John's Technology Blog

Driverless cars still one more hurdle to clear: clueless cops

Police pull over and stop Google driverless car in Washington, D.C.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/07/police-stop-google-driverless-car-in-washington-d-c.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29

 

Android Jelly-Bean released today

Today Google released the latest version of Andriod, details: http://www.android.com/about/jelly-bean/  I am very excited about the Google Now features.

Easiest way to get your hands on is through the new Google tablet, the Nexus 7: http://www.android.com/devices/detail/nexus-7

What makes someone leave a web page?

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: What Makes Someone Leave A Website?

Make your own Jumbotron from old PCs or cell phones

Thanks Media Lab.

 

Junkyard Jumbotron from chris csik on Vimeo.

Great infographic example - How to visualize creatively

Kudos to the folks at Nielsen for the refreshing lead infographic on their recent study "Who is Winning the U.S. Smartphone Battle?"

The width of each column indicates OS share, descending from left to right, the color of each block indicates the phone's maker in descending share order, top to bottom.  Sure beats having multiple pie charts.  Nicely done.

Scanning to Evernote from a Brother MFC printer / scanner

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Evernote, and have been for many years.  I started with it back when the GUI was very different and there was no syncing - imagine that.

However, it is just recently that I configured my Brother MFC-7340 Multi-function to scan DIRECTLY to Evernote.   Prior to this I was using my copier's scan to email function, which requires more steps.

Here are the instructions which can be easily adjusted to work with many other desktop scanners.

 

Start by opening the Brother Control Center from the taskbar or from the Programs menu.  Click Configuration...



 

Choose an unassigned Custom Scan, give the button a name and pick SCAN TO IMAGE...

 

Now use the ADD button to create a new target application.  Find the evernote.exe (evernote.app on a Mac) in your PC's Program Files.  I choose .pdf as my preferred document type.

 

Once added, adjust the quality and interface settings as needed.

 

You are ready to scan to Evernote.

 

Cloud Computing for Real Estate

Presentation given on 02/17/2011

Download Cloud Computing presentation-02-17-2011

App Inventor - This could be huge

Today Google released App Inventor for Android a tool to facilitate the creation of apps for this growing platform.

While I can't vouch for the power or usability of the tool, strategically is makes sense and serves to help us consumers differentiate between the Apple's iOS and Android platforms.  Given Apple's direction of ridiculously tight command and control over any and every app, Google's approach of open-source tools and choice stands as a breadth of fresh air.

REAL ESTATE: which Real Estate apps would you like to see built?

Machine Built Houses? Getting closer.

Every so often we see new developments in home construction techniques, but sadly, most don't make it to market.  Here is another technology that i hope beats the trend.  As someone who grew up living in concrete houses (floors, walls, ceilings, etc) I miss the sound absorption and temperature regulation they provide.

This video shows the inkjet printer technique being applied to a large scale.  The video starts with small creations and grows in scale.  The creation on the video is not very pleasing, so ignore that design and imagine your own.

Google better not be evil - they already dominate the world.

Google = World dominance.  Period. 

This table compares country ranking for Facebook, Twitter and Google in light of some reports showing Facebook surpassing Google in US traffic.

Country	Internet users	Facebook’s pos	Twitter’s pos	Google’s pos	Site at #1
China	360,000,000	Not in top 500	371	3	baidu.com
United States	227,719,000	2	12	1	google.com
Japan	95,979,000	30	20	2	yahoo.co.jp
India	81,000,000	4	11	1	google.co.in
Brazil	67,510,400	16	18	1	google.com.br
Germany	54,229,325	3	11	1	google.de
United Kingdom	46,683,900	2	10	1	google.co.uk
Russia	45,250,000	20	40	4	yandex.ru
France	43,100,134	2	46	1	google.fr
South Korea	37,475,800	5	19	4	naver.com
Iran	32,200,000	58	Not in top 500	1	google.com
Italy	30,026,400	2	30	1	google.it
Indonesia	30,000,000	1	12	2	facebook.com
Spain	29,093,984	2	19	1	google.es
Mexico	27,600,000	4	22	1	google.com.mx
Turkey	26,500,000	2	26	1	google.com.tr
Canada	25,086,000	2	11	1	google.ca
Philippines	24,000,000	1	10	3	facebook.com
Vietnam	21,963,117	8	192	1	google.com.vn
Poland	20,020,362	8	118	1	google.pl
Worldwide	1,733,993,741	2	12	1	google.com

Above: The top 20 countries in terms of internet users, plus worldwide results.

These number are from Facebook may have surpassed Google in the US, but what about other countries? | Royal Pingdom.