Inside View

Keeping Up with Bad Kitty

Eyenimal on a tuxedo cat like @topgold had.

WE USED TO HAVE a house-trained cat, like the one in the photo, who took adventures inside neighbours' homes. Although he didn't take photos with an Eyenimal video collar, he returned with stories to share.

Many of the stories started with someone up the street asking, "Do you have a black and white cat?" Then they would tell a funny story about finding Jack in a box or hearing him politely call for food while sitting under a table. With an Eyenimal camera, we would have enjoyed more context to the stories.

The 100 euro Eyenimal petcam is a micro camera that easily mounts on a collar. It has an integrated microphone, battery life of 2 1/2 hours, weighs 35g and measures 6cm by 1.5 cm by 4.5 cm. On board is 4GB in Flash memory. You transfer content via USB and charge it that way as well.

It's easy finding Eyenimal fans on YouTube, on Flickr and the #eyenimal collection on Instagram often entertains me. I'm looking for people who have playlists of Eyenimal live feeds because deep down inside, I believe the world is better when we acclaim the joy of unscripted cat videos.

Our Next Laptop Will Convert

Screenshot of IdeaPad Yoga from Lenovo.

I AM ONE of those longtime PC owners who does not believe we are headed towards a realm filled only with tablets and smartphones. For that reason, pur next home computing companion will probably be a convertible laptop.

Our five year old is learning skills involving keys, a mouse and web-based services. And while she is happy with apps, she knows there is a bigger world wide web revolving around legacy content.

I'm cross-posting this item to September 2017 and will review what Mia has on her study nook as a 10 year old. I think it will have a physical keyboard on it.

Tech for New Swimmers

Photo of Seal Swim neckband.

WE ARE TEACHING our youngest how to swim and that could mean she will be in the water by herself. I'm considering some simple technology that might alert us when she needs help in the water.

The €114 Seal Swim Monitor is a band that could hang around our five year old's neck and connect wirelessly with the guard band worn by myself or a lifeguard. When the neck band is submerged for a certain period of time, it sounds an alarm on the guardian's band and on its own charging station. Several bands can be used at once and settings can be adjusted to take into account the swimmer's proficiency. It communicates wirelessly over a range of 80 metres but I don't know if it's been tested to more than 10 metres in depth.

I know Mia would like a pink neckband. Customisable front cover plates help differentiate units specific to certain swimmers or allow a team to look like one.

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Bernie Goldbach used to finish mile-long swims every week as a teen.

 

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Nokia Lumia Replacement Earbuds

Holding Maximo iP-HS3 iMetal headset for Lumia.

MAXIMO'S iMETAL headset provides high quality listening and recording results when connected to my Nokia Lumia 820.

Unlike several earbuds I've purchased before, the iMetal headset works with iPhone (all the way back to 3G), Blackberry or any multimedia phone with a 3.5mm or 2.5mm headset jack. The iMetal's button control functions are dependent on the features of individual multimedia phones.

Recharge Five USB Devices in One Rack

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Griffin PowerDock 5 in photo.

WE DON'T HAVE enought USB Cables when trying to charge our stuff so it's handy to have a PowerDock 5 around to slot things in for a boost.

The Griffin PowerDock 5 has enough room to give each tablet its own charging port along with a clear backrest. You can keep an iPad in its case while recahrging too. An illuminated status light tells when PowerDock 5 is powered up and ready to charge up to 2.1 amps per recharging slot.  We have 16 iPads running in one trolley so it's handy to know there's a rack that can recharge five in one go. Since this device exposes generic USB ports along one side, it can be used with any hardware capable of charging over USB.

And the 2.1 amps per connection means it will recharge iPads and Motorola Xoom tablets without a low power warning.

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The PowerDock 5 costs $99 online.

 

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Sunday Tech News

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of Sunday Business Post.

THE BUSINESS POST in Ireland offers several leading thoughts about technology on the near horizon that I am bringing into our creative multimedia programme. You can click on the image to see a video that explains more details.

I'm posting these trends forward by five years to see how accurate Dick O'Brien's prognostications are.

Tech I Can Use

The e-Reader for Evernote

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | PRS-T2 Photo by Sony.

MY PERFECT CHRISTMAS present would be a Sony PRS-T2 e-reader because it boosts my Evernote productivity.

I have no real issues with my bog-standard Kindle but I need to squeeze more time for Evernote from my daily routine. I toggle into Evernote several times every day, seven days a week. I tell Evernote (via audio) where I've parked our car, I snap shots of warranties. I put all invoices into Evernote. I track expenses due from my employer through Evernote.

I also send direct messages from my Twitter into @myen. I highlight passages from books, websites and student submissions while I read. I write short summaries of audio I hear on the internet and on the radion into Evernote.

Sony's PRS-T2 has clever Evernote synchronity that would help me GTD. You set up your credentials on the device, log into Evernote, select a notebook to sync with the e-reader and you can see your Evernote life through that notebook.

I can also send content to the folder using Evernote Clearly in Chrome. Clearly's browser extension strips all the clutter off a page, and saves things without any baggage on the side or bottom or top. Clearly can save notes, create notes or scrape whole pages for reading later.

I wish the Evernote implementation in the Sony e-reader was more elegant. I have to manually send items from the reader to Evernote. That means I make several taps to switch from what I'm reading to Evernote to save and back again. That said, to have Evernote in the hand whenever I'm in an e-reading position is a big win all around.

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Bernie Goldbach equates clever Evernote use to Getting Things Done.

 

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Not Ready for Lifelogging

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Memoto on Kickstarter.

I DON'T WANT TO start lifelogging with Memoto's clip-on camera. It's available as a clothing accessory after its Kickstarter campaign finishes.

The wearable camera is a plastic square with rounded corners measuring less than 1.5 square inches. It has a pinhole for its camera lens. Small clips on the back help attach it to collars, shirts, or straps.

It snaps two 5 MP images every minute and embeds geodata into the EXIF file of every image. Its charge lasts for 48 duty hours. When you hook the Memoto to a computer to charge, it uploads its cache to the cloud where you can view the images. According to the designers, "the camera and the app work together to give you pictures of every single moment of your life, complete with information on when you took it and where you were." It's sentient and active--which can unnerve some people.

I expect to see a few of these lifelogging cameras on people after this Christmas. I don't think it's good form to expose the pinhole to friends partying in pubs.

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Kickstarter -- "Memoto Lifelogging Camera" has $270,000 of its $50,000 goal.

Bernie Goldbach has saved this technology in his stack of privacy pages.

Saorview of Katie Taylor

Bernie Goldbach in Celbridge | Photo of Saorview screen

KATIE TAYLOR approaches the 2012 Olympic boxing ring and thanks to the magic of digital terrestrial television, my in-laws get to see their first high definition gold medal.

We visited Argos for a €35 Alba Saorview unit and also walked out with a 10 euro SCART cable. I had already given a 30 euro antenna from Maplins to the in-laws and installation was simple. Connect the cables to a stupid televison and let the intelligent channel finder do its work. The digital terrestrial signal is strong enough in Celbridge to allow a small antenna in place of a larger rabbit ears.

Today, it should deliver a pathway to gold for Celbridge viewers.

Katie Taylor Semi-Final

 

 

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Previously: "Living with weak Saorview" on my blog, April 9, 2012.

Brendan Farrelly -- "Punch drunk Katie Taylor article provokes outrage" in the Irish Independent, August 8, 2012.

Bernie Goldbach is collecting links on Saorview.

Tracing Foul Air

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Image from Honeywell  

FOUL AIR has me investigating sensors that should help document a case against a defective sewerage system.

Honeywell's C7110A1010 Room Air Quality Sensor measures air quality in rooms, offices, and production bays. It should be able to detect whether we're getting foul air from sewage blowing back under our pavements and into our storm drains. I've seen mixed gas sensors used to control ventilation plants in aircraft maintenance facilities during a previous career in the Air Force. Some of those facilities were involved in spraying deicing fluid, paint removing solvents and mixing distillates. We need a device that can detect those kinds of industrial smells because the same technology displays readings in poor quality air.

Poor quality air affects several unfinished estates around Ireland. As explained by the Irish Times, residents of the Gleann Riada housing estate in County Longford have their case in front of Minister for the Environment and some top-notch consultants because authorities have been monitoring gas levels since a suspected gas explosion occurred at one of the houses in March. We don't want that in our estate, hence the air sensor as a first step.

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Bernie Goldbach has links to DIY jobs.