Third Party’s Stiod: Efficient Alarm clock App

The great soul who invented the snooze button might  indeed have wanted to help people. But they just invented a way of making workers and students late.

It is simple: you start hitting the gentle button to stop the weirdest wake up sounds up. And you can turn side, get even more comfortable and sleep again. Then it sounds once more, and you hit the snooze, and you sleep and… on and on till you don’t have enough time to brush your hair or your teeth and rush out.

The Stiod I saw this morning on facebook was an Alarm App that has  the two traditional snooze and off buttons with a little change: The button for turning off is free and the other one costs money (say $0,99)  for snoozing. Cool and upsetting at once! Isn’t it? I wonder who the money goes to, but that is another discussion, maybe to the App ower – Man, a gold pot!

With that, being lazy will cost you a bit more – by the way, to me it cost some taxi rides sometimes and later breakfast at the baker’s.

Related articles

• If Alarm Clock – Digital Nomad (itunes.apple.com)
• New alarm clock forces users out of bed properly (time4sleep.co.uk)
• MP3 Alarm Clock Software 7.0 (Windows) (downloads.zdnet.com)

Stiod Sharing: Cell Phone Charging Station

Yesterday I posted a stiod for charger tables in restaurants, bars etc. Today, while surfing around I came to this great thing I have not seen before (published here): a charging station. In a Burger King restaurant in Philippines you can find this:

 A station to charge up your cellphone that has not only the outlets but the chargers so you can plug in your mobile and save your day! Just notice that there are three Nokia chargers and one Samsung, one Sony Ericsson and one Motorola. It seems that the Finish company is bigger out there in the Philippines.

It could be a great thing if mobile companies got inspired and found it as a marketing strategy, making charging totems available in different places in some cities, so their client’s devices would get charged when they were in battery need. 😀

What if this charging stations took solar energy?

Related articles

• Technological torture (stupidideasoftheday.wordpress.com)
• A space saver, Belkin’s energy saving USB charger also conserves energy (ecofriend.com)
• Universal cell phone chargers coming soon (reviews.cnet.com)
• Charge your cell phone – for a fee (miamiherald.com)

Technological torture

blue cross (Photo credit: Tilley441)

The title of this post was supposed to be called some thing related to friends game. But after it was applied it turned out to make that reference to a torture. No body would get that harmed out of the play, though it was tough.

Besides that difficulty of nowadays get-together when mates go on and on complaining as a sympathy holding topic, there are those situations when you sit at a cafe with your friends and it takes no longer than five minutes to the first one open their mobile phones, i-pads etc to check mail, check sms, send sms or tinkle int hey own ways.

Then it came to us yesterdays stiod, I am publishing now for obvious reasons – I had such a hangover I could not sit in near the computer before…

Two possibilities – the pals want to show off whose technological device is more advanced or they are indeed addicted to their online lives and cannot stay a while out of it. Thinking of that a couple of friends decided  to challenge the whole group not to interact with their gadgets while we were at a bar.

All the machines set up on the table sharing place with bottles, glasses and finger food. Not a few times were we talking about them, but none would touch their devices otherwise they would pay the whole bill. Was it hard – yep. My facebook page were not updated. I took no picture for this post.

Despite the pressure and the stress of being unplugged, the bill was shared evenly as we use to do. That made us think how hard it was not tinkling with digital machines when we are together, but how good it was taking a time and devoting it totally to the friends who were indeed with us.

Related articles

• Beware of ‘Smartphone face’: How technology is causing complexions to drop (techi.com)
• Mobile Devices, A Growing Addiction [Infograph] (valuewalk.com)
• Cell Phones – The Joy and Pain (shadowdancer.typepad.com)
• World’s biggest fear: Losing one’s mobile (insightnewspaper.wordpress.com)

Stiod Sharing – Double screened computer

Do you know that thing people insist in calling privacy?

Great you still remember what it is. Oh, no, no… it is not only that thing you read in terms of use in websites… no, hum… that means more.

Back in the past, privacy was also about oneself. You had the ability to seclude yourself, and reveal your activities on your will basis. Bygone time…

We are growing sharing people. And the necessity to share our activities (facebook, tweeter, wp…) is not that new, but day after day it gets easier and easier. Imagine now that you are sitting with your laptop at a library of café, people in front of you just turn their eyes towards you and l-e-t-t-e-r by tetletter what you are typing, reading, browsing, because the back of your laptop displays a screen identical to the one you see while using your computer.

That is Asus proposal while releasing Thaichi. A double screened computer. It was designed to turn a tablet into a computer or vice-versa in a simple way — by opening it (or to transform a computer in tablet?).

I think this is the great stiod when you thing of education – teacher can go around and check what students are doing by checking their second screen without going behind or side by side with students (digression – remember how flattered I got when a programing teacher came behind me while I was in secondary school. I was so in love with him, and his arm would often rubbered my shoulders or something when he would point something out in my screen – OMG! I used to whisper to myself).

Very helpful also for group work  co-workers or advisers and advisees can sit in front of each other and discuss things, as well as see them equally comfort just while see each other face to face while discussing.

“Not that there’s anything wrong sitting next to each other, but this looks much better”

Jonney Shih – Asus (from BBC.co.uk)

Oh, and the grumpy opening to this post? aren’t you against this losing of privacy?

I do believe the opening of the second screen is optional – or am I stupid (regardless the title of the blog)? The losing of privacy makes me concerned not about Asus gadget, but about people will use it. Just as I love dock stations and hatehatehate when people use them to play out loud they annoying or nice music in the bus or the train while I’d rather solve my dearest crosswords. 🙂

Related articles

• Nu står I-pad utmanare på kö (svd.se)
• Windows 8 and RT Tablets to Roll Out at Computex (devicemag.com)
• Taiwan Computex to showcase laptop-tablet hybrids (mysanantonio.com)
• Asus, Acer, and Toshiba to unveil Windows 8 tablets next week, says Bloomberg (theverge.com)
• ASUS throws up two more Computex teasers, hints at dual-OS and dual-side devices (video) (engadget.com)

The idea of controlling your TV from the couch – the remote control

Calm down, I shall not try to invent the remote control. Definitely. That has been a while I plan rendering a salute to great ideas that are part of our daily lives in such a way we don’t think even they’ve been ideas of somebody’s.

Recently  – last Sunday – Eugene Polley passed away. Have ever heard about him? An extraordinary and visionary man who has 18 patents. He was the one who first executed (or had?) the idea of controlling a television in a wireless basis. Can you wonder what took him to his project? Well, I suppose it was a sweet and comprehensible laziness – that was it. But the invention created also safety – by replacing the wire controls that were used before his invention – and comfort.

When the remote control was invented there were only a couple of  TV channels. Yet, Polley thought he would enjoy more his TV experience if he did not need to stand up for shutting up those annoying advertisements.Laziness is the mother of invention. He has to be rendered a tribute for thinking beyond the fences.

Ironically, the news of Polley’s passing away coincided with my remote controls being out of batteries. My finger tops are bleeding aching tired 🙂 of pushing thousand times the buttons of my TV and cable adapter. I don’t know how often people needed – or dared –  to change channels in the fifties, but there is so much s..t on TV nowadays, you have to zap very often. And more, that is much easier typing 702 if you are watching a program on 40 than pushing the channel button over 600 times. Apocalyptic invention!

There were good and bad side effects of remote controlling TVs, I wonder (and I am still waiting someone giving life to my remote controlled stove!):

Arguable bad effects:

• Carpet industry lost some customers.
• Hand physiotherapists lost patients (think of my fingers today)
• Bladder problems due to many no-cut sessions on HBO

Possible good effects:

• Advertising became less nagging (ops, almost forgot some shoptime etc.)
• Gym got more clients (fattening after sitting the whole Sunday in front of TV)
• Cuddling time became longer ❤

If you pardon me, I will zap for some news about the strike in the subways and trains in SP. Please check the links below for some more detailed texts about Eugene Polley’s geniality. ✜

Related articles

• Eugene Polley, Inventor Of The TV Remote, Has Died | Complex (thehiltonburnellfiles.wordpress.com)
• TV Remote Control Inventor Eugene Polley Dead at 96 (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Father of the TV remote, Eugene Polley, dies at 96 (sfgate.com)
• Rest in Peace: Eugene Polley (dreadcentral.com)

Period Tracker for male users

No, I am not possessed by my last period. Just haven’t done much of outer life because of some annoying cramps. That makes me thinking of my immediate reality. Ok, perhaps you’re right.

And no, I am not suggesting (yet) that men should bleed on our behalf!

Let me introduce my newest stiod – an App that helps men to follow their girls’ period and identify and interpret her signs- that are nothing more than symptoms she experiences every month depending on the point of her period she is.

Usually our partners do not know where in our periods we women are, and that makes them a bit insensitive about those loads of changes our body and our mood go through.

 

How it would work?

• One fills a date when his/her girl gets her period
• The App will calculate when probably next period comes (just as Ovuview works – and it works pretty well)
• A tab would show what are the most probable symptoms for the given point the woman is in her period. And explain to the partner what is going on.
• The App suggests what are the most probable reactions to such signs – menstruation is coming in a few days, be careful with nipples and so on. Fertile periods etc…

Just as Ovuview, the App could have a log, where the partner enters the main symptoms s/he observes in their girl – did she had cramps today? Were she more keen to have sex? Humidity etc.

Guys, we are walking towards the future of relationships – a walk towards perfection, that is nothing more  than based on comprehension. And this App will help you guys in your way there.

 

Related articles

• Simple Period 3.0 for iOS: Menstruation + Reproduction Tracking Calendar (themactrack.com)
• Recognizing and Treating the Symptoms of Perimenopause (bioidenticalhormoneexperts.com)
• Mother-Daughter Moment: First Period (clutchmagonline.com)
• Menstrual Cramps Killing panties (stupidideasoftheday.wordpress.com)
• Herbal Treatments for PMS (women.webmd.com)
• I Bleed Once a Month. The World Needs to Get Over it. (teatofriends.com)
• Menstrual pain (wholesome.it)
• Your Menstrual Survival Guide (bluefingersbrassknuckles.wordpress.com)

Menstrual Cramps Killing panties

Today’s first stiod is an underwear that stops pain in the lower body, mostly caused by menstruation.

I doubt many women would deny tampons and pads were a great invention in mankind history. I read somewhere that in the past court ladies used to have a maid that went after them cleaning up the mess their monthly flow made. Oh Mighty Lady!

Well, now we have different ways of stopping the flow, many times before it gets out what is quite hygienic. We have also ways of stopping cramps by using medicines such as Buscopan, Ibuprofen etc. But why is that the only way we have to control menstrual cramps (or other low bowel cramps) is taking in tons of medication that have a lot of side effects that I don’t want to trigger? Why not pain-killing panties?

With these underwear, you would have some pain relieving system. What i know of technology by now would be far infrared rays, but there might be something else. Many women know that keeping  a heat bag in the aching area will relieve a lot the pains, but I can’t go out wearing a hot bag 😦

Related articles

• Panties – A Conspiracy? (awomeninherthirties.com)
• Should Your Bra and Panties (Always) Match? (fabsugar.com)
• Simply Fab: Sexy & Sophisticated Panties (fabsugar.com)
• No More Visible Panty Lines! (fabsugar.com)
• Natural Feminine Care (mightynest.com)

Micro-chip equipped ball or my derived stiod that turned into opinion –

Perhaps because of my scientist background I use to research abot every stiod I get. And despite I thought myself amazingly original and innovative, one more Idea existed before me.

I’ll just keep you guys into my reasoning line: Do you remember the post about the cow bell t-shirt? There were 20.000 micro-chip implanted in under 14-year-old kid’s t-shirts to control their presence or absence in school. The question that got born into my stiod maker brain: Why instead of putting such chips in thousands of t-shirts don’t people put them into a dozen of balls in the football matches.

If you like football, you’ve seen several times discussions if the ball entered of not the goal. If there was only a sensor and a chip in the ball, one could decide if the ball entered or not.

Why is that so? 

Thing is that football referees get too tired under a match and in several cases they do not see if the ball was in or not. Many football fans and teams get desperate because they are pretty sure, though not 100% whether it was goal or not. But not the referee. It happened latter if I am not mistaken in UEFA‘s Champion’s League in a game among Chelsea and Barcelona. I saw that, just don’t find a clip.

How to give it an end?

Simply by having a sensor (in) the crossbar that senses if the ball entered or not a given limit. Relying on cameras and slow motion picture series would also avoid many discussions and disagreement. Just as one have in NHL (ice hockey).

(credit: Wikipedia)

The Idea has been around at least since 2005, that is the date I found the news about making tests for having chips and sensors in foot balls. Check it out at Google News. For those arguing that the resource shall slow down the matches, it won’t do so if you refer to the equipment only if there is doubt about the entrance of the ball in the net, again as it is in NHL.

No doubt it the ball stays there in. If it shakes the net etc. But what about it some smart player takes the ball away from the goal? How to deem? Just by using some technology.

And the technology I’m talking about is ready, and used unnecessarily in a school in North East Brazil. Ha!

Related articles

• Stiod Opinion: Trackable t-shirt (stupidideasoftheday.wordpress.com)
• WinkBall Take Football Reporting Nationwide with Coming of New Football Premier League (prweb.com)
• Microchips making their way into NFL footballs? (news.cnet.com)
• Cup Final delight for Chelsea – report & goals (football-talk.co.uk)
• How To Improve Football Ball Control (the-soccer-essentials.com)
• How To Chip A Soccer Ball (the-soccer-essentials.com)

Stiod Opinion: Trackable t-shirt

Simmental cattle on alp pasture (Engstligenalp, Switzerland) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Traditionally, the farms use cow bells in order to keep track of  their cows and other farm animals. Now, farming technology has advanced and gotten sophisticated. Bells are used now more for fun and style purposes.

 The Big Bang Theory.  Episode  16  of  third  season. Raj comes with a fantastic sound-track-like t-shirt. It is annoying and fun at the same time. 

What do these two lines have in common? A priori nothing. Up to now. A school in North East Brazil decided to blend the two items and created a “cow bell hi-tech t-shirt”.

The kids – as it is in many schools in Brazil and this is another question to discuss –  are obligated to wear a questionable taste green microchip-equipped school uniform t-shirt. A sensor in the entrance of the school registers the entrance and leave of the students and send a SMS to the parents registering it. I guess the green is to recall the “cow bell” origin of the stiod.

Am I too old? Do we really need technology for controlling our kids? I mean… daughters and sons. I explain: has it become so that a micro-chip is your totem for respect? In my teenage I already new that obedience was not sign of respect. But being controlled by a micro-chip against truancy goes a bit beyond in freeing parents from their responsibility with their own kids. Sorry! The so-called “smart uniforms” has costed the local authorities 4.7 million and is said to facilitate the relationship between parents and teachers. What about improving teaching techniaques, making better parents meetings and having a couch or mediator hired in the school? Taking about cows, this is totally bulls…

I can understand parents having GPS in their kids’ mobile so to be sure of their safety. I could even understand the school sms:ing the parents when their kids did not come to class (or calling as in a school I worked at) to be sure everything was ok and telling what the homework is. The question then is not “cow belling” but an actual educational concern.

Yet, this is so authoritarian people might not understand as much. Instead of focusing in the quality of education and activities that make students interested in school, the schools are investing in trackable t-shirts and giant fences. As a message: “This is your prison, we own your a** and you are to stay where we tell you to!”

PS. Dear reporter (David Boati), it is not about kid’s safety, it is about control. Come to experience São Paulo better and you will know that the violence per capita here is not  bigger than a couple of better known cities/states (check a bit). 

PS2: Dear Reader, even though you do not understand Swedish check out this video and answer me if you would give priority to buying this technology or new desks, for example?

Sorry readers, I got a bit exalted 😀

Related articles

• Stiod Opinion: Residency for teachers (stupidideasoftheday.wordpress.com)
• Lucas has a radiochip in the t-shirt – cannot skirk (in Swedish) (svt.se)
• Brazilian schools microchip T-shirts to cut truancy (bbc.co.uk)
• ‘Smart uniforms’ track Brazil students (news24.com)

Notifying Pet feeder

It has been one year we decided adopting a cute spoiled short-haired cat. Since then, having his dried food bowl full became one of my duties. It does not harm me at all and is a way of giving him love.

Sometimes, though, I find it hard to take decisions because I wouldn’t know if he’s got enough food for my absence. I would not allow myself getting him a automatic feeder or the likes. That’s quite un-personal. Then, the stiod was born

Pip would get a wi-fi bowl. Its system might be simple: based in its weight and a clock. Its function is to inform me weather it is empty or full. And if when it was emptied or filled (if I get a cat sitter, for example – or whatchamacallit). When on of this events occur it generates a log in an App, that shows me the current status of the bowl. And the App shows me if he is probably satisfied or hungry based in given veterinarian data. B-)

 

 

 

Related articles

• An easy to build cat feeder driven by a DIY linear actuator (hackaday.com)
• Automated cat feeder with a view (hackaday.com)
• Protected Feeder Puts Your Fat Tabby on Portion Control [Pets] (gizmodo.com)