Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on March 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

Our forum community continues to grow as we have just hit the 200 member mark! From those members we also have nearly 4,000 posts and 350+ topics that have been started.

The great thing about the forum is that a lot of conversations have been started there, many of which are not related to technology. Sometimes it’s nice to step away from the technology and talk about other things. For instance, one of the most popular articles (with over 150 replies) discussed what the best movie of 2006 was. Now a new topic has emerged that covers what members believe to be the best movie of 2007.

Don’t get it wrong though, our forum is still heavily active with technology focused discussions. There are topics like:

• List the Firefox extensions that you use
• Huge list of freeware applications (still updated)
• Share a screenshot of what your desktop looks like
• Several posts on Linux-related news…such as this Vista-like search bar for Gnome
• We try to answer all of your Vista-related questions
• Some people giveaway invites for Joost
• We post every Get A Mac ad that is released
• Helpful tips on building your own computer

And those are just a small handful of the discussions that have been started! You can also find a how to guide on using Windows Remote Desktop.

So head on over to the forum…browse around…and become a member so that you can jump in on the discussions as well! Also, the forum is ad-free once you become a member which I know a lot of people will enjoy.

Thanks to all of the current forum members who have spent quite a bit of time sharing their opinions and knowledge with the rest of us!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

The CyberNet Forum After One WeekThe CyberNet Forum Is Now Up!CyberNet Forum Gets an UpdateOur 5,000 Published Posts Milestone2008 CyberNet Awards: Most Useful Forums

Pardon us if the headline is a little sensational, but this is one that we’ve personally experienced — and it’s not pretty. For at least the last couple versions, Android has been plagued with a couple extremely serious bugs in its text messaging subsystem that can ultimately end up causing you to text the wrong contact — even contacts that you’ve never texted before. There appear to be a few failure modes; the one we definitely experience on the Gingerbread-powered Nexus S involves being routed to the wrong thread when you tap it either in the Notifications list or the master thread list in the Messaging application, so if you don’t notice, you’ll end up firing a message to the wrong person.

More seriously, though, there’s also an open issue in Android’s bug tracking system — inexplicably marked “medium” priority — where sent text messages can appear to be in the correct thread and still end up being sent to another contact altogether. In other words, unless you pull up the Message Details screen after the fact, you might not even know the grievous act you’ve committed until your boss, significant other, or best friend — make that former best friend — texts you back. There seem to have been some attempts on Google’s part over the year to fix it; we can’t confirm that it still happens in 2.3, but for what it’s worth, the issue hasn’t been marked resolved in Google Code… and it was opened some six months ago.

This is akin to an alarm clock that occasionally won’t go off (we’ve been there) or a car that randomly won’t let you turn the steering wheel — you simply cannot have a phone that you can’t trust to communicate with the right people. It’s a deal-breaker. We’re pretty shocked that these issues weren’t tied up and blasted to all affected phones as an over-the-air patch months ago, but whatever the reason, we’d like to see Google, manufacturers, and carriers drop every other Android update they’re working on and make sure this is completely resolved immediately.

Want to see this fixed as much as we do? Scroll to the bottom of the Google Code page and hit “Vote for this issue and get email change notifications.”

Android still has horrible text messaging bugs that’ll get you fired, busted, or otherwise embarrassed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink BGR, ZDNet  |  Google Code, Android Help  | Email this | Comments

This article was written on December 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

Today I was browsing some of the top downloads over at Download.com, and I noticed something really interesting. The number 4 most downloaded application is an instant messenger that has spent a whopping 268 weeks (5+ years) on their Top 50 Most Downloaded chart. With 326,000 downloads last week alone, and 155 million downloads overall I expected it to be Windows Live Messenger or AIM, but it wasn’t.

Get this, there are three instant messenger applications in the top 50 most downloaded: Windows Live Messenger at number 38, Trillian at number 39, and at number 4…ICQ! I haven’t used that program in like 10 years, and all I really remember was the nightmare of remembering your ID number to share with your friends. I don’t even know anyone that still uses ICQ.

I’m sure it is popular in other parts of the world, but that left me wondering what service(s) you talk to your friends on. We’re not asking which application you use because many of you probably have friends on multiple networks. So this time around here are your options in our poll:

• AOL Instant Messenger
• Google Talk/Jabber
• ICQ
• Skype
• Windows Live Messenger
• Yahoo! Messenger

The poll is setup so that you can select multiple choices, and I’m really interested to see what our readers’ choice is for messengers. Feel free to vote in the sidebar on the site, or if you have Flash enabled you can vote right here:

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

MySpace Has An Instant Messenger, Too!Poll: How Many Remotes Do You Have?Messenger and Google Talk to Work Together?Windows Live Messenger Beta Coming This WeekWhen will Google Talk Work with AIM?

Consumer technology is advancing at such a rate that it is becoming increasingly common for such technology to find its way into various scientific applications. One of the more obvious examples is seen in the benefits high-performance computing has received from consumer graphics cards. We have also seen laptops used to measure earthquakes, and accelerometers such as those found in the Wiimote, iPhone, and other consumer electronics used to measure the flight patterns of the Malayan colugo.

In a recent paper in Water Resources Research, a team reports on the use of the Wiimote to measure evaporation. Natural evaporation rates are an important part of the water cycle; estimates of evaporation are required for weather forecasts, flood forecasts, and water resource planning, among other things.

One of the common means of measuring evaporation is simple enough: you set out a pan of water and measure the change in water level over time. Unfortunately, automated measurement typically requires a pressure transducer to accurately measure the water level, and those costs hundreds of dollars. The use of the Wiimote has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of measurement.

The methodology is simple enough. The Wiimote tracks the four brightest points in a near infrared image. Ordinarily, these four points will be the four Wii IR LEDs used to determine where the Wiimote is pointing. However, by affixing IR reflectors to a float in the water pan, the researchers were able to track the water level. This sounds simple enough, but these pans are often themselves floating in natural water bodies, and the combination of the two is likely to make waves.

To test the sensitivity of their technique to waves, the team used a small wave generator. A low-flow pump was used to change the water level. They found that even with substantial wave activity, they were able to measure changes in the average water level to within one millimeter.

However, they did find a slight bias in their absolute estimate of water level during wave activity. They hypothesize that this is due to a lag in the rates of rise and fall of their float that could be fixed with a modification. Using the Wiimote’s accelerometer to measure motion of the entire pan could also improve accuracy.

While I have to admit that I found this paper a bit mundane for what it was, the idea of using cheap sensors to measure environmental fields is one I find fascinating. For example, I wonder if the XBox 360’s depth-sensing Kinect camera could be used to measure particles such a large snowflakes in a wind field.

A first-order calculation suggests that its depth pixels are a few millimeters across for nearby objects, but it is not clear that the method it uses to calculate depth will work for small, fast-moving objects. Still, a $150 3D Particle Imaging Velocimeter would be a huge win. Environmental problems are prone to high time and space variability, and anything that can lower the cost of measurement has the potential to increase the number of measurements one can make.

The scientific community isn’t alone in getting excited about this tech. Its promise is also consistent with IBM’s recently-released Next 5 in 5 YouTube video: their prediction for the five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years. IBM predicts that simple sensor networks based in cell phones and laptops will be increasingly used to map environmental events. In addition, a large Department of Transportation project called IntelliDrive envisions using embedded sensors in cars to monitor environmental conditions.

Chime in below with your own ideas for scientific usage of consumer technology.

This story was written by Ethan Gutmann and originally published by Ars Technica on Dec. 28.

Photo: ginnerobot / Flickr

CES isn’t just about incrementally thinner or faster hardware, you know. Some people like to bring legitimately innovative ideas to the show, such as this iPhonECG case, which does what its name suggests: it takes an ECG (electrocardiogram) reading of your heart’s activity through a pair of electrodes and then communicates its findings to an iPhone 4 it can be attached to. We say it can be attached to an iPhone as communication is done wirelessly, so you’ll probably be able to monitor your ticker’s rhythm without the Applephone pressed against your bosom. Then again, maybe you like that. It’s a free world, we don’t judge. We’ll be sending out our most hairy-chested editor to give this thing a proper test at the Las Vegas convention next week. Until then, scope out the video after the break.

Continue reading iPhonECG case monitors your heart rate to make sure you’re appropriately excited about CES

iPhonECG case monitors your heart rate to make sure you’re appropriately excited about CES originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink medGadget  |  Alivecor  | Email this | Comments