Run your Android apps on your PC with Bluestacks

The BlueStacks app player for running Android apps on Windows has taken a major step forward today with the release of its first beta, which can run even graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs.

The BlueStacks beta (download) leverages a new, patent-pending technology that the company has developed called LayerCake, which does two things necessary for running Android apps on Windows. First, it powers the app on hardware that it wasn’t originally intended to run on. That’s basically the ARM to x86 conversion which runs the apps, and it comes with the blessing of one of AMD’s head honchos.

“LayerCake is a disruptive technology that enables PC manufacturers to bring the best of the Android ecosystem to their customers. We are excited to work with BlueStacks to make the emerging Android mobile apps market part of the broader computing arena,” Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Content, Applications and Solutions at AMD, said in BlueStacks’ statement announcing the new beta.

LayerCake also includes hardware graphics acceleration that wasn’t available in last year’s BlueStacks alpha. This means that it uses your PC’s graphics card to make graphics-intensive apps, including Android NDK games like Air Attack HD, run more smoothly:

Well, what is Arduino ?

Arduino is an open-source platform for microprocessor projects, or as the Arduino website puts it:

“Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.”

Basically its a little CPU that you can program in C, and easily attach servos and sensors to. The open-source nature means there’s a wealth of example code and libraries out there to modify for your own use.

Available in the UK from oomlout for around £50

So what do you get ?

• Arduino Prototyping Bundle (Arduino Uno board (328), breadboard & acrylic holder)
• 75 Piece Jumper Wire Bundle
• Printed 29 page Experimenter’s Guide
• 11+1 Breadboard Layout Sheets
• USB Cable
• Multi-compartment Plastic Storage Box
• 9v Battery – Arduino Adapter
• Loads of components
  • 5mm Red LEDs (x10)
  • 5mm Green LEDs (x10)
  • 10mm Red LED (x1)
  • Toy Motor (x1)
  • Mini Servo Motor (x1)
  • 8-Bit Shift Register (74HC595) (x1)
  • Piezo Element (x1)
  • Pushbuttons (x2)
  • Potentiometer (10k) (x1)
  • Photo Resistor (x1)
  • Temperature Sensor (TMP36) (x1)
  • Relay (5v DPDT) (x1)
  • Transistors (2N222A) (x2)
  • Resistors (560 Ohm x25, 2.2k Ohm x3, 10k Ohm x3)
  • Diodes (1N4001) (x2)

The manual goes through 11 projects, from a simple blinking LED to using shift registers and relays, as well as giving a brief overview of how to program for the board and some more complicated tasks after you’ve built each of the individual projects (such as making the blinking LED fade instead).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_-MtAFwZw

How to bypass the Wikipedia blackout

Here is a very simple way that will allow you to bypass the Wikipedia blackout

As you may well have experienced today, Wikipedia has blacked out its English language content in protest of a proposed change in US online copyright laws (see below for Wikipedia’s statement.)

However, there is a very simple way that will allow you to bypass the blackout.

Here’s how you do it.

Simply  add  ?banner=none to the address in the address bar:

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy shows the blacked out page:

So we simply type ?banner=none in the address bar at the top and press enter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy?banner=none  returns you to wikipedia’s normal page:

Enjoy !

Polaroid Pogo and iPhone (Jailbroken!)   

The Polaroid Pogo printer is a tiny handheld bluetooth photo printer. You can take a picture on your phone, and wirelessly print a photo to it.

Unfortunately Apple does not support OBEX printing which this printer uses. After some research and a bit of patience I found the answer I was looking for.

The program through Cydia called iBlueNova solved my problem. I am now able to print through Bluetooth to my pogo printer.

-This tutorial will show you how to get printing with your iPhone to the Pogo printer.

OK, so I bought a new camera:

The Fujifilm FinePix HS10 is a DSLR-style camera with a massive 30x optical zoom lens and 10 megapixel CMOS sensor. Offering a focal range of 24-720mm, the Fujifilm HS10’s 30x lens has a twist-barrel manual zoom control and triple image stabilization to help reduce camera shake. The FinePix HS10’s Back Side Illuminated CMOS sensor offers a 200% increase in sensitivity over a conventional CMOS sensor. The HS10 also offers 10 frames-per-second high speed continuous shooting at maximum resolution, full HD movie mode (1080i) with stereo sound, a Super High Speed Movie function to freeze the action, 3” tilting up or down LCD screen and an electronic viewfinder.

Obligatory flower shots:



Large 720mm (30x) zoom means you can shoot for the moon -literally !

Today is World Backup Day

Well we have a day for just about everything else  – why should Backups be forgotten ?

World Backup Day (WBD) was proposed about a week ago by some members of Reddit, the social bookmarking Web site, and has caught on in the way things do online: A Web site was created within hours and there’s already a dedicated Twitter account.

More importantly, WBD is supported by a handful of organizations who are using the day to make special offers and product announcements.

WBD’s timing one day before April 1 isn’t coincidental, and nobody should be made an April’s Fool if their hard drive dies or they accidentally wipe 10 years of family vacation photos. However, those behind WBD are keen to point out that aim of the day is to raise awareness about backup, and not simply remind people to do so. After all, backing up should be done every week or even every day.

Sadly, backup is one of those dull and monotonous tasks that few of us take seriously.

A survey last year showed that:

• almost 90 percent of home PC users don’t do regular backups,
• around 67 percent had lost data because of it.

Another survey suggested that one third of home users don’t even backup at all !

As for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), a survey from Symantec earlier this year showed that around half don’t have a disaster recovery plan should catastrophic data loss occur, and only half of SMBs surveyed back up their data weekly. Only 23 percent back up daily.

There are essentially three ways to backup data when it comes to workstations:
to an external hard disk (such as a network-attached storage device),
to a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray disc,
or to using an online cloud storage provider.

Some of the best:

Dropbox – As well as syncing your data across PCs, it also backs up to dropbox’s online servers

dropbox provides 2GB for free, or up to 100GB for a yearly fee

LiveDrive – No storage limits here, livedrive offers unlimited backups and you can also install it on unlimited computers,

for just £10 /per year from some resellers on ebay (e.g. this one)  it’s  a no brainer.

Forget 3D glasses.

Both the LG Optimus 3D  and HTC EVO 3D have thrown their hats into the ring with the Nintendo 3DS, offering a full 3D effect without needing to wear any 3D glasses.

Both devices can take their own 3D pictures and video with dual stereoscopic 5MP 3D rear cameras and 1.3MP front cameras, and powered by 1.2Ghz processors and 1Gb of RAM.

HD Video recording is at 1080p for 2D, and 720p for 3D.

Panasonic SD SDHC Camcorder

We all know the horror – accidentally deleting photos from memory cards.

While there are many file-recovery programs out there to get your files and photos back, when similar happened to me with a SDHC camcorder, none of the programs I tried would find any video.

The 16GB SD card in question had been full of video, then formatted and a further 3GB of footage recorded on.

The usual suspects Ontrack EasyRecovery and PC FileInspector failed here, not showing any previous footage other than the current 3GB.

At the stage of giving up, I found panasonic’s software (though probably works with any AVCHD / SDHC SD card based camcorder.

Lo and behold,  despite the oddly translated english in the menus and the fact that an initial scan found nothing – I ended up with a directory containing 15GB of .MTS files after 30 minutes of crunching.

You can get Panasonic’s recovery software below:

Panasonic SDHC recovery [ 3.6MB]

This seems to be a great deal at the moment at amazon (and elsewhere)

Around £40 for a 500GB portable usb hard drive emblazoned with a Michael Jackson “This is it” logo:

500GB portable hard drive – includes pre-loaded full length movie

Luxurious colour and elegant pattern – Sony Pictures special edition

Premium materials – hi-glossy finish and leather-like material

Compact size and streamline shape

AutoBackup and SafetyKeyTM – SecretZoneTM encrypts data on a virtual drive

Available at £39.99 @ Amazon.co.uk

It also comes with the movie preinstalled on the drive.

Pictures of the drive with the included sleeve case:

This external drive is actually currently cheaper than the price of an internal drive,

but opening it up, instead of a standard SATA drive, there is a non standard drive with a usb connector soldered to it:

It’s still a bargain of course, but don’t buy one if you intend to open it up to use the internal drive inside your laptop !