Nam Jun Paik (1932 – 2006) was an artist who used video displays and electronic parts in his art to comment on technology, culture, and mass communications. In 1990, the builders of One Franklin Town Apartments in downtown Philadelphia chose Paik to fulfill their city mandated requirement of including original public art in their development project. The installation that Paik created consists of three rows … Continue reading Video Arbor is Back
It seems like every electronics company from large to small is introducing a wearable device these days. As seen at CES 2015, it is all the rage to connect some kind of bodily sensor to the internet, pair it with an app and strap it to oneself. Most of these are fitness trackers that detect some combination of distance, speed, or heart rate. I started … Continue reading Getting Started with Wearables… in 1983
After a noble two year experiment, I decided to ditch my Nokia 920 Windows phone for an iPhone 6 Plus. It was not an easy decision and a lot of research was involved. There are plenty of reviews and specs online, so I will just get to the main points and summarize them here. Reasons to ditch Windows Phone 8.1 1. It’s all about the apps. … Continue reading Why I Ditched Windows Phone 8.1
I spent a few days last week at the CES in Las Vegas to learn about the latest trends in consumer electronics, with particular attention to items in the “connected home” category. This was my first time at the CES and everything one hears about the show is true: the exhibit floor is massive, it is impossible to see everything, and the products displayed range … Continue reading My Visit to the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
As mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been working with the Netduino microprocessor board, a .NET version of the open source Arduino. In preparation for designing a home energy monitoring system, I created a small project to measure and post data from the Netduino. The simplest circuit I could find consisted of a photocell and a resistor wired into one of the analog inputs. Every … Continue reading Sharing Data From the Netduino
I’ve been using the new AT&T Nokia 920 phone for two weeks, so here are my thoughts: PROs: Great display, fast processor, smooth web browsing, live tiles provide a great start page, camera images are sharp (although color balance is inconsistent, hopefully an update will fix this) CONs: No notification center, (although I hear that is coming eventually) lack of some key apps, many unappealing existing apps, … Continue reading Windows Phone 8 Review
The township where I live hosted its annual electronics recycling drop off so I hauled over a few broken monitors and battery back up units I had laying around. As usual, the turn out was huge, and I saw pretty much what I expected to see: old computers, lots of picture tube televisions and VCRs. What I did not expect at my local neighborhood drop … Continue reading Amazing Finds at the Technology Graveyard
