Check this out:
Node.js + Azure is a powerful combination, letting us run the same JS/JSON in the browser, server and database with an event model that makes scalability a breeze. Good stuff!
I am incredibly excited that this is being officially supported. Go team!
I was disappointed today to read the headline “Microsoft refuses to endorse WebGL, labels it ‘harmful’,” which itself is derived from a Microsoft security blog post titled “WebGL Considered Harmful,” which itself parrots a security scare report from a few weeks back.
Is WebGL actually harming your computer in any way? I doubt that’s a serious or credible claim. And, frankly, if Microsoft has taken a formal position against WebGL, no one I know got the memo.
It’s not often since I started at Microsoft 3 years ago that I get to blog about what I’m working on. It’s not that anyone had ever explicitly told me not to, but sharing my daily web research and observations publicly (even if the source links were already public) would have likely compromised the secrecy I’d agreed to, since I tend to blog about whatever’s most on my mind. [And forget twitter. My tl;drs alone are more than 140 characters]
With my current project, the situation is much improved blog-wise. We concluded recently that the best way to accomplish our goals was to be open and even solicit cooperation from outside. Quite a concept!
The project’s name is Read/Write World.
Update: Photosynth for iPhone has passed the THREE million download mark!
Photosynth for iPhone
Photosynth for the iPhone has finally hit the app store this week. It’s doing exceptionally well, and it’s not surprising. Taking photos on the phone is a very narrow experience. This app redefines that experience to let you take photos as wide as you want, up to a full 360 degrees. You can then publish your photos and share them in full quality.
Kudos to the Panorama team for hitting a homerun on their first time (standalone) at bat.
Of all the videos of the 9.0 quake, this is both the calmest and most visceral I’ve seen conveying just how how scary it must have been.
I believe this flooding effect is called liquefaction, whereby the ground can turn to quicksand in seconds. It doesn’t help that this is on reclaimed land in Toyko harbor, because the next thought after “holy shit” is Tsunami.
The Lancet finally disavowed the original scientifically proven fraud that started the whole "vaccines cause autism" fiasco, which has undoubtedly cost childrens’ lives and done nothing to lower the rate of autism.
The author of the study had a financial interest in his so called findings. No one could reproduce those findings, though at the behest of concerned parents, many tried. And by now everyone of any integrity has disavowed the entire episode.
By that I mean to say that Jenny McCarthy claims the whole thing is a well orchestrated plot against the good doctor Wakefield who promoted the original autism/vaccine link. Yes, every scientist working for peanuts in terms of public money has decided conspire to ruin the life of one innocent man who stood to make considerable money from his so-called discovery. Brilliant plan! (reminds me of one not-too-bright former co-worker of mine who claimed the whole global warming debate was a devious plot by scientists to make more money).
Is it possible to issue a class action lawsuit against people who cause mass public stupidity leading to demonstrable harm? In my mind, it’s not much different than the fire in a theater scenario, especially when there is no fire.
It’s a bit depressing to see how so many news sites only seemed to cover the Iranian situation because it happens to feature Twitter and Facebook. Election fraud is so old hat, I guess, that we need a new twist to drive interest.
Well, here’s an article about some election science that should be covered everywhere. The authors were apparently too busy to tweet, but they found the Washington Post just the same.
Update: here’s a blog roundup on #iranelection/Twitter that highlights the possibility that much of the so-called Twitter revolution is actually just ye old neocons up to their old tricks. Funny how TechCrunch fanboys (editors) are going ga ga over the fact that a neocon on FoxNews claimed twitter founders should get the nobel prize for keeping their servers running through the crisis. I’ll buy that for a dollar!
Microsoft just announced a 3D camera / microphone array for XBox that will allow multiple players to play games with no hand-held devices whatsoever. I got a demo of an earlier prototype.
You will want.
Update: There’s a video on XBox.com that shows some of what they intend to deliver, with a disclaimer at the bottom. Also, check out Milo. Most impressive.
It’s easier to just download the CSV file and look at it in Excel…
As luck would have it, I bought an iPhone two weeks ago. I’m not one of those rabid Apple fans. But once I could get Exchange support directly, I figured having my work meetings and email on such a nice mobile display would be well worth it. I hadn’t even registered for iTunes to download apps (even the free ones require your credit card, apparently) — until Google Earth came out.
My impressions — even at 3G speeds, it’s incredibly impressive. The touch interface is great, though not perfect. It’s probably an issue of sampling the device when framerate is low (Apple should ensure the UI is not bound to app or render rates). I did find that the two fingered motions tended get results that drifted from what I wanted, which I attribute to the size of the screen vs. my hands and not to any math error.
I’m not too surpried about performance. It reminds me of how the original Keyhole app ran on unaccelerated laptops. Without terrain, the number of triangles shouldn’t be the limiter (you only need about 1000 triangles to make a nice sphere, even less by the time you need to see placemarks). Texturing, caching, and download speeds seem like they would have been the biggest challenges.
I imagine the optimization work that Google did to make the app run 4+ instances in a browser was vital to this iPhone work as well. But keep in mind, even the idea of using 500MB of storage is problematic on an iPhone. Fitting the Universal Texture code to run in the small main memory must have required some significant tradeoffs, of which I can only speculate. But the results still look very good.
I’m looking forward to trying it out in the field.