General Blog Update.

Sorry for the recent delay in content, however I assure you that if this blog were to go down permanently or die like a garden that has stopped being maintained and ends up like a horror film then I shall be sure to post son fear not I will not abandon the blog easily.

Onto the first bit of news then, well my new website will be up pretty soon, technically its ready, just need to consider the financial aspect right now, aside from that repairs have been going well and I now have a number of items for sale. 

More news to follow, News on the GamesCom 2013 Conference is the next article in the works, and should be up in the next few days.

Until then, keep an eye on this space.

10 Year Old Saves Family in car accident, credits Gaming!

Video games bad influence on impregnable minds, sending the wrong messages etc etc etc, for years the games industry has been swamped with such allegations and accusations, it's very rare to find an article that champions it.

This is such a story and a heart-warming one at that, picture the scene in Hugo Colorado USA, a 10 year old boy saves his grandmother and 4 year old younger brother’s lives after the grandmother passed out while behind the wheel of her vehicle.

The grandmother was driving at around 60 miles an hour it is reported when the indent took place. News affiliate from NBC KUSA reported on how young Griffin Sanders became a hero in the face of disaster. Last Friday was just a normal drive for Griffin and his family that was until their vehicle Griffin was travelling uncrossed the centre lane veering into oncoming traffic, griffin stated "My first though was actually, is this a tester what?, my heart was thumping"

It was most certainly tap test as Griffin put it as his Grandmother passed out and lost control of the vehicle from what may have been a heart mild heart attack. After failing to wake her up Griffin took the wheel and steered the vehicle toward a ditch full of mud. According to KUSA , Griffin told reporters that he got his driving skills from Mario Kart video game.

Thankfully to his brave actions the car came to a stop safely and KUSA luckily reported no one was injured in the accident, as Griffin shows us there are plenty of positives that can derive from gaming

SkyTran, now- we can all travel like the "Jetson's"

Technology never a dull moment as it were, it seems NASA has some pretty interesting ideas on the shape future travel will take, and no it doesn't include return tickets to the moon, although somewhere in a secluded spot such talks maybe happening!

Back to the here and now though, NASA it seems are green-lighting a new method for all us lovely people to travel, inside a floating pod 20ft off the ground, yea those Sci-Fi shows you watched as you grew up are in fact a reality these days, pretty scary right?

What’s scarier is perhaps the help of a company called "SkyTran" and no I know what you’re doing trying to find a connection to "SkyNet" and the machine uprising but relax that will never hap................ well let's hope not anyway. 

The concept of mono-rail travel as it is known is not a new technology parse hoverer has never really been fully realised, until now that is. Surprisingly the new commuting system is set to be implemented to begin in "get this" 2014, more likely in the US and then depending escalate across Eastern Europe. 

But wait, it gets even better, once you have access to a "SkyTran Station, you get into your pod, set your destination with a smartphone app, climb aboard and allow mag-lev which stands for Magnetic Levitation technology speed you off to your destination.

But yet again there is more, brace yourselves each pod will have the ability to travel at speeds of up to 150 mph, that means you could literally get across the UK in no time at all.

Where the funding and costs for such a scheme will come from is anyone’s guess at the moment, not to mention the actual implementation, design stages then there’s the usual approvals and safety checks etc, but this does look like the way of the Future. 

Hopefully the system will be linked to a manned computer station much like modern electric train’s with added collision detection route paths and the like, the question is would you use it and would you be happy to go at such speeds as though you were on a roller coaster each morning. 

NASA is set to install a full system in its California installation which should be interesting, let’s face it they are the experts at this kind of thing after all. SkyTran should in the long term be cheaper to build compared to train, and bus systems, will suffer little with obstacles in mid-air and is much more eco-friendly for the planet using solar panels.

So who is up for using SkyTran as a method of travel?

-Jonathan Cullen

Site update and Lessons!

Well today has proved somewhat productive it seems, my site is nearing the upload stage and I keep going over the most mi-nute of details. I have a sort of hindsight you might say, so far I have been using my usual browser to test my site and so far everything has been dandy. Now a regular kind of Joe might just have easily uploaded the site seeing everything was fine and not thought about one important factor cross browser platform compatibility.

Simply put what this means and more importantly what I recognise is that even though my site works fine on my browser doesn't for one minute mean to say it’s going to work on all of the other browser variants of which there are many. I have the latest version of Internet explorer installed currently at version 10, and upon testing it seemed that the contact and blog pages once entered would load slower than other pages and browser as well as rendering the rest of the sites functionality and navigation useless.

I narrowed down the problem to make sure it wasn't just a problem with the embedded objects on those pages and to some extent I guess you could say it was. On the contact’s page I have an embedded map and contact form which I removed and then tested however the page itself still did the same, a simple deduction then it was not those elements, easiest thing to do was to load a page similar that did work remove all unnecessary page items and replace my embedded objects on that page before re-saving, sure enough it now works hunky dory.

The blog was a weird one it appeared that when it did load ion internet explorer that an error message popped up stating that “http this is addme 5”  etc, etc was not found on this server, I then proceeded to check through my code and sure enough there was this exact piece of code in the middle of things, IO have no idea how it manifested itself there though as it was nowhere near the embedded blog, I pretty much used the same trick as in the contact page to rectify the problem.

I have now tested on 6 different browsers with 100% effectiveness, this ensures that the website can be viewed by as broad an audience as possible while having code which is well written and efficient without error. 

Its times like these when I put so much work into my projects that I hold my head up high to those who laughed at the amount of effort I put into my work during my college days going beyond the call of duty, I believe as one of my former lecturers kept reiterating to me "You need to show an in-depth understanding" something I have remembered to this day, I may be creating a website but there are a lot of elements in play both on the server customization side and on the user's side. god I feel like I’m writing my memoirs at 1am in the morning, hope you've enjoyed reading into this fabulous insight this is Jonathan Cullen signing off for the night!

PS4 More Reasons to want one!

Just a quick update, one I feel needs mentioning from the good people at PlayStation Access. With the Next Gen Christmas Consoles edging ever closer, Its time to start looking at what's on offer, here we have a video I think  you will find very informative on the PlayStation 4.

That makes 20 more compelling reasons to invest with Sony this holiday season!

Compact WI-Fi Flash Devices

Well known company San Disk has unveiled two new entrants into the mobile WI-FI flash storage market it seems, here's why you may be interested.

The two new devices are very compact which makes them super easy to transport with you, both devices use flash memory as their storage medium as opposed to the traditional mechanical counterpart. What makes this even more of a must have is the fact that the devices both have a built in battery and 802.11n (among the latest standard of Wireless Internet capability) Wi-Fi network which can support multiple clients at the same time.

This means that devices such as Smart phones and tablets will be able to connect to the wireless storage devices with the use of a connect mobile application, it has been stated that each connect drive will have an app of its own, supporting Android kindle fire and IOS platform devices.  Once connected a user will be able to access the connect device to play back contents stored on the storage medium or back up user-generated contents to the connect devices wirelessly.   

If you plug the flash device into your computer the drives will show up like any other removable external storage media. In case you’re wondering the file system used by the drives is exFAT, which works on both Mac and Windows Operating Systems.

Once connected the drives can be loaded with content for fast and easy media streaming / sharing when you are out and about.

Option one: San Disk Connect Wireless Flash Drive:

 

The great thing about the connect flash drive is it is easily recognisable to the average consumer utilising what they already use just with some added layers of technology. The connect drive does not have any internal storage but instead houses the technology for wireless connectivity and sharing for the inbuilt MicroSd Card slot, you can have up to 16B and 32GB internal storage this way. 

Once the SD card is inserted the drive functions like any other thumb drive able to plug into a computers USB port and copy content to and from it, interestingly once the device is connected to the computer the USB port also charges the connect flash drives internal battery which allows for hours of WI-FI usage. 

If you have more than one SD Card available or  perhaps an insatiable need to carry more storage or multiple SD cards then you can hot-swap other SD cards on the go, pretty nifty wouldn't you say? As the connect is among the smallest of Wi-Fi storage devices it can only support a maximum of three Wi-Fi client's at a time, but that's still a relatively good number most will be happy with.

I won't go into details but the drive can also connect to another Wi-Fi network and share that networks Internet connection to all devices that are connected to the Wi Fi network of their own, I'm not sure what benefit this brings however.

Option Two: San Disk Connect Wireless Media Drive: 

 

The second option to connect wireless media drive is much the same as option one, the first main difference is in its physical size which is larger than the flash drive about the size of a small USB hub.

The next difference lies in the amount of storage space supported by the drive, being 32GB or 64GB just like carrying a portable SSD around with you, the drive also has an SD card slot meaning you can double the amount of storage space with high end SD cards of up to 128GB. This added onto the 32GB or 64GB already on the drive means you can carry up to 192GB combined storage.

Having the card slot also means you can quickly share photos you have just taken for example with a group of people, the drive also supports up to eight Wi-Fi devices at any time with up to five Hd streams at once. The drive also offers up to eight hours of battery life which is not to bad.

The two San Disk drives are to be made available to consumers by early August it has been stated, The Connect Wireless Flash Drive has been said to cost £25 and £30 for 16GB and 32GB models. While the Wireless media drive costs £40 for 32GB and £50 for 64GB. If the pricing remains the same on release in August then it will be quite a bargain. 

DARPA Develops Real-Life Terminator Robot!

Are you amongst the few who remember watching Terminator 1 and 2 oh and 3, starring the tough guy Arnold Schwarzenegger complete with dark shades, and the famous one liner "I'll be back" If yes then you have good taste in films, if not you need to check it out, either way the movie centres on Machines taking over by thinking for themselves and pretty much waging war thus wiping out humanity, we just had to build a supercomputer that could think called Skynet didn't we.

But that's a movie after all nothing like that could ever happen in real life........Right? Well it seems years after the American Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency aka DARPA have developed a robot which is pretty close to what people who first saw the terminator in cinemas looks like, the newly designed robot codenamed "Atlas" can tackle rough terrain and carry human tools; one assumes this could well develop into weapons pretty easily.

"Atlas" comes in at a shrewd 6 foot tall and was developed by Boston Dynamics, "Atlas" is reported to weigh in at 330 pounds, and its primary purpose of development was to help with human disaster response which is a pretty cool application for it to be used for. However if you happen to be in the vicinity of a disaster "I hope not" then you may be forgiven in thinking that a couple of "Atlas" walking towards you amidst the smoke are anything but friendly, but don’t worry folks I can confirm that "Atlas" comes from Massachusetts and not from the future "phew"

                                                           (Click for larger Image)

"Atlas" has been shown to act like a normal human, in fact its motion sensing and overall physical dynamic mirrors that of a human very well, at least from both what has been reported and shown, which is really an incredible advance into robotic physical dynamic engineering, I am actually writing this off the top of my head and not Google’ing these long words I assure you.

"Atlas" is designed to walk and carry things as well as travel through rough terrain outdoors in addition to climbing using his hands and feet, now if only someone could programme an alogy of me Tarzan you Jane when he rescues someone that would be pretty comic. "Atlas" Uses Articulated hands that enable him to use tools which are designed for human use, "Atlas" apparently from the specs revealed includes 28 hydraulically actuated degrees of freedom and you standard exoskelital body with two arms, two legs, a torso and head.

Interestingly the head is also home to stereo cameras and wait for it..................a laser range finder, yes we keep coming back to that terminator feel don’t we., this laser finder is tethered to an off board, electric power supply, thankfully if things go south we know its weakness. Seriously though DARPA Robotics designed such as "Atlas" are built to help and aid with disasters and hazardous environments, just think you could send this guy into a nuclear power plant maybe turning the tide in what could be a very dangerous situation.

Programmers are hard at work it seems intent on pushing the "Atlas" to its limit, some of the challenge’s programmer’s will be trying to program "Atlas" to do later this year include driving a utility vehicle, breaking through a wall (strength not specified), connecting up a fire hose presumably to fight a fire, and closing a valve shut off.

Such a robot has huge appeal in terms of military application though and will no doubt form part of a security tactical unit in time to come, after all bomb disposal robots are already being used by both the military and Police in some parts of the world, what “Atlas” could bring to the table is astounding, helping to clear IEDs or high risk areas, or even just a peace time defence bot.

Of course this is probably still a long way off, but you can bet that behind some secret doors somewhere such plans are already being looked at. What do you think about the “Atlas” are you excited to see how its developed, used and deployed into situations where humans would be at risk? Or do you think that this is starting to get scary?