Voting Machine Horror

From Diebold touchscreen Voting machine - not fit for purpose?

If you’re like me, you may have read about the usability problems with the Diebold touchscreen voting machines in the States. Before I saw this video, I didn’t realise quite how serious the problems are.

I want that table

I would have people over just to sit and watch me expand and shrink it.

Machine Hobby

Check out The 8 Awesomest/Stupidest Lego Creations Ever! to see an automated assembly line built with Lego that creates Lego cars. If you're into that sort of thing.

The fetch machine isn't Lego, but is still cool. And the dog loves it.

BlackBerry 8830

I've kinda gone in the opposite direction with my new phone. Still no camera and I don't listen to music off it, but I've really gotten into the email and text messaging and there's nothing like a full keyboard for that. And the web is actually useful with the relatively large screen, trackball, and fast EV-DO access. And I see the manufacturers are starting to settle on a universal power adapter - mini USB.

But I want one

This product is temporarily unavailable

Because it's a great idea. It's a little flashlight that sits in your car's unused lighter so it's always charged and ready to provide emergency lighting.

The Robot Tahoe Takes It

Champion Robot Car Declared

Carnegie Mellon's computer-laden Chevy Tahoe wins the Urban Challenge and takes home the $2 million prize.

Junior, Stanford's Passat, was second. In 2005 their robot Touareg, Stanley, was first in the off-road competition.

My New Mac

I bought a 20" iMac on Wednesday. Still getting used to it, but so far iLike. More soon.

Promoting fair use of HD cable in Canada

I want my HD Tivo.

The US government mandates that providers there allow you to use any box (Tivo, a computer, etc) to view and record HD. Here you have to use the inferior, way overpriced hardware from your provider. No choice, no competition. For Shaw's HD PVR you have to pay $700 plus a monthly activation fee. Because of competition in the US they give that hardware away with your cable subscription.

See the Drop The Box website and the Facebook group for how you can help.

More on this issue here: A frank discussion on Cablecard in Canada:

Well imagine that someone from the cable company went to the store for you, said “I’ll take the cheapest one with the worst features” and then forced you to buy that (for a slight markup of course). Wouldn’t that make you mad?

Megapixel Myth

Digital camera marketing is all about the resolution. 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, now 12 megapixel cameras are pushed as a requirement for good photos and nice prints. Don't believe the hype.

The best article for technical depth on this subject is probably this one by photographer Ken Rockwell: The Megapixel Myth

Joe Holmes' limited-edition 13 x 19" prints of his American Museum of Natural History series sell at Manhattan's Jen Bekman Gallery for $650 each. They're made on a D70. [6.1 megapixel]

A little more entertaining is NY Times tech columnist David Pogue: Breaking the Myth of Megapixels

It goes like this: “The more megapixels a camera has, the better the pictures.”

It’s a big fat lie. The camera companies and camera stores all know it, but they continue to exploit our misunderstanding. Advertisements declare a camera’s megapixel rating as though it’s a letter grade, implying that a 7-megapixel model is necessarily better than a 5-megapixel model.

But what about when you want to print it really big? He runs a real world comparison test on that very issue:

...We blew up a photograph to 16 x 24 inches at a professional photo lab. One print had 13-megapixel resolution; one had 8; the third had 5. Same exact photo, down-rezzed twice, all three printed at the same poster size...

...Dozens of people stopped to take the test; a little crowd gathered. About 95 percent of the volunteers gave up, announcing that there was no possible way to tell the difference, even when mashing their faces right up against the prints. A handful of them attempted guesses—but were wrong. Only one person correctly ranked the prints in megapixel order, although (a) she was a photography professor, and (b) I believe she just got lucky.

I’m telling you, there was NO DIFFERENCE.

If you fall for the megapixel marketing you'll probably pay too much, may end up with worse noise in your photos as some cheaper cameras do high res poorly, and you'll be dealing with larger file sizes. There's plenty of pros that need high megapixel sensors for different reasons. Odds are you do not. I don't, I love my 6MP Nikon D40 and so does Ken. In fact, he likes it more than the 10MP D40x:

Nikon probably added these needless pixels to the D40x to compete with the Canon Rebel XTi on banner specifications that impress innocent people, but do nothing to improve the pictures or usability. Camera performance has little to nothing to do with megapixels. I also own a Canon Rebel XTi, and I hate using it compared to my D40.

Myth: Cell phones are a risk in hospitals

Mayo Clinic: Cell Phones in Hospitals OK

The researchers say their study of cell phones dispels "the long-held notion that they are unsafe to use in healthcare Latest News about healthcare facilities."

I remember reading about an American at a hospital in China surprised to see people using mobile phones everywhere. He asked about it and was told there was no danger. The Mayo Clinic is saying that's true. So why can't we use mobile phones in hospitals here? Good question.

Canadian Mobile Reality

Wireless Number Portability Just a First Step

Michael Geist does a nice job summing up the lousy mobile phone situation faced by Canadian consumers.

Emboldened by limited competition, providers have not hesitated to pad their prices by adding the deceptive "system access fee." Contrary to popular belief, the fee, which adds nearly $100 per year to every wireless phone bill, is not a government-mandated charge but rather a slick method of camouflaging higher prices.

Go Monoprice (The Truth About HDMI Cables)

It seems my comments have sparked a little blog fire.

• HDMI Ripoffs Continue: $89 HDMI Switcher Selling for $350
• HDMI Twins: Is BetterCables Selling an $89 HDMI Switcher for $350?

It started when I read a review of the Better Cables switch on the Secrets of Home Theater site. Other readers and I thought it looked familiar, and we were right. The excellent online retailer MonoPrice.com sells the same one under their house brand for almost 1/4 the price. Kyle at Geek With Family blogged this and got picked up by Gizmodo. He then looked further and found Belkin is also selling the same line for large markup.

Always use MonoPrice when possible, especially for HDMI cable. (at least until they inevitably raise their prices). When you buy a DVD player at Best Buy they will happily sell you an HDMI cable for $70 and even push you to a "better" one for as much as $300. Don't fall for it, it's all profit for them. Those $100 cables are no better than the ones MonoPrice sells for a tenth the price. Let me say that again:

Those HDMI cables are no better than the ones MonoPrice sells for a tenth the price.

You do NOT need a $200 cable to do 1080p, but the sales boy will insist you do. I take my home theater very seriously, some may say obsessively. I'm especially concerned about picture quality - you have to when you have a 100" screen. I use MonoPrice HDMI cables, MonoPrice digital audio cables and a MonoPrice HDMI switch. My analogue audio cables are from Blue Jeans Cable. It's always the engineering and science that matter, don't ever believe the "magic" that so often comes up when talking higher-end home theater.

Non-lethal fun is the best kind of fun

First it was the Pain Gun, "Active Denial System", and now it's the Paralysis Inducer, "Aviation Applied-Technology Directorate".

In December, DailyTech reported on the USAF's Active Denial System (ADS) which shoots millimeter waves at human targets causing their skin to feel like it's on fire. The USAF likes to quip that the ADS has a "Goodbye effect" which causes its "victims" to instinctively run away from the source of the beam.

Now we hear that the US Army is working on a non-lethal weapon of its own to use for crowd control. The US Army has developed the Aviation Applied-Technology Directorate (AATD) which uses a 7.3 million candela strobe floodlight system to incapacitate crowds of people.

Don't get me wrong, if I could choose and had to get shot from something, I'd take a shot from the non-lethal option every time. But can you imagine if these were used together so you couldn't run away from the pain? Scary.

And I have to start using the phrase "Goodbye effect" in conversation.

And does anyone else notice the air force weapon is truck mounted and the army weapon is on a plane?

The New Sherwood Newcastle Receiver Is Everything I'm Looking For

Forget Apple's new phone, for a couple of my colleagues and I, the big gadget announcement was really the Sherwood Newcastle R-972. Dolby TruHD, DTS HD, HDMI 1.3 switching, 1080p up-converting, that Sherwood quality - the hardcore-home-theater-geek forums are rightly hot and bothered over this.

It should be out in the summer and it should be available in P-972 form without the integrated amp. Around these parts we like our beer cold, our dollar low, and our components separate.

This may also mean an upcoming replacement for the Outlaw 990 since it's based on the P-965 (which I currently own) which is the predecessor of the R-972. For those truly interested, back in March I complied some background information on Sherwood.

Green Server - Meh

Energy production is a fascination of mine, so I’m also interested in the other side of the equation, consumption. Or in this case, conservation. Efficiency in computing is becoming ever more important as companies like Google deal with the economics of powering (and cooling) thousands of computers. But what about the home or small office network?

I finally saw a repeat of episode 2 of Dragon’s Den I had missed, and one presentation was the Green Server by fellow Calgarian and computer nut, Jonathan Levine. It’s a small, low-power server and the idea is you let it do server things instead of your power-hungry PC. The theory is you save money on your power bill and there’s less strain on your PC. I think the theory is sound, modern PC has far more power than is required to sit and download a file overnight ¹. However, the dragons were right to turn the investment down. This company has no chance.

I’ll get to the killer flaw, but it’s worth mentioning that it never came up during what I saw of the show. To be fair, Jonathan may have discussed it with the dragons and we missed it, as the show is heavily edited for entertainment. To viewers like me it appeared the pitch failed because of Jonathon’s truly lousy performance as presenter. I wouldn’t be surprised if that actually was the cause since he does an equally poor job with online posting ² and the company has an awful website. Not visually awful, it’s actually almost pretty. The problem is it reads like spam email or late night shopping channel presentation. Save “HUNDREDS of $$$ per year”, “radically improves the integrity of the user's data”, immune to malware, and other claims, and even a rant about Windows cloud what little objective facts and information there are. Jonathan, every technology company has the problem of trying to sell too many features at once. If you think it’s hard with investors wait until you get to the public.

But those are not insurmountable problems. I’m sure professional marketing is high on their list of things they need funding for. There’s even a good reason in a post by Jonathan as to why he ending up presenting to the dragons instead of someone more “suit”. And while there are plenty of nuggets of investment wisdom, Dragon’s Den is first and foremost entertainment. O’leary will insult you just for fun as often as he will for an, umm… business reason.

No, the main reason why they have no chance is this product already exists. There are dozens of network attached storage devices out there from experienced, reputable companies. These companies already have cheap manufacturing in Asia, and they already have sales channels, and advertisements, and reviews on CNET, and a history of providing support, and stock on the NASDAQ, and the next version already at the lab, and so on. And these products have one advantage beyond price and specs that leaps out at me, in most cases the device is also a router or media adapter. Those are additional jobs that are required 24/7, but the green machine doesn’t do. They are also print servers, firewalls, and, like the Green Server, backup devices ³.

Still, I wish them luck as I’m always hoping to see more high tech development here. At the very least I can sympathize with the state of VC in Calgary for anything not oil. One last problem is how the hell they came up with a $3,125,000 valuation for a company only at the prototype stage and no proprietary hardware. I doubt it happened in this case, but a lot of Dragon's Den presenters seem like they think how much money they want, how much company they want to keep, and don't do the math.

1. The theory is sound by I’m still skeptical of the numbers. I’d like to know where you get your numbers regarding the number of computers in homes and average power supply wattage. I know a lot of people who have one laptop that hibernates overnight.
2. Like this joke (I hope it’s a joke) Jonathon posted to the CBC website :

   Finally, I'd like to speak to that "mad scientist" business. I hate it. You'd better get over what I look like, because anyone who compares me to those undisciplined cranks is gonna get invited out to the woods behind my house for a little re-education.

3. I know the Green Server website mentions off-site backup, but that doesn’t mean anything without details or reputation. What size data? Where is it located? How do I know it’s safe? I would say those questions all need to be answered, but it’s moot. The fact is there are many off-site backup solutions out there, including at least one I know (x) that’s free. And that one is automated backup which is far superior to drag-and drop backup.

It's everything I hoped it would be and more.

A few days ago I finally replaced my beloved Microsoft Natural® Pro keyboard with the Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 that I was considering as it's replacement.

It's good. It's really good.

New laptop

I helped Juliane pick out (then setup) a new laptop today. No surprise, it's an HP. 2GHz Turion, 15.4" widescreen, 1GB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 8x dual layer DVD burner, 802.11b/g. In typical HP fashion it feels solid, has all the nice switches and indicators, and the best touchpad in the industry. And new it was just $799. Just another reason why they've passed Dell to become the number 1 computer seller?

Just ask Paul.

It's more or less the newer version of mine. Yes, jealous I am.

Oh, and as if I needed another reason to love Picasa: Moving her photo library to the new laptop was smooth thanks to the slick Picasa backup and restore functionality.

The truth about Sherwood Newcastle

I like Sherwood, in fact one of their fine Newcastle P-965 preamp/processors is currently somewhere in the nebulous world of parcel shipping, destined for my doorstep. This post is a place for me to put some information I've found on the history of company. It's not that Sherwood is trying to hide their current ownership by a Korean company and their relationship to other hi-fi brands, it's just that their website isn't exactly clear on it, and that's led to some confusion on the net and from the local dealer.

Today

Sherwood America is a division of Etronics Corporation of Seoul, Korea. To put it another way, Etronics is a large OEM who also sells their own equipment under various brand names, including Inkel, Vatel, Sherwood (the cheaper stuff) and Sherwood Newcastle (the good stuff). The Newcastle gear is manufactured in ChunAm, South Korea, and the other in China.

History

Sherwood Electronic Labs was founded in Chicago 1953 by audio engineer Ed Miller. In 1980, Sherwood was acquired by Inkel Corporation of Korea. Around 1995 Inkel was acquired by the Haitai group in Korea and became known as Haitai Electronics. When the financial crisis hit Asia in 1997, the Haitai Group was broken up (it is now defunct) and some of the Inkel acquisition was rolled back. With the Haitai name then discredited and Inkel still in the professional electronics business, a new name, Etronics, was chosen.

OEM

An original equipment manufacturer, OEM, is a company that builds products or components that are used in products sold by another company. Sherwood claims that they are the manufacturer of "nearly one third of the world's high performance receivers". I've heard brands like Adcom, SAE, Kenwood, Marantz, Philips, Yamaha, Denon and Harman Kardon and I've also heard the 1/3 figure was closer to reality in the 90s and that Harmon Kardon no longer uses Etronics. The real numbers of OEMs are a secret. This is understandable since the high-end A/V world is full of brands that are little more than their name on someone else's product for a lot more money.

One Sherwood OEM customer that isn't a secret is Outlaw Audio. They're a refreshingly open company that is frank about the fact they outsource the manufacture of all their products. Their 990 pre/pro is based on my P-965 and the Outlaw website not only says this, but outlines what they feel they've added to the product with their version. In this case the Outlaw direct sales model means their version is actually sold for less. (But I bought my P-965 used)

So, Sherwood's philosophy is still true today: "Design audio gear that offers only the highest levels of performance and make it yourself". Some people online are confused about the relationship and say Sherwood buys from Etronics (Sherwood IS Etronics). Or they say Sherwood buys from competing OEM Eastech of Taiwan (probably just mixing up Etronics and Eastech). And as a final note, apparently the Rotel development group is staffed by several ex-Inkel engineers and is also in Korea.

More links

• Etronics page for the P-965 except the picture shown is the R-965, the P-965 with a built-in amp.
• Some Etronics company info
• Some Sherwood company info
• A thread on the AVS forum where Sherwood employee "Stereojeff" provides a lot of company and product information. Stereojeff has been very active in that forum, providing information and help on Sherwood products for years.

7 months with an LG 125

In June of last year I upgraded my phone to a Telus Mobility LG 125.

I have been very happy with this phone.

1. The signal quality is outstanding. Example: Last fall we were at a trade show in Chicago and underground in the convention center I was the only one in our group who could get a good connection (I'm the only one with this phone).
2. The speakerphone is outstanding. So far no one has known I've been using on speaker when I ask them. That's something I've never experienced on any phone, mobile or landline.
3. The contact management, weight, UI, and battery life are all better than my old phone as expected.

The only complaint I have is with the ever changing and ever frustrating web browsing, but that's the fault of Telus, not the phone. As I said when I chose it, all I wanted was a good phone, no camera, no videos, no TV, no music, no games, etc.

Intel Macs

I've been arguing online for years that Apple should switch to Intel processors, will switch to Intel processors, and that Intel processors are faster than IBM's for notebooks. Today I can say I told you so, I told you so, I told you so.