Fixing the space bar and future bugs
Apr 18th
Since the space bar problem has been affecting users for a couple of weeks. I’d like to address what the original bug is, why we encountered it and what we are doing to prevent problems in the future. The origin of the bug is actually within iOS. If a text area is too small, spaces More >
Search is AI or why PageRank has failed
Jan 4th
Much has been written about Google’s spam problem and that Google is becoming an AI company. I just realized recently that search is AI, it is actually AI-complete. Consider what you are doing when you enter terms into a search engine. You are asking for the best web page among the billions that exist that More >
Creating a “Word Lens” Like Engine in N Steps
Dec 17th
Augmented reality is a top topic right now, especially with iPhone’s hardware capabilities finally catching up to people’s imagination. I recently saw “Word Lens” app in the App Store and their demo video really got me excited about this space. In the next series of posts, I’ll document my attempt to create a framework that More >
Variables Variable for Ruby
Oct 18th
Envious about PHP’s variables variable feature? Now you too can use it in your ruby code. Try pasting this in your irb. class VariableVariable instance_methods.each { |m| undef_method m unless m =~ /^__/ } def initialize(name, bind) @variable = name @bind = bind end def ~ v = eval(@variable, @bind) if v.instance_of? String VariableVariable.new(v, @bind) More >
Section 3.3.1 is Good News to Native iPhone Developers
Apr 9th
There has been many reactions to the recent iPhone Developer Program License Agreement change, from apologetic, to mocking and to stunned silence. I am not going to fight for any ideological stance, or trying to figure out why Apple made the change. It is done and won’t change anytime soon, so what remains is for More >
Empathy for the Daemon, or are you a good simulator?
Mar 16th
Game designer Sid Meier, creator of the “Civilization” series of video games gave a talk recently called “The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong).” His main thesis was that game designer have to understand the player’s psychology when designing the gameplay elements and gave some examples from his games which violated player More >
I Didn’t Join the Video Games Industry to Make Glorified Random Number Generators
Mar 8th
I said that last night while discussing the state of Flash/Facebook games with my friend David. Cracked.com has a great article explaining some of the techniques video games use to keep players engaged. Notice that I said engaged, not entertained. They are two different things. Games used to want players to have fun so they More >
Cloud Computing is Just Rebranding. And That’s a Good Thing.
Mar 4th
Larry Ellison recently ranted about cloud computing at an Oracle stock holder’s meeting. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UYa6gQC14o[/youtube] Someone asked if Oracle will be in trouble since there is a big push towards cloud computing. His answer is that cloud computing is what computers and internet has always been. The technology is the same, just called different things: SaaS, More >
How iPad Multitasking Might Work
Feb 10th
There has been much complaining on the web about how iPad doesn’t support multitasking, and little analysis of why Apple doesn’t allow it. Adam C. Engst wrote up a great analysis of the types of benefits that multitasking can provide and what technology is required to achieve those benefits. I’d like to approach the question More >
Using WordPress to Build a Website – Part 2
Feb 9th
Introduction In part 1, I wrote about how to create a static home page for the top level of your website, with all of your blog related pages under “/blog” path. This article is about building out the rest of your site using static pages and adding a navigation menu by selecting the right theme. More >