I have decided to move all the Arduino/programming related posts over to a different website. All of the existing posts have been moved to:
This is the web page for my software company, Sub-Etha Software, that I co-founded back in 1990. It seemed to be a more appropriate place for discussing Arduino than on this Apple-inspired research site.
See you over there!
No, iPad auto-correct. “Afro bed meeting” is not really close to “at dinner meeting.”
If your old Furby won’t wake up or won’t start up and appears dead, you may be able to fix it in a few seconds without having to take it apart.
I recently tried to get my original 1998 Furby to work, and found that it was dead. I spent some time doing unsuccessful web searches, with none of the tips (“try new batteries”, “press the reset button”) helping. A second Furby has the same issue, and it looked like it might be related to a jammed motor, per this tutorial:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Push-Start-a-Comatose-Furby/
This procedure involved all kinds of disassembly, sewing things back together and hot glue. A similar YouTube video shed more light on the problem off the stuck motor:
I suspected you could just get to the motor using a small screwdriver and going in around the eye or beak, and indeed, it works. I was able to use a tiny flathead screwdriver, inserted above the beak and in to the left to gently rotate the corkscrew spiral connected to the motor a few times and within seconds, the Furby was alive again. Both units were fixed this easy, with no disassembly required.
I will post photos when I have a moment.
Posted to this blog so others may find it via search engines…
I just read a reference to Apple’s “struggling” map software. Like many things that get “reported” in the blogosphere, they are often repeating the echo chamber of things observed or researched by others, or they are sharing one tiny sliver of experience as fact as if everyone experiences it the same way.
When it comes to Apple Maps on iOS 6, I must say, I am quite impressed. You see, there is a small connecting road on the East side of Des Moines that my 2005 Toyota Prius navigation system never knew about. It would always route many blocks out of the way to go around it.
My 2007 navigation system, likewise, also did not know about. And neither did an additional map update I purchased for it at great cost.
My 2010 3rd generation Prius navigation system also does not seem to think it exists, nor did a map update for it.
Two TomTom models, years apart, do not know it exists, even after being reported with the community “suggest corrections” feature TomTom brags about.
I believe I even tested a Magellan navigation unit to find it also did not know about this road.
Surprisingly, to me, the one map that did have it was OpenStreetMaps – the open source wikipedia of maps. Amazing that they knew about this road, while Google, Navtec, TomTom, etc. did not seem to believe that it existed — even though it had been there for ages.
Google, today, does show this section of the road, but I believe that was not the case a few years ago.
And Apple Maps also shows it. Not only that, but Apple Maps can correctly navigate me from my housing area to the Main Street without jumping me through the forest nearby like everything else does. None of the systems I have used had the connecting driveway that links my area with the road, so they often jump to the closest pavement they can find, which is over the river and through the woods.
Apple Maps is the first map software I have used that correctly pinpoints where I live, and knows how to get there without just getting close.
So from my perspective, it’s a huge improvement over many other maps I have used and reviewed over the years.
But your milage may vary.
Greetings. All the old content from my former Applause site, including the postings on FireWIre/SATA and UltraProjector, will be migrated to this WordPress blog shortly.
Until then, enjoy the blandness of a generic install.
RAR (Random Apple Rumor, see 2007 post) of the day…
Apple will announce its 3-D imitative. “3-D is big in the movie industry right now, but it hasn’t made it successfully to the home. Other companies have been trying 3-D for years, but we think we can do it better.”
1. The Apple TV that is an actual TV will be a 3-D TV. Since 3-D TVs already carry a premium price, having one that also does Apple TV stuff won’t seem to have too much of an “Apple tax” associated with it. Killer industrial design AND “Apple Eye” glasses that will be better and cheaper than existing ones will be the feature that makes them better.
2. The iTunes 3-D Movie Store will provide content.
3. The new iPhone 3D and iPod Touch 3D will allow consumers an easy way to record their own 3-D movies.
4. iMovie 3-D will allow easy 3-D processing, including adding 3-D titles (user selectable depth).
5. Output to red/blue anaglyph (or direct uploading to YouTube, since they support 3-D) will be part of it.
6. 2012 will be the year of 3-D.
Based on nothing. (Well, except a supposed “next iPhone” case photo that shows a hole in each corner, spaced like they are spaced on the 3-D Aiptek/Viewsonic cameras… Sure, they said it was for a flash, but…)
Here are some things I have learned so far:
My camera shipped with FW Ver 1504, Jul 23 2010. HWVer 10B1.
1. There is a firmware update (build 160) available on the European site for AIPTEK, but not on the US site. It fixes a frame rate issue that reviews seem to complain about. Why this update is not available in the US (the archive comes with English and it appears to work fine) is unknown. You can find it here.
2. My unit had a color issue, where the right side image (right eye/camera) had a reddish tint to it. I wrote tech support and they responded within 24 hours, and we had a few e-mails back and forth during the day. They provided me with another firmware update (180, Ver 1803 Oct 11 2010) but it did not resolve the problem. They suggested I return the unit to Amazon, so I did. I requested an exchange on Friday, and Amazon shipped out the replacement “next day” (via Amazon Prime of my original order I suppose) and I picked up the replacement and shipped back my original the following Monday. (Wow, Amazon!)
3. To install updates, you copy two files to an SD card (the instructions say to use 4GB or smaller, but it worked fine on my 16GB card — to be safe, follow their instructions). One file is an .elf (probably the standard debugger file format) and the other is AipFwUpgrade.txt, an empty file that is probably a trigger file the camera will look for. The card is inserted back in to the camera, and when you power it up and the update will proceed. Once complete, you have to remove these files from the SD card via a computer else the update will happen every time you power up. I found that you can mount the camera and copy the files over to it, directly, then let it update, but you still need to put the SD card in a card reader on a computer to remove them.
4. There is also an update to the Windows PC software that comes on the virtual “CDImage” you see when you plug in the camera to a computer. This update can be found here too. Just like the firmware update, you copy two files over to an SD card (a .iso CD image file, and AipUpdateISO.txt trigger file) and put it back in the camera then turn it on. When done, you have to delete these files (just like with the firmware updates). This is a very decent system for doing updates.
5. The files uploaded to YouTube (videos) are split screen squished — meaning for a 1920×720 image, you are seeing two 640×720 images squished together. YouTube can handle 3-D video if you add special keyword tags — in this case, the tags added by the AIPTEK ArcSoft software are “yt3d:enable=true”, “yt3d:swap=true” and “yt3d:aspect=16:9”. These are added by the ArcSoft software on upload, which means the software is not really doing anything special. I confirmed this by trying to upload the same .MP4 file directly to YouTube via the website, and received a “duplicate file” warning.
6. YouTube will display the split screen file as various forms of red/blue anaglyph, interlace or checkerboard formats. This is nice, meaning you can let them do all the translations for your friends to watch however they want (even side by side or cross eye formats for viewing without glasses). BUT, viewing these files outside of a web browser (iPhone, iPad, etc.) will display only the split screen squished video as, apparently, the 3-D stuff is not handled by mobile devices (yet?).
7. There is no Mac software, but it is quite easy to convert the video inside of Final Cut Express by layering the video on two tracks, applying the Levels filter to the top track and setting Red output tolerance to 0, then applying two instances of Level filter to the bottom copy, and setting one to Blue tolerance 0 and the other to Green tolerance 0, then setting top track to a mix so it shows through. This requires rendering and is slow, but produces good red/blue anaglyph results. Details on how to do this I found on this DVINFO.net message board years ago. Their suggestion of using “Screen” composite mode did not produce good results for me, but using Overlay worked fine.
8. Conversion of photos on a Mac is my next project. There are quite a few programs out now for dealing with the Fuji W3 3-D camera, but I have not checked any of them yet to see if they also handle the side-by-side split screen format.
9. There is no adjustment (seemingly) for parallax on the Aiptek. Back when I was using the NuView 3-D camcorder lens adapter (see also: Stereocam), there was a knob you turned to adjust the distance of the image. You would basically line up the two ghost images of whatever you wanted to be on the surface of the TV — anything in front of that would jump out of the TV, and anything behind it would recess in to the TV. This meant you could record something five feed away and adjust it so 4 feet popped out, and 6 feet went in. Or if you recorded something 20 feet away, you could set that as the neutral “flat” part. The Aiptek has no such adjustment (the W3 apparently does). The default distance appears to be around 10 feet, so trying to record anything too close (like something within a few feet) causes very bad ghosting — so this is best used for wide shots, and not close ups.
I will post more updates when I have time. I have to charge up the replacement camera and see if it handles color any better.