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Video On the Significance of Google's New Cardboard (Video) 35

Posted by Roblimo from the recycling-a-post-title-is-good-for-the-environment dept.
On June 29, 2014, Timothy started a Slashdot post with these words: 'Last week at Google I/O, the company introduced Cardboard, its cheap-and-cheerful (it's made of cardboard, after all) approach to nearly instant VR viewing.' Several commenters noted that Viewmaster has been doing something similar for over 70 years; that you can get a slicker 3-D adapter for your smartphone from Durovis, with the Vrizzmo VR Goggles and vrAse coming soon; and that you can buy an iPhone/iPod Touch-only 3-D viewer for about $8 (at the time this was typed), which is a whole lot less than the price of most third-party Cardboard kits that are getting ready to hit the market. || The Google person behind The Cardboard is VP Clay Bavor, whose day job is overseeing Google apps. Clay says you are welcome to make your own Cardboard from scratch instead of buying one (or a kit) from someone else, and of course you can write all the software for it you like. || You may (or may not) remember that Timothy ended that June 29 post about Cardboard with a promise that before long we'd have 'a video introduction to Cardboard with Google VP Clay Bavor.' So here it is, as promised. (Alternate Video Link)
Programming

Video Will Google's Dart Language Replace Javascript? (Video) 180

Posted by Roblimo from the shall-we-play-darts-or-javascripts-this-evening-at-the-pub? dept.
Seth Ladd, Google Web engineer and Chrome Developer Advocate, is today's interviewee. He's talking about Dart, which Wikipedia says is 'an open-source Web programming language developed by Google.' The Wikipedia article goes on to say Dart was unveiled at the GOTO conference in Aarhus, October 10–12, 2011, and that the goal of Dart is 'ultimately to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of web development on the open web platform.' A bold aim, indeed. Last month (June, 2014), InfoWorld ran an article by Paul Krill headlined, Google's Go language on the rise, but Dart is stalling. Seth Ladd, unlike Paul Krill, is obviously rah-rah about Dart -- which is as it should be, since that's his job -- and seems to think it has a growing community and a strong place in the future of Web programming. For more about Dart, scroll down to watch Tim Lord's video interview with Seth -- or read the transcript, if you prefer. (Alternate Video Link)

Comment Re:Responsive Design Mode (Score 1) 60

by Roblimo (#47412457) Attached to: All Web Developers Should Have Access to a Device Lab (Video)

That wall of screen was a tradeshow display -- by Google, of course. But check this link (it's in the intro text) again: https://groups.google.com/foru...

The idea isn't that every Web designer in the world should have his or her own wall of screens, but that you and other people who make sites and games and such might collaborate on setting up a group of displays that includes some of the most popular OSes, browsers, and device form factors.

I have always been shocked at how many people who make websites design for a browser, OS, and screen size just like theirs. I remember a conversation in 1998 or so with with a web designer who said, "But our target audience is like you and me - they all have big monitors."

I said, "Really?" and hauled out my little laptop. "What if I'm looking at your site in a hotel room someplace instead of in my home office?"

"Oh," he said.

Comment Re:All web devs shouldn't *need* a device lab (Score 1) 60

by Roblimo (#47412429) Attached to: All Web Developers Should Have Access to a Device Lab (Video)

While I was going through this video to add titles and intro/outro music etc., then writing the text intro, I kept thinking about the anybrowser movement and the guy I first heard about it from, Jeffrey Zeldman - http://www.zeldman.com/

I think I'll do an interview with him. He is like the original godfather of web design, and a great guy in general.
Displays

Video All Web Developers Should Have Access to a Device Lab (Video) 60

Posted by Roblimo from the still-working-on-making-website-standards-after-all-these-years dept.
This interview with Googler Pete LePage took place at Google I/O 2014, where Pete and coworker Matt Gaunt set up a Device Lab with 46 different devices on their display wall. The point wasn't to show off Google's coolness as much as it was to let developers see how their websites displayed on as wide a range of mobile devices as possible. This is reminiscent of the last century's Any Browser campaign, which was set up to encourage developers to make sites that worked right in any browser instead of having a WWW full of sites "best viewed in Exploroscape" that displayed poorly in other browsers.

Today, the trick is to make a site that is fully functional across a wide range of devices with different size screens that a user might decide to view in landscape mode one day and portrait mode the next. Google is happy to share their MiniMobileDeviceLab with you to help set up multi-unit displays. Pete also suggests checking out PageSpeed Insights and Web Fundamentals even if you're a skilled and experienced Web designer, because those two Google sites are chock full of information on how to make sure your site works right on most devices and in most popular browsers. (Alternate Video Link)
Education

Video Duolingo is a Free, Crowdsourced Language Learning App (Video) 75

Posted by Roblimo from the pick-a-language-any-language dept.
This is an interview with Duolingo engineer Franklin Ditzler. He's not a smooth marketing guy getting all rah-rah about the company and what it does, just a coder who enjoys his job and seems to like where he works and what he's doing. Note that Duolingo is a free language teaching tool, and they seem determined to keep it free for language students by selling crowdsourced translation services to companies like CNN and BuzzFeed.

Duolingo founder and CEO Luis von Ahn is an associate professor in the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department, and was one of the original developers behind reCAPTCHA. Google acquired ReCAPTCHA in 2009 for "an undisclosed sum," a bit of history that led TechCrunch to speculate back in 2011 that Google would buy Duolingo within six months -- which didn't happen. But don't despair. It's still possible that Google (or another big company) might absorb Duolingo. We'll just have to wait and see -- and possibly improve our foreign language skills while we wait. (Alternate Video Link)
Handhelds

Video Project Tango is Giving Mobile Devices a Sense of Space and Motion (Video) 16

Posted by Roblimo from the my-smart-phone-is-already-smarter-than-most-people dept.
Project Tango is part of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP), which Wikipedia says was "...formerly a division of Motorola." Tango's goal is "to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion." We humans and our forebears have spent millions of years learning to sense our surroundings, not as a set of static 2D images, but in 3D with motion. This YouTube video starring Johnny Lee, the Tango project lead Tim interviewed at Google I/O 2014, gives you some decent insight into Project Tango's goals -- in addition to our video, that is. (Alternate Slashdot Video Link)
Politics

Video Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC, Part 2 (Video) 42

Posted by Roblimo from the an-important-work-that-only-a-few-people-will-ever-care-about dept.
The original Mayday PAC goal was to raise $1 million. Now Larry is working on a second -- and more ambitious -- goal: To raise $5 million by July 4. We called for your questions on June 23, and you sent a bunch of them. This time, instead of using email, we used Google Hangout to ask via video, with an attached transcript for those who can't or won't watch the video. In today's video, Larry tells us that some of the impetus for Mayday PAC came from the late Aaron Swartz, and goes deeper into the group's goals and hopes than he did in yesterday's video. (Alternate Video Link)
Politics

Video Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC (Video) 148

Posted by Roblimo from the it's-the-next-best-thing-to-asking-him-live-and-in-person dept.
We've mentioned this interesting PAC more than once, including when Steve Wozniak endorsed it. The original Mayday PAC goal was to raise $1 million. Now Larry is working on a second -- and more ambitious -- goal: To raise $5 million by July 4. We called for your questions on June 23, and got a bunch of them. This time, instead of asking via email, we used Google Hangout to ask via video. Here's a quote from the Mayday website:'We are a crowdfunded Super PAC to end all Super PACs. Ironic? Yes. Embrace the irony. We’re kickstarting a Super PAC big enough to make it possible to win a Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016. We set fundraising goals and then crowdfund those goals." Check the Mayday About page and you'll see that a whole bunch of Internet and coding luminaries are on board. You may also notice that they span the political spectrum; this is totally not a partisan effort. | Another quote from the website: "Wealthy funders are holding our democracy hostage. We want to pay the ransom and get it back." Is this an achievable goal? We'll never know if we don't try. | This is Part 1 of a 2-part video. (Alternate Video Link) Update: 07/02 23:42 GMT by T : Here's a link to part 2 of the video, too.
Technology

Video Automated Remote Charging for Your Flying Drones (Video) 30

Posted by Roblimo from the aerial-drones-as-automated-traffic-law-enforcers-are-(sadly)-inevitable dept.
The Skysense website says, 'Save time and manage your drone operations remotely: whenever the batteries run out, land on a Skysense Charging Pad and take off as soon as the batteries are recharged. Without ever leaving the office.' That certainly sounds convenient. Since it looks like everybody and her dog is jumping on the flying drone bandwagon, the next step is obviously charging the things without human intervention. We're talking about battery-powered ones, of course, like the multicopter drones that are starting to be used for things like pipeline inspection, mapmaking, and security alarm response. Sadly, using drones for beer delivery is currently against the law in the USA, as are the Burrito Bomber and the much-ballyhooed Amazon Prime Air drone delivery system. All this may change in the next few years as the FAA figures out how to regulate the many commercial drones that will inevitably be zipping through our skies, landing on pads to recharge themselves, and continuing their missions without human intervention. The next step in drone automation will probably be using driverless ground vehicles as drone launching and control stations. Shockingly, there aren't a dozen Kickstarter projects raising money to build automated ground support systems for automated flying drones already, but surely they'll show up before long. (Alternate Video Link)
Cloud

Video Sigsense is Making Interchangeable, Modular Sensors (Video) 21

Posted by Roblimo from the someday-will-we-be-as-interchangeable-as-our-tools? dept.
Their main claim: "Sigsense Sensors are field-switchable sensing modules which replace the current generation of single purpose instruments. All Sigsense Sensors connect to the Sigsense Wireless Dock through a common interface. This portability and convenience allows workers to always carry the right instrument for the job." In other words, a technician in a food manufacturing plant doesn't need to carry a humidity-measuring tool, a multimeter, a signal strength meter, and four or five other measuring tools, to the point where he's got a backpack full of instrumentation or a rolling a cart full of measuring devices. That technician can now (in theory) carry a single, wireless sensor body, and put the sensors he needs on it as easily as you change heads on an electric hair trimmer. Check their blurb on AngelList for more about what this company is up to, and note that they are going way beyond making one measurement at a time. They're talking about collecting instrument data, along with tracking technicians, and sending all this data to the cloud, where you can do with it as you wish. But not today. The website says they will have products available "soon." (Alternate Video Link)

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