Posts tagged with “Video”
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Three Weeks with Swype
Roughly three weeks ago, I stumbled across the Swype for Android preview. My first impressions were very positive, and over the last three weeks, I’ve been using Swype exclusively on my Droid. If you’re not familiar with Swype, it’s a new method of typing on a touchscreen device, from the inventor of T9. Instead of tapping out each letter, you just drag your finger across the keyboard, hitting each of the letters in the word in sequence. I recorded a short video showing its basic features:
What I Liked
What really surprised me about Swype was how quickly I was able to get the hang of it. When I watched demo videos, it seemed like it was overly-complicated, but once I used it myself, I couldn’t believe how simple it was. For some of the less intuitive features (such as capitalization, which requires you swipe above the keyboard), I had to run through the built-in tutorial, but after that, I could swipe very easily. One big perk with Swype is that it’s actually pretty easy to use without looking, once you get the hang of it. I found that I could type reasonably well without ever looking at my fingers, something I would have no chance of doing with the standard keyboard.
Drawbacks
My biggest gripe with Swype is it’s just nowhere near as polished as the built-in keyboard. For starters, it’s much more difficult to access symbols, and numbers are laid out pretty strangely. Also, there’s a complete lack on auto-completion for text fields that support it. For instance, if you’re typing the name of a contact in landscape view, the regular Android keyboard will have suggestions below the field that will allow you to select the person without typing their whole name. Swype does not seem to support this at all, which is really pretty annoying. In addition, it’s difficult to type out words normally, if they do not exist in the Swype dictionary. When tapping out letters, Swype tends to interpret your taps as swipes, adding unnecessary spaces between letters. Once you type an unknown word the first time, however, you never have to do it again, because it gets added to the dictionary, which is pretty nice.
In addition, I’ve found that the sensitivity of the keyboard can be a little strange when swiping quickly. Many times, it won’t recognize that you’ve stopped a word and started a new one (which is indicated by lifting your finger up), so it won’t recognize what you’re trying to input at all. In the options panel, there are ways to adjust the sensitivity, but I’d rather these settings were hidden away from users, because it seems like a bit of a cop-out. Swype should instead learn how you type, adjusting its algorithm as necessary.
Conclusions
While there certainly are some issues with the Swype build I used for this review, pretty much all of problems are fixable, and I’m excited to see what the final version turns out to be. They’ve got a really great concept that, with tweaking, could become the best way to input text on a touchscreen mobile device, especially for those who aren’t very adept with traditional on-screen keyboards. I’m not sure what Swype’s strategy is going be with regards to pricing: whether it will be a free app, or if you’ll have to pay for it. Personally, if they’re able to fix my issues above, I would be happy to pay $5-6 for it, and maybe even more, because it really is quite incredible. Even if you can type well with the standard keyboard, definitely give Swype a try.
How a Macworld cover is made
Excellent timelapse video of the creation of a Macworld cover, from the initial photography to the final layout.
Apollo 11 Videos
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, NASA released several restored videos of the mission. I went ahead and put the videos on Viddler, so they’re easy to embed. My favorite is the intro video:
Abandoned Spaceships and Moon Buggies
I was poking around NASA’s site today, looking for more information about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which today entered Moon orbit, and I came across a great article about abandoned spaceships and rovers on the moon.
Included in the article is a video of Apollo 17’s lunar module taking off from the surface of the moon (embedded below). This is the only footage ever recorded of a LM leaving the lunar surface, and it is also the last footage ever recorded on the moon.
To record the video, they used a camera on the lunar rover, which was positioned a fair distance away. One reason previous attempts to record the lift-off failed was the positioning of the camera–if it was too close, it was knocked over by the power of the rockets.
(Note: I uploaded the video to Viddler, so I could embed it here; as far as I know, all NASA videos and images are available for public use, so I shouldn’t be violating any copyright by posting this here.)
Car Pancake on MythBusters
This video from MythBusters is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen–a rocket sled is shot at the speed of sound at a car, and, let’s just say there’s not much car left at the end.
'Moon' Trailer
Wow, this trailer for Duncan Jones’ Moon looks amazing. I’m going to have to make sure to Netflix this when I get back from Germany.
Bathtub IV by Keith Loutit
A gorgeous video by Keith Loutit using tilt-shift lenses. I love this stuff.
Surfing Google Earth with a Wii Fit Board
Some guys in Germany hacked together a program that uses a Wii Fit board as an input, so you can effectively “surf” the world using Google Earth.
Bill Gates: How I'm trying to change the world now
Great talk by Bill Gates at this year’s TED conference about his work to eliminate malaria in Africa and improve education in the poorer parts of the US. I really like the way he attacks problems like these: instead of throwing money at the issue, he tries to make small changes that have a large impact, such as giving mosquito nets to families in Africa, or giving teachers feedback on their teaching. Definitely worth a watch.
Red/Redshift Demo App
A 30-minute video of Red/Redshift, a “compiler” for Ruby to Javascript. Essentially, you write all of your AJAX, etc. in Ruby, and Red converts it to Javascript to you. I’m not sure how I feel about the extra step, but it’s definitely an intriguing idea, since it’s much nicer to write Ruby than JS.
Resizing Rounded Rectangles in Photoshop
In the past, I’ve always dreaded working with rounded rectangles in Photoshop, because they’re just so annoying to resize. If you try to change the object’s height or width, it distorts the corners, making things look pretty bad. Today, I found a way to resize them using the direct selection tool, and it has already made my life a whole lot easier. Check out the screencast I put together to find out how.
Revision3 Beta
Yesterday, the second phase of Revision3 Beta, Revison3’s search for new shows, was released. I did pretty much all of the backend development, and it’s powered by Viddler’s API. There are some really great shows here, so definitely check it out. You can read Revision3’s announcement on their blog.