I need constant stimulation. Any down time in stimulus leaves me antsy and fidgety. I’m the guy who checks email on his phone while stopped red lights, the guy who needs the TV on for background noise. Imagine my restlessness when I use the microwave. Time passes so much slower when I’m hungry and I can see a countdown of the time until I can house some Hungry Man frozen dinner. Good thing some University of Pennsylvania students created the μWave (pronounced micro-wave, mu-wave, or u-wave), a device that helps ease my hunger pangs by distracting me with Youtube videos.

The μWave is a combination of an Internet enabled tablet and microwave. When a user inputs a cook time, the μWave finds and plays a Youtube video the same length as the cook time. Brainchild of UPenn students, the device won first place in the PennApps hackathon securing the students $2,500 and the chance to present their hack to Google NYC.

The μWave is the classic “why didn’t I think of that” hack that solves a problem I never knew I had. By just knowing the μWave exists, I find myself more impatient than usual when I warm up day old pizza. Suddenly, I wish there was a Youtube video playing at work while I nuked instant oatmeal. It would make the office microwave line less awkward and I wouldn’t have to fish for topics to talk about. Waiting for the microwave timer to tick down is more painfully boring than ever.

Using established familiar technology means it is easier for the hack to gain consumer adoption. There’s no new cutting edge hardware with the μWave. There’s no new complex software to learn since nearly mostly everyone can figure out how to use a microwave. The incredible insight comes from the alleviating the minor distress of waiting for something to heat up. That small downtime is replaced by having Youtube entertainment beamed into my eyes while my popcorn is beamed with 2.5 gigahertz waves. The future is now! (more…)

Opened in March of 2011, Microsoft’s Technology Center campus in Malvern, Pennsylvania is one of only eleven MTC’s in the United States. The Technology Centers themselves serve as collaborative environments where customers can envision, design and deploy their product while being provided access to innovative technology, specialists and Microsoft staff.

The idea behind these state-of-the-art Technology Centers is to utilize Microsoft resources in order to shorten time-to-market production while conceptualizing the best solutions for customers. By integrating Microsoft products and technologies, companies can benefit from such a powerful organizational resource.

I had the opportunity to take a personalized tour of the Malvern facility. And while I’m far from being Charlie Bucket and finding a golden ticket in my Wonka bar, Microsoft did their best Willy Wonka impression when they gave this geek the keys to their Chocolate Factory! (more…)

When it comes to geeky documentaries, I am pretty sure it doesn’t get any geekier than a doc about the Amiga, which was THE computer to have in the late 80s and early 90s.

Well local Philadelphia filmmaker Zack Weddington is sharing his love for the Amiga with his documentary Viva Amiga, currently in production. You can also donate to his Kickstarter here.

I’m quite possibly the only geek on the site to have owned an Amiga during its heyday, and look forward to checking out this great looking documentary when its finished.

Recently, I was invited to sit in for a day and check out the new 3 day Final Cut Pro course at Drexel.

As a film geek and someone who is currently in producing a short film, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to take a day and learn something new about one of my favorite video editing programs on the Mac platform.

This course which runs 3 days and will be held every 2 to 3 weeks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday is meant to prepare students for Apple Certification in Final Cut Pro.

(more…)

Guest Post By Jared I. Greene

A well known torrent site – www.suprnova.org – recently decided to leave the torrent business and move to something less controversial. Suprnova.org owner Andrej Preston plans to completely change the direction of the content while keeping the same name. Preston has always loved entertainment, but recently decided that he no longer wanted to consume media, but also create it. Thus, his decision to change Suprnova.org to a TV website hosting original, reality-based short shows that are 1-7 minutes long.

The power of instant feedback in the internet drives the website, users will have the ability to make requests and comments on the show, what they’d like to see and what they wouldn’t. Preston says, “I want the content to be user inspired. I want all the shows to also be created in a way where people are encouraged to say how they feel about something and instead of just watching the show, participate in a discuss(ion) that goes on way after they have seen an ‘episode’.” Shows will give viewers a dependable, continuous source of entertainment, rather than random video clips (virals anyone?)

He says, “The goal is also to get community involved and be able to participate in forum like discussions based on the episode that they just saw” which will give viewers an interactive experience with the shows unseen with television, “I want the content to be user inspired.”

I know what you’re thinking now, a website that allows its users to request videos and comment on them, sounds like Youtube or Dailymotion to me. The new Suprnova.org, will not be “anything goes” as Preston points out, “It is intended for shows which are released weekly and people know what they will get instead of watching a brand new clip of a double rainbow (if you know what I mean).”

There are four videos currently in production, the website is planned to launch some time in January 2011.

Also, be sure to note that www.suprnova.com still exists, but it is clone scam site, it does not offer torrents; it just steals your money, and is in no way affiliated with suprnova.org, despite the fact that it looks identical to the old layout of suprnova.org. Don’t be fooled!

My friend Justin was observant enough to catch this and post it on his blog, and I was just so giddy with Apple glee I just had to share it.

Looks as if they are FINALLY putting up the Apple logo on their Center City store on 1619 Walnut St., and it’s about damn time. When this store will open has been subject to much rumor and speculation. All we do know is they have been taking applications on Apple.com for over a year.

This newest Apple store in the heart of Center City doesn’t bode well for me and some of the other Apple fanboys and girl on this site. Expect us all to declare bankruptcy a few months after the store’s opening.

Photos Courtesy of Justin Campbell Check out his blog here.

Microsoft Student Insiders interview Twitter Platform Team from Hilary Pike on Vimeo.

To end our journey to Las Vegas for MIX 10 in March, Tom Ziegmann and I sat in on Raffi Krikorian’s session titled “Adding the Where to the When of Social Applications” to learn more about our favorite internet obsession, Twitter. More specifically, we learned a bit about where the social is network headed, but still wonder why it’s watching us. It’s kind of creepy.

Thankfully, we later had the chance to ask him some burning questions about geotagging, which helps reveal exactly where the 7-11 is in which your friend just bought milk (you heard it here first, folks). More importantly, we discussed geotagging’s social and security implications as well just who is the real Raffi. Speaking of which, I need to form the search party!

Like this, only a little smaller.

It’s been a long time since I went to a good ol’ fashioned LAN party. You know, the sort where you devour giant bags of Doritos for breakfast, lunch, and possibly dinner, while gaming until your eyes are dried up. Well, the IST Club at Penn State Brandywine are bringing the LAN party back, and want you to come join on April 17th.

Called the “80 Man Lan”, this annual event takes place every year at Penn State Brandywine in Media, PA. This year, the event will take place in the new Tomezsko Building (Room 203), from 10am to 11:30pm. It’s an open event, so you don’t have to be a Penn State student to participate.

The first 50 guests to show up will receive a complimentary 2GB flash drive, with that day’s games preloaded, and all attendees can enjoy free food, including pizza, soda, and other misc (Doritos!) snacks.

So bring your desktop, laptop, gaming system, television, monitor… whatever it is you’ll need to play. Expect epic games of Soldat, Counter Strike, Track Mania, Armagetron, Quake, Tribes, Savage, and Stronghold, as well as console games on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

There are prizes, but those prizes are a secret. Come out and find out.

80 Man Lan @ Penn State Brandywine
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
10am to 11:30pm (OMG)

Associated Press’ Windows Phone 7 news application

Thanks for clicking your way into the Microsoft Student Insider Feature Series, where I get the incredible opportunity to speak with some of the movers and shakers of Microsoft’s various product offerings. While at MIX 10 last week, Jeremy Bray (Microsoft’s Windows Student Insider) and I sat down with Senior Director of Product Management on the Mobile Communications Team, Todd Brix. As you may have already guessed, his dreams are pretty much filled with dancing Windows Phone 7 devices, touch screens aglitter. Let’s get right into what’s in store for us this coming holiday season.

Normally, these types of products have a specific target audience be it enterprise or casual. Brix claims that Microsoft is trying to create something that brings those two walks of life together.

“We’re trying to build an experience that spans their personal life, their work life and the fun and playful things they do around that all the time,” says Brix referring to the Windows Phone 7 target audience.”That’s really the genesis of what we’re doing.”

The Windows Phone 7 team has accomplished this through apps and services that blend the consumer with the professional with fun services like Xbox Live integration or Zune functionality and useful ones like the Microsoft Office hub, according to Brix. It would be interesting to see a business professional use a Windows Phone 7 device to pull up documents during a meeting using the Office service only to check his Gamerscore compared to his work buddies’ during lunch. More on what Windows Phone 7 means for you and I after the break. (more…)

Welcome back to yet another exciting installment of the Microsoft Student Insider Feature Series, where I get to probe the minds of some of the Expression Studio team’s most influential members. This week we have the illustrious and adventurous (more on that later) Vivian Chan, Design Audience Lead on the Expression Studio Developer Marketing team. We also have a ton more of these free 60-day Expression Studio trial discs, so starting this week we’ll be giving away two within each post! Find more details on how to win at the end of today’s feature.

When she’s not rock climbing in Chang Mai, Thailand (i.e. rocking it Lara Croft style), Vivian focuses on one goal that drives pretty much everything she does from atop the Microsoft offices in Bellevue, Washington: make Expression Studio relevant to designers.  More on exactly how she accomplishes this and a look into some of the nifty Silverlight applications Vivian introduced me to after the jump. (more…)

Welcome to Geekadelphia’s weekly discussion column, Cofffee Talk, where we talk about the finer topics concerning video games, technology and all the other things you can’t talk about with your slightly-less-geeky friends. Have questions or suggestions? Send an email to geekadelphia@gmail.com or tweet with us. Follow me on Twitter if you’d like to keep this week’s discussion alive.

In case your home lost all access to the internet this week and your dog trashed your smart phone (and the sudden loss of communication put you into a hermit-like depression) , Apple unveiled their brand spankin’ new iPad this week. The internets have been in an uproar about it and its’ almost guaranteed you’ve heard mention of it in your local hang-outs. Comments have run the gamut from calling it the messiah of media consumption and advertising to nothing more than a big old iPod Touch (because it clearly can’t make phone calls, but that’s not the point).

Regardless of whether Mr. Jobs’ newest creation will revolutionize portable computing, the iPad is not the first of its kind. There have been tablet PC releases in the past, but none of which caught on. However, Apple’s new song and dance has rekindled the flames of corporate rivalry and will be accompanied by some competition. Alright, a lot of competition.

With not only the the surge of netbooks on the market but ones that can handle some serious gaming, is there really a place for the tablet device? More on that after the break.

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One specific subset of Etsy that has always garnered my attention is Macbook stickers that somehow cleverly incorporate the glowing Apple logo into them. Being a huge Apple fan I am always surprised at how they manage to work this very well designed trademark into their designs, although I am not surprised that these clever adhesives don’t seem to stick around for long.(Stick around, get it?) This lack of availability isn’t purely based on supply and demand but mainly due rights issues.

The most successful of these designs primarily consist of a mash-up if you will of one pre-existing property with a logo that has some of the most sue happy lawyers in existence.  This one definitely warmed my little comic book loving geeky heart when I saw it, I mean who doesn’t like Iron Man? You can get the sticker here, this great design comes only second to the now infamous Snow White holding the Apple.

Via: Etsy