during a devastating natural disaster is usually based on the amount of available time we get of critical information of a current disaster.

Due to the latest modern technology of NASA's high resolution cameras abroad satellites we all now have the opportunity to get the best of insights of currently occurring natural and or man-made catastrophes.

The picture above is from NASA's Earth Observatory website illustrating the natural hazards of earth on a an evening in 2012. From their website we at an one time can catch up and get the pictorial data of any particular naturally occurring and or man-made global disaster like; avalanches, blizzards, cyclones/hurricanes, earthquakes, floods/landslides, heat waves, lightning strikes, water and mud eruptions, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and or wildfires/bush fires.

Wondrous 'Superplexus Circles' 3D structure puzzle game

From simply learning to ride a bicycle through to driving a car or flying an aircraft, mind body coordination is without saying a specific demand and fact of modern life for most people.

Some of us choose to develop and advance their mind/body motion skills in order to fly military aircraft or steer ships through the gulf and one way some enjoy achieving this, is by playing complex physical structure games, not unlike Superplexus.

'Superplexus Circles' is both a physical 3D rotational spheroidal structure and mentally and physically demanding game that happens between hand and eye motion dynamics. Achieved by a solo player precisely coordinating his or her body/mind dexterity and concentration to keep a wooden ball rolling to its conclusive point in the game.

Requiring superb concentration of mind and body or a harmonious fluidity of motion enabling one to navigate a ball through immensely complex network of chicanes, multiplayer hairpin turns, spirals, staircases and even a vortex. This feat can best be accomplished by being totally aware and in control of where the Gimbal is in relation to the Gimbal lock as the skilled craftsman explains in this following video demonstration.

According to the  maker the completion of the game takes an hour if your able to avoid the ball from falling. This unknown and understated skilled craftsman refers to having had a lot of fun making it from birch, aircraft plywood, acrylic, Jatoba, and stainless steel, as a  commission to a private collector.

Read more about these titillating and entertaining puzzle games here, and discover why people with Asperger syndrome are highly competent with this type of game.

Ethereal Media Art Installation; the event of a thread

Currently on at the armory park Wade Thompson Drill Hall is a larger than life media art textile installation by the distinguished cross media artist Ann Hamilton. 

Its deeply reminiscent of Christo's hanging curtain in appearance and sentiment with some significant differences. Ann's work is a multi-sensory experience for viewers to the work, as it brings together readings, sound, and live events 

"within a field of swings that together invite visitors to connect to the action of each other and the work itself, illuminating the experience of the singular and collective body. At the end of each day, a vocalist on the drill hall’s balcony serenades the pigeons as they are released to flight. Each day’s song is cut with a record lathe, and the resulting recording is played back the next day."

The following documenting video gives a better understanding of the interaction of the wash of the parasol as it sweeps up and down by people moving back an forth on the suspended swings, thus triggering spectacular entertainment for all within the armory space.

"Ann Hamilton is a visual artist internationally recognized for the sensory surrounds of her large scale, multi-media installations. Responsive to the contingencies of the sites where they are made – cloth, texts spoken and written, animals, and people suspended or in motion – her installations immerse viewers in a poetic at once visceral and literary." Source

Personal manufacturing via 3D Printing

An exciting new field of personal endeavour is in the  process of opening up for everyone - the ability to produce or reproduce a huge range of consumer goods. Instead of going to the supermarket or hardware shop to buy a new plate, cup, shoes or much needed handyman tool one can now simply print with one of the many growing number of 3D printers.

The video below  by Christopher Barnatt of ExplainingTheFuture introduces us to the almost complete field of personal manufacturing with 3D printing today and in the future.



Read more about the available resources, here.

E.T. Walrus can't yet quite sing, nevertheless

some of you may have remembered the Beatles singing I am the Walrus, well E.T. Walrus has retorted with his own wide range of entertaining vocalizations in this short video.



E.T. has had the good fortune of having learned these sounds at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, WA. USA and his rather formidable daily diet of 90 pounds of fish daily, likely assisted his memory whilst sustaining his good form.

E.T. is named for his wrinkled resemblance to alien in the popular 1982 movie "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial."

Rogue planet follows it's own path

Is the latest planet discovery individually free-floating 100 light years distant within our Milky Way galaxy, which seems to be travelling with a set of young stars referred to as the AB Doradus Moving Group. It appears to be traveling in the proximity of the AB Doradus star but as far as cam be detected, not orbiting any of them, and research astronomers are yet to determine if our bad boy is part of that family.

Although researchers at ESO say its comparative proximity, and the absence of a bright star very close to it, have allowed the team to study its atmosphere in great detail. The video here reveals an artist's impression of the free-floating planet,entitled CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 courtesy of space.com 

zeZebra, slick and quick P2P file sharing app

is a handy personal file sharing user friendly app, allowing you to quickly send and receive any number of files for free that is secure, unlimited in file size transfers and provides a no-fuss approach for sharing files between users.

The app allows you to adjust transfer speed and number of simultaneous transfers and if your sending many files to many people, the app has a contacts manager allowing you to more efficiently send files, thus not requiring you to add the same information all over again.

Most important thing to take note of, is that each sender and recipient needs an installed app on their computers and in order to complete any file transfer, both users need to be online at the same time. This means that your sending and or receiving files to each other which don't get sent or received anywhere else.

zeZebra works on most 32-bit and 64-bit windows, from XP onwards and OSX computers. 

In order to help you get started here is a link to an excellent introductory video from the well informed Veronica Belmont via Tekzilla at Revision3.

After downloading the app quit all browsers, then install it. Open it and set up your profile (NB no one need have Facebook to use it), the app merely needs your name and email address to access the main interface.

Gibbs Quadski Amphibious ATV quad bike

is an off road, amphibious quad bike and is apparently the first land vehicle for sale that can exceed 10mph (16kph), in water. Equipped with all-terrain tyres and four-cylinder BMW-supplied engine, the vehicle can drive up to 45mph (70kph) on land and amazingly the exact same speed in water.

Driving it directly into water, the driver depresses a button and within 5 seconds the wheels tuck up under the sides of its body, presumably for better hydro-dynamics. Similarly on approaching land,  the driver depresses a button lowering the wheels into drive away position.

According to Alan Gibbs inventor and founder of Gibbs Sports Amphibians "You just drive straight into the water, quite fast, and keep going. It's sort of magic."

Watch an earlier prototype version of the Quadski in the video after the jump.

Entropy, amusing animation quietly excites!

Many things come to the end as will soon be the case with a few Google services, like Alerts, Reader and Google Friend Connect.

But possibly the most overly cinematically dramatised event that will ever  likely befall our planet, is here portrayed in a quaintly dour, but annoyingly simple entertaining animation of earth's final moment:

Did you dig the neat music based interactively controlled Wifi gloves ?

Aquadom, Worlds Largest freestanding cylindrical aquarium

represents an engineering architectural marvel, situated in the lobby of the Radisson SAS luxury hotel in Berlin.  This extraordinary aquarium is made of acrylic glass, 51cm thick, 25m high, 12 metres in diameter holding 1 million litres of salt water with a salinity of 3.3 %. weighing in  2000 tons when filled.

Visitors rooms in the hotel face the external body of the aquarium whilst an immersive panoramic experience can be had for viewers travelling within the core's elevator.