Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, July 24, 2009

UPDATED: Normal average seasonality drives more lift in movie tix sales than 100s of millions of $s in advertising -- http://bit.ly/1tWlvj

Chromegestures Adds Mouse Gestures to Google Chrome [Downloads]

Windows only: The experimental chromegestures extension for Google Chrome adds a full set of mouse gestures to those using the development releases of Chrome.

Installing the gestures requires first switching to the development channel, modifying your Google Chrome shortcut to include the --enable-extensions parameter, and then heading over to the download page to install the extension (by simply clicking on the ChromeGestures.crx link).

Once you've installed the extension and restarted the browser, you should be able to hold down the right mouse button and swipe the mouse right or left to navigate back and forward, Down -> Right for a new tab, or even up to search with the selected text. If you get stuck, you can use Up -> Right -> Down -> Left -> Down to open up the help file, or you can do Up -> Down to open the options dialog and tweak the sensitivity. If you're a big fan of mouse gestures, this is definitely worth the effort of getting it installed.

chromegestures [Google Code via gHacks]

Card.ly Creates Attractive Online Business Cards in a Jiffy [Address Book]

Web site Card.ly allows you to collect all of your contact information—online and off—into one simple, linkable "business card" you can share with anyone.

The site's pretty simple. You just sign up, fill in whatever information you want to pull into a centralized "business card", and you're ready to go. When you're finished, you'll get a personalized link that looks something like http://card.ly/lifehacker. You can simply share that link with anyone you want to stay updated with you, or, if you really like it, Card.ly provides various embeddable options for placing your vCard on your web site, in your email, or anywhere you want to include it.

Even though this is the sort of thing that it seems most people use the likes of Facebook for these days, Card.ly is a fun and simple idea executed well. Still, we'd recommend grabbing your own domain and making a simple nameplate site if you're really interested in this kind of thing.

Card.ly

Samsung LED LCD UN46B7000 HDTV Lightning Review: Avoid! [HDTVs]

Generally, I love LED LCDs. The UN46B7000 is Samsung's set with 120Hz refresh and internet widgets. It's not backlit, like the XBR8, but sidelit, and is as thin as two of your fingers. You should avoid buying this set.

The Price: $3000

The Verdict: The problem is that this set dims the sidelights whenever the program material gets dark, and it does it in the most ungraceful way ever. Check out the menu that I popped on screen, merely to show you what happens to w! hite mat erial on screen when the backlight is dimmed to increase black level.

See how everything white goes dark, too?

So, if there's a scene in a movie where there's a moonlit night, the lighting in this set would crank everything down, including the moon itself. Backlit LED tvs can turn off individual lights to increase blacks, yet keep LEDs lit in the area around the on screen moon; this set idiotically turns everything off. (*Some other sets do this for energy savings, but there's always a way to set the backlight to a consistent brightness level.)

I didn't even benchmark the set after this, as there was no need for me to measure other features when the set had such a glaring problem, which Samsung claims is not a bug. Oddly, many technical reviewers glossed over this fact, giving this set editor choice awards while brushing away the issue.

My impressions of the rest of the set are here, however:
• The TV's colors are inflated like a lot of LCDs but the picture and motion handling are pretty damn comparable to any modern late model LCD.
• There are no buttons on the set, so if you lose your remote, you're fucked.
• The TV is about 1.2 inches thick, and all the ports are tucked nicely away on the side. But because the case is so thin, the speakers sound terribly thin. Worse than on an old 22 inch TV I have in the back of the house.
• The case's translucent edges are among the best designed cases of any modern gadget, in my opinion.
• The internet widgets and content take a long minute to boot up and include Flickr, twitter and weather apps. They aren't worth the $150-$200 over the 6000 series which eliminate these extras. There's a media streamer (which I didn't test) recipes, simple video games, exercises, art and animated children's songs, like this really freaky one about having the munchies.

• Off axis viewing isn't great, but isn't bad.
• If you have noise reduction on on this set, it will strip the grain from movies, practically, making everything look like it was shot on a cheap digital camcorder. Turn it off.
• It's worth repeating that this set is generally gorgeous.
• Like all LED sets, they're energy efficient. But again, there's no localized dimming with this set, which is side, not backlit.

The good news is that Samsung can fix this dimming issue by firmware. The bad news is that I haven't heard they even believe its an issue yet. I've never been so irritated by such a beautiful TV and recommend you steer clear.

A nice picture

Super thin

Dimming sidelight issues.

Sounds thin

Expensive

Video: WiTricity is back, promises wireless power within 18 months

What started out as an MIT project two years ago has now progressed into a full-fledged company -- ladies and gentlemen, meet WiTricity Corp. Auntie Beeb (that's the BBC for you Yanks) has grabbed the firm's CEO Eric Giler to discuss some pretty aggressive plans for bringing wireless power to the masses. Yes, we're talking actual through-the-air wireless as opposed to something like Palm's Touchstone, which requires physical contact between charger and chargee. Based on magnetic induction, the magical technology is apparently mature enough to be deployed in the relatively near future, and if all goes to plan, "near future" could translate into "18 months from now." Also of note, Intel is hard at work developing the original concept, and if the parallel engineering of the same idea by two companies isn't enough to get your skepticism dialed down and your browser to the video past the break, what is?

Continue reading Video: WiTricity is back, promises wireless power within 18 months

Filed under: Wireless, Science