Archive for August 2010

HTML5 Pac-Man

Everyone knows and loves Pacman game. Programmer Dale Harvey has created a playable version of Pac-Man because writing a simple browser game seemed like a good idea. He is using only web standards: localStorage, HTML5 Audio, Canvas and @font-face. To play Harvey’s game, you’ll need to use a browser that supports the HTML5 elements he’s

Why Bad 3D Gives You Headaches

Why bad 3D, not 3D glasses, is what gives you a headache article tells that it’s not the 3D technology’s fault, it’s really the baddly made 3D content that can cause the headaches some people get at 3D movies. There are several common mistakes that can cause discomfort, and easy ways for that to be

Singing tesla coils

Tesla coils and other high voltage equipment that make sparks are always interesting. For that reason ArcAttack is an interesting performance art group that specializes in playing music through a combination of home made, high tech instruments, and more traditional instruments. The main attraction of their performance is the use of two custom built Singing

Audio isolation transformers

Allen Avionics Audio Isolation Transformers page describes the typical ground loop problem situation with the following drawing: If you want to do the ground loop elimination in audio path, you have to cut the galvanic connection but pass the whole audio range. The simplest and most common way to do the isolation is use audio

NetFPGA

NetFPGA is a FPGA based line-rate, flexible, and open platform for research, and classroom experimentation. I found the address of this page because one of the blog comments had link to this web site. Looks interesting. The NetFPGA platform promises that it enables researchers and instructors to build working prototypes of high-speed, hardware-accelerated networking systems.

Design Tips for Programmers

Design is pretty important. Steve Jobs said “Design is how it works” not just how it looks. If you don’t appreciate that design is a fundamentally important part of your software, then no tips in the world can help. Design Tips for Programmers article can give you some useful tips for designing software user interfaces

Cool thing from Assembly Summer 2010

I visited Assembly Summer 2010 computer festival this weekend. There were many interesting multimedia presentations shown there and some interesting seminars. Check the competition results and view the winners easily on Assembly Summer 2010 gallery and more on YouTube. Check also Future Crew documentary. In the seminars Andreas Jakl from Nokia presented material on programming

151,200 LEDs

Design News reports and interesting LED lighting application. In Brussels, the Dexia Tower office building uses 151,200 LEDs to illuminate the entire building. Each window is illuminated by a row of 12 RGB LEDs along the bottom of the windowpane. A computer controls the whole display. Watch the Youtube video of the building LEDs in

Assembly TV 2010 is broadcasting

Assembly TV has just started the Internet broadcasting from Assembly Summer 2010 Festival. Expect to see lots of interesting material. In this example screen capture you see that you can make interesting demo with Texas Instruments graphical calculator.. More amazing stuff coming on other platforms. View the Internet broadcast at http://www.assemblytv.net/ on your web browser.

Website design for users

University Website picture at xkcd web site tells a story that quite often that many web sites put wrong things on their main page: Enjoy and learn from the picture. Avoid making the same mistakes yourself.