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Archive - Technology Helping People

06-08-2009

I am so used to fitting all the guts of my communications into 140 characters and that is flowing on to other communications channels. Since using Twitter my emails are shorter and more to the point, particularly with people I know well.
When I write an email, I keep asking myself - Do I really need to bother writing

- Hi Such and Such,
- How are you?
- Kind Regards, James

I think that dispensing with some formalities saves me time and helps the reader get straight to my point?

But will my pithy emails be perceived as rude?

What do you think?

14-04-2009

Export your personal tweets to a text file with Tweetdumpr >  copy and paste into Wordle >  Get a pretty word cloud of your tweets!

08-02-2009

My heart goes out to all involved in the Melbourne fires.

Here’s a useful map from Google that I saw on Mashable. It takes Victoria Country Fire Authority data from an RSS feed and shows markers where fires are in progress, controlled or contained.

Mouse over to see info

Hopefully you and your loved ones are ok!

26-01-2009

 So, while I was Googling myself I found this!

Comic book - Breeze James

Breeze James, Marvel Comics, 1992

My Alterego is a female Marvel comic character from Knights of the Pendragon…

Marvel Magazine

 

Wonders will never cease!

 

29-11-2008

Imagine a person in a wheel chair using their eyes to control a robot to help them around the house or to steer their wheelchair?

Martin Tall has recently developed software to harness someone’s eye gaze, as captured by an eye tracker, and communicate with a small robot constructed with LEGO.

In Martin’s words, “The concept allows for a human-machine interaction with a direct mapping of the users intention”

Imagine if you could link this up with the Emotiv software, that I blogged about previously, and use your thoughts to control the robot too!

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30-10-2008

Apparently this is a standard procedure all paramedics follow at the scene of an accident when they come across your mobile.


ICE - In Case of Emergency

We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn’t know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this ‘ICE’ (In Case of Emergency) Campaign.

The concept of ‘ICE’ is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As mobile phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name ‘ICE’ ( In Case Of Emergency).
The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn’t know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as ‘ICE.’
For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let’s spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today!

Technology helping people…

18-10-2008

09-10-2008

My iPhone typing speed improved dramatically yesterday!

"The iPhone is not about the press, it’s about the release", says my mate, and Mobile guru, Oli Weidlich.

Do you feel a little stressed when you type an SMS or write a note with your iPhone? It’s because you are trying to ‘press’ the buttons.

The little birdy in my head used to say "I hope I press the right key" and get frustrated when I had to delete and retype a letter or word. Or use that funny magnifying glass thingy that often renders off the screen.

Oli enlightened me that what you can do is slide your finger around the keyboard until the right letter pops up, without risk of selecting the wrong one, and then release it. My life has changed!

if this tip was plainly described in the store where I bought it, I could have immediately reach the amazing typing speeds compared to other phone, as claimed in this research about typing speed on different devices.

Last year I wrote about how daily technology hassles like this add up to stress people out in this presentation at World Usability Day Sydney 07.  Let’s get lots of these tips together to help make our daily lives S M O O T H E R.

25-09-2008

This a cool new widget for those of you with lots of slideshows. Showcase your work or even better put all the shows from a conferece in one spot! Simply tag them all the same and it becomes easy to group them together. Here’s my randomness of shows:

24-09-2008

I don’t know that it really enhances the magazine reading experience right now? The advertisers will certainly be relieved of millions of dollars!



See how the ad changes
?

It will be interesting to see how the e-paper develops in the consumer space and what is done to recycle it!

Read more about it on Wikipedia