Author: Jake

Our new team members, Raymond and Tony, have been busy in their short time with us, and they’re embracing the AppsLab way. What way is that you ask? Since the beginning, we’ve always started with an idea and moved quickly to build something conceptual to see how and if the idea works. Connect began life… Read More

A while back, I promised some details on the Google Now TV Card I found accidentally. I was watching TV via an HDTV antenna and happened to pop open Google Now for some reason or another. Now showed me this card: Freaky, right? I dismissed it, but my curiosity was peaked. So, I did some… Read More

Did you know that Paul (@ppedrazzi) and his lovely wife and children were on Shark Tank? If you hurry, you can watch their episode on Hulu. If you decide to wait, they appear in Season 5 Episode 10. Paul and family are the very first segment, so you won’t have to watch the entire episode,… Read More

Busy times lately here at the ‘Lab. We’ve grown from a small band of three to six in the past six weeks. Joining our happy little crew are Osvaldo, whom we were lucky to find on our adventure to Mexico, Raymond, a friend of Anthony’s from Taleo, and Tony, whom I’ve known for many years.… Read More

I love a good pun. This way off-topic, even for me, but I can’t pass up not one, but two Sriracha stories. As background, this is Sriracha, beloved by The Oatmeal and multitudes of others, including yours truly. Dare I call it “the Cadillac of hot sauces.” First, there’s a profile of David Tran, h/t… Read More

I like Google Now, and although it’s not a fixture in my daily device life, I it use pretty often, and it just keeps getting smarter and more useful. Case in point, a couple weeks ago, I got my first Activity summary card, or at least, I noticed it for the first time. Pretty interesting… Read More

For the nostalgic readers out there, I found the install disks for Windows NT 4.0 in my desk last week. I thought it would be fun to spin up a VM for old time’s sake, but that idea will take some doing. Stay tuned. If nothing else, I’ll keep these as a history lesson to… Read More

Traveling a lot lately, which means I’ve had time to sit and observe people in airports. In today’s world, this is a great research opportunity for mobile devices. I’m a huge fan of anecdotal evidence, and I like to watch users in the wild to see what devices they use. Numbers can tell you a… Read More

This is just plain awesome. From kotte.org: Steven Hawking came up with a simple and clever way of seeing if time travel is possible. On June 28, 2009, he threw a party for time travellers from the future…but didn’t advertise it until after the party was already over. Usually, I’d be all over this type of story,… Read More

For some reason, I’m reminded of a lottery commercial that ran in my hometown in the 80s. The refrain was “Look, there goes another winner,” over and over; I guess the subliminal messaging has attached itself to other things in my mind. Anyway, been busy lately, so here’s a recap of some stuff that I’ve… Read More

Even though sailing isn’t my thing, it was impossible to avoid getting swept up by last week’s boat race. Possibly lost in all the drama is the amount of technology these boats and race teams use to help them win. Check out this video that highlights all the technology out on the water and how… Read More

You may have 99 problems, but finding a contest to show off your coding chops during Oracle OpenWorld won’t be one of them. You’ll have two from which to choose, the Oracle Fusion Cloud Developer Challenge or the Applications Express Developer Challenge. Or hey, why not do both? I guess because of our challenge exploits last year, Noel (@noelportugal)… Read More

Sounds like a line from some dystopian future movie, but surprise, it’s a real question, i.e. where can I see the fantastic and amazing dueling robot arms? If you’re attending Oracle OpenWorld next week, you can find the robotic arms, controlled by the Leap Motion, at the following venues and times: 2013 OPN Exchange &… Read More

I told you, we need more robots. A while back, Misha (@mishavaughan) asked us to build something fun. So, we decided to put our new-ish Leap Motion controllers to good use to control robotic arms, specifically the OWI 535 with the USB interface, because why not. Here you have Anthony (@anthonslai) and Noel (@noelportugal) dueling with… Read More

I keep saying this, but if you read here enough, you’ll recognize that I tend to repeat myself. Noel (@noelportugal) pointed me to this “60 Minutes” segment from January of this year called “Are robots hurting job growth?” It’s an interesting segment to me, mostly because it showcases new (to me) uses for robots in… Read More

For those so-inclined, here are some design-related goodies I found recently. Enjoy. Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you This is a great read. We’ve all run into counter-intuitive features that seem designed to confuse. Although I like to think the best of humanity, in some cases, confusion is intentional, and this post… Read More

This week featured big news for smartwatches with the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Gear, Qualcomm Toq and Sony SmartWatch 2. These watches are all essentially smartphone accessories, but in the event that you want an independently smart timepiece, the Omate TrueSmart Kickstarter project is for you. RWW has dubbed this flood of devices, the… Read More

It’s nearly September, and OpenWorld is coming up quickly. If you’re attending and are interested in user experience, Misha (@mishavaughan) has a rundown of all the Applications User Experience goings-on during the mega-show. We’ve got a bunch of sessions, the on-site usability labs, a demopod featuring the simplified UI and mobile goodies, and for those… Read More

Don’t think I’ve ever used so many exclamation marks, ever. File this one under brand promotion and feel free to ignore. The voting period for SXSW Interactive 2014 has begun and continues through September 6, and we have a session proposal that could use your support. It’s called “Take Your Glass to Work,” and it builds… Read More

Last week, while I was procrastinating about writing up a review of the Leap Motion, the Chromecast arrived. Nothing like a new shiny object to distract me. For the unfamiliar, the Chromecast was announced a couple weeks ago at Google’s Android and Chrome OS event. It’s a small HDMI dongle that plugs into a TV… Read More