HeGeeks.com » Technology

I Was Just About to Replace my Nokia 5800

Marko — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:17:22 +0000

I’ve been thinking to buy a new phone for a few weeks now. At the moment I have a Nokia 5800 Xpress Music. Well, I can’t say it’s a bad phone, it’s got pretty much everything I need – but it doesn’t looks as nice as newer phones and the OS wasn’t working exceptionally well with the touch screen.

Then friend of mine who’s in the phone business called me and said there’s a new firmware out. I was like – Yea? What did they change? – They added kinetic scrolling, you know, like in iPhone and new home screen and… That sounded cool, so I just updated it. Funny Nokia didn’t make any release notes or change log, so people had to figure out what’s changed by themselves. This is what I’ve found out by myself and online.

Nokia 5800 Firmware v40 change log:

Kinetic scrolling – yay about time!
Touch screen more responsive – it actually feels more responsive
Slide to unlock or accept on call – I wonder where they got that idea *cough* iPhone anyone? *cough*
Quick contacts on home screen – that is cool
A few new icons
If you rotate the phone horizontally, it automatically activates the QWERTY keyboard
Real Player Updated
New contacts & music widget
Improved stability
Improvements to the home screen
Ovi Contacts installed
Added phone switch option – to transfer contacts to a new phone

It’s not really a much better phone now, but it’s a bit more fun and I’ll keep it for a while longer. Anyway, I’ll go play with my phone now.

Find the Name of the Song Without Knowing the Lyrics

Marko — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:03:22 +0000

I bet it has happened to you too. You heard a song somewhere, it got stuck in your head, but you didn’t know the lyrics or the name of the song. And you couldn’t get the tune out of your head.

Finding this song on search engines would be impossible, because they require you to enter a few words from the lyrics. How do you then identify the name of that song?

Well, for this purpose here are some music recognition services that can help you discover song names without having to know the lyrics. You can use them to identify music playing from the radio, TV, internet or CD.

Find song names by humming, whistling or singing

Midomi – If you’ve got a song stuck in your head, just grab a mic and hum or whistle the tune for about 10 seconds and Midomi will then show you a list of matching songs. You can also sing or play a part of the song.

Identify the song with help of other people

WhatZatSong – When computers fail to find the song, you can count on help of other people. Record a short sample of the tune online (either hum or whistle or sing) and people will listen and tell you what song it is. The results won’t come instantly, but you can provide more details about the song like the language in which it is sung or the music style, and chances of someone recognizing the song are much higher.

Name My Tune – Works similarly to WhatZatSong, but doesn’t look as cool. Record a short sample of the song and when someone recognizes it, they will send you an email to notify you about it.

Identify songs with your mobile phone

Shazam – Shazam is a mobile application that you may use to find song names from your iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android or your Nokia S60 phone. Simply install Shazam, hold your phone towards the audio source and Shazam will identify the music.

MusicID – Use your mobile phone to identify music you hear on the radio, look up lyrics, download songs, read artist biographies, and more.

Like Shazam, MusicID works only with pre-recorded music.

Record a short clip to identify the music

AudioTag – Upload a short audio fragment or an entire song, the robot analyzes it and tells you what song it is. Your audio fragment can be in almost any file format and of almost any quality- it can be an MP3 file downloaded from the internet or a short recording made with your old tape recorder and stored as a low-quality .wav file.

Play the song on virtual keyboard online

Musipedia – You can find and identify a tune even if the melody is all you know. You can play it on a Java script piano keyboard or Flash based piano keyboard, whistle it to the computer, or drag the mouse.

MelodyCatcher – Simply use your mouse to enter the melody with a simple Java based onscreen keyboard, click search, and MelodyCatcher will show you a list of matching songs. You don’t need to enter the full melody, the first 5-7 notes will usually be enough.

Watch Online Videos Distraction Free

Marko — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:47:39 +0000

I’ve stumbled upon this cool website today called quietube. To watch web videos without the comments and crap, just drag the button from their website to your browser’s bookmarks bar. Currently they support YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Viddler, and Vimeo, with more to come.

On any of the supported video pages, click the bookmark button to watch distraction free. It will open the video in a new window without all the crap around it. And you can then make short URLs too, to send the quietube version to your friends. And you can change background to black which is, in my opinion, more relaxing to the eyes.

Weird things people have built for Twitter

Marko — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:58:01 +0000

I’m pretty sure you know what Twitter is. But if you lived under the rock till now, then let me explain you what it is. Twitter is a microblogging service where you share what you’re doing with the world in 140 characters or less. Simple, isn’t it? OK, let’s get to the point. Most people use Twitter for social things, meeting friends, chatting and whatnot, some use it for self promotion, marketing and there are some people who modify or hack actual devices to use it’s API. I have shortly explained what is Twitter’s API in this post.

Guys at the Makezine have created a Kill-a-Watt to work with Twitter and they call it Tweet-a-Watt. They have modified a Kill-a-Watt power meter to tweet the daily KWH consumed to the user’s Twitter account. Useful? Who cares, it’s cool and geekish.

Over at Botanicalls they came up with a plant water sensor that tells you when you have to water your plants. The Botanicalls system and applications use networked open source hardware and software to allow plants to communicate with people on people’s terms – using the telephone, text messages or Twitter. This could actually be usefull. The gizmo will also thank you when you water it, and even scold you for overwatering. This device costs $99 and only comes in kit form and requires assembly.

RoBe:Do created a robot that allows you to send an order for fresh popcorn via Twitter and have it delivered to the couch. It’s quite pricy, tho. It costs around $1,500. Check out this video to see the robot in action.

Roland Crosby came up with Laundryroom Twitter Bot, which tells how many washers and dryers are free.

If you use TiVo, then you should definitely get TwiVo by Darren Cloutie. You guessed it right, it’s a hack for TiVo devices, so they send out a tweet whenever something new has been recorded.

And last, but not least. A guy called Ryan Rose created a washing machine Twitter hack. The washing machine is programmed to send text message notifications over Twitter when clothes are done. See the video here.

Did you make any gizmos that work with Twitter? Do you know anyone who did? Leave a comment.

A glimpse ahead – Microsoft imagines 2019

Marko — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:55:48 +0000

Found this interesting video over at downloadsquad.com. Microsoft has put together a concept video showing what the world could look like in another 10 years. Looks like Microsoft got big plans with their Surface technology.

What do you think?

Blog Relaunch and Plans for 2010

Download and buy videos from YouTube

Marko — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:58:04 +0000

Google has been trying to find effective ways to monetize YouTube, paid downloads seems to be a solution.

As posted on YouTube blog, YouTube’s partners can now offer their videos for paid downloads. YouTube is testing an option that gives video owners the ability to permit downloading of their videos from YouTube. Partners could choose to offer their video downloads for free or for a small fee paid through Google Checkout.

The videos that were found so far are available for around $1. Downloads will only be available as MP4 files.

New interactive YouTube game

Marko — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:03:21 +0000

YouTube’s ability to embed links and annotations taken to extreme. It’s a 30-level “Spot the Difference” game, the 2009 Oscars Interactive Photo Hunt!

YouTube user copyrighthater has created a game by highlighting areas of the frame and linking those to different videos.

A recap of most of the nominees for the 2009 Oscars in the first ever interactive photo hunt on YouTube! Start playing by watching the video.

Can we expect more complex YouTube games in the future?

Schientists achieved teleportation milestone

Marko — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:42:18 +0000

I don’t understand quantum mechanics or physics, so i can’t really explain how, but somehow scientists managed to teleport information over a distance of one meter.

We’re one step closer to the Star Trek teleportation, yes! Well, don’t get too excited and don’t start packing, cause you ain’t getting teleported to that dream island anytime soon. But maybe some day our children will be able to use this technology.

Found at livescience.com.

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