Pretty fascinating.

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Going by my definition of a PC, as a computing device that you can use to write the programs that run on it, the iPad just made it.

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Awesome. The kid looks SO tired at the end of the video.

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Just wow. The dance game in Star Wars Kinect is incredible. And terrible.

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At first it sounds cheesy, but the intro is being filmed in Buckingham Palace, and 2012 isn’t only the year of the Olympics; it’s the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the 50th anniversary of the Bond films.

 It’s a huge coup for BBC producers and Danny [Bowle] to be allowed into the palace and have the Queen involved.

That wording sounds like The Queen will actually be in it. Although that’s kinda hard to believe, and the quote is from an anonymous source for The Sun.

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Apple are begrudgingly honouring EU laws that the minimum warranty allowed for electronics is 2 years (based on the idea that computing devices should last at least that long without breaking).

Apple’s standard warranty is 1 year. If you’re buying a shiny new Apple device, buy it direct from Apple to get the mandatory 2 year warranty from them, rather than getting pointed at whoever you bought it from, if it breaks.

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I’ve noticed a few reports recently, where a previously paid-for app or game becomes free, with in-app purchases to get back old functionality. People that previously paid, are now in a position where they have to pay again, to get the same function. If this happens to you, definitely try contacting Apple for a refund (instructions).

Officially, Apple don’t do refunds for anything purchased from iTunes or the App store, but I’ve had a couple of naff apps refunded in the past.

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One reason often given that Apple wouldn’t make a smaller (cheaper) iPad, is that apps would have to be re-designed to fit a third screen size. The iPhone has always been 3.5″ and the iPad has always been 9.7″, giving developers 2 screen sizes to support, if they want to have their app on all iOS devices. Adding a third size to the mix would have to gain consumers and Apple a lot, to be worth the increased fragmentation in the App store. The problem is that, as buttons shrink, they get difficult to press, given our fat fingers. (This isn’t a big deal on computers, because the point on a mouse is always 1 pixel.)

However, it looks like Apple have built in a redundancy that would allow existing iPad apps to shrink to 7.85″ and still be usable.

The original iPhone screen was 163 PPI, and Apple’s design guidelines state 44px by 44px is the smallest comfortable size for a button (or any tappable area) at that pixel density. The design guidelines for the iPad uses the same minimum pixel-size, despite it’s screen having a lower density. The result is that the smallest allowed button on an iPad is physically bigger than on an iPhone. Shrinking the iPad to 7.85″ and giving it the original iPad’s resolution (1024 x 768) gets to the 163 PPI of the original iPhone. It would run iPad apps simply shruken to fit the screen, and despite everything being smaller, buttons are still big enough to comfortably use.

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A model bus telling when the next buses are due.

It involved decoding Transport For London’s JSON api (which isn’t officially public), hacking the firmware on a router, writing software to query when the buses are coming, hardware hacking the router to wire up its serial connections, then decapitating and gutting a model bus.

I particularly like the hacked router, with a headphone jack that can provide a TTL (digital) signal.

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