Focus

Here's something that'll make your head spin, just a little... you know how when you're taking a photo you need to focus your image before you take it? What if you could leave that decision to after you'd taken the shot? What if you could decide to re-focus a picture you'd already shot? Enter the Lytro light field camera.

The secret to this idea of focusing and re-focusing an image after it's been shot is in the way it's shot. I'd try to explain in my own words, but I think the website does a better job of it:

Recording light fields requires an innovative, entirely new kind of sensor called a light field sensor. The light field sensor captures the color, intensity and vector direction of the rays of light. This directional information is completely lost with traditional camera sensors, which simply add up all the light rays and record them as a single amount of light.

So, with all of this data stored in this image file, you can adjust the focus -- quite dramatically -- after you've taken the shot. Both the blog for this product and the how-to videos talk about staging a photo or looking for a specific type of shot to take to get the most out of this camera... it's not the sort of thing that works well when you take a picture of two people standing next to each other against a wall, for example. You need to establish the various depths-of-field in the shot in order to really see it work.

Calendar

There are a lot of things in our world that I believe we just take for granted. The calendar on our wall, on our desk, on our cell phones and whatnot is almost certainly one of them. Who would ever think of changing it? Apparently, a lot of people.

National Geographic linked to one of the latest, in a long line of, new calendar proposals yesterday. Doing away with the 'leap day' (February 29th, which appears in every calendar year divisible by 4... unless it's the start of a new century... unless that century-starting year is also divisible by 400) and, instead, offer a 'leap week' every 5-6 years! The purpose for the 'leap' is still the same: to knock the calendar back in-line with the actual rotation of the Earth which isn't exactly 365 days long.

The proposal for this, the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, is to start the conversion in 2013 and have it fully implemented on January 1, 2017.

Benefits of this calendar include:

• the days of the year are always the same day of the week; for example, Christmas (December 25th) will always fall on a Sunday;
• the year will always start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday;
• there are still seven days in a week (whereas a lot of other proposed calendars, apparently, suggest other numbers of days per week);

The case is made that calendar reform isn't something that can easily happen; the author realizes that asking the entire world(?) to change the calendar they use isn't going to be a simple switch. However, that's not reason enough to not put the idea forward and see what sort of support can be found for it. There will also be personal reasons for people to oppose the idea. What if your birthday is on January 31st? There is no January 31st in the new calendar... so when is your birthday now?!

What do you think? Would you ever imagine a world with a different calendar? Does the idea of February having 30 days every year freak you out?

» Found at: The Henry Foundation @ John Hopkins University

Dailies

In a world where everything is doing digital and we talk about "paperless work environments", it's kinda to see something kinda retro like this. It seems like a perfect match for the on-the-go, rush- rush- rush world we choose to live in these days. Say "Hello" to the Little Printer:

I love the idea of a personalized, daily mini-newspaper being printed for me. And not just something that I could have randomly generated, but daily news headlines, a schedule for my day, perhaps a to-do list or a list of contacts that are attached to my calendar entries for the day. Cool, fun way of putting this together. And, while I think re-printing the face every time is a waste of paper, it is also somehow very cute.

For a better understanding of what this is all about, I strongly suggest that you check out the introduction video they have released. It shows you, in a very Apple-y way, how you use your smartphone to set everything up, send messages, etc., etc.  And, again, I love how they encourage sticking things on the fridge or sharing clips with others. There is also something so nice about it being all black and white... colour isn't always necessary.

Although the list of companies the service is working with right now seems limited, they're still in (what I would assume to be) an alpha phase, so that's to be understood. I'm sure that this will come out at a price point way beyond what I would ever consider spending for something fun like this (not to mention the need for, I'd assume, special paper rolls)... but it was still too cute not to share.

» Found at: Little Printer/BERG Cloud

Dive

I haven't even finished reading this, and I'm sure that I'm way behind the curve on even knowing that this excellent resource, Dive into HTML5, was out there, but from what I have read so far, it's quite awesome.  Written in easy-to-understand language, with an incredible "history" of the evolution of (x)html to start – do not skip this part! – this free resource is the perfect starting point for those interested in HTML5, covering everything from the canvas element, video and embeds, geolocation, new form controls, etc., etc.

Once you have finished reading through this resource, A List Apart is a great place to find more information... or, more specifically, A Book Apart. This series of "brief books for people who make websites" looks fantastic.  They have released two books so far, with two more already on the way.  I've previously read (and still own) books Dan Cederholm (and ALA's founder, Jeffrey Zeldman) which are excellent, so I imagine the quality of these references will be nothing less than that.

So, although the holidays are over, these are some excellent references that are either free or very affordably priced for anyone who had a resolution set around working on the web. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right (and with the right tools around to help you out).

» Found at: Dive into HTML5

Notepad

Notepad++ is an advanced, tabbed, text-editor that I have been using for a number of years now. It's always really impressed me and I don't think I've ever been left wanting for features (except for a Print Preview option; I don't need it often, but I do wish they'd add it in). What it does have is: more syntax highlighting options than I've ever seen; super-quick load time; easy-to-use, uncluttered work environment; macro capibility, etc.

The small team that puts together this product have just last week released a new version of the program (v5.8.3) and had over the summer opened a new website as well (previously, it was hosted as part of the SourceForge empire I believe).

If you're looking to do some hand-coded (x)HTML/CSS work, plan some SQL scripts, write some C# code or whatever, consider this program. It's 100% free ("as in 'free beer' or 'free speech'" according to the website) and gets my stamp of approval.

» Found at: notepad-plus-plus.org

Hello

The iPhone 4 was announced yesterday at one of Apple's major press events, the WWDC. I think my next mobile phone will have to be an iPhone ... or, if my old 2nd generation iPod Nano dies, maybe I'll get an iPod Touch. Either way, this platform becomes more and more impressive with each OS release or product upgrade. Beautiful design inside and out.

» Found at: Apple