The title may sound scary, but the video is not. The audience at Ted Talks, most of them non technical were wildly cheering after seeing the demonstration. This technology is coming down dramatically in price, and will change how we use computers … in fact, we won’t even recognize the devices as computers. Whether you are an engineer, or NOT … you have to watch this 9 minute demo.  Do I sound excited? Yes, I am! Devices based upon this technology could alter the product landscape in a manner we can’t begin to understand.

• Jeff Han Demonstrates the Interface Free Touch Screen

  "Jeff Han is a research scientist for New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Here, he demonstrates—for the first time publicly—his intuitive, "interface-free," touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure." (from Ted Talks description)

As a fyi … It is reputed that Apple Computer has tried very, very hard to hire Jeff Han. When you see the demo you might even believe mathematics can be cool.

One of the more popular professional social networks on the web is LinkedIn. Recently this service added the ability to ask questions to the entire network, or just your own contacts. While the idea is cool, I’ve often found with similar services that many people ask questions, but few answer.

Anyhow … yesterday, I decided to give it the old college try … here is the question I posted to the web development category:

"Does anyone know where I might find a good screencast on del.icio.us? I’m looking to demo the concept of tag clouds to my management, and the few screencast tutorials I’ve found do not provide a good overview of the concept."

In 24 hours, I have had one surprisingly good responses. It will be interesting to see how well the process work when the "newness" wears off. Here is the answer from Dean Brown:

"Rich: Hello again. I don’t know if the following resources will directly answer your question, but they should be good background for you. Sorry, no overview screencast … Dean

• http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf#search=%22google%20learning%22
• http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm
• http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/delicious.html
• http://coelomic.wordpress.com/2006/01/02/tag-clouds/
• http://www.joelamantia.com/blog/archives/ideas/tag_clouds_evolve_understanding_tag_clouds_1.html
• http://www.joelamantia.com/blog/archives/ideas/tag_clouds_navigation_for_landscapes_of_meaning.html
• http://www.getluky.net/freetag/
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/opntag
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/blinkk/

In order to provide some context, a screenshot of my orginial question on LinkedIn is provided below. Finally, you may be interested to read Guy Kawasaki’s post:

• 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn.

Welcome to Nerdcast – Take 01 … or Adventures in Podcasting! Over the months ahead you may follow my journey as I attempt to create the perfect amateur podcasting platform, and how do I define amateur?

My goal is to use my my Dell Laptop, and a USB microphone … this nerd does not want to get involved with pre-amps … both in terms of complexity or cost. Thus, my podcast attempts will revolve around high end USB microphones (i.e. $75 to $100). Thus …

NerdCast – Take 01 | Edelweiss | Wedding Dance from the Kosovo Province
<to download, right click and select "save target as">

Support Information:

• Audacity Podcasting Software (free from SourceForge.Net)
• Audacity Software Tutorial
• Microphone Review Podcast from Digital Education
• Podcasting Tutorial from c|Net
• Samson CO1U Microphone ($75)
• SnowBall Microphone ($100)

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Feel free to ask questions via the comments link. I will periodically update this posting with answers … thereby creating a FAQ.

1. What was your recording setup for your music clips?
   >> I recorded both songs in my den using my Dell Laptop, and SnowBall microphone which was placed six inches away from my 4 reed accordion … definitely NOT a sound studio!

My wife leads I.T. for the Star Tribune, the main newspaper in the Twin Cities. Over the Christmas holidays, McClatchy (the Star Tribune’s owner) announced the impending sale of the Minnesota based paper to a New York City based investment firm, Avista Capital Partners. Hopefully new owners from outside the newspaper industry will help the Star Tribune consider innovative and dramatic changes.

Given this event, I invite you to pretend It’s 2014, and GoogleZon rules media, and the net. Take a trip back in time, and watch this Flash video.  It will take you on a tour of media, and the net, from it’s inception in 1989, right up to present day in the year 2014!

• Museum of Media History – 8 minutes in length

"In the year 2014, the New York Times has gone off line. The fourth estate’s fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC?"
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Comment — focus on the reverse image of EPIC at the end of the video! This video was made a few years ago, but it is still on target.
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• Back to the present – The Philadelphia Inquirer announces massive newsroom layoffs

When you post to a forum, a blog, or a web page … do you realize how long that stuff stays out there? I just found some comments of mine on a forum dating back to 1994. Considering the age of the graphical web, that’s almost pre-history. Can anyone top me?  I’ve thrown down the challenge gauntlet! (Google Groups Search)

• My Comments from August 2, 1994

You may be intrigued to learn about what I was commenting … the price for a course titled The Internet as a Strategic Business Tool. Anybody remember gopher?

• History of the Internet

Please continue to post comments to this blog!

🙂

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An update to this posting:

By happenstance I found two blogs which had recent posts on the same topic (Gadgetopia and the CMS Report). The challenge issued in these blogs was to use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and find the earliest web site you designed.