I’m a storyteller. I find cool new things, use them to make my life better, and teach others to do the same.
Caution - I experienced physical pain watching this video. Any other iPhone owners or gadget lovers in general might experience the same. You’ve been warned!
Looking for more blending insanity? Check out willitblend.com. Genius marketing (and general good times!) from the folks at Blendtec. Official blender of internet geeks everywhere. 
This video is about 40 minutes long, and weighs about 56MB. Quicktime format, 640×480. You can click to watch it, or right-click, save as this link to download it directly.
Intel Software Network web coding guru Kevin Pirkl goes by the name ZombieBob Zenovka in Second Life, and he recently gave a seminar/how-to on some web programming techniques - AJAX, JSON, etc. He also showed off the free sample web services that Intel makes available for you to include and use in your own site, like Comments, Voting, Email a Friend, and a Video Bar. Here’s a sample page with the code - view source to check it out.
I bet you didn’t know Intel offered those - pretty cool, huh?
There is audio from Kevin, and the people in the session participated via in world chat. Kevin shares lots of code samples and useful links, so this isn’t just a guy talking. Lots of web code goodies.
We think this was the best Second Life event that we’ve done so far, and we look forward to doing lots more like it. Check out the video, go play with the code and web services that Kevin covers, and let us know what you think!
Here’s some quick video and audio of Elliot Garbus of Intel’s Developer Relations Division (my boss’s boss’s boss 
doing a “keynote” at the beginning of our Intel Software Nework launch day in Second Life. The video is about 13 minutes long, weighs 22MB, and can be downloaded directly at this link (right-click, save as).
Come check out our DevZone - search for Intel Software Network in Second Life. We’re all about developers, not marketing, and we know we’re not going to get this perfect on our first try, so come by, tell us what you like, what you don’t, and if you want to, help us make it better!
I’m Gadget Mandelbrot in world (the guy with blue skin and orange hair and shoes ;-). Feel free to IM or Friend me, and let me know if you have any questions! I’ll send you a landmark if you get lost (we’re kind of hard to find, we’re working on fixing that). Thanks!
The famous "Quad Core" chopper, created by Orange County Choppers for Intel, is making a stop at Intel’s Jones Farm 3 building, in the lobby. I heard some people talking about it excitedly, and the first thing I did was grab my HD video camera and go down to shoot some video and take some pictures. Check out the video - it weighs 27MB, and is about 2:40 minutes long. Right-click here to download and save it to your hard drive.
You can read more about it in the Intel press release, and you can even "build" one for yourself in Second Life, to ride around on.
The chopper has two V-Twin motors, so it’s truly "quad core". I was kind of disappointed that the touted PC that controls the kickstand, media system, GPS, etc. wasn’t attached, but it is still a very cool ride.
Bill, now’s your chance to have one of these! ;-)Â
Last week when I was at MIX07, I got to sit down and do a Channel 9-style video interview with Tim Sneath, technical evangelist for Silverlight at Microsoft. The video turned out really well, and I just posted it up over at the Intel Software Network blog:
If you’re at all interested in what Silverlight is (Tim gives a great explanation!), what you can do with it, whether it will ever be released for Linux, how it performs, what you need to use it (hint: a text editor), and lots more, you’ll enjoy the video.
It’s about 40 minutes long, but I posted an index of the topics we talk about and their timecodes, so you can jump around. And I was super impressed at how great the video looks and how small the Quicktime file turned out. The video was shot in 1080i HD originally, and encoded at 640×360 using iMovie. The resulting file is only 93MB (I was expecting hundreds)! I credit the tripod for this - there’s not a lot of motion from frame to frame, so the H.264 compression really shines.
Anyway, please do go check it out, tell your friends, and let me know what you think!
Some of my Intel blogger friends are attending IDF Beijing this week, and this morning, one of them sent me a heads up for this video they had just shot, showing a brand new second generation Ultra Mobile PC prototype, codenamed Menlow. This is the follow-up to the MID Linux based devices they have been showing, and is supposed to be out in 2008.
This page brought to you by…
Are you in need of the best selection of cameras? Do you need to Compare prices on the best digital cameras in the market? If you love taking photos, sign online today and find the camera of your dreams! No matter what type of Sony Digital Cameras you are looking for, we are sure to have the best selection!
The device that gets demoed has a Silverthorne processor (based on the 45nm Penryn chip), which runs at 0.6 or 2 watts of power consumption. At 2 watts, it delivers the performance of a Pentium M (not bad at all). It’s smaller than current gen UMPCs, and I love the slide-out keyboard. Has a touchscreen. Expected battery life is 4 to 6 hours.
I really, really want one of these, and you can bet that I’m going to be hounding the folks in the Ultra Mobile group to see when/if I can get my hands on one. For now, just check out this video demo, and drool along with me.
(Update: Here’s the original post from Mark Parker, the guy with the hands on experience with Menlow, on the Intel Technology blog).
Check out this video (by Intel) about the potential future of how an ultramobile device, like a UMPC, could work for you in your life. Sure, this is all “vision”, and future stuff, but it’s what we’re working towards, what we’re trying to make happen. At IDF Beijing next week, Intel is going to take the wraps off of the 2nd gen Ultra Mobile PCs. I haven’t seen or heard any details about it other than what’s been publicly available (I need to cultivate better friends in the Ultra Mobile group!). But it’s a step towards the kind of thing that you see in the video.
Check it out. Some parts of it are kind of hokey, and some can be done today, but I love to think about what cool new stuff I’ll be able to do with new gadgets. Sure, I love gadgets just for themselves - who doesn’t love a new toy? But there’s real, life-changing benefit to them, too.
What do you wish technology could do for you in the coming year?
A little birdie sent me this YouTube link to a video that shows what the world would be like without software. Made me smile.
Cross posted at the Intel Software Network blog.
This is a video interview I did with Rajshree and Sateesh, both of Intel's Software Solutions Group, right after their GDC2007 session on the Intel Laptop Gaming TDK. The video is about six minutes long, and weighs about 12 MB. You can download it directly at this link.
The Laptop Gaming TDK is a tool kit that any developer can download for free, and use in your applications to check on the state of a laptop - things like "am I plugged in?", "how much battery is left?", "what's the wireless signal strength?"
Once you know about those things, you can make your game more "laptop friendly", by providing warnings to the player that their battery is about to die, or dynamically scaling things like the detail level or other aspects of the game to maximize battery life when playing unplugged.
You can download the Intel Laptop Gaming TDK for yourself, and try it out (it's free to play with and/or include in your games or other applications). We do ask for an email address, but we promise we won't spam you. We hate spam, just like you do.
If you want to learn more, or want to get in touch with an Intel software engineer that can help you, make sure to visit the Mobility community on Intel Software Network, including the Mobilized Software Development forum. We're here to help, at your disposal, so make good use of us!
Download the file directly. Originally posted at the Intel Software Network blog.
I get this question a LOT: “Why hasn’t Intel released WDDM drivers for the 915 integrated graphics chipset? I can’t run the fancy visual effects in Windows Vista, like Aero Glass, without one!”
This page brought to you by…
Do you need the best video editing software? If you are on your computer for editing purposes, make sure you have the best software available to you! If you want to find cheap computer software, the internet is your best source. Sign online today and browse the huge selection of computer software!
People hardest hit by this issue include virtually all Tablet PC and UMPC users, along with lots and lots of people using laptops with that particular Intel integrated graphics chipset. I personally have two systems, a Lenovo X41 Tablet PC and an Asus R2H UMPC, that are affected. The Intel Software Network forum is full of complaints, rants, and even veiled threats on the topic - implying that we, Intel, are sitting on the driver, or not releasing it for some unknown reason (most speculate that it’s because we want to force people to upgrade to a newer, more powerful graphics solution).
In this video, I sat down with Intel’s Chuck DeSylva, right after he gave a presentation at GDC 2007 on the topic of optimizing your games to take advantage of the Intel G965 graphics chip. I asked him the million dollar question: Why are there no WDDM drivers for Intel 915 graphics?
Watch the video for the answer. It’s about 3.5 minutes long, and weighs in at 22MB if you want to download it directly.
The short version (if you’re impatient): The WDDM Vista driver spec came out long after the 915 design was complete and in production, and even though it has advanced features like Pixel Shader 2.0, there is a missing hardware feature, called the Hardware Scheduler, that 915 lacks, and without that, it doesn’t meet the WDDM spec from Microsoft, and we (Intel) can’t release a WDDM driver for it.
There. It’s done. I hope that answers your questions. Please link your friends and associates to this video/post for the “definitive” answer.
As always, we’re open to your feedback, so please feel free to post a comment, respond in the ISN forums, or contact me directly if you have any more questions or issues.
www.flickr.com
|
Need to lighten up - I’m doing a "Twitter Boot Camp" with the ISN team in 1 hr. # # # # # # http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ # # # http://tinyurl.com/5gswmy # # # http://tinyurl.com/5hla4f # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # I hear @motherpopper’s around somewhere. # # # # # #
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # AP said its an "educational" software company. Guesses? # # # # (That goes for anyone else, too.) # # # # # # # And, uh, what does "PR’d" mean? #
http://tinyurl.com/3pcktn # I’ve still got it if you want another copy. # # http://tinyurl.com/4gnccd # Look up my code via @wii. # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
TinyScreenfuls Feed (this blog)