Project Glass: Google’s Augmented Reality

It’s been a rumor for a few months, but Google is actually putting their “Project Glass” technology out in the wild.  They’ve been seen in the hands of Google employees.

This stuff is the future. We just need to find out who does it right. Google has some impressive technology here, and it actually works.

All powered by Android.  I’m still an iOS guy, but I can see this as changing my tune.

Tags: Android, Augmented Reality, Google, iOS, Project Glass

jQuery 1.7.2 Released

jQuery 1.7.2 was released a week ago (sorry, work has been beyond crazy, and I haven’t had time to update the blog!).

You can read about the fixes at the official announcement on blog.jquery.com.  Most fixes are standard bug fixes.

You can use the following CDNs to link / get the code:

• Google CDN:
  https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js
• Microsoft CDN:
  http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.7.2.min.js
• Official jQuery 1.7.2 CDN:
  http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.2.min.js
  http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.2.js

Tags: jQuery

iPad 3 Event Today – Possible Haptic Display?

When word went out saying “We have something you really have to see.  And touch.”, who wasn’t thinking if Apple put in a haptic display (a display that gives touch feedback).

Some more rumors are popping up, saying Senseg may be on the new iPad 3.

Anyway — we all find out in a few hours.  The live blogging starts at 1pm eastern.

Tags: Apple, haptic, iPad 3, Senseg

Apple’s iPad Event (Apple TV?) – Summary of Expectations

With the event looming, now only 13 hours away, what can we expect from the event?

Apple has kept a lot secret this round, but there are certain things we all know:

• There will be a new iPad announcement (whether the iPad 3 or the iPad HD we don’t know for sure)
• There will be some sort of Apple TV announcement (with almost all stores completely out of stock, it’s all we can predict)
• Apple has been using up tons of transport over the past few weeks from China to the states

What can we expect?  There are a few likely outcomes:

• iPad 3 with a retina display of 2048×1536 (double that of the iPad 2)
• iPad 3 will have a quad core processor
• iPad 3 will have a 5 mega pixel camera with LED (maybe 8 mega pixel?)
• iPad 3 will probably support LTE
• iOS 5.1 (rumors are that the Gold Master passed QA)
• iPad 3 will have an HDMI port
• An updated Apple TV that supports HD video (1080p)
• Apple TV will stay at the sub $100 threshold (if so I’m buying one, again)
• Some announcement regarding Catalogs (Sears, JC Penny, LL Bean like catalogs — they are live on the Apple Store already)

Tags: Apple, Apple TV, HDMI, iPad 3, iPad HD, LTE

iPad 3 Launch (mostly) Official

I have stayed generally quiet in coverage of the iPad 3 because there are just too many rumors going around.  Everything you read is based on a “leaked” product prototype, or someone who knows someone who heard something…

Based on a series of rumors, it seems like March 7th, 2012 will be the date the iPad 3 will be announced.

This information comes from a site iMore, iPad 3 announcement March 7, quad-core, possible 4G LTE.  They have a track record of being on the ball, and the information seems to corroborate with some known insiders at Apple.

What do we know about the iPad 3?  Nothing is concrete, but here are the mostly accepted details:

• Quad Core processor
• Retina like display, of 2048×1536
• LTE support is highly likely
• The design will change only slightly

There are rumors of multiple form factors, but personally I’m not sold on them yet.

I can’t wait to get my first iPad (I think it’s finally ready).

Tags: Apple, iMore, iPad 3, LTE

Google Chrome 17 Released

You probably have it already, as it was released yesterday.  That’s the nice thing about Chrome, no more old browser versions.

Changes seem minimal:

• Pre-fetching and rendering of URLs as you type them
• Safer browser downloading (downloaded files are not only checked against bad files, but against a white list, with a likely warning)
• Minor UI tweaks (the plus icon is missing from the new tab window

Otherwise … it’s just a minor release in my opinion.

Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Google Chrome

Facebook Files for IPO – $75-100 billion

I don’t usually report on financial news (though I’m very interested in finance / economics).. but I had to say something about this one.

Facebook finally filed for an IPO (initial public offering) which places the value of the company between $75 and $100 billion.

What symbol will they be filing for?  FACE?  BOOK?  FBK?

It’s interesting to note that banks wanted to handle the underwriting of the IPO so bad they lowered their fees to a low 1%.  This was done partly because of the “honor” in handling what could be (when accounting for inflation) the largest IPO of the century.  It’s more likely because of all the additional business and access to the shares.

Will the IPO ruin Facebook?  Is this the maximum value that Zuckerberg thought he could get for his company before cashing out?

Time will tell.

Tags: Facebook, IPO

Responsive Images in a responsive web design?

We’ve been hearing about “responsive web design” and layouts everywhere.  It’s the new “Web 2.0″ it seems.

I ran across an article yesterday, Responsive Images: How they Almost Worked and What We Need, by Mat Marquis yesterday.  Mat talks about the various approaches used by the famous Boston Globe website’s responsive design to address the need for multiple sized images.

In a responsive design a single “page” can scale up to a full browser (usually a maximum of 1600px wide) down to a mobile device (128-240px).  It’s a waste to download a 1-2MB image if you only need a tiny 10-20KB image.  On a mobile device there are various types of connection types that limit what a user will wait for.

From the article:

It’s easy enough to style images so that they scale to fit within a parent container by adding img { max-width: 100%; } to one’s stylesheet. To use this effectively, though, the image must be large enough to scale up to whatever size we can reasonably expect on the largest possible display. This can mean a great deal of overhead.

› Continue reading

Tags: Boston Globe, Mat Marquis, Responsive Design, Responsive Images

jQuery Mobile 1.0.1 Released – with bada Support

In case you missed it, as I did, jQuery Mobile released version 1.0.1 a week ago.

The biggest changes seem to be the addition of official Samsung bada support, along with some additional test clients.  bada is an operating system for mobile developers developed by Samsung.  It doesn’t sound like the team had to do anything to support the platform, but it’s nice to know there will be an additional device tested with releases.

To download the new jQuery Mobile 1.0.1:

• JS - http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0.1/jquery.mobile-1.0.1.min.js (24KB)
• CSS w/ Theme - http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0.1/jquery.mobile-1.0.1.min.css (7KB)
• CSS w/o Theme - http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0.1/jquery.mobile.structure-1.0.1.min.css (6KB)

Not only do we have 1.0.1 now, but jQuery Mobile 1.1 is coming out soon.

Here’s some stuff to look forward to in jQuery mobile 1.1:

• AMD support
• True Fixed Toolbars – it’s always been buggy, but they seem to have come up with a CSS based method that works everywhere (and doesn’t jump around)
• Better AJAX page transitions

I could swear there was a beta version of jQuery Mobile 1.1 out there, but I can’t seem to find the link.  Maybe I’m crazy?

Tags: AJAX, AMD, bada, CSS, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, JS, samsung

Firefox 10 Released

Mozilla released Firefox 10 this morning.

Firefox has converted over to the Google Chrome release numbering, so browser versions aren’t as “major” anymore, but the new browser still brings some nice enhancements.

The biggest addition (especially for us web developers) is the addition of extra built-in developer tools (very similar to Chrome’s):

• Inspect tool for CSS
• Page Inspector (also like chrome, although it has a nice whole page highlight / dehighlight so you can see exactly what you are inspecting

Some other additions are:

• Forward button hides until you go back
• WebGL suppors anti-aliasing
• CSS3 3D Transforms are present
• Full Screen API (should be better for running web applications / kiosks)
• General Bug Fixes

I think it’s worth checking out, as this version will also be part of the ESR program (Extended Support Release).  That means it won’t be updated for another 42 weeks, to allow businesses to use the browser long term.

Tags: Browser, CSS, css3, ESR, Firefox, Firefox 10, WebGL