Sunday, March 30, 2008

Summer time

I've just adjusted all "old" clocks in the house. 1h+. How will I convince my body and soul that the universe has jumped in time? I have a vague recollection when this winter/summer time change started. But, why... Instead we could decide to keep clocks as they are and get out of bed one hour earlier or later.... It's all down to frame of reference. Are we moving the window or the document. Personally, I'd prefer to keep clocks as they are and make my way out of bed earlier, or later.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Coincidence or causality - at the end of the day the universe rules

I've been reading my feeds on the web. Suddenly it dawned on me, not through logic but through imagination, that everything is connected - which I believe but cannot prove.
In the past week, a couple of significant events occurred.
1. Arthur C. Clarke passed away.
2. The brightest ever supernova, GRB 080319A, exploded.
The timing of the events is extraordinary!
Did he go there? What the hell happened? Is it, by any metaphysical metaphor, connected? I guess the pure fact that it got my imagination going is a proof that it makes life, and death, feel significant. What if.... How???... and the most difficult, Why?????????

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Apple, multi-touch and Sonic Browsing

With the rapidly increasing development and deployment of multi-touch interfaces (primarily from Apple), it’s definitely time to consider how the interaction design of media playing devices could benefit from a Sonic Browsing approach. While we used an circular aura around the cursor in the original Sonic Browser, with multi-touch you could directly manipulate a rectangle (or oval, or any shape if you use more fingers) that define your aura.

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

iTunes , but no Sonic Browser

Why doesn't iTunes have a Sonic Browser? As a musician, I never forget a melody, but I seldom remember the title. Therefore, I normally use my EARS when looking for a recording, not text. I think that if Apple had a Sonic Browser they'd sell many more songs.

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Saturday, March 01, 2008

My AppleTV works - again!

I was really happy yesterday evening when Galmac delivered my replacement AppleTV to my door. After half an hours twiddling of settings, everything downloaded automatically from the house server, then I updated it to AppleTV2. The new GUI is definitely more usable. The back-end integration with YouTube now works fine, which means that my favorites created from any computer now show up automatically on the AppleTV, etc.
Concerning sound, it revs up into full Dolby 5.1 surround during start-up, so I'll have to try it out with my own surround stuff while waiting for iTunes to start to provide movies for rental in Ireland.

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