Nerd Stalker

Guest Post by Christopher Gil Google & Client Blog “These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise.” So said the late Apple visionary and driving force, Steve Jobs. Yet a walk down one of the main drags of San Francisco’s Mission District reveals two worlds attempting to coexist. At 24th and Valencia, scores of young tech workers clutch strongly brewed coffees as they wait for the bus to take them to the Silicon Valley offices where the world’s next great thing is being developed. Few conversations are had, with most focused on answering their twentieth text on an already-overworked smartphone, even though it’s just 8am. A short two blocks away on the corner of 22nd Street, a line just as long has formed at the neighborhood Social Security office. A disheveled woman in a wheelchair fronts the queue, already clutching the pen she’ll need to fill out the reams of paperwork that can possibly garner enough federal funds to keep her–one of...

This week’s Nerd Stalker Show Picks: DNA Testing Startup 23andMe Hits A Snag As FDA Shuts Down Sales Of Home Testing Kit | TechCrunch http://tcrn.ch/1c9rWYx Jury grants photographer $1.2M over Getty and AFP’s use of Twitter pics bit.ly/1aPMtQw via @GigaOMTech Google admits that Youtube/Google Plus integration increased ASCII porn, spam and trolling - Boing Boing http://bit.ly/1aZJ5mj Rings Turn Sign Language Into Spoken Word To Help The Deaf Communicate bit.ly/I4uE6g via @PSFK Woof to Wash: Bark-activated washing machine lets service dogs do the dirty work http://bit.ly/1aZKOIt Restaurant on Google Glasser: Man-child stinking up the joint feedly.com/e/3OsqKnpg via @CNET Nerd Stalker’s Speed Round: H-P Will Replace Verizon in Hosting HealthCare.gov Website (Wall Street Journal) http://bit.ly/1aZKedD Get Rewarded for Being Social with Your Purchases This Season | Nerd Stalker bit.ly/196q7aH CyanogenMod Installer Application Removed f...

I introduce to you the Graviton G6 high-end professional driving simulator which lets you experience real forces of an F1 car. The G6 is a head mounted force feedback interface. Simply put it is a driving simulator which lets you feel the forces of the car. They have found that most of the force is felt on the head that led them to design the G6, to give you an immersive feel of the virtual vehicle. This is because the weight of the head makes the neck muscles work harder, and this is also felt by the inner ear which is the main sensor of balance and movement of the human body. By not releasing a whole body solution they are able to reduce the price, offer larger force feedback, be more accurate with faster response time, and it can be integrated in any racing cockpit. They did extensive prototyping with professional and regular drivers. They found that most of the race car drivers did not like racing games because they did not provide enough realism compared to their ac...

‘ MICILE ’ (pronounced ‘miss-ull’ ) stands for “ Mobile Computing Unleashed”. MICILE is an open-source LINUX based Operating System (OS) and Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for tablet computers that enable you to develop native applications in PYTHON scripting language.

Nerd Stalker interview with Google Software Engineer, Neil Fraser at O'reilly Maker Faire. Blockly is a web-based, graphical programming editor. Users can drag blocks together to build an application. No typing required.

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like from the perspective of a frisbee? Well now you have the answer, Frisbeecam , and the best part is they share the plans how you can build your own too. Nerd Stalker interview at O'reilly Bay Area Maker Faire.

Nerd Stalker interviews Michael Oxley, Founder of Foc.us , Foc.us is a headset that passes a small electric current through the prefrontal cortex of the wearer and claims increased performance. We've seen a great deal of interest from biohackers however Michael insists that although there may be other use cases for Foc.us they are squarely targeting gamers. I got to try the foc.us out at the O'reilly Bay Area Maker Faire and was very impressed with the actual sensation I felt across my brain note my odd serious stare is due to the sensation being in effect. I can't speak to increased focus as it was a quick test and not a full use case however we do plan on getting a review unit and giving our readers our thoughts when that happens in July. What we really love about the unit is the price ($249), Michael did say that the unit is aggressively priced on purpose and the fact that they are not seeking additional funding gives the founders the flexibility to make this smart b...

Nerd Stalker interviews High Schooler Violet Replicon at the Oreilly Bay Area Maker Faire to talk about the her freshman transportation project, a levitating train!