Wil McCarthy's Blog, page 2

Congrats!

On your writeup in the NYT! Best of luck with the company--it looks

like you have a good product indeed.

Favorite Android Apps

Still putting the new phone through its paces, but so far I am mightily

impressed with Google Sky Map, Cardio Trainer, TeleNav GPS, and the

augmented reality program Layar. All of these are amazing, and any of

them is worth the cost and hassle of upgrading.



Of the bunch, Cardio Trainer comes closest to the 1990s vision of

wearable/ubiquitous computing. There's no visual interface, but thanks

to clever use of GPS, tower triangulation, accelerometers and compass,

the program knows where you are, where you've been, how fast you're

moving, how many steps you've taken, how big your stride is, how many

calories you're burning, etc. And it talks! It's basically a robotic

personal trainer, deejay, and exercise diary, and it does not get in the

way at all. Quite the reverse.



Layar reminds me a lot of the "Zee Spec" AR goggles people wore in

BLOOM. It uses the camera and viewfinder, so you look "through" the

phone at the real world, appended with various layers (or "layars") of

information. Some of the layers cost money, like Crime Finder, but

there are a bunch of free ones as well, like Bar Finder and Name That

Mountain. I'm also eager to try Google Goggles, a different

implementation of the same basic idea, but apparently I have to wait for

a June firmware update. Google Sky Map is another AR app that I suspect

everyone has heard about by now. Makes you feel like a stellar

navigator. Truly.



There's also a bar code reader that reminds me of some of Karl

Schroeder's stuff from Ventus, about a digitally enlivened world where

everyday objects know, and can report, their own physical properties.

Right now it's fairly primitive -- basically a Google search on the

product name -- but you can start to see the possibilities.



Anyway, these apps really are the leading edge of a whole new type of

computing that science fiction, on the whole, did a good job of

predicting. And now it's here.





--

Wil McCarthy < http://www.wilmccarthy.com >

Engineer, Columnist, Author, etc.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -- Francis Bacon

Droid Does

Although I've only had the Blackberry for a year, I got tired of it and was

seduced by TV commercials. I have bought an Android phone. Wow.

Sea Changes

Way back in 1990, I was working at Martin Marietta corporation when the

guy in the cubicle next to me got a phone call from someone across town,

asking him to ask me to put paper in my printer. I did so, and pages

started printing out. Not for me, but for yet another person who worked

on the same floor. It was a crystalline, future-shocky moment, because

computer networks were still in diapers at the time, and I did not know

they could do that.



Other crystalline mome...

Interactive map of personal income in the U.S.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...



--

Wil McCarthy < http://www.wilmccarthy.com >

Engineer, Columnist, Author, etc.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -- Francis Bacon

Five

Got my fifth patent this month.



--

Wil McCarthy < http://www.wilmccarthy.com >

Engineer, Columnist, Author, etc.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -- Francis Bacon

Stupid engineer jokes

Said frequently around the lab:



"No, *you're* a thane. And stop calling me poly."



--

Wil McCarthy < http://www.wilmccarthy.com >

Engineer, Columnist, Author, etc.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -- Francis Bacon

Map of earthquake danger zones

Places where high population density, low or nonexistent building

standards, and active fault lines coexist.



http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/20...



--

Wil McCarthy < http://www.wilmccarthy.com >

Engineer, Columnist, Author, etc.

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" -- Francis Bacon

What now...

I just took a vow I would never again vote for a Democrat. This creates a definite

problem, as I had previously taken vows not to vote for any Republican, Green,

or Libertarian candidate. The resurrected Whigs? Well, their website makes them

look like a bunch of retarded clowns. My, my, my...

Can't fight city hall

Wow, what a month. Typically my only involvement with the law is

talking to a patent lawyer, but Cathy is a witness in a class action

lawsuit and has been prepping for a deposition all week, which she is

giving today. Also, a friend of mine was accused of a crime he clearly

didn't commit, and I'm being called in to testify next week in an actual

courtroom, as both a character witness and as an eyewitness who was with

him on the night in question. His accuser is a nutjob w...