So I’ve been playing with Kinect a bit more, and now have a program that moves the mouse (roughly) and lets you click and drag with voice commands. Needs a bit of tidying, and testing when it isn’t so dark…
Sorry about all the <p> and </p> – finding a decent code formatter for WordPress seems to be more difficult than I though it would be… Just find/replace if you want to use it.
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So Apple have found more things to sue Samsung over.
This comment on the original article sums it up best:
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Being an uber-geek, I’ve been having a play with the Kinect SDK. I’ve used samples from this page, and I’ve now managed to make my own paint program.
It’s fairly rudimentary, but allows you to turn the brush on and off depending on where your left hand is (below or above your head respectively). It would be fairly straightforward to implement colour changing through other gestures, then the ability to snapshot the picture (with or without me in it).
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I’ve just been watching the footage on Xbox Live’s “Inside Xbox” and aside from the all the games, something really stood out to me – the name “Tina Wood Summerford” – try saying that 10 times in a row! (She’s known as TinaSumSum on Xbox Live)
There are a few things I’m really looking forward to towards the end of the year:
The new Tomb Raider – I’ve always been a bit in love with Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie certainly didn’t help my affliction appearing as her in the films) – and this looks like it’s moved the game on to look great again (6 min gameplay video). In fact, I’m so excited I might install Angel of Darkness on my PC again, I never got very far, and the parting shot in that video mentions Fall 2012…
Once Upon A Monster lets you play as the cookie monster. Nuff said.
This one is certainly an “about time too”. I’ll let you watch the video…
I’ve never been into Mass Effect, but Kinect integration makes the 3rd sound quite good…
I think that will do for now 
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Just to be clear – I’m not an Apple fan, yet I’ll try and write this as balanced as I can.
I posted recently about the iTunes ecosystem – this post will expand on that position with a bit of analysis of it from a business point of view and conversely the impact on the consumer.
In my previous post, I quoted TechMarketView saying “if you use iTunes, you have to buy an Apple media device”. now this might not be strictly true if you use iTunes to manage your library of mp3s, but if you use iTunes properly with downloads and “genius” then you’re going to end up with some proprietary format music. The only players that play this are iPods, iPhones, Macs and iPads (the marketing people at Apple must have the easiest job in the world).
Now this might seem great, the iPhone is a great device (despite starting to copy from other phone operating systems), the new iPods run a similar version of this and the iPad is the market leading tablet. You do pay a premium, but many people argue (possible correctly) that because the hardware and software are better than a lot of the rivals, it is worth paying more.
But what happens when you have a 10,000 song library (in the iCloud – genius name, must have taken them ages to come up with that) with all your favourite playlists and all licensed through iTunes, then Apple decide the next iPod is going to cost over £400 because it has a really expensive component in it? You refuse to upgrade, and the likelihood is they won’t force you to, but eventually your device will break and you’ll need a new one. You can’t buy anything from anyone else other than Apple.
This means Apple essentially create their own monopoly by creating such as closed ecosystem that you can’t break out of it, the switching costs become equal to buying all of your music again, and the time and effort taken to do that. This will make their customers quite price inelastic – this means they can increase / decrease prices without much of a change in demand. And this is all before taking into account the “shiny” factor – are you the only one in the boardroom without an iPad 2 (you can’t get away with a 1 anymore) on the desk in front of you?
Apple have put themselves in a great position, and to a certain extent, they should be congratulated for it. Are you aware that they are worth more than Microsoft now? I’m still not quite sure how they got here – their products are good, but their marketing has always been better. The generally observed opinion of two devices (one Apple, one not) is that the Apple is better, but the swing of this opinion far outweighs the actual measurable, tangible benefits of the Apple device, and this is entirely due to the marketing and consumer vision that this marketing has created. The next Apple device, the iFridge could be a normal fridge with a touch recipe system on the front, yet people would pay triple the normal price of a fridge for one, just because there is a picture of an Apple on the front. I guess it’s no different to fashion, where a swoosh increases the price over a big cat, even though the products are largely the same.
This is something Microsoft can’t do at the moment – their operating systems and software can run on any (powerful enough) hardware – you can build your own PC from scratch and write your own drivers, then use the copy of Windows XP you bought 10 years ago. There is never a need to spend any more money if you are happy (or just not completely dissatisfied) with the software you have and are only using the number of copies you have. Because Apple control the hardware as well as the software, it has a limited shelf-life just through the way devices fail and wives drop them.
So what does this mean to a consumer? You might be happy being part of the Apple ecosystem, you love the new iCloud integration of all of your devices, you love Steve Jobs and pray for his health every day (maybe also that he will buy some new clothes) and you wait with baited breath for information about the iPhone 5. Chances are, you’ll carry on paying a slight premium for your devices over the non-Apple alternatives and will continue to be happy. But, what if Apple make some kind of a change you don’t like, and you want out….. what then?
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I was running code analysis in Visual Studio 2010 on some class libraries and a Windows Communication Foundation project I’ve recently written when one of the warnings that came back (using the extended guidance rule-set) is the title of this post.
I had a look at the help for this, and was surprised at what it said. Apparently you shouldn’t put an out parameter in a public method because pointer programming is a bit hard and you might make it difficult for people consuming your methods.
Wait a minute, a great part of the C# spec is recommended not to be used (in public methods) because there are incompetent people out there? Now I’ll freely admit that I don’t know offhand how to program a pointer, but that’s because I’m a C# programmer so I generally don’t need to. If I did, I would read up on it and learn it, not declare myself a C developer because I already use a language with a name that includes it and shares some of the syntax.
The one good thing that came out of reading that help post, was I think I’ve found an even better explanation of the difference between value and reference types than even Jon Skeet can deliver…. (not that I need any pointers on that.. gettit? )
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Quote from techmarketview.com: “The beauty of the iTunes ecosystem is that once you’ve set up your library you really can only buy Apple products to play your music.”
Beauty? To Steve Jobs it certainly is, but to me it’s always been the nightmare.
It’s kind of like moving into a nice area, with good schools, nice green areas, no need for neighbourhood watch, but you have to own a Ferrari. No other choice, every car has to be a Ferrari. Now this information is available, but you might not go looking for it until you’ve signed the contract and sold your old house.
Now I know Windows Media Player isn’t great – I had to reinstall Windows 7 as mine had gone screwy, but the fact is I can sync with a Creative Zen, Android phone, Windows phone, or even just a USB stick! AND I can play my music on my Xbox through the native music player or using Media Center.
One other thing mentioned in today’s post – now that Apple have integrated Twitter into iOS5, they might as well just go and buy Twitter. Hang on a second, just because Apple have finally done what you could do on an Android phone years ago, they’re the greatest and “further and further ahead of the competition”?
OK, I’m on a roll now…. this whole iCloud rubbish – yes it’s useful to have all your music and files synced to a central service (until it goes down or is hacked) but what if you have a healthy 50GB music collection – can you sync that to your iPhone? Apparently it all works offline (unlike Google and Amazon)… And also they go as far as to say you don’t need a PC (or Mac) – “Apple has even dubbed it ‘PC Free’ – all you need is a WiFi network and iCloud” – my Android phone has never needed to be connected to a PC, but we have an iTunes laptop at work for setting up the company iPhones…
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An email I received recently:
Dear customer
The parcel was sent your home adress
And it will arrive within 10 business days
More information and the tracking number are attached in document below.
Thank You
1994-2011 Express Services, Inc.
Note the misspelling of “adress” – you would have thought a postal service could have spelt that properly…
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Tagged computers
As a bit of a break from my tirade of rants about cyclists, drivers, and a bus driver who nearly knocked me off my bike today, I thought I’d comment on a piece of technology news.
I’ve been wanting/needing/desiring/lusting after an Android tablet for a few months now. I can’t afford one, so get to play the endless waiting and lifting my expectations game, watching new models and software updates bring even more honey to the arena.
But something has just changed this.
I am literally writing this in a cold sweat having just had a look at this.
I am imagining sitting at home with a tidy 26″ touch screen LED monitor (brushed aluminium offset stand, ultra-thin bezel etc.) flicking Windows around, being ultra productive. Then I pick up my tablet running the same OS and carry on where I left off, accessing my files remotely.
It almost sounds as good as being employed at CTU – “send it to my screen.”
This is definitely a technology I will be keeping a close eye on – I was an RC user of Windows 7, and having shelled out for that it’s time to stop using it and try something else. The only worry I have is the hardware constraints Microsoft are talking about could have the “Apple” effect and push up costs (whilst also potentially increasing the slickness of the products) so getting into the arena could be expensive.
Thoughts?
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Tagged computers
Having found another scuff on the car, I’m starting to get a little suspicious. This state of mind dawned on me as I walked down the road to the bus stop and saw an R-reg BMW with no marks on its corners. It’s a 14 year-old car, in excellent condition. So then I looked at the other cars parked on the side of the road – no discernable marks on any of them. Looking at the cars parked outside my house, the only one with marks belongs to a woman who lives over the road, and one of the many marks on that was from when our car was driven into it.
I’m starting to see a bit of a pattern…. Either everyone in Nottingham has decided to target our Astra and the Megane over the road, or these cars are suffering damage through some other way. I mean, how can one car manage to get in a sorry state all on its own?
There are ideas forming in my head about how this may be happening, but they are drifting in and out of focus and I can’t quite hold of them… any ideas?
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Krown Media
Young Glory / Showing Up