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Not to advertise for the company I’ll soon be working for… but this is indeed pretty cool stuff. If the costs can be lowered significantly it may just make it big.

Microsoft Surface – multi-touch, multi-user interface, object recognition and gestural interaction
(Watch the middle “The Power” video if you’re only going to watch one, I think that’s the coolest)

and apparently its not all big dreams… limited 2007 rollouts in T-Mobile stores, Starwood hotels, and Harrah’s in Vegas. Runs on a 1G stock Vista box =p.

The coolest part about all this is…. I actually saw Bill Gates demo this at the 30th Anniversary Company Meeting when I was interning there 😐 that was….. 1.5 years ago….. I think he did some cool stuff like OCRing business card and populating the info onto a PDA wirelessly (bluetooth or sth? not sure). Showed some stuff with photos too. Never thought it would actually be released as a MS product though =p.

JasonC is a cutting edge Apple professional. Working his art, he is intensely lost in the moment. Oblivious to his surroundings, he becomes one with his camera. Equipped with his portable Canon Powershot, he’s ready to capture the moment. JasonC wouldn’t even think of attempting his fast-paced, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants urban photography without his trusty Apple gear.

Gear (Hardware)
Canon Powershot S2 IS
Apple laptop bag.
Some laptop.

So on the sad note, the Canada Post delivery notice I received was not the contact lenses I’ve been waiting for (for two weeks) but on a happy note it’s a geeky new toy, in the La Crosse Technology BC-900 battery charger.

First impressions:

This thing looks cheap.. but it has lots of information on display so its forgiveable.. and it comes with batteries and a bag.. and some adapters so you can use AA batteries in your C and D cell equipment (didn’t know you could do that!).

Anyhow, last night I plopped in 4 of my oldest NiMH batteries (rated 2300mAH) and set it to Test mode. It fills up the batteries to full, then drains them, then fills them up again and reports the capacity.

If I had placed these batteries into my old charger.. it would have charged until one battery was full then stopped for all of them or done something like that. Little did I know that the four batteries started at pretty varied voltages. I set it to charge at 500mAH (5hrs to fill 2300mAH) and then discharge at 250mAH (10 hrs to empty). Two of the batteries were filled in about 3 hours.. but the other two took another 2-3 hours. (basically empty). They finished at varying voltages, from 1.46v to 1.51v.. and then they started to discharge at 250mAH.

When I woke this morning.. 3 were done.. and as I was writing down their reported capacities.. the 4th (batt#4, the one which hit the highest voltage during the initial charge) finished. The results I got were pretty surprising.. but fairly in line with what the initial charging peak voltages implied.

Two of the batteries (which finished charging with relatively low voltages last night) only reported 1470mAH and 1480mAH as max capacity! Batt#1 reported 1550mAH and batt#4 topped out at about 1880mAH. Talk about a difference! Anyway.. currently all 4 batteries are going through a discharge/charge cycle at 350mAH/700mAH. I’ll report on the capacities tonight, and then set them to “refresh” mode and see if these batteries are too old to increase their capacity again.

Seeing as we know electronics only function until the weakest battery dies.. that would mean I could have been putting 1470mAH batteries into a flash. yikes. And that would be assuming I could even get them fully charged.

So yesterday there was a deal on RFD for a Energizer 15 minute charger from Dell.ca for $29 with free ship. Great! Since my charger is very.. unreliable.. it always says its fully charged after 30 minutes when it’s supposed to take 3 hours to charge 1800mah batteries. Then when I go to church and use supposedly charged batteries.. my BR dies shortly.

So.. after reading through the thread.. I learned that the 15 minute chargers charge at the expense of shortening the overall battery life (due to excessive heat during charigng).. so.. of course someone posted a link to another forum.. of flashlight fanatics.. who just.. like.. flashlights.. They have.. light.. get togethers.. where they admire the strength of each other’s flashlights ???. Anyway, since they use a lot of batteries.. they have lots to say about NiMH and chargers etc. etc. Anyhow.. I came across this entry-levelish smart battery charger. Which actually has an LCD for each battery slot which can tell you the current charge in mah, it can discharge and recharge your battery at different rates.. and it can “recycle” your batteries to maximize capacity. $39US + ship etc.

Review

Thanks guys! Now to decide what to use it for.

I’m not a huge fan of birthdays.. don’t really see the big deal about them. Maybe because some people make them out to be shows of popularity.. or maybe it’s the dryness if you were to try to host some big thing and then no-one were to come. I guess at the end of the day, as any other person, anytime people come and celebrate with you, it makes you feel warm inside. So, thanks 🙂

Haha.. as with anyone else, I’m not a huge fan of telemarketers or door-to-door salespeople.. so yesterday upon hearing the doorbell, I of course first check my window to see if there are any cars.. no cars.. then its probably not important =p.. Out of curiosity I waited a little bit just to see who would walk out, whether it was some real estate agent, some artist selling his paintings (have had a couple), or someone selling cookies. Anyway, Sam convinced me to go down.. and so I walked down the stairs, and halfway down saw some candles outside.. so the first thing I thought was.. ah some crazy mormon good friday vigil thing.. so I turned back to walk upstairs.. until Sam kept telling me to get the door.. so I finally got it =p I figured it out about 3 steps from the door =p