Category: Software

LEGO Fusion

LEGO Fusion Is Augmented Reality for Tweens

Michael Kaufman2

Augmented Reality (AR) is not just the stuff of wearable displays (like Google Glass and Microsoft’s HoloLens), ghostly virtual assistants, and floating keyboards any more. In a perfectly appropriate blend of real and virtual innovation, LEGO has found a way to use AR that embellishes the building blocks and increases creativity and real-world play (rather than take away from it) with the LEGO Fusion group of sets.

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2 iphones

Doing the Two-Smartphone Shuffle

Skip Owens8

You know who I’m talking about even if I’m not specifically talking about you. This is the person that comes into a meeting at work and plops down a stack of smartphones on the conference room table. I have recently joined the two smartphone club, and because I see so many others like me struggling to do this dance properly I thought it was time to help make things a little easier.

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Our Solar System

My Private Solar System

Will James8

I’ve wanted my own solar power system since the first time I learned such a thing was possible. A year and a half ago, I learned about a great program called Solarize Seattle. They team up with local installers and community organizations to make solar more accessible to homeowners in and around the Seattle metropolitan area. And more importantly, they help educate homeowners on how solar in Seattle was possible.

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Bitsbox

New Kickstarter Alert — Bitsbox Teaches Kids Programming

James Floyd Kelly

A few weeks ago my oldest son (age 7) came up to me and asked one of those questions that many parents dread — “Dad, can you teach me to program?” While I’m half-kidding, I’m also half-serous. I’m not a programmer! I have some training (mainly in college, but some self-taught) and I’m comfortable hunting down a book when I need it, but, when it comes to teaching my son, I’m really at a loss. What I’d like to do is find a way to make programming fun and interesting, but also something he can do on his own or at least with me watching over his shoulder but providing minimum assistance.

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Document Feed

Powerful Yet Affordable Personal Scanner – Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100

James Floyd Kelly

I’m not a neat freak, but as a rule I just don’t like clutter. Especially paper clutter. Whether you’re a fan of cloud storage or you’ve taken advantage of one of the extremely low-priced hard drives offered these days (3TB for $100, for example), for example), it’s just too easy to move anything and everything possible to a digital storage location. For a number of years now, I’ve had a serious fascination with personal scanners… and I’ve used a mix of brand and models to get where I am today — a 99% paper-free home office.

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Girls Make Games logo

Register Now for Girls Make Games

Jonathan H. Liu1

Women and girls make up nearly half of all video gamers, but only about 12% of the video game industry. To help address this gender gap, indie game studio LearnDistrict is hosting a series of game dev summer camps specifically targeted at girls: Girls Make Games. The first one will be in the Bay Area next month.

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YOU Hardback

Second Chance: Austin Grossman’s YOU — Paperback Edition

James Floyd Kelly4

On April 8, 2014, Austin Grossman’s novel, YOU, will be released in paperback. I’m very excited about this news because I’m such a fan of the book, and now many more readers will be able to enjoy Grossman’s fictional account of Black Arts Games and its Realms of Gold computer game series (with major nods to Ultima and other famous 90s titles). For anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s when computers and computer games were making some incredible strides in music, graphics, and storytelling, the book is likely to fire up some fun memories of a dozen or more games that you likely played or encountered. It’s a fictional tale, yes, but the games and characters in the story could easily have been as real as Zork or Rogue or Ultima and the game designers behind those famous titles.

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Problem - Solution

Turning Off The Conair CD108 Infiniti Curling Iron Via Email

James Floyd Kelly

My wife sometimes leaves things plugged in and turned on. Dangerous things. Like her curling iron. It’s not unheard-of for her to be a couple miles down the road, heading out to run some errands with the boys in the back seat all buckled in. “Did I leave the curling iron on?” she wonders. This problem called for a drastic solution. A solution that would justify four years of engineering school. A problem that so many of us geek spouses wait 20, 30, or even 40 years of marriage to encounter… and then take down with extreme prejudice.

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