Claes-Fredrik Mannby

Strange Pattern on Ocean Floor

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Google's underwater exploration tool reveals an interesting pattern.

Paper-Aware Search

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:19:00 +0000

Exbiblio has developed a way of bringing together the paper and digital worlds, creating a rich interactive experience in paper documents. This new technology requires no change to present or historic print publishing processes. Rather, it makes use of the remarkable uniqueness of written text. In Google’s indexed corpus the average length of a unique English phrase is about 6 words. So virtually every line of every printed document is unique; every line serves as its own barcode or URL. This is true in books, magazines, newspapers, business documents, etc. And it works in documents printed today, or printed 200 years ago. Exbiblio exploits this phenomenon to connect the paper world to the digital world, using software and cameras on existing mobile phones, or Exbiblio's small "Qi™" device. When Search Engines are paper-aware, many powerful web-based activities can be extended to the world of paper documents.

Nano-ink Diabetes Tattoo

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:18:00 +0000

Fascinating development in medicine.

Plastic Logic

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:14:00 +0000

This looks like a nice e-book reader.

Movie on a card

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Snapily is working on letting you get a short movie snippet (e.g. 12 frames) printed on a card that reveals the movie as you swivel it in front of your eyes.

Neural Nets, the Soft Kind

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:37:00 +0000

Functional MRI used to reproduce seen image. Fascinating.

Pronunciation

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:15:00 +0000

People are pronouncing the world's words at Forvo. Nice resource!

They don't want you to pronounce words except in your native tongue, but I think it would be really interesting to hear how people from x pronounce y.

I wonder how long the notion of "native tongue" will hold, before it would need to become like a long DNA sequence describing all your influences, much like I think the notion of ethnicity soon becomes impossible in a world with easy travel.

Worst translation ever?

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:41:00 +0000

Through Q comes what may be the worst translation ever, almost as bad as the disconnect in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that almost started an intergalactic war.

Creativity & Education

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:08:00 +0000

The Lucifer Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:30:00 +0000

A fascinating statistic: People are about 10 times more likely to mistreat others seriously if they themselves are anonymized by wearing a uniform, dressed for a role, etc.

Inheritance

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:11:00 +0000

I would love to see a site that provides the missing manual for children (and their parents).

Health, Population

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:39:00 +0000

Anantika says she wants to live longer than any other animal.

Here's an interesting video on some things to keep in mind with such a project:

Interactive Music on the iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Snow Leopard

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:42:00 +0000

One project that Exbiblio has helped fund does some very good work using well-thought-out levers designed to help both snow leopards and the local human population.

They could really use some publicity in the context of the forthcoming OS X release.

Waiting at the Bus Stop

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:01:00 +0000

A wonderful sense of life.

HP TouchSmart

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:21:00 +0000

I saw the HP TouchSmart yesterday and tried it out very briefly. As with Windows CE, I got an immediate sense that there's a huge mismatch between the I/O device and the UI, i.e., that a much better UI could be made given the possibilities of the input and output capabilities of the hardware.
I don't know whether the screen supports multi-touch (sensing multiple fingers at the same time), but, I didn't have time to ponder where in a Windows UI I might find something to test on.
Still, you can passably tap buttons, except even there, I tried to hit the close 'X' button at the top right corner of the screen, and, well, I couldn't. The bezel around the screen juts out at a 90 degree angle 1 or 2 millimeters beyond the last pixel, and it's a massive 1/2" or so high, so fingers can't go there. Back to the drawing board.
Still, HP makes some wonderful video ads.

F.I.B.

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:24:00 +0000

PolarisMotor in Italy has some very fun-looking vehicles.

Thanks to Q for the link.

Amazing Prosthetics

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:53:00 +0000

WIRED has an article (including a video) of a prosthetic arm designed by Dean Kamen. It looks like a very nice segue to the Segway.

Andromeda Strain?

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:52:00 +0000

Apparently, some bacteria of the Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas families like to eat plastic.

Al Mo GTS (Go to Sleep)

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:13:00 +0000

Toy-makers out there, here is what I would like: A soft animal toy remote controlled by a parent to give such useful messages as "It's time to close our eyes and go to sleep now. Please hold me tight!"
This would take advantage of children often paying more attention to others than to their parents. ;-)

Fun Image Processing with a Wii

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:19:00 +0000

Here is a TED Talk about some fun things you can do for a few dollars using a Wii remote control's infrared camera.

Fun Drawing Program

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:13:00 +0000

Doodle
Originally uploaded by Mannby

I looked for a drawing program that was simple to use, free, and covered the whole screen, for Anantika to use while visiting the office, and I found this gorgeous application for the Mac: ArtRage.

Google Conference on Scalability 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:48:00 +0000

The videos from the Google Scalability Conference are now available online.

Jeff's talk, above, had lots of interesting stats on Google's operations.

My My Frosty

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:00:00 +0000

$2.5K Car

noreply@blogger.com (Claes-Fredrik Mannby) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:08:00 +0000

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/10/1325207&from=rss

"After months of rumors and tantalizing leaks, Tata Motors has finally unveiled the Tata Nano, its already legendary $2,500 car that promises to change the face of not only the Indian car market, but the global auto industry. The tiny car is a four door, five seat hatch, powered by a 30 HP engine that gets 54 miles per gallon."