Archive for the 'Tech' Category

Useful iPhone Apps

Published
by
David
on July 15, 2008
in Tech and Travel
. 2 Comments

After the initial glitches Apple had with their iPhone 3G launch and 2.0 software update launch last Friday settled down I was pleasantly surprised to find that, aside from all the new features, there are some pretty useful 3rd party applications already available and even better many are free.

One which particularly caught my eye is the Mandarin Audio Phrasebook made by Lonely Planet. While I usually take a phrasebook when I’m going somewhere I don’t speak the language to be honest I rarely use it. The problem I have with paper phrase books is that its a pain to find what you want quickly which is the majority of situations when you need it. This application goes some way to solving the issue by providing easily navigable contextual menus structured by helpful subjects like Transport, Accommodation, Food & Drink and so on which lead to searchable lists of useful phrases.

Each phrase includes an audio clip of it being spoken as well as the written form in both Chinese characters and the Pinyin (romanised) alternative. Now instead of having to flick through a paper based book looking for the right phrase you can very quickly find what you need to play it back or show whoever you need to communicate with. One cool enhancement would be to integrate this with something like Google Translate so you could get real-time translation of anything.

I’m looking forward to testing this in the field and hopefully brushing up on my very limited Mandarin!

Lonely Planet also have other phrasebooks available for the iPhone in a multitude of different languages, each priced at a reasonable £5.99.

P.s. if anyone’s interested in how I took screenshots above on an iPhone just hold the home button and press sleep - the screen will flash white for a moment and send the picture to your camera roll.

Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.

ShareThis

Attached to a Captcha

Published
by
David
on June 4, 2008
in Tech
. 23 Comments

While CAPTCHA’s are supposed to keep the evil spammers of the world at bay there is no doubt that they are an annoyance to the end user. Most involve deciphering a string of mangled characters in an image which you must get right before you can complete a transaction of some sort (e.g. for signing up to an email service or posting on a forum).

Theoretically only humans can correctly identify the characters and hence proceed but in recent years many variations have been allegedly defeated by advanced optical character recognition software (check out this Chinese website which tells you how difficult each type is to crack and how much it costs to do so). It seems to have turned into a game of cat an mouse between the hackers and those trying to stop them with ever more elaborate variations. A friend of mine discovered this one today when trying to download something from RapidShare -

What on earth is “only enter symbols attached to a cat” supposed to mean??!! Am I lacking optical cat recognition abilities? For the life of me I can’t see any cats in there (let alone attached ones)! After multiple failed attempts it turned out that the answer to this one was DTEC. It seems we have a problem.

As it turns out, this isn’t the only crazy CAPTCHA out there and whilst captcha is a “good enough” solution in most cases there has to be a better solution to this madness, even if it’s just to improve the usability of the current system. Any takers?

Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.

ShareThis

Semantic Services

Published
by
David
on June 3, 2008
in Tech
. 5 Comments

If you’re a blogger or have any interest in semantic/content management technologies then you may be interested in a couple of new services which have recently launched with the aim of making content creation easier by automatically suggesting contextually relevant images, links, articles and tags which you may like to include.

Tagaroo

Tagaroo is based on an initiative called Calais by Thomson Reuters to “connect the world’s content by providing automated metadata services“. The video below sums the concept up pretty well -

It has an extremely slick and easy to use UI which sits neatly below the post editor on the Wordpress write page, suggesting tags and images as you type.

Underlying the interface the magic is carried out using “natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to extract the people, organizations, companies, geographies and events hidden within it”. To do this it connects to Calais via a free API (registration required). Pictures come from Flickr with a CC license.

My tests have found it pretty reliable and an extremely quick way tag your posts using a standard global taxonomy. At the moment the plugin is only available for Wordpress and Drupal however a number of other tools are currently under development.

Zemanta

Described as “a brilliant product for lazy or otherwise time-focused bloggers“, Zemanta is similar in many respects to Tagaroo, although perhaps a little more mature in its functionality (it’s European after all!). The video below shows how it works -

The tool uses its own database of content (indexed from over 300 “top media sources”) in order to suggest related pictures, links, articles and tags. It has a clean UI which integrates well with whatever backend you use and is offered either as a plugin for all the major platforms; WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal, or as a browser extension for IE or Firefox.

As someone who frequently links to Wikipedia in my posts I’ve found the link suggestion component an especially easy and quick way to insert these references with virtually no effort. Although the interface for picture insertion isn’t quite as nice as Tagaroo, Zemanta is currently my plugin of choice.

Yahoo also have a competing offering although it’s restricted to Yahoo content only so I’ve not taken time to review it.

Implications

Whether you call it Web 3.0, the Semantic Web or the Giant Global Graph I think these sorts of services are an important step towards the automated inference of knowledge from information. When we reach the point where machines can “understand” the content which they are parsing the implications are massive. Aside a whole herd of near-term applications I can also imagine scenarios in the not-so-distant future where every piece of content on the web is automatically linked to everything else which is relevant to it without the need for human interaction - Wikipedia without the editors or boundaries (or inherant bias?).

Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.

ShareThis

Peking University Ruins

Published
by
David
on May 19, 2008
in China, Film, Photography, Tech and Travel
. 2 Comments

One of my most curious discoveries in Beijing came on my final day when I visited the grounds of Peking University (colloquially known as Beida) which can be found in the northwest district of Haidian (very near where I used to live). The rambling grounds are located on the former site of the Qing Dynasty royal gardens and retains Chinese-style landscaping as well as many traditional buildings including a large lake and pagoda.

DSC_6928

It’s ranked as one of the best universities in Asia and, having been originally established by a group of Americans, has a rather colourful history - during the Cultural Revolution students were sent for “re-education” (they call it “re-adjustment“) to cleanse them of their liberal misunderstandings!

DSC_6906

I wasn’t entirely sure if visitors were allowed to wander around the campus uninvited but none of the guards bat an eyelid at the gates, possibly because I’m still young enough to pass as a student, but nevertheless I was allowed to continue unimpeded! Having walked around the lake, passing a number of groups taking kitsch wedding photos (as the trend appears to be) I ventured off the main path into an altogether less well kept area and stumbled across a cluster to abandoned traditional-style buildings which I can only presume used to be classrooms.

DSC_6905

As the whole area seemed to be deserted I decided to have a poke around inside. Most of the rooms were filled with rubbish and mother nature was clearly starting to get the better of the interior but what intrigued me was the rather artistic graffiti which previous inhabitants had left on some of the walls. As if echo’s from the past the walls clearly had a story to tell although sadly I have no idea what any of it says. If anyone out there would be kind enough to translate I’d very much appreciate it.

DSC_6908

Whilst walking through the silent courtyard overgrown with weeds it struck me that the whole place had a bit of a bleak atmosphere and it was a great shame that it had all been left to rot. It remains a mystery as to why it has been abandoned but hopefully they’ll get around to restoring it before the deterioration gets much worse…

DSC_6914

And so, after a very delicious dinner of Beijing Duck with my former colleagues, my second stint in Beijing came to a close. It had been a busy week to say the least but I was extremely glad to get another glimpse of this amazing pre-Olympic city with its many faces both young and old. I’m not sure when I’ll be back next but I’m sure we will meet again!

Sidenote1: If you’re into urban exploration then you may like this list of websites which feature rich photo galleries, stories and other background information including maps and building plans (for the more adventurous!).

Sidenote2: If you’d like to donate to the earthquake relief effort in China then Google have setup a site to do just that. They have options to donate to two different bona fide charities.

Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.

ShareThis

Jogyesa Temple

Published
by
David
on March 22, 2008
in Korea and Tech
. 0 Comments

DSC_6430

Jogyesa is a small but important temple in the Jogye order of Korean Buddhism - located in the heart of Seoul it seems strangely out of place surrounded by high-rise offices but offers a quiet haven in the mist of the bustling city. On a rather overcast Thursday morning I paid it a short visit…

DSC_6424

Built in 1910 it is famous for its colorful paintings of the Buddha’s life and teachings as well as the 500 year-old white pine tree which stands proudly outside (purportedly brought over from China). The temple is in active use and at the time I visited gentle chanting could be heard eminating from the main hall with many followers coming and going through the large lattice doors making for a different atmosphere to the temples found in the mountains.

DSC_6426

Once a year in May the temple holds an impressive lotus lantern festival to mark Buddha’s birthday which would be well worth seeing if you’re in the vicinity at that time.

Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.

ShareThis

Close
Powered by ShareThis