Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

It will be tomorrow evening, guys, for the show. I ran into video camera problems. Working through them.

Flappy Bird, we barely knew ye!

Goodbye, Flappy Bird?

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – “Some surprising news from ‘Flappy Bird’ creator Dong Nguyen.

Nguyen says he plans to pull the game from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store. (Via YouTube / iAndyC83)

And soon. On Saturday, Dong Nguyen tweeted ‘I am sorry ‘Flappy Bird’ users, 22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down. I cannot take this anymore.’ That tweet has already racked up over 50,000 retweets.

So what’s the ‘this’ Nguyen is referring to? Owen Good of Kotaku says it’s likely the popularity of the game. ‘Earlier this week, Nguyen pleaded over Twitter for everyone to ‘please give me peace,’ saying the notoriety over creating the game is ‘something I never want.”

To give you an idea of that notoriety, a report by The Verge on Wednesday said the app, which displays mobile advertisements during gameplay, brings in a whopping $50,000 a day.

And the Los Angeles Times reports the game has been downloaded more than 10 million times – and that’s just on Android devices.

Hours before his announcement, Nguyen seemed to be a little bothered by the popularity. He tweeted: ‘I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.’

If you’ve yet to download Flappy Bird, now’s the time to grab it. Though it won’t receive updates after being pulled, the game will still function.

Nguyen sent out a few more tweets following his original announcement – he says he will still create games, and doesn’t plan to sell Flappy Bird.”

Google dooms all other video conferencing systems!

Lord of the Meetings: With Chromebox for Meetings, Google has just shot dead video conferencing hardware rivals

Tech Times – “Video conferencing hardware has always been expensive but now Google looks to disrupt the industry by launching Chromebox for Meetings officially in the United States, Thursday, for only $999. It will soon be rolled out in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, New Zealand, and Spain, as well. The move doesn’t augur well for Google’s rivals in the video conferencing hardware business.

Chromebox for Meetings aims to disrupt the video conferencing scene for enterprise clients. Essentially, it is a complete video conferencing kit that can be set up within minutes out of the box. It includes an ASUS Chromebox that has an Intel i7 under the hood, a Logitech high-definition camera, a remote control that doubles as a QWERTY keyboard, and a microphone-speaker combo unit with adjustable volume.

The new device is the marriage of Google+ Hangouts and Google Apps that will allow companies to have HD video conferences. Businesses can host video meetings with as many as 15 attendees. Participants can essentially join using any gadget – smartphones, tablets, or laptops. For people without a Chromebox, a Gmail account is what they will only need. The system also makes use of Google Calendar to show meeting schedules on the display.

‘The best meetings are face-to-face-we can brainstorm openly, collaborate closely and make faster decisions. But these days, we often connect with each other from far-flung locations, coordinating time zones and dialing into conference calls from our phones. Meetings need to catch up with the way we work-they need to be face-to-face, easier to join, and available from anywhere and any device,’ wrote vice president for product management at Google Caesar Sengupta.

Businesses using other kinds of conferencing systems can still connect to Chromebox meetings by using a tool from Vidyo, which has been collaborating with Google to help Hangouts connect with IP PBX systems and H.323/SIP from companies such as Polycom, Tandberg, and Cisco. Those who prefer to join over the phone can use UberConference.

In order to avoid awkward scenarios that happen during voice conferences, the cloud service mutes people joining the meeting to avoid disruption of ongoing discussion. The video also intuitively switch to whoever is talking, mimicking how people focus on the speaker during face-to-face meetings. The streams will also be ecnrypted.

‘Any company can upgrade their meeting rooms with a new Chromebox, built on the Chrome principles of speed, simplicity and security,’ Sengupta added.

The $999 initial cash out includes the Chromebox and peripherals, plus support for the first year. Customers who might require technical support after the first year need to shell out $250 per year. Before the end of the month, Google will also release HP and Dell versions of the Chromebox for Meetings.

Google said that companies such as Yelp, Premier Foods, Gilt, Costco, and Eventbrite have been doing test run of Chromebox for Meetings in the past few months.

Businesses interested in purchasing Chromebox for Meetings can get it through CDW while resellers can contact Synnex.

With Google entering the business video conferencing scene and stamping its name on Chromebox, it might have just earned the title ‘Lord of the Meetings,’ squashing other brands in its path.”

Open Source is going further than ever! From software, to now, hardware… and even cars! Check this out!

OSVehicle: TABBY Timelapse from OSVehicle on Vimeo.

There is even an “Urban Model” that is “street legal!”

Urban TABBY – the road legal evolution from OSVehicle on Vimeo.

This one, with an electric motor… hey, my seven mile commute to work would be fun!

The CrossOver Full, Supported Version of WINE, is very, very nice! I purchased a copy back when I was running Linux as my work desktop. This new version is very targeted for Quicken users. Here’s the announcement from CodeWeavers I got via E-Mail.

“Hello all, I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 13.1.0 for both Mac OS X and Linux.

CrossOver 13.1.0 supports Quicken 2014. Because Quicken is such a popular application, we are releasing this version of CrossOver specially to provide our users support for the latest version of Quicken. In addition to support for Quicken 2014, CrossOver 13.1.0 has improved translations in some non-English languages. Quicken 2014 support is the main feature of this release.

A changelog for CrossOver 13.1.0 is shown below.

Mac customers with active support entitlements will be upgraded to Crossover 13 the next time they launch Crossover. Linux users can download the latest version from https://www.codeweavers.com/.

If Crossover asks for registration use your codeweavers.com email address & password to register and unlock Crossover. Email info@codeweavers.com if you need more help.

Thank you all for your support, and we hope you enjoy CrossOver 13.1.0!”

Here’s a Facebook post from Mark Zuckerberg: “Today is Facebook’s 10th anniversary.

It’s been an amazing journey so far, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it. It’s rare to be able to touch so many people’s lives, and I try to remind myself to make the most of every day and have the biggest impact I can.

People often ask if I always knew that Facebook would become what it is today. No way.

I remember getting pizza with my friends one night in college shortly after opening Facebook. I told them I was excited to help connect our school community, but one day someone needed to connect the whole world.

I always thought this was important — giving people the power to share and stay connected, empowering people to build their own communities themselves.

When I reflect on the last 10 years, one question I ask myself is: why were we the ones to build this? We were just students. We had way fewer resources than big companies. If they had focused on this problem, they could have done it.

The only answer I can think of is: we just cared more.

While some doubted that connecting the world was actually important, we were building. While others doubted that this would be sustainable, you were forming lasting connections.

We just cared more about connecting the world than anyone else. And we still do today.

That’s why I’m even more excited about the next ten years than the last. The first ten years were about bootstrapping this network. Now we have the resources to help people across the world solve even bigger and more important problems.

Today, only one-third of the world’s population has access to the internet. In the next decade, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to connect the other two-thirds.

Today, social networks are mostly about sharing moments. In the next decade, they’ll also help you answer questions and solve complex problems.

Today, we have only a few ways to share our experiences. In the next decade, technology will enable us to create many more ways to capture and communicate new kinds of experiences.

It’s been amazing to see how all of you have used our tools to build a real community. You’ve shared the happy moments and the painful ones. You’ve started new families, and kept spread out families connected. You’ve created new services and built small businesses. You’ve helped each other in so many ways.

I’m so grateful to be able to help build these tools for you. I feel a deep responsibility to make the most of my time here and serve you the best I can.

Thank you for letting me be a part of this journey.”

This looks so cool!

ASUS’ Chromebox arrives in March for $179

Emily Price for Engadget – “As promised late last year, ASUS unveiled its new Chromebox packing Intel’s fourth-generation Haswell processors today. The most compact Chromebox yet, the computer comes sporting either Intel’s Celeron 2955U or i3-4010 processor. Another i7 version of the box will be available outside of North America.

Under the hood of the svelte 4.88 x 4.88 x 1.65-inch device, you’ll get Intel-integrated HD graphics and 16GB of onboard storage. If you need more room to store your stuff, ASUS is also offering buyers 100GB of free cloud storage through Google Drive. Display-wise, the i3 and i7 Chromebox supports 4K Ultra High-Definition displays, and all three have HDMI and DisplayPort out ports for dual-monitor capabilities. You’ll also find four USB 3.0 ports on the device, as well as a built-in SD card reader. You can snag your own ASUS Chromebox in March starting at $179.”