Four random articles
Four random interesting articles from my RSS feed subscription, friends’ blog and elsewhere. It worth reading if you have ten minutes to spare.
Published articles related to Technology:
Chrome in 2.5D Clip
An interesting short clip about Google Chrome. I like how this lively short clip features perfect mix of colors and blends 2D+3D to showcase Chrome’s features. The first screen (gray interface with progress bar) reminds me of Mac OS 7′s classic interface. Very old school indeed.
Faster in Chrome?
What an amusing tidbit during this hectic period:
The snippet above appeared when I opened my Gmail in PC lab, using IE7 on WinXP. I’ve never seen that before when I used Safari, Opera and Firefox. Hahaa.. Clearly, the message is targeted to a specific web browser.
Considering the big number of Gmail users running it on IE, will this small message impact IE’s market share in any way? Hmm…
Ads Free Y!Mail
The three webmail giants have been (and are still) competing for years, aiming to be the best free web email provider. The goal was pretty much clear: attract more users, let them receive and send tons of emails. The more emails flowing in and out of their mailbox, the more their ads are displayed… and hence the revenue kicks in.
The latest move (or probably a leap) by Yahoo Mail to an ads-free email environment puzzled me. Yahoo Mail has billions of active email users who don’t even need to worry about space limit. Yahoo Mail is offered free with no space limit and now with no ads. Hmm… So where does the revenue come from? Will ads revenue from search, news, and other Yahoo services good enough to cover operational costs?
Regardless of how Yahoo and the other two internet giants are performing in this difficult financial situation, the fact that they keep the innovation and improvement wheels running on is still of our best interest. After all, it’s the end consumer like us who benefit most.
The banner above is taken from my Yahoo Mail. It says:
Free
Better
Faster
Yahoo! Mail: Now Ads-Free
FYI: The ads mentioned above refer to graphical and flash-animated advertisement banners that you usually see when browsing and reading your email. My recent outgoing email still include footer promotional message from Yahoo to promote its own email service. Yet, Washington Post reported that the footer one liner ads has gone. Is it possibly only for US Yahoo Mail? Hmm…
Well, at least I won’t see huge banners promoting random stuff from food to lawnmower to partner matching service… which is obviously a good thing!
Our world, as seen in ’93
This advertisements were aired in ’93 for US telco company, AT&T. It tried to predict how the future is like from the perspective of end users like us back then in 1993.
Now we see most stuff featured in the video as something usual. We use it in our daily life to guide our way (GPS), to book GV movie tickets, to “meet” people at the other half of the world via teleconference, you name it.
If you haven’t seen another short video featuring stuff we’ll see in 2019, do check it out. It’s exciting to know there’s big possibility that those cool gadgets be part of our daily life.
2019 Future Vision Montage
What possibilities do technology and computer may bring to our world in 2019? Environmentally sustainable computing? Natural gesture-operated computer? Voice recognition, translation, and voice speech on the fly? The possibilities are endless.
Watch this exciting and inspiring montage clip to see our world in 2019 through the vision of the folks in Microsoft.
Homo Evolutis
Even as mega banks topple, Juan Enriquez says the big reboot is yet to come. But don’t look for it on your ballot or in the stock exchange. It’ll come from science labs, and it promises keener bodies and minds. Our kids are gonna be… just different.
Enriquez said the fact that we are the only living species of humans is an anomaly – or at least out of sync with the history. Millions of years ago, there were as many as five different species of humans co-existing on the planet.
Well, perhaps modern humans like us are the end result of all evolution. Aren’t we smart and capable enough to domesticate and cultivate the nature, or even conquer the world?
And perhaps we have reached the very pinnacle of natural selection and genetic drift. (Darwin?)
On the other hand, as Enriquez suggested, perhaps those are slightly arrogant conclusions.
Spare your eighteen minutes and let Enriquez show you his perspective. Arstechnica has also published a decent and thorough article about Enriquez keynote.
Juan Enriquez will change your view of change itself.
–Nicholas Negroponte
Polaroid
I found this cool site, offering a free great looking (and fun!) app called Poladroid: an attempt to revive the discontinued Polaroid cameras in the midst of our digital photos.
Can you spot the polaroid camera in this photo? That’s the lickable app’s icon! :P~
Poladroid re-developed my digital photos and make them look so classic! … as if I lived in a Retro world of the 80′s. Hahaa..
Visit the developer’s site to read more about Poladroid and how you can flick your polaroid photo to quicken its chemical reaction. um.. I mean, its digitized chemical reaction. 
Try it! so much fun!
Finally, you can contribute your classic photos to a social site dedicated to Polaroid.
Fun Javascript Effect
I found this fun javascript effect from Karen’s GoogleReader Shared Items. Okay, so here’s the fun part:
- Open a new tab and go to your last.fm chart. You can open my last.fm chart page if you don’t have one.
- After the page is fully loaded, copy the following javascript code and paste it to the address bar of the website you’ve just opened.
- Hit ‘return’ key (or ‘enter’ if you’re using Windows) and see the shakes! Hahaa..
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+ "px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+" px"}R++}setInterval( 'A()',5); void(0 );
