Month: January 2008

Drone Paparazzi

Paparazzi UAV is an open-source drone hardware and software project encompassing autopilot systems and ground station software for multicopters/multirotors, fixed-wing, helicopters and hybrid aircraft that was founded in 2003. Paparazzi UAV was designed with autonomous flight as the primary focus and manual flying as the secondary. From the beginning it was designed with portability in mind and the ability to control multiple aircraft within the same system. Paparazzi features a dynamic flight plan system that is defined by mission states and using way points as “variables”. This makes it easy to create very complex fully automated missions without the operators intervention.

wow

Attacking Noise in Chat

And then I had an idea — what if you were only allowed to say sentences that had never been said before, ever? A bot with access to the full channel logs could kick you out when you repeated something that had already been said. There would be no “all your base are belong to us”, no “lol”, no “asl”, no “there are no girls on the internet”. No “I know rite”, no “hi everyone”, no “morning sucks.” Just thoughtful, full sentences.

you can never utter the same line twice, ever. works beautifully in a constrained environment like IRC. but would be extremely useful for blogs / comments / mails

Google Maps Finds

The introduction of satellite images into map search interfaces has excited both virtual sightseers and local app developers. Further innovations like Google’s Street View have caused consternation from privacy advocates while further pumping up the buzz about online mapping. In 2008, we can expect further innovations that stretch the envelope while dynamic map interfaces solidify as basic table-stakes for all local sites. In gearing up for this year in local search, I thought I’d give you a pure entertainment piece—here’s a guide to the top coolest things to see in Google Maps.

CES focus on openness

From my view, 2 of the most talked about “products” in the conference sessions at CES were openness and sharing. These concepts were mentioned over and over in sessions dealing with topics as diverse as multiplatform content delivery, personalized TV and next generation wireless. Speakers from well known (and not so open) companies like Microsoft, Comcast and Verizon were in a modest frenzy to demonstrate or at least pre-announce their openness and sharing plans. Microsoft proudly touted the number of developers using their IPTV platform to build consumer offerings, while reminding would-be developers that they still had to sell their inventions to the service providers before they would see the light of day.

we’ll see if that lasts, but it is encouraging