My Life in the Tech World

I've been making the switch from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to Sony Vegas Pro 10. Up until buying an AVCHD camcorder two years ago I had been using Premiere exclusively. However, the lack of AVCHD in CS3 and the initial buggy AVCHD support in CS4 prompted me to look for alternatives. I tried out the trial version of Vegas Pro and found that it was rock solid editing AVCHD, had great export options, and seemed more modern than CS3 or CS4 because of its 64bit architecture support. More recently Vegas has improved their GPU acceleration and the UI has become more polished. Anyway, since I don't have all night to write this. I wanted to focus on the cool image stabilization feature that isn't included in CS4. I had some old very shaky handheld footage I shot at a friends wedding using a Hi-8 camcorder. I searched the internet to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. Turns out that Vegas Pro has an amazing video stabilization feature. Basically, you just select

Just wanted to give an update on my last post about the Vais VML MultiMediaLinQ . Over the last several months I've had a lot of different devices connected to it. I'm happy with the VML but I hadn't found a storage device that worked perfectly. All the mechanical USB drives I connected would occasionally go offline requiring me to unplug the USB cable to reset everything. Turns out those mechanical drives don't like speed bumps or cold weather. Who knew? Even thumb drives sometimes needed a reset (probably not due to speed bumps). The most stable device has been the iPod which never needs a reset but the sound quality is degraded for some music. I'm not clear on technical reasons why that would happen but I suspect there is some issue in the conversion from digital to analog. I should mention that this is only true for my older 60GB iPod. Music from my iPhone sounds perfect. I would use my iPhone but I don't want to use up all the space on the device for mu

Television used to be a bug free zone. Now it's a computer science problem complete with bugs. I was reading David Pogue's review of Google TV . Having recently purchased one I can say that he is spot on with many of his points. In general, the usability of the device needs a lot of work. It's not just surface stuff either, it's deep and pervasive from the controller to the GUI. The pain starts with the initial setup. Why? Because it is exactly like doing a Windows OS install. Several updates and reboots with a full set of wizards to run through. The updates took an hour on my relatively fast Comcast cable connection. I understand the need for updates but why can't the device start up and play while doing the updates in the background? This is a TV right? By adding new unneeded buttons and interface conventions somehow Google managed to make the controller (which is essentially a full keyword and mouse) more complicated than a keyboard and mouse. It's got

What my 11 year old son thinks of washing the car

Valve Springs? What about the Navigation System? or the paint?

Is it just me or do Apple and Facebook seem like a perfect pairing? Facebook has the web version of what should be the social bits of iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes. In iLife, Apple has the desktop tools to enhance the social web experience. Apple also has the hardware and OS to make Facebook a much more integrated experience for users. Based on what I've seen of Windows Phone 7 Microsoft has got the idea. Facebook's advertising is just starting out. It would be a real winner combined with iTunes and Apple TV. Google is already going there. Apple needs a cloud presence and Facebook already lives there. They should move in together.

When I bought my LS460 the self parking and Mark Levinson audio options were bundled together. I wanted the audio but I didn't want the self parking so I decided against the whole package. A few months later I regretted not getting the self parking just because so many people asked about it and wanted to see it demoed. I realized that it was an option that made the car special. It was also clear that both the marketing and the feature itself had captured people's imagination. Now even though I wanted to have the option I still think that I wouldn't really use it. But I'm wondering what people that bought self parking have to say. Does anyone have something they can share? Do you use the self parking? Does it work? Is it just a gimmick?

More than 20 years ago I worked on an autonomous vehicle project. We had very little funding but managed to put something together that could follow roads, detect and avoid obstacles, and reach its target destination. Since that time I've known it would eventually be possible to replace a human driver with an automated system. There have been a lot of advances since that time with the DARPA Challenges demonstrating progress this decade. Honestly, I always thought it would be one of the big auto companies such as Ford, GM, Toyota, or Honda who would be the first to announce a significant real world demonstration. After all, they make cars, and they should have a lot of research dollars going towards automated driving. So I was a little shocked to read that Google is out on the roads with automated cars (probably for their "street view" application though they don't mention it in the blog post). Google is amazing! It's great that they see so many things as comp

It's become popular to use Adobe Flash cookies for tracking user behavior. Generally, this is a way for websites and analytics companies to get around your browser privacy settings. Why? Because Adobe Flash has its own privacy settings that are overlooked by most users. You need to go to Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager to adjust your settings. Personally, I don't mind normal browser cookies because they are easily removable, controllable, and well known by most normal users. Also, browser cookies are really useful for web applications to keep track of things such as your shopping cart and login status. However these Flash cookies are a different animal. Check out this example called " Evercookie " which demonstrates creating a cookie that's very hard to delete. Is there really a valid purpose for this? Anyway, I turn off all storage for Adobe Flash on my computer because I don't trust it. My internet connection is fast and I don't care if I need

Someday... I want a navigation system that listens to me while I'm driving. One that can listen in on my cell phone or in car conversation and when someone mentions an address or phone number it queues it up ready to be used in some hands free friendly way. One were someone can text me an address and then I can tell the car to go there. I want a navigation system that learns about my travel patterns. Forgetting privacy for a bit, I want a navigation system to remember where I go everyday. Once it knows where I usually go it can guess where I'm about to go. It can scan ahead for traffic and warn me before I hit it. It can tell me about alternate routes. It can make suggestions for changes in my travel routine to save gas or time. I want a navigation system that's social. I want to be able share what I'm doing on the road with family and friends. I want it to tell me what music are other people listening to on this road. I want it to tell me what restaurants people

My Lexus just turned two years old. We've had a good two years together. Even though I can't use the navigation system I've always taken comfort in the fact that the rest of the car is pretty much perfect. However that all changed a month ago when we went to the car wash. I was sitting on my usual spot watching the cars go through the giant blow dryer. I saw my black Lexus come out of the big car washing machine. One of the car wash boss guys was looking at my car. He pointed to one of other workers, then to my car, then made a motion indicating that the car needed a redo. So my car went through the wash again. The second time through I looked closer at my car and noticed that some of the spots on the car didn't come off. Oh the horror. A Spot Where the Lexus Paint is Etched At home I got out the polish and  worked on the spots. I got most off. But a few remained. Check out one them in the photo. On a side note, it's surprisingly hard to get a good picture

I doubt you could have missed the Google search interface change today. I like the feel of it and appreciate that they are really using my broadband connection. Hooray! I wonder if Comcast is cheering about the additional bandwidth usage? The New York Times said "it's as if [Google] is reading your mind." I don't agree with that. To me it's more like Google is telling me what other people are thinking. Google says the new interface is speeding up your search activity. Maybe. Google is definitely speeding up the rate at which they can show me ads. That's probably the bigger deal for the company. As a shareholder I hope other investors think the same way. Even though I like it and despite all the hoopla, it's an incremental improvement versus the automatic query form filling they were doing yesterday. I'm disappointed because the change is so small. What I would have liked to see is Google going further and predicting what my next search queries wi

I was watching the Apple WWDC keynote today. I'm a little behind on my Apple following. Jobs was busy explaining all the new cool features in the iPhone 4: Gyroscope, front facing camera, HD video recording, video editing, glass back, better antennas, etc. Day Two (6/25/2010): People are still waiting for iPhone 4 As I was listening I started thinking about my Sony HD camcorder and how its days are numbered. If Apple decided to come out with an iOS camcorder it would blow away any consumer camcorder device Sony has in its lineup. All Apple would need is a nice lens with optical zoom,  a good video camera case design, and good button layout. The rest they already have, the gyroscope for image stabilization, GPS, true in camera editing, connection to the internet, awesome video and image management interface, application platform (think of what third parties might do), etc. etc. All this stuff would leave Sony and every other camcorder maker in the dust and I doubt they could

Lexus Navigation has what I'd call a semi-touch interface. That's one where some of the interaction happens on the touch screen and some happens with buttons or controls off the touch screen. Semi-touch isn't bad or good. It just means that you have some fixed interface elements. When you design one of these types of systems you want to make things people do all the time easy to get to. You also want those things quickly accessible to avoid having the driver get distracted.  In the Lexus design they also want to be able to completely or partially disable functionality while still giving you a button to press that makes you feel like you're doing something. The Lexus Navigation system has eight button-like objects around the screen. Design-wise that's probably good because the buttons aren't too big or too small. Seven of the buttons are functional. One of the buttons isn't really a button even though it looks like it. It's labeled "Passenger.&

One the features I like about the Lexus navigation system is the traffic display. However, it has shortcomings. It's never helped me to avoid traffic problems. Usually it tells me about traffic problems after I'm already stuck. I hear the same complaint from other Lexus and Toyota owners with the satellite traffic option. Oh wait, dare I mention that the Toyota and Lexus systems are exactly the same?

Blossom and I were having lunch today. As we were leaving we saw a colleague of ours standing in front of the Apple Store chatting with someone. We stopped to say hello.  While we were talking it occurred to me that our  colleague already had his iPad even though he wasn't carrying it with him. He's one of those guys that has everything. The odd part is that it just seems right that he has everything. As we left he confirmed my suspicion. Anyway, that got me thinking about why I'm upset about the navigation system. Buying the Lexus I had high hopes that I would get everything I paid for, everything that I wanted in a car, but I was let down. Yes there are hacks to fix motion lock on the navigation system. Yes, I can probably buy lots of things to fix the other shortcomings. But shouldn't I be entitled to something nice? Don't we all deserve something that makes us a little happier?

About a month ago I had a VAIS Technology VML (MultiMediaLinQ)  installed in my Lexus. The VAISTech device adds a USB interface to Generation 5 Lexus Navigation systems like mine. The USB interface allows you to hook up an iPod, iPhone, iPad (haven't actually tried it yet), other random portable music player, or USB disk drive to your Lexus audio system. I ordered it through the dealer and had them do the install. I was too lazy to pull out the navigation system on my own. Having the dealer do the install basically doubled the cost. On the plus side, they did a great job and after a few weeks of waiting for the parts and a four hour install I now have a cool USB port in my center console. For the first week I had my iPod connected. This worked great. I used iTunes to manage playlists which show up as MP3 CD Folders on the Lexus Navigation interface. I could use all the normal steering wheel mounted controls to switch songs etc. I was pretty happy except that I was limited by th

I bought a VAIS technology MediaLinQ instead of buying a new car. More on that later.

With the release of iPad coming in a couple of days we were discussing potentially cool applications. Mostly we were trying to think of the equivalent of the iPad Snuggie. We definitely have productive lunch time conversations. One thing that came up was the idea of using an iPad in your car. iPad has great turn by turn navigation powered by TomTom and maybe someday Google will port their Andriod navigation. You can have all your music loaded or available through "Pandora." You can even watch movies on an awesome screen. The only problem with the iPad solution is that you'd need to attach it with a huge wad of duct tape, crazy glue, or some suction cup and cradle thing available at Best Buy or your local Apple store. Then you would need to worry that every time you parked your car someone would break your window and rip it off. It's too big to hide or take with you all the time. Thieves wouldn't bother if it was hooked into your car more permanently, was pai

A friend invited me over for lunch yesterday.  She has a beautiful house located somewhere in a maze of twisty roads. I hadn't been there in a few years. Perfect chance to use my navigation. At lunch time I got to my Lexus with no extra time. I rushed to enter the address into the navigation system before starting to drive. As you know, the Lexus navigation system locks down while the car is moving so addresses must be entered before driving. I started the car and entered the address. Street number, Street Name... and then ding. It didn't like my street number. The error was that the street number wasn't in the database. In my wife's Acura the navigation system shows you valid number ranges while you type. Sadly this doesn't happen with Lexus. I pulled out my iPhone and got the right number. Had to re-enter all the data. Finally, the address was accepted. I had now spent about 5 minutes with my car idling. Next the system asks if I want to "replace" or

I think what happened is that when Lexus updated the navigation screen to giant size they forgot to update all the software to use the new giant screen. The result is that a lot of the giant screen is wasted. I'd be happy if it had a cool desktop theme but we don't even get that.

Today I stopped at a drive-thru to get some food. The cashier said he loved my car. I said thanks and discussed Lexus  for a minute or two with him. He had a '94 ES and loved it too. I left thinking about how the Lexus brand inspired love. Mechanically solid, reliable, and luxurious are good traits. Back in 1994 that's all there was to think about. High-tech electronics in a car was a CD changer. Today you get Bluetooth, USB, voice recognition, self-parking, radar cruise control, etc. All these things are computer controlled and require significant investment in usability design to make them luxury items. Look at Apple to see how good design turns ordinary electronics into luxury items. The problem with Lexus today is that the brand can't or won't put the effort it needs into the design of the electronics to make them luxury components. I'm talking about the poor user interface, and lack of true support and upgradability. Let me elaborate on the upgradability

Lexus navigation system won't sync contacts with the iPhone. If you want to transfer a lot of contacts your best option is to buy or borrow a phone that will work such as a Motorola Razor. Why can't car electronics systems have meaningful software updates? We pay thousands of dollars for them but they're essentially obsolete before we drive them off the lot. Even my TV and blu-ray player have software updates for better menus and HDMI support! Why do we put up with this from auto makers?

Got a hundred songs on an MP3 disk? Good luck playing it on a Lexus. Lexus doesn't let you see folders or songs on the disk while driving so you can only seek up or down one song at a time. Why have a giant LCD touchscreen and music interface that only works while parked?

Lexus navigation system takes two talk button presses, two spoken phrases, and one off hook button press to start a phone call. Voice commands are more effort and more distracting than dialing a phone number. Is this a check box feature or just a cruel joke? Oh and by the way, Lexus won't let you dial a phone number while driving.

The Lexus navigation system doesn't let you enter new locations while driving. Safe if you're driving alone but why can't passengers enter locations? I think the guys that design these Lexus interfaces must buy Ford cars for themselves.

Lexus navigation system "CD Details Screen" goes blank when your car is moving. You can't see any information on the screen. Why don't they want you to know what song is playing?