Check out the project going on at UCDavis called the Augmented Reality Sandbox project.

..and check out the Video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JXtTj0mzE

Thanks to CSS3 web design techniques and font-foundries, the ability to create gorgeous typography and beautiful design for browsers, is more accessible than ever.

The Web is about content–finding it, delivering it, exploring it, and experiencing growth and possibility within it. What’s the fun of using a site that takes forever to load and is difficult to read? A poorly designed product can be the single deciding factor for whether a user stays on your page or makes a dishearteningly rapid exit. Fortunately, with the use of new code, integrating gorgeous design and Web typography into various browsers is easier than ever.

Since 1996 when CSS1 was first enacted, the Web has seen historical changes. Initially, there were only 9 fonts browsers read by default. The focus was mostly on legibility and monitor-only interactive readability.

Fast-forward 15 years: Designers now have the ability to utilize a multitude of typefaces from various font foundries to make the Web a more beautiful place. Comic Sans can, for instance, have embossed effects and gradients. Pages load faster, and the Internet is more beautiful, more interactive, and (most importantly) more readable.

“We are in a time like no other. Through the use of CSS3 we are able to make art from code,” said Tantek Çelik, Web Standards Lead at Mozilla and representative to W3C HTML and CSS Working Groups, at CASCADE SF’s HTML5 presentation, on July 2010.

Want to make the Web more beautiful? Learn how-to Saturday, May 19th at Adobe HQ in San Francisco, CA.

This Saturday, May 19th, 2012 at Adobe HQ, Sean McBride, Engineer and Developer at Typekit will teach San Francisco how to create gorgeous web typographic posters, magazines, and effects using CSS3 text shadows, transitions, outlines, text-gradients, and a host of other need-to-knows. McBride’s talk at this year’s SXSW Interactive was highly recommended by developers who attended, and we anticipate a similarly enthusiastic turnout–sign up today.

http://cascadesfworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Typekit: The easiest way to add real fonts to your website.

Built around web standards, Typekit gives designers and developers a subscription-based library of hosted, high-quality fonts to use on their websites. They have over 250,000 customers including some of the largest sites on the web today: The New York Times, Conde Nast, IGN, Twitter, and many others. It is also actively integrating Typekit into hosted platforms—such as WordPress, TypePad, and Posterous—so that anyone with a website can use real fonts.

Seems for the bar in the above video this application helped them gain business, but how long will people want to be watched when out for the night?

Customer reviews of this service are mixed. The only App store review of this app states, “Love knowing what the guy/girl ratio is like before I show up so I don’t walk into a sausage fest”, but it seems most I talk to feel it is a mad invasion of privacy. Now SceneTap has gone one step further. They are officially launching their facial detection software for the service.

According to SceneTap:  Special facial detection cameras inside venues, pick up on facial characteristics to determine approximate age and gender of the crowd. All your personal information remains anonymous, and nothing about you or your face is stored long-term. Venue owners have access to this aggregated demographic information, and over time they can use it to measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Here is the list of the SF bars that will be watching you:

Bamboo Hut
Bar None
Comet Club
Eastside West
Eve Lounge
Fluid Ultra Lounge
HiFi
John Colins
Kozy Kar Bar
Manor West
Mayes Oyster House
McTeague’s Saloon
Milk Bar
Monaghan’s
Mr. Smith’s
Noble
Pedro’s Cantina
Pete’s Tavern
Polo Grounds
R Bar
Southpaw
Taverna Aventine
The Ambassador
The Wreck Room
Tope

Comments made to me and those I have seen on other blogs show that most people hate this idea and are not going to go to the bars listed above. I guess only time will tell if people like having their faces scanned and recorded when they are out drinking with their friends.

Well seems Apple did not care for that very much and took Siri to task.  When I was testing it, I could not get this to come up unless I said smartphone very quickly.  When Siri heard Smart Phone, I would get a set of canned answers like; “you’re kidding, right?” or  “The one you’re holding.” or “We both know the answer to that”.  Well now even if you get “Smartphone” to appear on the query you will get one of the canned answers.  This again brings up the question, just how neutral is Siri anyway?  Remember the dustup from last Nov when Siri would not give you directions to an abortion clinic? This just reinforces the notion that Siri is not neutral in the answers provided.  Something I really doubt Apple will address in any real sense, and something we will all have to remember when using this service.

The experience is fun to explore, educational (clicking on a fish pulls up information about the species), and the graphics are beautiful. More fish and scenes can be unlocked using credits that can be purchased like any other type of virtual good. Bonus that every time a user makes a purchase of an item, they support oceanic conservation.

TheBlu is Wemo Media’s first social media title published on their Maker Media Platform. The Maker Media Platform is an online creative collaboration platform enabling digital artists and developers around the world to peer-produce innovative digital media. If this is the type of content that their Maker Media Platform can create, I look forward to future titles from Wemo.

Check out the video.  Very nice although I thought I was watching a PBS infomercial… which it could be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x53kvmp10dY

Call the iphone pocket projector, its a dock for the iphone 4 coming in around $230..  Not too bad.  Now for $230 you are getting the most powerful thing in the world, but as you can see from the video below, its good enough to at see what is going on.  I would do try to display spreadsheets or anything on it, but in a pinch or when doing a simple demo, I think it works.  Here is a bit more from the site.

Its super-bright 15-lumen LED projector lamp ensures clearer, more brilliant images than other pico projectors. 640×360 native display resolution projects up to 50″ images. Focus adjustment lets you control image clarity while the integrated 0.5W speaker delivers the audio. Great for keeping kids entertained with their favorite videos on the road!

The Pocket Projector’s built-in 2100mAh battery charges via USB connection with the included cord. When fully charged, the projector may also be used as a back-up battery for your iPhone 4 device.

BTW, on the site they are offering a $30 discount, so $200 total.  I’m sure you can get that past your budget manager.  Now check out the quick a dirty vid I shot.

Mozilla stated that even though they support a more secure internet, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA, is too vast and based on its writings, implies alarming plans that go beyond security. The technology company wrote to Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg that the bill causes damage to their privacy and has ambiguous details regarding cybersecurity. Security is one thing but CISPA goes on to provide immunity to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse.

Mozilla is officially the first major tech company to openly speak against CISPA. The Bill passed in a 248-168 vote and the same day Microsoft came out with their statement that their support was declining and that any new legislation must permit them to honor privacy and security promises the company makes to the customer. Despite the statement, Microsoft has not withdrawn the support till now.

Other technology companies that are in favor of the bill are Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, AT&T, Intel, and trade association CTIA. The last one basically includes representatives of Sybase, Nokia, Qualcomm and T-Mobile. If put forward by the Senate, CISPA would not officially permit the NSA or Homeland Security any further surveillance power.

However it would still give rise to a new way of information sharing between companies and government agencies with restricted oversight and privacy safeguards.

Regarding the Senate, Mozilla said that they hope the Senate fully looks over and considers these issues with stakeholder input before going ahead with this novel piece of legislation. It is true that America is under a grave threat of cyber attack. It is also true that the attack isn’t merely from hackers inside the country but foreign cyber weapons such as those being billed by Russia and China are competing against those America has at the moment.

The basic reason for overall opposition is that the bill may use private information and won’t really know what to do with that information. There is also the talk about how many personal details should the government being looking out for and how much they would need. If there were to be a threat of cyber attack, there is a vast spectrum as to how the threat could be propagated.

Privacy is a major concern from a teenager wanting it from their parents to the citizens of a country demanding from its government. Parents have found ways to combat the demand for privacy by spyware applications which are now commonly installed in the phones of their kids. These apps from Mobistealth or Flexispy are being used to supervise kids and thus keep them safe and secure. But the point opposition is trying to make here is, that not everyone in America is a kid and not everyone is a risk to the cybersecurity.

Representative Jared Polis who is a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur stated that CISPA would basically waive off every privacy law ever taken out in the name of cybersecurity. He said that allowing the NSA and military to supervise on Americans on American land is basically going against every principle the country was established on.

The future of CISPA is now headed to the Senate where related cybersecurity legislation has been delayed for years. The Senate Majority leader stated that he wished to go ahead with this legislation in May. By the looks of opponents rallying and the degree of debate, the outlook is uncertain.

Now the app is limited in its functionality. There is no searching for particular body parts or clicking on individual pieces (that I have seen so far), and these are not MRI scanned 3D models, but it is a cool full size example of how AR could be used in pre-med or patient education. A nice demo for the show Daqri

Bluetooth 4.0 – inside every Pebble!

All Pebble watches will support Bluetooth 2.1 (as before) as well as Bluetooth 4.0 (Low Energy)

We’re limiting Kickstarter rewards to 85,000 Pebbles 

Just wanted to let everyone know that our current plan is to limit the total number of Kickstarter rewards to around 85,000 Pebbles. As soon as the total exceeds that, all rewards will change to being ‘sold out’. Right now you have claimed 75,000 watches, that leaves only 10,000 more before Pebble is sold out!