PenguinSix » Internet

Star Wars: The Director’s Cut (fan version) now fully online

Andrew — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:20:15 +0000

If you have a couple of hours to kill, and remember what it is supposed to look like, you can now watch the ‘remix’ version of Star Wars, containing 100s of different clips sent in my fans of the film.

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Toy Trains Battle Royale for Supreme Dominance of the Tracks

Andrew — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:03:04 +0000

I couldn’t think of a better translation, but you get the general idea from above what’s going on here.

On Youtube, where you can find just about anything, there are quite a few guys in Japan who have filmed incredibly complex train crashes involving toy PLARAIL trains. These are plastic battery-powered Japanese toy trains that zip around on blue Tomica track, of which there is quite an abundance in my own home. These Otaku train guys film massive competitions between various train types across multiple track layouts to determine once and for all who is the strongest.

My kids are hooked.

There are literally hundreds of these videos. My boys watch them over and over again to the point they know which trains will succeed and which will fail, and more complicated, which track layouts we should attempt to duplicate here in the house. ”No daddy, build the one with six bridges and four crossing points” (and by the way, my son says ‘points’ instead of ‘switches’–darn British-based education system over here).

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Hong Kong iPhone 4S line starts 72 hours prior to launch.

Andrew — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:36:04 +0000

They love their Apple gear in Hong Kong, and they also love to line up to get it. In fact, this line of about 150-200 people outside the Hong Kong Apple Store isn’t even “official”–it’s just people milling about waiting to get into the official line that will start “soon” according to some in the know.

The local paper (paywall) reported that a scuffle broke out between some of the early liner-ups-to-line-up and some more recent professional line sitters, predominantly South East Asians hired by the iPhone smugglers of Mongkok and Mainland China.

Here are some pics of the wackiness. We’ll have more Friday when the iPhone 4S goes on sale at the Apple Store in the IFC Mall.

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Engadget writes about the iPhone laser range finder.

Andrew — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 05:10:12 +0000

The folks at Engadget did us a big favor this week writing about our new project, the “Phaser Tape”.

Hopefully the added coverage will start to bring in some more orders at Makible.com

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/insert-coin-phasertape-turns-your-smartphone-into-a-rangefinder/

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iPhone Laser Range Finder — my new product

Andrew — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:23:15 +0000

I’ve been busy here in Hong Kong coming up with some new gadgets, and the first one is now ready through Makible.com.

An iPhone / Android laser range finder attachment. Simply place this against the wall, snap a picture, and the app will tell you the distance. Pretty cool stuff.

Available Now

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Did the Mac 10.7.2 Lion update fix the NAS bug in iMovie?

Andrew — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:41:23 +0000

When OS 10.7 came out, a number of digital photographers and filmmakers were aghast. Terabytes of data stored on Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices were no longer visible as option in many common Mac programs. Of course, to be fair, things like iMovie were never design for NAS units, but some enterprising hackers found a way through this simple command line:

defaults write -app iMovie allowNV -bool true

Unfortunately when Lion came out, even this command line option was no longer working.

But today OS 10.7.2 was released by Apple and when I booted up iMovie after the update, viola–there it was again. My Drobo in the other room hosting 100s of GBs of home movies was once again accessible to iMovie. I’ve tried reading the release notes but didn’t see any mention of this new ‘feature’, but hey, I’ll take it.

So if you haven’t run that command line or updated to 10.7.2 and are looking to store you digital media elsewhere, try out this tip and see if it works for you.

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A high-tech homesickness cure.

Andrew — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:19:13 +0000

In the early days of PenguinRadio, I noticed my business partner was often listening to BBC London in the office pretty much throughout the day. It wasn’t that he necessarily liked what was being played he said, it’s just that he enjoyed hearing the traffic news as it made him feel a bit like “he was back home”.

If you’re never really been away, you probably won’t understand how “the little things” can often trigger memories or even satisfy some longings you might have. Once when I was in Happy Valley I could smell grass being cut on the race track, which brought back many recollections of life in the American Midwest oh so far away from now. Smells, sounds, and sights have a very powerful ability when you are thinking of someplace else.

Which is why this really interesting little “trick” is quite attractive. A company has developed Winscape which at first glance looks very successful, after all the demo video shows their home in the Marin Highlands overlooking the San Francisco Bay Bridge. But a closer look reveals that these are mere windows overlooking some spectacular views, but a virtual window running on an HD TV.

Through some high tech gimmicks you can have a window overlooking whatever part of the world you want. At the moment it is rather limited to HD playback, but the thought has crossed my mind of trying to do this with live HD webcams from different places. For example, I called up a webcam from Abbey Road in London and was just watching the morning traffic compete with Beatles fans who wanted to get their picture taken on the immortal crosswalk.

It does open up some interesting ideas. A virtual window outside your “house” back “home” so you can see what’s going on in your neighborhood is now only a webcam and a bit of streaming kit away. Watching the neighbors and your home just as if you were looking out the window.

Might have to investigate this a bit further.

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Hong Kong Apple Store Steve Jobs iVigil photos

Andrew — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:07:23 +0000

Just a few pictures from tonight’s vigil at the Apple store. That’s @hypercasey on the ladder, graciously provided to us by the IFC Security Team (who were also handing out post-it notes). @angiewong is there giving interviews as she was the coordinator of tonight’s event.

Photos from the Apple Store Hong Kong opening day I’ll have video up shortly. ...
Apple Store Hong Kong opens curtains and lets the sunshine in. They took the curtains off the Apple Store and are...
Videos from the Apple Store Hong Kong Press Day Spent the morning with the Apple fans and media checking...

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Scenes from the Hong Kong Apple Store in memory of Steve Jobs

Andrew — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:55:40 +0000

This was the scene at the Hong Kong Apple Store in IFC Mall. First flowers arrived (with the subsequent media mobbing the mourner). Tonight there will be an iVigil at 7:00PM where Apple fans will pay their respects.

Apple Store Hong Kong opens curtains and lets the sunshine in. They took the curtains off the Apple Store and are...
Videos from the Apple Store Hong Kong Press Day Spent the morning with the Apple fans and media checking...

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Apple Store Hong Kong video now available. Launch was a bit crazy.

Andrew — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:26:43 +0000

The video I made this morning at the Apple Store Launch. (note: Youtube still processing high quality HD video version).

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