To append to my last comment
May 31, 2007 Announcements
Earlier I talked about the romethean Board and I believe that it is an advancement for an Inner City public school in Maryland, but I thnk like before that they are trying to get rid of an investment before this multi-touch technology comes on board. Microsoft has a new product in the works called Microsoft Surface.
Currently they only have a few designs but they are the ones actually putting the technology to good use.The main reason is for the type of sensories used in the display. Instead of having a projector shine in your face on an oversized touchpad, its a projector incased in a box shining behind a semi-transperant glass or plastic surface.It’s pretty much what everybody has been wishing would happen for computer interfaces for a long time and iit has just not in the mainstream. It’s gonna be crazy by for Microsoft 2008-2009.
Promethean Activboards
May 25, 2007 Hardware
Thursday I was fortunate enough to attend a staff training session for Baltimore City’s Public School newest investment, The Promethean ActivBoard. This Activboard is basically a rojector screen which has touch sensing functions. In other words, if your display your computer using a projector on this Promethean board you can use the screen as your input device instead of a mouse. This capability is achieved by connecting the oversized touchpad to your pc or laptop via USB or Bluetooth. When you shine your projector to the screen the installedsoftwareruns a configuration diagnostic to adjust and regulate the height and positioning of the projector to the screen. Once this is completed you can Use your machine on the board with a projector without a mouse just a pen sized stylus. You still need a keyboard but this is specifically for presentation in the office or in this case schools. Of course this isnt new technology but rather innovative concept of efficient use with our current technology. Its still a little annoying as a device because you still need a keyboard and the bright light from the projector can get annoying but its nice. I rather see the Multi-Touch Interaction Experiment implemented among all systems, especially linux based pc’s. If you dont click the link to see for yourself this Project is taking the next evolutionary test to the Promethean Activboard. Hopefully the Staff in these elementary schools take advantage of it. Or else reasonably good and expenseive technology gone down the drain like the Mobile laptop basestations for the kids. The machine’s only as strog as the users ability to manipulate it.
Free Download Manager
May 20, 2007 Software
I have been using this software for a long time now maybe about a year. Its called Free Download Manager. It performs just like any other download manager you may be familar with. If you don’t know what that means, a download manager handles multiple downloads from given http or ftp servers, giving the user the option of prioritizing and categorizing each download. It attaches itself to firefox and I think IE also but I don’t use IE so i’m not sure. But anyways they are asking users for their users to do a little bit of promotion by adding a link to there blog, personal site, or social site. Thats the least I can do for them since its free right? Right. So go on head and download it if your a big bandwidth consumer but not illegal stuff because you may want to choose another program for that. But yeah Free Downlaod Manager. Take That, Take That, Take That.
