From the category archives:

Technology

If it's unclear, non-specific and vague... it's probably true

January 25, 2012

Mashable has a new standard for fact-checking rumors: ...While you should look at all of this information with a skeptical eye, a raised eyebrow and folded arms, the rumor sounds slightly more credible than the junk typically spewed out from Taiwan industry pub DigiTimes. For starters, reviewing various prototypes before deciding on the final production model [...]

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Minimum system requirements... for the web

October 14, 2011

I remember when the concept of "minimum system requirements" became important. It was during the late 90's, as 3dfx and Nvidia battled to own the nascent market for hardware-accelerated graphics. For the first time, you had software which simply wouldn't run on a computer unless it met certain criteria, namely the ability to perform certain [...]

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In which I conquer the cassette player

October 7, 2011

We have a new car and it has an American radio. That wouldn't be a problem except that in Israel, FM stations broadcast on even-numbered spectrum intervals (like 97.8), but American radios can only pick up odd-numbered intervals. And even that wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't grown to really like Israeli radio stations [...]

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Eloquent JavaScript: an interactive programming tutorial

September 30, 2011

Via my friend Will Gaybrick (@gaybrick), I discovered an excellent programming tutorial called Eloquent JavaScript. Not only is it extremely well-written, clear and friendly, but it features a completely interactive console allowing readers to run and experiment with every single example. You'll never have to struggle to decipher what a piece of code is doing [...]

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Karma...?

September 26, 2011

It really comes as no surprise whatsoever that just weeks after I switched from TextMate to VIM, TextMate 2 has finally broken cover. From a post on the MacroMates blog: There has been a lot of speculation and trepidation about the future of TextMate recently, mostly about whether there will be another major release. Work on [...]

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The "software company" bubble

August 21, 2011

It's amazing what you can see when you refuse to open your eyes -- or need to talk your book. Take, for example, Marc Andreessen's article in the WSJ titled "Why Software is Eating the World." I became skeptical when this line appeared in the introduction: And, perhaps most telling, you can't have a bubble [...]

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Making the jump: Textmate to VIM

August 17, 2011

Finally making the leap from Textmate to VIM...

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Installing Python, virtualenv, NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib and IPython on Lion

August 12, 2011

A guide to installing Python, virtualenv, NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib and IPython on Mac OS 10.7 Lion

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i8, iWant

July 30, 2011

I wrote about how much I loved BMW's Vision EfficientDynamics concept almost 2 years ago. This morning in Frankfurt, BMW took it one step closer to production as the second model in the new electric BMW i sub-brand: the i8. Looking like a hybrid 6/8-series that fell through a portal from 2050, the latest concept [...]

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Briefly: Spotify/SmartBird

July 28, 2011

As some of you know, I am and will be travelling abroad for two months. Before I left, I purchased a Spotify subscription and have to say I love it. I won't even waste your time trying to review it -- David Pogue did a great job in today's NYT. I tried to talk myself [...]

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Not with a bang but a whimper

July 25, 2011

Old and busted: insightful tech journalism for a general audience New hotness: attacking brand new (prototype!) technologies that you don't understand

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Trials of the early adopter

July 25, 2011

Update: this post is now completely obsolete. I've posted a much more comprehensive guide to installing Python, NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib and IPython on Lion here. This post is meant as a public service announcement for an extremely small audience. If you don't think this is directed at you, then it almost certainly isn't. I'm happy [...]

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Novices and the filesystem

July 24, 2011

Speaking of Lion, I've been reading John Siracusa's review over on Ars Technica. Every few years (and lately, every year) John puts out a lengthy review of Apple's latest OS - and by lengthy, I mean you should set aside half an hour to read it. In fact, this year's version is available as a [...]

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I love natural scrolling in Lion

July 24, 2011

I want to add my voice to a (silent?) minority: I love natural scrolling in Lion. For those readers who aren't yet running Apple's latest OS, scrolling has been reversed in the new software: to scroll down the page, flick your fingers up; to view a panel to the right, drag your fingers left. It [...]

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Data science vs business intelligence

June 30, 2011

Steve Miller has written a nice two-part piece on data science for Information Management. Part 1 overviews the topic, including links to many pieces that have been profiled on TGR. Part 2 is a more direct comparison of data science and "business intelligence," a somewhat lackluster (but growing) field of data analytics. One quote stood [...]

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Election night technology, redux

November 3, 2010

Two years ago, I wrote about how impressed I was by CNN's use of technology in their election night broadcast. They employed iPhone-inspired multitouch screens to access and browse data visually (the iPad, sadly, was but a dream at that point). The screens could display charts, sorted data, maps, results... anything the anchors required. One [...]

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Why the Mac App Store is a brilliant idea

October 20, 2010

Apple announced this afternoon that the App Store is coming to Macs - a brilliant move on their part. When the iPad was announced, I speculated that it would imitate the Dashboard of Mac OS. Instead, it pursued a "single serving app" model, with great success. So great, in fact, that now the tables have [...]

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Google's programming initiative

July 12, 2010

Google has introduced software that allows non-programmers to create relatively simple Android applications. The program wraps pre-written pieces of code in bite sized visual representations that can be linked together to create complex behaviors. The software can tap many areas of the Android API, including hardware functions like the accelerometer, and can autonomously respond to [...]

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A bit more on speech

June 26, 2010

As if responding to my thoughts on communicating with machines, Isaac Asimov's classic novel Second Foundation provides the following: Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, he developed a method [...]

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Speech recognition (is more prevalent than you think)

June 25, 2010

The NYT has published the second article in their "Smarter Than You Think" series on artificial intelligence (TGR covered the first here and again here). This time, the focus is on speech recognition and natural language processing. A couple passages really stood out to me in this more abbreviated overview of the technology: Computers with [...]

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Holding a mirror to artificial intelligence

June 23, 2010

Assessing the human computer.

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Elementary, my dear Watson

June 17, 2010

In a pleasant surprise, the NYT Magazine has published an excellent article on artificial intelligence. What's more, it appears to be the first in a series. The article is well-written and accessible; it doesn't delve with any of the math, just the inspirations for and results of the AI procedures. It really speaks to the [...]

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Why can't I rent an ebook?

June 10, 2010

I know the NYPL will let me check out ebooks, but the result is wrapped in layers of DRM that tie it to my computer (or, with some work, a Sony Reader or B&N Nook). One thing I'm sure of: e-reading will succeed if and only if the text is truly portable across many devices. [...]

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What is data science?

June 3, 2010

The latest in a series of articles on the topic, Mike Loukides of O'Reilly Radar asks, "What is data science?": We've all heard it: according to Hal Varian, statistics is the next sexy job. Five years ago, in What is Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly said that "data is the next Intel Inside." But what does that statement [...]

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Thoughts on e-reading

May 31, 2010

As it happens, my primary use for my iPad is as an e-reader (eReader? iReader?). I've read more books in the last few weeks than I had in recent months, mostly because of the convenience factor: I always have them (all of them!) available and I never have to hunt for my place. Just a [...]

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Off the grid: NYC photoplot

May 25, 2010

Eric Fischer posts the Geotaggers' World Atlas - a collection of urban networks revealed by the location of pictures taken along their routes. The geographic data comes from Flickr and was clustered and plotted to reveal various city grids. A fairly straightforward mashup of data and geography coupled with a clean visualization... I love this [...]

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"You already know how to use it"

May 13, 2010

A new iPad ad breaks the mold and tells us exactly what the iPad is: a screen capable of showing any kind of data at any time. I think that's quite incredible. We take for granted that computers can do anything: now you can take that with you. When was the last time you saw [...]

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Adobe strikes back

May 13, 2010

Responding to Steve Job's first public shot in the Flash Wars (apart from the whole not-including-Flash-in-his-mobile-empire thing), Adobe is running a direct set of ads on major sites like the NYT. The campaign pairs a somewhat surprising banner: With a more direct sidebar ad: I predict that within a year, HTML5/Java editing tools will be [...]

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Precision Information Environments

May 11, 2010

The last time I posted a video for all the futurists out there, we'd never even heard of an "iPad." It's amazing how that device has made clips like these seem so much closer to reality. This one is based on research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on a class of emergency management interfaces called PIE's: Precision Information Environment. [...]

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iPad: magical indeed

May 3, 2010

CrunchGear has a post up called Apple: Can we stop with the "magical" already? - aimed at Apple's iPad marketing, which refers to the device as "magical and revolutionary." The author feels "that Apple’s dedication to the “magical” party line is a bit disingenuous" because the iPad, yes, is not actually a magical device. For [...]

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