Cross Dominant

#“This week on Twitter. (Every week on Twitter)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g »

#“Why I’ve pledged money to @AppDotNet and why you should too” There have been lots of concerns about the future of Twitter recently. App.netwas recently announced as a pay-for alternative to Twitter with a powerful API, no ads and a deep commitment to not constantly change the rules on users and developers to suit an ever-changing business plan. I always find it funny how people believe that the thing they are using now will never be replaced; from smoke to horses to telegrams to Friendster to Twitter. »

#“Google cancels Listen. I’m cancelling all non-core products by large corporations” We launched Google Listen through Google Labs in August 2009, to give people a way to discover and listen to podcasts. However, with Google Play, people now have access to a wider variety of podcast apps, so weve discontinued Listen. I never thought Listen was very good but this cancellation is why more and more I avoid Google’s non-core products. »

#“Don’t throw out that standalone phone battery charger” An old hack I had forgotten about. There is nothing more annoying about phones than upgrading them and finding that your battery is a different size and won’t fit in your old charger, even tho the contacts line up. OK, there is one thing more annoying - owning a phone that doesn’t let you take the battery out (cough iPhone). So rather than put the old HTC Desire charger in the bin, I went at it with a Stanley knife and some Sugru. »

#“littleBits looks perfect for younger kids to experiment. Anyone using?” I might be able to wean my youngest off Barbie with these cool littleBits. She’s bloody obsessed with dolls and she didn’t get the obsession from us! What is littleBits? from littleBits on Vimeo. »

#“Your teens going mental in all this Irish rain? Send them over to Maker Camp now” Maker Camp, sponsored by MAKE magazine, is a virtual summer camp for teens, with a focus on creating, building, and discovering. We'll be making 30 awesome projects in 30 days on Google+. Maker Camp is free and open to all, and runs from July 16th through August 24th. A genuinely great use of Google+. »

#“Pit of Despair Projects” I have a bunch of blogposts bouncing around in my head which I’ll hopefully start writing on my holliers, from Friday. Stuff around the tactile nature of hardware, Makers, having a Masters in Electronics I never really used, low volume production, crowd-sourcing solutions to problems instead of relying on guv’ment, moving production back to the first world, education, Kickstarter, doing vs learning etc etc etc. There are a ton of companies supplying the Maker market and electronics people in general. »

#“Well that’s my Christmas present sorted - Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control” Kinda speaks for itself really. OK, it doesn’t actually speak, but you know what I mean. »

#“Some of the very first Tweets to/from me in 2007 via oldtweets” Just spotted this oldtweets project which is collecting all the Tweets from the first year of Twitter. I did the usual vanity search and spotted something very interesting - we hadn’t quite mastered the use of @ in March 2007. Here’s @conoro And here’s conoro And finally, here are my initial words of genius from Feb 26th 2007 onwards. »

#“The @RaspberryPi Programming Contest for Kids - Win $1000”  All the details over on their blog and in this PDF. I’ll always remember the months I spent building a data graphing application for the ZX Spectrum for a schools programming competition back in the 80s. You ain’t seen a piechart until you’ve seen a Spectrum colour-clash pie-chart like that. Of course I didn’t even get a mention, let alone win the thing. »