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IN MY PERFECT world, there are NFC chips integral to the text-to-speech and MP3 functions on my Kindle AND NFC on the dashboard of our car so we can hear Kindle read news and audio books to us.
Since Jeff Bezos reads my blog, I hope to see this offered by Christmas 2013.
In the meantime, you can follow my adventures as @topgold down Irish boreens. And if you're a real friend, feel free to drop an NFC enabled HD audio device into my Christmas stocking.
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WHEN EARLY AUGUST approaches every year, I think back on an event that happened 10 years before my birth, shaping the foreign policy of every nation on earth. And I also remember walking on a coral island that was totally decimated by nuclear fall-out.
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Lumia 925 headphone shot by @topgold.
WITH THE SCHOOL year just a month away, our five year old has discovered Audible books and that means she now has another cohort of narrators to read favourite stories.
At the moment, The Famous Five by Enjd Blyton is queued up inside our Audible app and Mia has entered an enchanting world featuring an old house with secret hiding places and underground tunnels. She listens to Julian, Anne, Dick, George and Timmy the dog working through mystery.
I use to listen to audio stories when growing up but they played on LP records and I didn't have my personal headset. Mia knows she is so lucky to enter her private storytelling realm, thanks to the cans she wears on her ears.
(Recommending Beyerdynamic over-the-ear headphones because it's harder to blow out your eardrums with them.)
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Screenshot from @topgold's Nokia Lumia 925.
THERE SHOULD BE NO reason that I need to use more than 2 GB of data each month with my mobile phone because I know what apps are the most data-intensive. I overshot my data limit this month because I tethered my laptop for an hour and I watched more than two hours of HD YouTube videos this month.
I needed tethering for a few simple laptop tasks and failed to kill both Windows Updates and an automatic Camtasia download. Those two things resulted in a 380 MB payload within a 20 minute period and that pushed me through my monthly mobile data limit. More importantly, it means my monthly O2 bill sits comfortably above €140, double the amount I normally budget for my account. Telefonica Ireland benefits directly.
I'm confident that my Nokia Lumia won't try to pull any more data over the air because I have set up Data Sense to automatically throttle the phone's over the air data usage once I reach 85% of my account limit. The screenshot on this blog post shows what happened when I removed the software switch and permitted normal email services to run with five different accounts on my phone.
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@topgold grabbed the Michael Hastings shot from AboveTopSecret.
WHILE LIVING IN GERMANY, I drove slowly by several high-speed Autobahn accidents involving mangled Mercedes Benz cars. It was unusual to see one explode at high speed and burn like Thermite (as Michael Hastings' car appears) so I'm deeply intrigued by the theory of a car hacking incident.
Former Marine Gordon Duff has shared information about the “Boston Brakes” technique, in which “drive by wire” cars like the Mercedes in the shot, can be manipulated remotely to simulate an out-of-control accident. [1]
I set up a news alert to follow this story and got some very interesting scenarios from Richard Clarke, the former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism. [2] Clarke confirms intelligence services have successfully tested the “drive by wire” concept. [3] I've used Audioboo to talk about the on-board diagnostic unit and how it's possible to hack one to control a new car.
Continue reading "Car Hacking with Boston Brakes and More" »
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Screenshot when setting up the first G+ update.
I AM PREPARING to use Google Plus in my university modules for the fourth consecutive semester and hope to harvest best practise from Ade Oshineye and perhaps develop some advanced techniques that can later filter back into our local business community.
I already know that Google+ enhances my delivery of third level curricular objects to students. I also know I can do things better with the way my modules leverage G+ so this year I have decided to dedicated several hours of practical skills in order to ensure that students can write effective responses to threaded items. We're already using handheld mobile phones when creating short clips for Youtube and some of those clips will migrate across to Instagram and Vine next semester.
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Selfie by Documentally in the photo.
CHRISTIAN PAYNE USES world-beating methods to attract interest when sharing stories and I especially enjoy when he storifies things--like storytelling with Guardian journalists.
I'm interested in how his story-telling session will unfold with Guardian and how he integrates tweets, venue check-ins, images and short video segments with his production. Since I view most of my incoming news flow on my mobile screen, I wonder if the Storify embed code will display on any of the different handsets I use while walking around Ireland. I've put Christian's embed code from his Guardian Storify segment below the break and will update this blog post when I see how things play on my Lumia, Xperia, Xoom, and iTouch.
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