I love iOS7!

I’ve spent a day with iOS7, and I gotta say, I love it. Fantastic upgrade and you’d be a fool to note jump on this. I know there are plenty of functional improvements, but what strikes me most is the huge improvement in the user interface. Partly the look, partly the swipes and button locations, but overall it’s a really solid upgrade and I’m thoroughly impressed. Very beautiful, very usable, and makes anything else look antiquated, like Pole Position compared to Gran Turismo 5.

That said…my attempt to upgrade one of our iPads (iPad2 FWIW) failed miserably. The upgrade process froze, so I forced a power-off. At that point, I had to do a system restore to factory settings, then restore from my most recent backup. Normally that’s a pain, but what made it worse is that Apple’s activation servers were not responding for a while so I was stuck waiting for those before I could restore. So when you plan to upgrade to iOS7 (when, not IF, right?), be sure you’ve recently backed up your iPhone/iPad, and don’t embark on this journey if you’re in a rush. At best, you’ll be fighting slow download times (it’s ~700MB)! At worst, your device will be plugged in to your computer for a while restoring itself. But it’s worth it, trust me!

I’m still on an iPhone5…but am equally impressed by the iPhone5C. I design lots of plastic parts, and to see Apple accomplish what they did with the 5C is really cool. I’ve rarely even added CNC second ops to a part, and usually got scolded by the purchasing folks for the added cost. Apple went overboard with their second ops, but the result is really beautiful. Check out this video to get an idea:

September 20, 2013

3D scanner on Kickstarter

There’s a pretty cool 3D scanner project active over on Kickstarter right now. It hits a couple key features as I see it…interfaces to an iPad for portability and ease of use, and is a reasonable cost ($329). I think this will be cool for capturing rough cad data of large objects and I look forward to trying it out with SolidWorks when it ships in 2014.

September 18, 2013

Samsung smartwatch

So Samsung unveiled their ‘Galaxy Gear‘ smartwatch today (it’ll be for sale sometime later this year). I don’t know why, but I’m just, well, underwhelmed. It’s sleek but big, blocky, and ugly. I think that’s what strikes me though…that large, flat screen is just hard to make fit in on your wrist IMO. Adding a camera to it was a strange move and one that I think people won’t readily accept (privacy concerns). Engadget has an in-depth review here if you want to know more (TechCrunch has a good article on this too).

I think a curved screen is going to be necessary to make smart watches ‘fit in’ on your wrist….otherwise it just looks weird. I stopped using my Pebble once the novelty wore off…though that’s partly due to the limit apps available for it…it just wasn’t a very smart watch, frankly! I think Samsung has really left the door wide open for Apple to swoop in and dominate this market…

September 4, 2013

Gravity – movie trailer

I don’t think I’ve ever posted a movie trailer to this blog before…few have captured my attention enough to warrant that. This trailer for the upcoming movie Gravity though…wow. Intense. Can’t wait to see it (10/4/13 release date!)!

September 4, 2013

Energy payback of solar (PV) panels

Does the production of solar panels require more energy than the panels will produce in their lifetime? That’s a question you may hear now and again, especially when talking to those who aren’t really on board with this whole clean energy idea. So, time to set the record straight. There’s a great article over at Care2.com that addresses just this subject. The bottom line is that depending on what technology of panel you’re talking about, the energy payback point (they’ve produced as much energy as it took to manufacture the panel) is from one to four years. Check out the full link above if you want all the details.

September 2, 2013

Hyperloop

Elon Musk today unveiled the much anticipated details of his conceptual Hyperloop transport system. Designed for relatively short distance trips (<1000 miles), he claims it can be built at a fraction of the cost of systems such as California’s high speed rail project. Looking at the design concept and the simplicity, it does make you wonder if maybe he’s right. The pods travel in a low pressure tube (challenge #1 – design and build hundreds of miles of pressure tight tubing), with a large fan on the front feeding fans that not only reduce resistance to moving through the tube (by sucking up the air that would otherwise cause resistance on the front of the pod), but also blow downwards to create a cushion of air for the pod to ride on (challenge #2 – batteries to power the fan for the length of the trip, or how to charge it enroute). Magnetic propulsion, naturally, as one would expect for a sci-fi like transport system such as this. 🙂 There are definitely some big design details to figure out, but here’s hoping that some entrepreneur picks up this project and runs with it (Musk himself is too busy to do so). You can read more about it over at the official blog page.

August 12, 2013

How to live with Introverts

I found this cool infographic (created by Schroeder Jones) over at Laughing Squid; click the thumbnail for a full size version. I find it pretty much spot-on, at least from an interovert’s point of view. If you’re not one of us, you might find it a fascinating perspective and think we’re really weird. Don’t worry, us introverts won’t be offended, we think extroverts are really weird too.

I’ve been traveling to China a bit this year, and find it mentally very relaxing. I think this infographic helps shed some light on that. China is such a foreign country that there’s very little expectation of social contact of any meaningful sort apart from what I initiate. Hotel staff is friendly but that’s just casual ‘hellos’ and I move on. I can move about in my hamster ball undisturbed, be a part of society without social interaction (hmm…is that technically possible?).

August 8, 2013

Electric roads power electric vehicles

For a long time, people have talked about the concept of roadways that can provide electricity to the cars, trucks and busses running above. While a cool idea, I always thought the economics of this didn’t make sense and it wouldn’t be implemented in our lifetimes. At least on a small scale, I’m proven wrong. South Korea has equipped fifteen miles of city streets with just such a system – underground cables that charge EVs that are either parked or driving above. It’s cool to see this technology progress…but I still question whether it’ll be widely adopted this century. It requires massive public infrastructure investment and commitment to this transportation technology. In the US at least, those are two things that we are so incredibly far from, at least politically. Maybe some other country can pull it off. I can see this working out well with only major roads having this charging capability…the EVs would still use a small battery to power them on trips off those main arteries.

August 8, 2013

Would you eat synthetic meat?

As you probably heard already, researchers in Europe have managed to grow meat in laboratory conditions, starting out with cow stem cells. They even went a step further and cooked and ate the meat, reporting ho-hum results – the lack of fat was an issue. As my grandfather used to say, “The fat is where the flavor is.” Indeed. So flavor aside, it proved to be a pretty decent substitute, reportedly. The potential here is huge…meat production is widely criticized as not only inhumane, but a significant contributor of greenhouse gas. As the population grows, demand for food will grow with it, so this has the potential to greatly help offset that demand.

What I found really interesting though was a question on FastCompany – Would vegans and vegetarians eat synthetic meat? It’s an interesting conundrum (YES! I’ve been wanting to use that word in a post for a while now). There’s also the aspect of food safety…with concerns like Mad Cow Disease, growth hormones, pink slime, etc, the idea of a tightly controlled lab environment for your food supply has its appeal.

Others are working on the synthetic meat problem too, and with backers such as Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, and Peter Thiel throwing their support at these projects, I think it’s only a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’, you’ll be ordering a test tube burger at McDonald’s within the next decade.

August 7, 2013

Grid-scale 10MWh battery

To address concerns over solar and wind power fluctuations, the UK is installing a 10MWh battery…it’s not huge in terms of typical grid power usage, but is another big milestone in weaning us off of fossil fuels. Read more over at gizmag.

July 30, 2013