Tag Archives: Phone

The Niantic Project

Posted by on November 28, 2012 No comments

As much as I am on the Internet and paying attention to trends and games, this one blew right past me. I only learned about Ingress while on one of these work trips and a work buddy started talking about his Android friends (the phone users, not actual androids) who were playing. I thought, “Hey, I am an Android user! I should be playing this!” So I set out to learn about The Niantic Project.

A few months ago Google came out with a fun app called Field Trip. This app runs in the background of your phone and alerts you when you are near something historical or interesting. I get a kick out of it sometimes when I am driving around and find out I am near the largest ball of twine, or the location where George Washington’s third horse is buried. Little did I know that it would lead to their new Augmented Reality game called Ingress.

Augmented reality apps have been around for a while now, but none of them actually held any value past a good “Yup, that’s a thing!” You use your phones camera or GPS to tell where you are and your phone displays something virtually where you are physically. For the most part it was only for just that, to view something. Google stepped it up a notch with Ingress. You aren’t just viewing things anymore, you are
interacting with them and everyone else around you. Under the guise of “The Niantic Project” which is the secret organization behind Ingress.

Two warring factions are fighting for the well being of mankind. A crack in the universe has caused something called Exotic Matter (XM) to leak into our plane of existence.  Much of it was concentrated around Portals. These portals can be hacked and linked up to other portals to create a field. This field is a protective barrier that covers those who live under it. Got all that? So using the software on my phone, I can go to a portal location, which is only visible on the software, and hack that portal for my given side. By
hacking it, I have the chance to gain some equipment:

  • Resonators – Attached to portals to extend their range and link to other portals.
  • Bursters – Weapons used to attack other resonators.
  • Shields – Protective devices that can attach to portals to prevent damage from attacking factions.
  • Portal Keys – A virtual link to a specific portal
  • Media – Documents and pictures pertaining to the origins of the portals and XM

Resonators come in various levels (1-8) and can only be used at the level you have reached. (if you are level 4, you can use any item L1 to L4). Each portal can hold 8 total resonators, and their combined level averaged is the level of the portal. An unclaimed portal has no level, while one with all level 5 resonators is a level 5. Depending on the total of the level of resonators, that portal may be able to link to another portal. There are plenty of charts out there to show the distances.  Resonators degrade 10% of their energy each day and need to be recharged if they are to stay active.

Bursters also come in levels and can only be used by their respective level user. It’s a simple 360 degree bomb that takes out enemy resonators. The higher the level, the more damage.

 

 

Shields can be attached to portals, like resonators, and can deflect some of the damage from Bursters. Up to 4 shields can be added to a portal, and as of now, I have only seen 3 types of shields.

 

 

Portal Keys are interesting. They give you a link to the specific portal you have hacked. This link can show you it’s status, allow you to remotely recharge the resonators, and they give you a way to link a portal over a great distance. If you are trying to link to a portal that is out of range of your local map, you need it’s key. From what I have been able to tell, hacking a portal may “Steal” it’s key from its owner, same with destroying all of the resonators.

Media objects are just some documents that lend to the over arching back story. I have managed to collect 4 if them.

 

 

Using these tools, you can add the “Mind Units” of a covered area to your factions totals. The factions are:

  • Enlightened – The group who feel that the portals are part of the greater good and look to use them to influence mankind to their way.
  • Resistance – Those who want to keep free will and mankind away from influence from outside sources.

Now, there is a larger story going on that hasn’t yet been released. The Website NianticProject.com has been leaking out documents and videos that tell us there is something much bigger coming. I guess we will have to wait and see what that is.

I am currently on the side of the resistance. Time will tell how it ends up for us.

I love my new Razr Maxx HD

Posted by on November 27, 2012 No comments

You know what else I love? Living in the future. Right now I am about 30,000 feet above the US hurling through the air in defiance of whatever laws of religion/science you can imagine and doing it sitting comfortably while typing on my touch screen computer. A few more thousand feet up and we are talking Star Trek. But all that aside, I wanted
to do a post about the new phone I picked up and have been delayed due to more work
travels. On the plus side, this has given me the chance to really break in my phone.

A few years ago the 4G market for phones started to take off and I got excited about the
prospect of high speed mobile devices. I got myself the Verizon Thunderbolt and really
liked it. That is, for a few months. The biggest complaint about the TB was the battery
life and it lived up to that. Something about the combination of components just drained
the battery to the point that the power user (that would be me) could only get about 4-
5 hours out of it. I know laptops that have better battery life!! Add on to that the blatant
lack of support after only a few months. The TB stopped seeing any of the newer IS
updates and even the MOD community kind of gave up on it.

Soldiering through, I made it almost two years before I just couldn’t stand it any more. The rag tag ROMs I was able to find weren’t stable, I was getting lots of reboots, and was extremely jealous of my wife’s new Razr Maxx by Motorola. She is not a power user and had managed to go for about 3 days without charging at one point. That and it was a world phone. With my work travels and our potential vacation travels (like that trip
to London) I was going to need something better.

With my ear to the Ethernet I heard rumblings of a new Razr Maxx, the HD version. It was pricey, but the screen was amazing, it had NFC (Near Field Communication), and came standard with the ICS OS version. Best of all, one of my co-workers bought one first so I got to get some hands on with it. (Thou shalt not covet thy co-workers Cell Phone). Once we learned he was able to root it with ease, (OWN IT!) I made the decision to get one.

I am two months in now and I love this thing! It’s on par with size of the iPhone 5 (a
little wider and a tad thicker, but barely). The stock home screen was easy and quick
to adjust to so no need to add a new home launcher. I did keep some of my more
favorite apps, like the Magic Screen Unlocker, for a separate lock screen, and the Full
Screen Caller ID. Which is, of course, one of the reasons I love Android, if I don’t like a
functionality, there really is an app to switch it.

With the travel I have been doing, I have been on my phone a lot. Emails, Tweety pages and Facey spaces, etc. It’s almost weird to look down and see that I am at 40% battery life and not panic thinking I only have about 5 minutes left. Due to the ease of use, lately I have found myself using the phone instead of my iPad to check online. (Crazy, I know!).

I am sure that something will come out that is newer and fast and better than my Razr Maxx HD, but I really have a hard time believing that it won’t last me a good 2-3 years.

Now if you will excuse me, I told myself that if I got through this blog post I would read some more of the new Cold Days by Jim Butcher, while I stare out at the fluffy clouds.

Resisting the urge to hibernate

Posted by on October 24, 2012 No comments

FALL!

It’s Fall!  As we inch closer to winter I am feeling that bearish urge to close myself indoors and be super lazy while I eat all the things and put on my winter weight.

MUST RESIST!!!!

 

I am looking for the motivation to get out and take pictures.  Fall is one of the best times of the year to take photos.  The colors are amazing, especially around this area.  There are a few upcoming events that should prove fruitful.

The Passport MINI Halloween contest!  For the past few years the dealership out in Alexandria has hosted a “Dress up your MINI” contest.  This year the POD will be going as……..Yeah, I’ll post pictures after, don’t want to spoil it.  Should be fun though!  After that it’s off to Fredericksburg for the annual Halloween party!

In the meantime, on the gadget front. I gots me a new phone!  The old Thunderbolt was starting to get very old.  Early on I had flashed the ROM and the Radio on it so it could be updated and it would appear all of the updates for it have stopped.  No one seems to be supporting it any more.  It’s sad because for a while it really was a great phone.  The major downside to it was the battery.  I had even bought the extended battery for it, and that might get me through a full day.

With that I upgraded to the brand new [amazon_link id=”B009P5WWPC” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Razr MAXX HD[/amazon_link].  Sarah has been using the original MAXX and it’s amazing!  The battery can last 2-3 days with average use.  The new HD version did not disappoint.  I have been using it for about 4 days now and I need to remind myself that I don’t have to plug it in.  Ok, I am going to stop here because I may try and do a full review of the phone later this week.

In the meantime, here are some apples. (hopefully Apple won’t sue me)

Gadget Time!!

Posted by on February 16, 2012 No comments

It’s been a while since I have posted about some interesting gadgets, and I happen to have come across a few that are post worthy!  So here goes.

Having driven the MINI around for the last few months, and being a part of the DC Metro MINI club, I REALLY enjoy my car.  Many of the club owners like to make videos of their drives using the GoPro brand cameras.  Being a camera type guy, I thought I would check one out and have some fun.  So here is my pro/con list

 

 

Pro:

  • Light weight – Very small for just the camera and easy to pocket.
  • TONS of attachments (I got the Motor-sport version)
  • Easy to use – Menus are quick and easy
  • Cool Wide Angle – Gets everything in the shot
  • Good Quality (Not great, but good) – Auto adjustment of speed and ISO does oddly in low light

Con:

  • Over Simplified – It would be great if there were a few more options and configurations.
  • Low light sucks – In low light it ramps up the ISO a lot so there is some significant grain. But it’s not really meant for low light so….
  • Ball Joint mount would rock. – All of the mounts are pivot one way, you can add pivot points in, but it increases vibration.

Overall, I like it.  It is currently mounted behind my rear view mirror and is nearly invisible to my FOV while driving.

This ties into another gadget I picked up.  The OBDII adapter for Blue-Tooth.  This is a chip that plugs into the data-port on my MINI (and any car after 1996) and provides all sorts of information on real time data from the engine to fault codes.  I connect to it using my Android phone and an app Called Torque.

Now I just need to know what all that data actually means!  (I am still learning).

Now, how does this all come together?  Well, there is another android app called aLapRecorder HD.  This connects to the OBDII chip and then can record all of that data for a specific drive.  I can then output that data into a format that can be overlayed on to the GoPro video.

I will be using this for future drives out with the MINI to record the results.  Especially the upcoming MINI’s on The Dragon event.  If you have any questions about the above gadgets, please feel free to ask!

Father Son 1/2 size TARDIS build

Posted by on August 1, 2011 1 comment

So, the wife and I have now made it through all of the new Doctors and I am slowly working my way through the classics, as well as catching up on Torchwood.

One of the thing that struck me was the Tardis.  I looked at it early on and thought…..I bet I could build one of those.  See, I love woodworking.  Especially odd ball stuff.  I designed and build a box for my cat to have his food and water in that we could see into, but the dog couldn’t get to it.  So I thought, “why not build a Tardis!”  Shortly afterwards my Son mention that we should do it as a team project.  Since he is prepping to join the military, I figured this was a good bond type of thing for us to do.

So, here we are.  For the last two months I have been browsing the forum Tardisbuilders.com, looking at everyone’s builds and gaining inspiration.  I know that I would have a few days off from work (just switched jobs) and it would be perfect timing for this build.  I eventually want to build a Full scale box but wanted to start small and get ideas.  This will help me build the larger one when it comes time.

So we started Wednesday and I made a point to try and take pictures along the way.

Since this is a 1/2 scale (ish) we started with a simple base frame:

We opted to have the walls be plywood (1/4 inch thick) and cut out the squares.

Sonic Screwdriver says Math is Hard!

Cutting out the squares:

Our Corner pieces are 4×1 inch paired with a 3×1 inch, 4 feet long:

With the walls attached (doors are just leaning)

And here we are after today.  Doors attached and everything mounted on the base:

So Thursday we got the backings on all the panels and added a roof to brace for when we add the tiers (and to hold everything in place.

Also, First Blood happened.  I almost always bleed somehow on every project.  Thankfully it’s only a small puncture.

You may also notice that the top is a tad shorter.  We cut off about 3 inches to solve the tall top problem.  our sinage will be about 3 inches tall so we should have maybe an inch of overage.

A big lesson learned here would be to save the door attachments until after the top is on.  We now will need to take the doors off and trim them up a bit as they stick when opening.  (Through warped wood or being 1/4 inch off.)  That’s one of the downsides to working small scale. even 1/4 of an inch can cause HUGE problems.  

Next stop, Lowes to pick up wood for the Signs and Roof!  I think we may look at doing a flat roof instead of the slanted as in 1/2 scale the difficulty curve is pretty high.

 

We painted on Saturday and that means some outside time.  I am so glad my shop is downstairs in the basement where it’s nice and cool.

So here’s where we are now: Took the doors off and started painting the main body, first coat.

While that was drying (and the wife helped with the second coat) the kid and I went down to build the roof.  here it is sitting on the top. (Not the actual lantern that will be used)

I bought some pre-cut plexi for the windows and left the frost plastic on them.

So that leaves us with the Signs, Window frames, and Lantern for the top.

I opted to not do the Phone box on the side door because of the material we are using being very thin and the overall size being very small.  On the plus side, the whole thing is extremely light!

This IS the Droid you’re looking for.

Posted by on February 20, 2010 No comments

Well, I have been very remiss about my duties and haven’t written anything lately about things.  A lot of that has been taken up by Star Trek Online.  I am happy to announce that I have made it to Commander and have picked up my latest ship.  I resisted the urge to name it the U.S.S. Tennis Ball due to the giant sphere that makes up the Saucer, but once I hit Captain I will get the Intrepid class and will feel much better about the ship.  But enough about STO.  I am hoping to get in some more Bioshock 2 and possibly the DLC for Assassin’s Creed 2 this weekend, but we’ll see.  I did want to spend some time to discuss one of my latest acquisitions, the Motorola Droid on Verizon Wireless.  I know this is a bit of a departure from the Game reviews but I wanted to keep this open for various tech stuff as well.  I am quite the Gadget guy.

So I picked up the Droid just before the new year and have used it extensively for the last 2 months.  Before that I was using the Blackberry Storm.  I didn’t have too many qualms about the Storm, and for a while I was seriously contemplating picking up the Storm2, but a number of friends talked me into the Droid and I am VERY happy with the switch.  My requirements for a smart-phone were pretty simple.  I wanted a full screen touch interface that would run many of the main stream popular apps and could be used for it’s GPS and mapping.  Oh, and it had to be on Verizon.  (Sorry iPhone) Those were the main points which both the Storm and the Droid did very well.  The main difference was simply ease of use.  Compared to each other, the Droids screen was easier to use, there was no more full screen pushing, the Camera was better, the apps were better and more plentiful, and the overall feel was just smoother than the Storm.  So I switched.

The Droid runs Google’s Android 2.0.1, though I am currently awaiting the arrival of 2.1 to be in line with the Nexus 1.  Personally, I love Google.  I am an avid Google user for nigh on everything they put out.  Honestly even my older blog was even running on Blogger, which is a Google service!  I type out these posts using Google Docs, I pull much of my info from Google Reader, etc., etc..  So the Droid and I were a natural fit.  One of the things I love about it is that the applications, as of now at least, are about 60% free and 40% paid.  I haven’t yet needed to purchase a single app for it.  At the end of the post I will give a list of my Most used apps but in the meantime, lets get to the real loves and hates.

Yahoo’s

  • How Many Fart apps are there?!?! The library of applications is seriously starting to rival the iPhone App store.  Every time I load it it’s like a good 20 min of browsing and thinking “Oh, I could use that!”  Some of them have even made it into the Most used!
  • I see everything! The screen is amazing!  It’s plenty large that I can sit and watch a show it on comfortably and see everything clearly.  I was concerned switching from the Storm’s screen because I wasn’t sure I would be able to manage the Just touch, vs. the Touch and press in of the Storm.  Long story made short, it’s 150% better
  • The Power of the Sun in the palm of my Hand! Google handles everything.  My G-mail, my voicemail, my news. it’s all at a touch and it runs amazing.
  • My Phone is Faster than my PC! Ok, maybe not, but this thing is damn fast.  I have downloaded a few tech demos on it and even running 3D apps it’s fast.  One of the big issues I had with the Storm was that if I needed to shut down for any reason and restart, it would take about 5-7 minutes!  No, Not kidding there.  The droid takes about 30 seconds.
  • I can see my house from here. Google Maps added the Navigation Suite to their app which makes it rival even the best of the Garmins and TomTom’s.  (Not my TomTom though, because it’s already Retarded).  Adding in the street view and Satilite view to a Navigation system is Genius!
  • Making it my own. One of my favorite things is the ability to pick the functions I want for the phone.  If I don’t like the app that runs the SMS function, I can change it.  Don’t like the home screens?  Replace the Home program!  It’s like someone made “Pimp My Phone”

AOL’s

  • So, Many, Keyboards! This may be a bit different for different people, but I hate the hardware keyboard!  I have only used it on occasion and the feel of it just isn’t right.  I find myself using the on screen keyboard much much more.  I think the last time I used the HW keyboard was for writing out that iPad post last month.
  • What have you done to my Face….book! The app for facebook sucks.  There I said it.  The blackberry app and the iPhone app are both amazing, but the android app is trash.  They had better fix it soon.
  • Wheres my App? The organization of the App Market is Really Really bad.  Trying to find something through browsing will take hours of scanning, the rating system is good, but you can’t really sort based on it.  The categories need to be a little more granular with a few more sub categories.  Also, having something Web based or even just PC based that we could browse through would be awesome.  The iPhone has iTunes and the App Store there, we need that!
  • Which Android do you have? This complaint is more with the Android system itself.  It seems that every company wants to make their own flavor of Android.  The nice thing about the iPhone is that it’s standard across the board.  With Android you have the HTC version, the Motorola version, and even the various version of Motorola’s android!  It would be nice to just standardize the OS and let the companies just alter with App’s.  That way when an newer version of the OS comes out, everyone gets it!

Ok so here are some of my Favorite apps and why I like them:

G-mail, Maps, Voice, Goggles, Sky Map, Etc. Basically the Android version of Google Pack.  I can’t just narrow down each one because you really just need all of them.

GDocs – Ties directly in to Google Docs for easy Document Management!

Bic Concert Lighter – Ok, while it’s not one of my most used apps I felt the need to mention….What the Hell man!  the iPhone gets a Zippo and we get a MuthaF&%^$’n BIC?!?!

Where – Where is great for local gas prices, and Yowza is integrated for great deals!  As far as a “what’s around me” app, there are a few others that are a bit less kludgey (and yes, that’s a technical term)

iHeartRadio – An easy way to listen to broadcast radio from anywhere!

Movies/Fandango – Ok so it’s two apps that do the same damn thing.  Movie listing and ticket buying.  This is because some theaters are picky when it comes to buying tickets.  Movies gets a bump up though because of Netflix integration!

Sweet Dreams – This one is a new app that I am using a lot.  it allows me to set a time for the phone to be silent and when to wake up.  I am always forgetting to put my phone on silent when I head to bed.

wpToGo/Wordpress – This ties into my WordPress site so I can post on the go.  There’s two apps and I am still waffling on which I like.

Seesmic – Twitter app.  I liked this one because it was simple!

LastFM/Pandora – Streaming radio.  I am a big fan of Pandora because it gets the stations genres right, but LastFm has a good variety of stock stations.

FourSquare – Social check in app.  Lets me announce where I am to friends.

Home++ – This is a Home screen replacement.  It allows for 3-7 home screens, and a dock at the bottom for most used utilities.  It’s a must.

Jewels – Bejeweled game.  It’s a great time waster but Sarah is kicking my ass at it right now.

KeyRing – All those shopping discount cards in one place!

SMS Popup – SMS Augmenting program.  Lets the SMS messages pop up so I can read instantly and reply instantly.

NewsRob – It’s a Google Reader app that syncs with Reader so I can back and forth from the PC and the Droid.

Qik – Streaming video program, but streaming out.  I can capture video and stream it live to the web.  Where was this all my life!

ShopSavvy – I love this app.  You can scan a bar code on something and it will tell you where you can get the best deal.  Searches online as well as local stores.  Saved me like 20$ because Best Buy matched a price based on this!

WeatherBug – Weather app, pretty simple.

Wow, so this post ended up being huge!  Hopefully this will help anyone who is looking at what phone they may want to check out.  Now, back to gaming!

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