false Patent #247347349: a four-step process by which to clean up cat puke. 2010-01-08T12:04:16-06:00 10

Tweet: Patent #247347349: a four-step process...

1463 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7527052858 2010-01-08T13:00:32-06:00 false Took a sick day today. Looks like my cat decided to have a sick day, too. 2010-01-08T11:56:39-06:00 10

Tweet: Took a sick day today.

1459 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7526807363 2010-01-08T12:00:32-06:00 false <blockquote>Shared by Joseph <br> -- Joe says: wow, it actually works. --</blockquote> <div style="text-align:center"> </div> <div style="text-align:center"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-light-blue-optics-light-touch-600-headline-light-touch600.jpg" alt="" vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1"></div> <span style="float:right;margin-bottom:16px;margin-left:4px"></span> Ever heard of a small company called <a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/light%20blue%20optics">Light Blue Optics</a>? Probably not. But it's companies like LBO that make events like CES truly worthwhile. Tucked away in a small suite overshadowed by the million dollar spreads owned by industry giants like Samsung and Sony is a tiny startup looking to attract the attention of OEMs with its full-color holographic laser projection technology. The Windows CE-powered Light Touch represents the company's very first effort to create an interactive projector that allows users to interact with the displayed image as they would a modern touchscreen display. Despite our skepticism, we came away suitably surprised -- impressed even. Granted, our hands-on was performed in a lowly-lit room on par with the lighting you might find in a fine restaurant. Still, the 15 lumens were effective at lighting videos and the touch sensitivity was far more accurate than we expected -- so good that we were quickly typing out phrases on the QWERTY with few mistakes (admittedly taking a reasonable amount of care to strike the right "key"). The projector only supports single-touch at the moment though multi-touch is just a software tweak away. See the video after the break and prepare to be suitably amazed at watching a laser projector create a touchscreen display.<div><p><strong>Gallery: <a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/">Light Blue Optics Light Touch hands-on</a></strong></p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/2590865/"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-dsc_9364-light-touch-1262851453_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title=""></a><a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/2590864/"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-dsc_9366-light-touch-1262851452_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title=""></a><a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/2590863/"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-dsc_9367-light-touch-1262851450_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title=""></a><a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/2590862/"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-dsc_9369-light-touch-1262851449_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title=""></a><a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/light-blue-optics-light-touch-hands-on/2590861/"><img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/lbo-dsc_9372-light-touch-1262851448_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title=""></a></div><p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/light-blue-optics-light-touch-turns-any-surface-into-a-color-to/" rel="bookmark">Continue reading <em>Light Blue Optics' Light Touch turns any surface into a color touchscreen display (video hands-on)</em></a></p><p style="border:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding:5px;background:rgb(221, 221, 221) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;clear:both"><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/light-blue-optics-light-touch-turns-any-surface-into-a-color-to/">Light Blue Optics' Light Touch turns any surface into a color touchscreen display (video hands-on)</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.engadget.com">Engadget</a> on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:29:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.</p><h6 style="border:0pt none;margin:0pt;padding:0pt;clear:both;height:2px;font-size:1px"></h6><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/light-blue-optics-light-touch-turns-any-surface-into-a-color-to/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>   |   | <a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/19306533/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a> | <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/light-blue-optics-light-touch-turns-any-surface-into-a-color-to/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a> 2010-01-08T05:24:36-06:00 9 HTML

Light Blue Optics&#39; Light Touch turns any surface into a color touchscreen display (video hands-on)

1456 http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/light-blue-optics-light-touch-turns-any-surface-into-a-color-to/ 2010-01-08T00:00:34-06:00 false <blockquote>Shared by Joseph <br> -- Joe says: just LOOK at that thing! --</blockquote> <img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/skiff-shot02_enlg-reader-230.jpg" alt="" vspace="4" hspace="4" align="right" border="1">Ready for your Kindle alternative? Skiff might be it. <em>Might</em>. We had a chance to sit down with the team to go hands-on with the 11.5-inch e-Reader. As a device, the near final prototype was big pushing an impressive 1,600 x 1,200 resolution -- enough to stuff an entire page of the New York Times up front including advertisements and still maintain readability. Mind you, it's not an exact reproduction, content has been modified to account for advertisements which, for better or worse, are part of the Skiff publishing model. Fortunately, we found it impossible to differentiate between the locally served ads and those you're already accustomed to seeing inside your favorite newspaper. But as far as competition goes, Skiff isn't hedging its bets on a single device -- this is a publishing platform. As such, Skiff showed us a total of four different devices accessing its content: a color e-reader prototype as well as Skiff apps running on a Palm Pre, Viliv MID, and of course the Linux-based black and white e-reader launching sometime this year. They even promised an iPhone app as you'd expect with synchronization across all your devices (at least as many as the DRM will allow). Skiff tells us that an Android device is also in the works.<br> <br> Unfortunately, as a Kindle competitor, Skiff was not willing to discuss the extent of their content partners nor the number of publications (blogs, magazines, newspapers, and book categories are listed on the store) that will be available at launch. Nevertheless, the Skiff Store, we've been assured, will be full with plenty of subscription content and even a few apps like Sudoku and crossword puzzles. A la carte access to content will be available as well. <br> <br> Multimedia is also a differentiator with content augmented by full motion video available in the Skiff apps (seen running on the Viliv). In fact, the app immediately reminded us of those iSlab <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/17/mag-digital-magazine-concept-makes-e-readers-cower-with-envy-v/">content</a> <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/21/wired-shows-off-an-apple-tablet-formatted-copy-of-wired-on-a-fak/">demos</a> seen floating around the intertubes. Even the black and white e-reader was capable of playing back audio embedded in an issue of Esquire. Skiff was not willing to discuss their plans for text to speech with us today, however, we did learn that you can print documents to the Skiff over the network as a quick and easy way to move content to the device.<br> <br> The navigation buttons on the Skiff e-reader are not yet final and Skiff is still tweaking the touchpanel. Nevertheless, a small round dimple flanked by a pair of buttons and side-mounted "big wheel" coupled with the touchscreen interface were up to the task. The UI looked reasonable for skimming through large publications such as the Sunday edition of the New York Times and offers a search mechanism that works device wide or within the content you're viewing. Finger swipes applied to the resistive touchscreen worked as expected: swiping a finger left or right results in page turns while swipes up or down will increase or reduce font size, respectively. <br> <br> The launch will be US only at this point although international content will be available. Unfortunately, Skiff wouldn't allow any pictures or videos, we'll get those when we can.<p style="border:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding:5px;background:rgb(221, 221, 221) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;clear:both"><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/skiff-e-reader-hands-on-kindle-watch-out/">Skiff e-reader hands-on: watch out Amazon</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.engadget.com">Engadget</a> on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:53:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.</p><h6 style="border:0pt none;margin:0pt;padding:0pt;clear:both;height:2px;font-size:1px"></h6><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/skiff-e-reader-hands-on-kindle-watch-out/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>   |   | <a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/19307388/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a> | <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/skiff-e-reader-hands-on-kindle-watch-out/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a> 2010-01-08T05:17:20-06:00 9 HTML

Skiff e-reader hands-on: watch out Amazon

1457 http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/skiff-e-reader-hands-on-kindle-watch-out/ 2010-01-08T00:00:34-06:00 false skimming #CES coverage. Definitely looks to be a year of tablet computers and e-readers. Finally! 2010-01-07T23:14:53-06:00 10

Tweet: skimming #CES coverage. Definitely looks...

1458 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7507848181 2010-01-08T00:00:35-06:00 false RT @robolson: Twitter was crazy enough to let me act as the release engineer today. I never dreamed of deploying to so many servers in m ... 2010-01-07T22:00:40-06:00 10

Tweet: RT @robolson: Twitter was crazy...

1455 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7505469842 2010-01-07T23:00:27-06:00 false <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/assets_c/2010/01/GreatBritain-29136.html"><img src="http://www.boingboing.net/assets_c/2010/01/GreatBritain-thumb-633x819-29136.jpg" width="633" height="819" alt="GreatBritain.jpg" style="border:3px solid black"></a> Britain is unusually warm for its latitude because of the gulfstream. This week, however, the gulfstream is <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/6/822520/-Freak-Current-Takes-Gulf-Stream-to-Greenland">on vacation</a> in Greenland. So this is what Britain is like without the gulfstream. [<a href="http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/2010007-0107/GreatBritain.A2010007.1150.1km.jpg">NASA</a> via <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/88076/The-Big-Chill">Metafilter</a>]<br style="clear:both"> <br style="clear:both"> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b65bc028309b1d84655f068a237e607f&amp;p=1"><img alt="" style="border:0" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b65bc028309b1d84655f068a237e607f&amp;p=1"></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" src="http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~4/hUrbo7gsndI" height="1" width="1"> 2010-01-07T21:25:45-06:00 9 HTML

Britain without the gulfstream

1454 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/hUrbo7gsndI/britain-minus-the-gu.html 2010-01-07T23:00:26-06:00 false Contemplating launching an updated "War of the Worlds" using Twitter rather than radio. 2010-01-07T17:38:42-06:00 10

Tweet: Contemplating launching an updated "War...

1453 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7496798359 2010-01-07T18:00:35-06:00 false Earthquake today. Time to go to Epicenter for coffee. 2010-01-07T15:48:05-06:00 10

Tweet: Earthquake today. Time to go...

1452 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7493390506 2010-01-07T16:00:32-06:00 false RT @rich_urwin: #sfearthquake News of earthquake travels faster on Twitter than the shockwave itself. Nice. 2010-01-07T12:52:16-06:00 10

Tweet: RT @rich_urwin: #sfearthquake News of...

1450 http://twitter.com/joem/statuses/7488156652 2010-01-07T13:00:36-06:00