Month: December 2008

Demotix – a new style wire agency

This is a good idea if they can make it work – although I doubt that the market is easy to break into, there are already lots of players there, and you need a lot of trust to build something like this.

Because we have links with major media buyers the world over, Demotix can broker your photos and videos to newspapers, magazines, TV channels and websites, multiple times and simultaneously.

Basic, non-exclusive rights to your photos will sell for anything between $150 and $3,000 USD.
Non-exclusive rights to your video: $500-1,000/minute.
Exclusive rights: whatever we can get. And some photos and videos can go for $100,000s.
In all cases, you get exactly 50%.
The boring details are here *Terms of Sale* and here *Terms of Business* but basically:

you retain the copyright
we broker them across all spaces
we split the fee

[From Demotix | The Street Wire]

Getting Xbox live to work on O2 broadband

The Student encountered a problem with getting Xbox LIve working properly on our home broadband (O2 – which we are extremely satisfied with btw.)

So I called their support line, and after being transferred to 2nd line support I was told to log in as SuperUser (see separate post about doing this) and issue the next command –

ip config natloopback=enabled

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The issue a “saveall” command.

So far this has not solved the problem – so I will have to do more tests (which they suggested) tomorrow.
btw. I found the original manual here – but be aware that O2 has changed the firmware.

Precision humidity and temperature sensor (SHT1x/7x)

This is a very detailed and clear article on how to use the SHTxx series temperature sensor (which I purchased through nuelectronics in the UK (follow the link for the full article):

Sensirion’s SHTxx is a digitally interfaced humidity and temperature sensor. Accurate humidity measurements usually require careful analog design, but the SHTxx moves all that complicated stuff into a single chip. Through-hole (SHT7x) and surface mount (SHT1x) versions are available, we used the surface mount SHT11 with +/-3% accuracy. We’ll show you how to use the SHTxx below. [From Parts: Precision humidity and temperature sensor (SHT1x/7x)]

Open Source mapping library for iPhone

This has the possibility of bootstrapping a host of location aware applications :

iphoneosm_20081224.jpg

Route-me is an Open Source (BSD license) mapping library for the iPhone. It’s written in native Objective C and can use the OpenStreetMap data layer, among others. If you’re an iPhone developer, this gives you an easy way to add high-quality mapping functionality, similar to that of the built in Google Maps client, to your own applications. There’s a discussion over on Slashdot of one such application, GPS Mission, which uses the route-me library to create a multiplayer location-based scavenger hunt.

This is pretty exciting—hopefully it will help enable a whole new class of location-aware apps. If you know of any other apps based on the route-me library, or if you have a good idea you’d like to share for a map based application, send us a line in the comments.

Route-me – Open Source iPhone-native Slippy Map
How To Make an App Using the Route-me Library

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this! [From Route-me – Open Source mapping library for iPhone]

Professor pioneers DIY adjustable glasses that do not need an optician

This is the kind of thinking I love – someone has found a lateral solution to a problem :

A-Zulu-Man-Wearing-Adapti-001
Inventor’s 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world’s poorest see better @ The Guardian…

Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device’s tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.

The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in News from the Future | Digg this! [From Professor pioneers DIY adjustable glasses that do not need an optician]