21 October 2009
Archimedes Palimpsest
The coolest video I have seen recently on digitising manuscripts was this Google Talk on the Archimedes Palimpsest. I am reminded of it as I am listening to a number of interesting talks on Digital Libraries and Cultural Heritage at the eChallenges 2009 conference in Istanbul.
2 April 2007
EMI Group will soon sell digital music with better sound quality and no digital rights management restrictions through Apple's iTunes Store.
EMI, Apple partner on DRM-free premium music | Tech News on ZDNet
EMI Group will sell digital music with better sound quality and no digital rights management restrictions through Apple's iTunes Store from May 2007. They will continue to sell DRM limited lower quality tracks for $0.99, and sell the higher quality unlimited tracks at $1.29 (users with older tracks may upgrade for $0.30). The new tracks will be in a 256 kilobit-per-second AAC format.
Well Jobs has delivered, he always said he'd prefer not to use DRM, but was forced into it by the record companies, now he has at least one deal that bypasses the security. I'd definitely prefer to non-DRM tracks at this price.
11 August 2006
Navteq Irish Maps
Earlier this year Navteq completed a full mapping of Irish roads, so products based on this data should start become more up-to-date in Q4 2006 onwards. To date much Irish GPS mapping software has suffered from poor data coverage.
Navigation products integrate Navteq's full Irish road coverage - Spatial Ireland
For more information see:
Pocket GPS World: AA Navigator 20Pocket GPS World: AA Navigator 2006 includes FULL coverage of Ireland
15 April 2005
Blogging and Flickr photo sharing getting Irish press coverage
Bernie Goldbach has a posting about the recent Irish press interest in blogging in general and in the Flickr photo-sharing service in particular: IrishEyes: Flickr Ireland. Flickr integrates well with blogging software, and supports explicit tagging that enables aggregation and aggregation and distribution of items via RSS feeds, and is thus popular amongst bloggers. There is a real on-line community of Irish bloggers emerging. This community identifies itself in a number of ways:
- via the Technorati irishblogs tag in their syndicated blog postings and Flickr.
- There is an Irish Blogs portal based on aggregation (this site is selective in its definition of what qualifies: "We decide whether or not a site is Irish based on a range of factors. We do not wish to disclose our extremely complex algorithm's for determining Irishness.").
- There is a blog aggregator Planet of the Blogs, RSS that exports a single RSS feed and subscribes to a number of feeds (this site is more open about its definition of what qualifies, c.f. Damien Mulley's post).
- There is a Yahoo! Groups group irishblogs, RSS.
IRISH-TIMES -- Daybreak reader John McCormac pointed out to Irishblogs that Robin O'Brien Lynch (ROBL) extends Caoimhe Burke's 15 minutes of fame in an article explaining Flickr to readers of The Irish Times. "There are lots of theories and ideas as to the reason for Flickr's immense popularity," says Caoimhe Burke, a researcher in multimedia at DCU. "Essentially it is the most user-friendly photo-sharing service online, but it offers far more to its users than online photo storage.
"The communities that the service facilitates help to ensure its popularity among existing users and add a unique dimension that serves to attract new members.
"Admittedly it probably has more of a trendy image than other services. the service was conceived and developed by a group of young internet enthusiasts (take a bow, Stewart and Caterina) and has become the service of choice amongst the young and hip."
ROBL postulates "the most important of all the factors is Flickr's appeal to bloggers." Add to that Flickr's open API.
ROBL observes, "More often than not, a blog will carry the phrase 'view my Flickr' rather than 'view my photos'. As blogging becomes more and more popular in the mainstream, it is carrying Flickr with it to ever-increasing exposure."
"Bloggers are attracted to Flickr because the service provides tools that are specifically used for uploading images to blogs," says Burke in the Times article.
Did you know there are groups on Flickr for Ireland and Irish blogs? Isn't it a shame that the tag word "Ireland" does not rank among the top 150 most commonly used tags by Flickr users? Gold star for the person who correctly identifies the most frequently tagged Irish county in Flickr.
Robin O'Brien Lynch -- "Flickr of personality behind website's success" in "Technology" section of The Irish Times, April 15, 2005. More coverage in the Irishblogs Yahoo! group.
13 April 2005
Bootable Linux distribution as a Media Player
Along with some sample pictures of streaming Dr Who from the media player to the TV, this article How-To: Build A Cheap Media Player In 20 Minutes - Engadget - www.engadget.com. explains how to use a useful CD-bootable Linux distrubution as a cheap media player.
12 April 2005
iLog as the iPod killer?
The iLog device (from the Owl Project) is a working digital music player and recorder! Could it be the next iPod killer device. I'll leave it to you to decide.
Though forest use has always been the hallmark of the Owl Project, we believe in constantly moving perfection forward. So the iLog incorporates the same touch-sensitive switches that debuted on Log1k v12, letting you easily record samples and create electronic beats from your pocket, and use them wherever you go; in the office, on the footpath, or in the Forest.
ilog v1
At just over 3 inches thick, the iLog fits comfortably in the palm of your hand and slips easily into your pocket -- and your life. The super-slim iLog defines what electronic music should be. Now you can sync with Log1k, Mac and Windows at blazing speeds.Without lifting that trusty thumb of yours from the switch, you can easily perform improvised sets, scroll through sounds, and start the music playing.
13 March 2005
14 February 2005
Squared Circle Posters
This posting Paul Downey: Squared Circle Poster led me back to the flickr project where people upload photographs and tag them in meaningful ways. The poster is the result of a collaborative sub-project where people agreed to upload photographs of a circle within a square, and allowed others to reuse these images for derivative works through a creative commons license. KrazyDad took these and created a number of posters including this one. What a powerful concept!
7 January 2005
Media History
Here's a movie presenting a plausable history of media consolidation written from a 2014 perspective: EPIC (ols-master). Very interesting. Thanks to Shane Dempsey for the link :-)
2 October 2004
PODCasting
Phil Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog: PODCasting takes up the debate on syndication of audio using RSS type tools that I alluded to in a previous posintg.
1 October 2004
podcasting
Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - iPodding, and Why it Matters describes how broadcasting mp3 and other audio formats on the web targetting portable digital players is going to create a new structure for audio.... Food for thought.
17 March 2003
St Patrick's Day 2003
Well, I'm actually posting this a few days late, but last Monday, 17th March 2003, St Patrick's Day, I popped down to our local beach: Stradbally Cove in Co. Waterford, Ireland. I took my new Digital Ixus camera (a Christmas present) and shot a couple of pictures and a short movie. I've edited (well, stuck together) these into a little AVI file if you fancy downloading a few megs Stradbally Cove (Warning: 17 Meg); also available is an unedited shot of waves coming in at the nearby beach in Bunmahon, Co. Waterford waves at Bunmahon (Warning: 10 Meg). The sound quality of these is not great, but the soundtrack on the former is better. (Please note: there was a mixup when I originally posted this -- only the Bunmahon video was available but it was incorrectly named as if it were the Stradbally Cove video).