Disk space is abundant and cheap. These days, you can get a 2 TB hard drive for under $100 from Newegg. I remember one of my first work computers, about 10 years ago, that came with a whopping 2 GB of storage. Those days are long gone. With the move to solid state drives, though, storage space is getting smaller, at least on a single solid state drive. My MacBook Air has a 128 GB drive, which would have felt humongous even a few years ago, but now feels small compared to my Windows 7 machine.
Microsoft’s Kinect, has already started a mini-revolution in the geeky world of modding. Since hacker Hector Marcan released the open source drivers that he created for Kinect, innovations using the technology have been appearing with speed that can only be described as plaid (my apologies to anyone who didn’t get that reference — and a cookie to the first commenter to identify it).
Some of the more interesting hacks I’ve come across are:
DepthJS (Fluid Interfaces Group) is a Chrome Extension that allows you to do some sci-fi-like web browsing with hand gestures. Make’s Adam Flaherty compared it to Spielberg’s Minority Report.
Interactive Shadow Puppets (Theo Watson) could have a future theatre and children’s entertainment — the kind they watch or do on their own time. The guy also does the entire video with what looks like a beer in hand — which I just found amusing and awesome.
Multitouch with a hacked Kinect is the first thing I was wondering about, especially after watching the DepthJS video. A fellow named floemuc put together a nice proof of concept using photos.
Real-time People Detection and Tracking with multiple Kinects is a neat (and scary) little demo put together by some students and a professor from EPFL (a French Swiss tech school).
There are also Kinect 3D art hacks, some original Mario Kart and Quake Live hacks, 3D object manipulation, cloud viewers and several others. Some of them are floating randomly about the web, but several are listed at the wiki/gallery of openkinect.org.
If you want a review of how well the straight-ahead consumer version of the Kinect works, check out Evan’s review.
What are your thoughts on Microsoft’s Kinect? What other potential innovations could you see coming out of this?
The tech community seems to be almost overwhelmingly positive about the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. Some of that is because the tech community tends to love the openness of Android, and some of that is because the Tab is a shiny new toy — but much of it appears to be because Samsung’s new tablet is actually pretty cool.
Check out the video, below, from Stuff.tv. It’s one of many reviews and unboxings that I’ve come across that sings a balanced tune about the Tab’s goodness. Some highlights are as follows:
My last two highlight points, above, were mentioned in every single positive review I read, watched, or skimmed, and though there are a few negative reviews out there, many of them come of as Apple fanboys doing what Apple fanboys love to do: trashing things that are not Apple. There are a some reasonable points to take away from the negative reviews, however, such as the difficulty that first time users of the Tab can have with finding the “on” button, and the fact that Android 2.2 was simply not built for tablets (just like Google said it wasn’t) and that leads to the occasional performance hiccup.
Overall, it seems that the Samsung Galaxy Tab will be a reasonable alternative to the iPad, even if it will never quite achieve the elitist notoriety of an Apple product. What do you think?
Samsung Galaxy Tab Video Review [Stuff.tv]
Today, 40Tech is pleased to present a guest post by Keith from Computer Repair Calgary.
The modern computer workstation is made up of a wide variety of parts. Unfortunately,
when any one of these parts runs into problems you, the computer user, are likely to feel
the negative consequences.
RAM, the shorthand for random access memory, (a form of computer short term
memory), is no exception. When your RAM starts misbehaving you will notice certain
signals. What are the likely signals, you may be asking yourself? Well, bad random
access memory generally causes a computer to become somewhat unstable. In other
words, you may be working on a word document, or loading up a picture when suddenly
your PC suddenly quits the application or decides to restart entirely (often giving you
some kind of error). The biggest problem here is that your computer is not wise enough
to tell you exactly what is happening. It doesn’t come right out and say, you know what;
your memory is no good. Rather, it will typically give you an archaic error message
which is generally of little help. As a result, it is up to you, the computer user, to figure
out where the problem truly lies. Consequently, you have two choices. You can either
attempt to determine the problem yourself, or you can send your machine into your local
computer repair shop.
If your system is becoming increasingly erratic, one way you can test your computer’ s
RAM is through the use of a free Microsoft designed product known as Microsoft
Memory Diagnostic. As its name suggests, this particular application is solely designed to
diagnose your RAM. In layman’s terms, it will tell you if it believes that your memory is
good or bad (and in need of replacement).
So how does one go about using Microsoft Memory Diagnostic then? Luckily, the
procedure is fairly easy; especially if you take your time to work through it.
1) Head over to the Microsoft Memory Diagnostic webpage and download the program.
2) Run the program and choose to create a CD Image
3) Burn this CD Image onto a CD (you can find a wide range of free programs online
which allow you to burn a CD Image – also known as an ISO – onto a CD)
4) Put the CD into your CD drive
5) Reboot your computer and choose to boot from your CD (take a look on Google if you
are unsure how to boot from a CD – trust us, it’s not that hard once you take the time to
learn how).
6) Let Microsoft Memory Diagnostic run for at least 1 pass
7) If there are error messages at the bottom of the screen then some of your memory is
likely bad. If there are no error messages then there is a reasonable chance that everything
is ok.
8) Restart your computer when done.
That’s all there is to it!
Bio: Computer Repair Calgary is a computer repair blog hosted by Keith. On his site, he gives various computer tips and tricks, including how to test RAM.
I’m a music nut. Are you a music nut? We’re all technology nuts, here — and when the two combine… well, let’s just say it makes me happy. This afternoon, my friend and fellow music/tech geek Eric — also known as my business partner — sent me something fantastic that I had to share with you. I want one! If you haven’t come across it already, allow me to introduce you to Töken, a “multitouch technology platform” that was made to bring live music performance to an entirely new level.
Töken was created by Rodrigo Campos Santiago of Chile. It’s a prototype; not for sale, not even in production, but just begging for an audience. I’m not kidding when I say I want one — and my mind boggles when I think what could happen if Timbaland got hold of one. Check out the video below for a sample, and visit the Vimeo site for more Töken and some other fun multitouch tech vids.
Awesome!
Töken Experience [TökenExperience]
