chipmason

I downloaded the sample textbook from the new iBooks Textbooks, just to check it out.  Bottomline: this wasn't ready to ship.

Lets take a look: I will point out that this was extremely buggy, as it took several restarts of iBooks and the iPad to even get these few pictures, as the book would crash frequently.

 

In any case, here is what you see when you open the E.O.Wilson "Life on Earth":

 

Very promising, and as you can see, it takes a while to load. When you open it, you get this: not very encouraging:

 

 

But, turn the book in Landscape, and WOW!:

 

 

My 12 yr old saw this squirrel sitting outside, and asked to borrow the 'big lens' (70-200mm) and my DSLR. I told her she should try to sneek outside so that she gets a clear shot. 

Seems like she did, amazing job I think.

I love Screen Sharing on my Mac. I have an iMac that sits upstairs, and being an iMac, isn't very portable. Often I have fairly large photo rendering or export jobs running, and I prefer to be downstairs with the family rather than sitting by the warm glow of the iMac screen. With Screen Sharing, I could stay downstairs, and then it was a simple matter of grabbing my wife's Macbook, and starting a screen sharing session, where I can check progress or see if something needs attention.

We have had a pair of Red Tail hawks from two seasons keeping the rodents down in the backyard. But this year, they were joined by a pair of Barred Owls, who are spooky in their ability to silently fly overhead, as well as make a god awful racket at night. But we just noticed that these two now have two kids, for now four Barred Owls. I tried to get some pictures as they began to get active at dusk, so the image quality is limited due to the light and my cropping. Here we have Mom (the largest), Dad and the two juveniles, who I call Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

I suppose the FBI ran out of fbi.gov email addresses so this poor 'agent' had to use a Polish email address and a gmail address. Not only that, but he must not be the only such Mr Mueller, as he is number 23  on the Polish email server and number 14 on gmail.  Seems this person is far more creative in his emails than in his choice of email addresses.

Today, Sir Richard Branson, American sailor, pilot and explorer Chris Welsh, and submarine designer Graham Hawkes launched Virgin Oceanic, a project to explore "the last frontiers of our own Blue Planet: the very bottom of our seas." .

[ Video link | image: click for large]

 

The project includes a partnership with Google: "Using their mapping technology, Google hopes to chronicle the dives as they happen and share discoveries, footage and record breaking achievements with the world."

Full launch announcement follows, along with more artist's conceptual images of the submarine and accompanying catamaran. Click each image for large.

 

 

 

 

 

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"Virgin Oceanic will expand the reach of human exploration on our planet. By promoting and utilising new technology Virgin Oceanic will aid human kind's ability to explore our Oceans, assist science in understanding our eco system and raise awareness of the challenges facing our Oceans."  Sir Richard Branson April 2011

 

Tuesday 5 April, Newport Beach, CA:  

Sir Richard Branson and explorer Chris Welsh today announced plans to take a solo piloted submarine to the deepest points in each of the world's five oceans - the first time such a feat has ever been attempted.   

 

More men have walked on the moon than have explored the depths of our planet - many more men.  Virgin Oceanic will see the world's only submarine capable of taking a human being to such extreme depths make five dives over a two-year period, set up to 30 Guinness World Records and, by working with leading scientific institutions, open the eyes of the world to what lies in vast areas of the oceans for the first time in history.
The Virgin Oceanic Submarine and her pilots will travel deeper and explore further than any one in history.

Each dive will be piloted by different commanders with Chris Welsh diving to the Mariana Trench (36,201ft) with Sir Richard as back up pilot, and Sir Richard piloting to the Puerto Rico Trench (28,232ft) - the deepest trench in the Atlantic, which has never been explored before - with Chris Welsh acting as back up.  The Virgin Oceanic sub has the ability to 'fly' underwater for 10km at depth on each of the five dives and to fully explore this unknown environment. 

 

Five Dives, Five Oceans, Two Years, One Epic Adventure

Mariana Trench                   Pacific Ocean                        11,033m     36,201ft

Puerto Rico Trench             Atlantic Ocean                         8,605m      28,232ft

Diamantina Trench             Indian Ocean                           8,047m      26,401ft

South Sandwich Trench      Southern Ocean                      7,235m      23,737ft

Molloy Deep                        Arctic Ocean                           5,608m      18,399ft

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believe that the deepest point of the Mariana Trench is 36,201ft - a depth not yet reached by humankind. Some experts believe that it will be impossible to reach a depth much below the current record of 35,911ft (set by a submersible that didn't have the capability to manoeuvre or explore) because of millions of year's worth of biological 'soup' at the bottom of the trench.  They may well be correct but we simply don't know - with Virgin Oceanic's submarine's capability to explore at the bottom of the trench we aim to find out and, if possible, go deeper.  The Puerto Rican trench is the deepest point in the Atlantic and no one has attempted to explore it before now.
 

The Virgin Oceanic submarine represents a transformational technological advance in submarine economics and performance. The submarine provides the currently unequalled capability to take humans to any depth in the oceans and to truly explore. It utilises the latest in composite technology and a completely unique flying wing to literally fly within the Ocean environment; creatures living here such as dolphins, whales and rays have shown us this winged approach is the best and most elegant way to range the seas. The submarine is many times less expensive to manufacture and operate than any of its less capable counterparts and is in harmony with its environment.

The submarine was originally commissioned by Sir Richard's close friend and fellow adventurer Steve Fossett who had intended to complete the first solo dive to the depths of the Mariana Trench. Sir Richard intends to finish what his friend started and then go on to help explore and unlock the wonders of the Oceans still unknown to humankind or science. 

 

Sir Richard Branson on the launch of Virgin Oceanic:  "What if I were to tell you about a planet, inhabited by 'intelligent' beings that had, in the 21st Century, physically explored 0% of its deepest points and mapped only 3% of its oceans by unmanned craft, when 70% of that planet's surface was made up of water.  Then I tried to convince you that only 10% of the life forms inhabiting that unknown world, are known to those on the surface - you'd think I'd fallen asleep watching the latest sci-fi blockbuster!  Then you discover that planet is Earth...   

 

With space long ago reached by man, and commercial spaceflight tantalisingly close, the last great challenge for humans is to reach and explore the depths of our planet's oceans.  The submarine will travel to the deepest trenches in our oceans and will allow its pilot not only to reach these depths but to explore for 10 kilometres on each of the dives.

Virgin Oceanic is working with some of the most eminent scientific institutions in the world to collate data and catalogue life forms that will never have been seen before by human eyes and are unknown to science. The ability to go deep and then explore has been a dream of these great Oceanic Institutes - that dream is now close to becoming reality.     

We are also proud to be partnering with Google.  Using their mapping technology, Google hopes to chronicle the dives as they happen and share discoveries, footage and record breaking achievements with the world.

 

We may well set a few Guinness World Records while we're at it - up to 30 I believe!  Each dive will be the world's first solo dive to the bottom of the five deepest trenches in the world.  So there's 5 just to start with!  We will discover a whole new world.  A world full of undiscovered species and for those who dream, a world where Spanish galleons have lain unplundered for centuries!"

 

 

more on Boing Boing....

 

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I was a big fan of Lala, and was somewhat disappointed when Apple acquired them and retired the service. Since I have a collection of home computers, work computers and mobile devices, something like Lala was great to enjoy my music on whatever machine or wherever I was. Copying all my iTunes music to the work laptop, isn't something I am interested in doing.

Of course, Pandora and other services have taken much of my "business" since, but when I read of the new Amazon Cloud Services and Cloud Player, I thought I would check it out. Especially since I tend to buy music most often from Amazon rather than iTunes, initially because of the DRM, but now mostly because I prefer it. I do use iTunes to manage all my music and video, so my interest in the new Amazon services was how it integrates with the Amazon MP3 Downloader, which is a slick app for Mac or Windows that does a nice job of automatically downloading Amazon MP3 purchases, and sync them to iTunes.

So, I bought an album from Amazon, as they have a promotion that provides 20GB free if you purchase a album of MP3s. I bought the $2.99 Miles Davis: The Birth of Cool remastered album, and rather than popping up the MP3 Downloader, Amazon now gave me the option to move the music to my Cloud:

So, do I choose to download or save to the Cloud? Turns out, the best thing to do is save to the Cloud. Otherwise, you would need to upload to the Cloud. This is where the nice integration with the MP3 Downloader comes in. From the Cloud Player, click the 'Download' button, and it launches the Amazon MP3 Downloader, which automates both download and iTunes import! Perfect:

The Amazon Cloud and Cloud Player also allow you to upload files, including MP3, and AAC. To do this , you need to download the MP3 Uploader, which sadly is an Air app. But, no harm, no foul, it works, and immediately begins scanning your iTunes library, finding things like Podcasts I would not want to upload:

It has a basic interface for selecting music to upload, but sadly, it recognizes neither FLAC, nor Apple Lossless files:

Finally, once you have your music uploaded, the Cloud Player is very serviceable:

And the Cloud Player is just a customized view of the Cloud Drive, where you also can see your movies, documents and music. Not sure how this will evolve, but it has the potential to be a Dropbox competitor as well.