Unemployment Hacking

Amazon Launch Annoucement Guesses for June 18th

2014-06-14T10:44:00.001-07:00

I think its going to be some sort of color Kindle. Possibly all in one, phone + kindle using a color epaper or similar technology screen such as one from the Pixel Qi. I perused the source for the announcement page looking for hints, like ice wine and things like that.

I'm going to guess the name will be Kindle Fireflies or Kindle Firefly in reference to the multiple camera's following the users face/eyes which will be used to control the 3d interface of the device. I'm also guessing next page/previous page will be an area at the bottom of the page on the left and right edges of the screen where the user looks for a second. My guess is eye tracking and delay are the touchless features of the new OS/Kindle. You move your eyes naturally while reading from top left to bottom right, so why not have 'next page' be at the end of the last line? You could prop up the device and not even have to hold it!

To further my hunch on a new updated reader, Amazon sent out a children's book [Mr. Pine's Purple House] to invitees to the event with this note from Bezos:

We’re excited that you’ll be joining us next week in Seattle. Enclosed is my favorite childhood book – Mr Pine’s Purple House. I think you’ll agree that the world is a better place when things are a little bit different.

From Amazon’s description of the book:
“Mr. Pine lived on Vine Street in a little white house.” That’s all fine and dandy, but there are 50 white houses on Vine Street, all in a line, and Mr. Pine can’t tell which one is his! To distinguish his own abode, he decides to plant a little pine tree in front, but his neighbors like that idea so much, they do it, too. Even when he plants a bush next to his tree, everyone follows suit. Finally, Mr. Pine paints his house purple–and to his delight, no one else wants a purple house. His neighbors are inspired, however, to paint their own houses all different colors, their first break with conformity. “‘Yellow for me,’ said Mrs. Green. ‘Green for me,’ said Mrs. Brown.”

Since it was a book, and one that has color imagery, I'm guessing this is referencing all prior e-readers are very very similar and there hasn't really been any major progress since the first kindle. I think the end pretty much sums up my guess since it references colors for the houses, which used to be all white (e-paper background color). The fact that the book happens to be on Vine street (amazon's vine program invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make informed purchase decisions) and of course the connection to Ice Wine, which is made from grapes off of vines. Don't worry I know its crazy talk.

In the source for the announcement page in css and js, I found the following text items:
fireflies (i'm thinking the multiple cameras and play with words like kindle, fire etc)
na-kindle (https://dnvfwibzuuif0.cloudfront.net/na-kindle/customer_tease_0603.mp4)
beacon
rumor
hero
sizzle (bad name probably just css fadeout)
airy (apparently its just a video player but it could fit into a name for a touchless interface name)

One of the other things I noticed was the teaser video has "0603" at the end. I'm guessing that is the dimensions of the device or its screen in inches. Notice the top of the device in this photo:

Which also corroborates my guess of a phone/kindle hybrid device. Its kind of silly if that is the case because they are not showing the video on the new device, so it would basically just be an Easter egg for someone like me to find and guess about. However, the fact that the top of the device looks to be about the size of a larger phone makes it more obvious. Unfortunately the glasses reflection looks like a normal LCD screen, but hopefully its a sort of frontlight like the paperwhite on a screen like the Pixel Qi.

Also in the announcement page if you download the background image its much larger than its cropped to be in the page:

NES Programming - Day 1 - Complete

2010-02-21T00:40:00.001-08:00

Whoa!! So I worked on my earlier proposal today...

Here is the current output, my take on hello world is in this case 'Hello Mega Man'

I have the directional pad able to move a sprite around but for some reason if I try to move it with more than one on the screen the one I'm trying to move won't. I'll hopefully figure it out tomorrow.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome as I've basically never done assembly and this is an excessively niche market ;)

NES Programming - Day 1

2010-02-20T10:41:00.001-08:00

So I've decided I'm going to start work on writing a NES Emulator. I've always loved the system and I've always loved programming. I know its going to be a very very bumpy road. I have next to no experience with ASM (Assembly), but I think this would be the most treasure filled way to learn. I think my first steps will be in writing at least a hello world as a ROM for an existing NES emulator. This will hopefully help me to understand how and where data is stored and utilized. There is an assembler for NES called NESASM.exe.

Overall Arc for Phase 1:

Write a game for the NES

Text(Hello World)
Movable Sprite with directional keys
Animation change on A press
Sound Beeps

Write a basic interpreter for a ROM

Load a Mario 1 Sprite and show it on the screen

Improve it by booting to a main menu in a game (no sound)

Not sure which game yet, maybe I should focus on Mario 1

Babysteps #1:

Output Hello World in top left of the screen. Have Nesticle open and run it.

New Post?

2010-02-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

Its been a long time. I'm currently working on a facebook game but since its not yet complete and I don't want to give it away I'll instead post my new websites logo (I made it)

Welcome to epicandroid.com!

Basically I've written a couple iPhone games that are actually in the app store and one game on the Android platform.

I'll upload a couple screenshots when I get a moment.

If you have an iPhone search for 'epic android' and it will bring all the apps up. My favorite is highroller though.

Hexaxis XXI on PSP Dev Update #2

2007-03-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Youtube Dev Update #1:

Featured on Digg:
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Hexaxis_Awesome_3D_PSP_Game

Featured on psp-news.dcemu.co.uk:
http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/awesome-3d-psp-homebrew-game-hexaxis-xxi-wip-news-56700.html
http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/hexaxis-xxi-56849.html

Featured on psp-hacks.com:
http://www.psp-hacks.com/2007/03/20/hexaxis-xxi-alpha-release/

Competition I just entered it into and latest download:
http://www.neoflash.com/forum/index.php/topic,3926.0.html

Hexaxis XXI on PSP?

2007-03-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've decided to start playing around with developing on the PSP using the PSPSDK.

Here is the current progress for 1 night of coding (screenshot dumps from my actual PSP):

Xertica Preview Video #1

2007-03-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

I started work on Xertica on March 1st 2007. So I've put about 10 days total working on it.

Currently I'm very aware of any bugs you may point out. Notice how there is no score yet, on that note, I just wanted to show a walkthrough of the different stages of development.

Another PC Puzzle Game Xertica - (Like Lumines)

2007-03-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of creating another puzzle game simply because there are so many Tetris clones, but no Lumines clones so to speak especially on the PC.

Here is a development screenshot:

The level on display is called 'Phoebe and J'. What do you think?

Another PSX to PSP Game - Chrono Cross

2007-03-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

I converted Chrono Cross and figured it wouldn't work due to all the compatibility issues I've read about it online. But so far its working fine. Of course I haven't made it that far yet, at least I know I can use the Pops Plugin to try it on all the different Pops emulators.

One thing I thought I'd mention is that if you think you would be put off by the 'old' graphics of the PS1, its highly doubtful, its a small enough screen that somehow makes it better than the old.

How to play your favorite PS1 Games on PSP (FF7 Anyone)

2007-03-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

First you have to have a 1.5 firmware on your PSP. If you are above 1.5, you have to downgrade to 1.5. The method right now is to get your hands on a Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories (Original Copy, they fixed it).

Next you download your appropriate downgrader and load that into your psp here:
http://www.psp-hacks.com/category/35

You then load up GTA and load the saved game. That will start the downgrader.

Then you should be at 1.5 when you reboot. So now download this file here for 3.10 OE firmware:
http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/1049

Run the file under windows with the PSP plugged into your computer via usb. Tell it to install.

Then switch to the memory card section of your XMB (cross media browswer) of your psp interface and run the file that says something like '3.10 OE Installer'

It will not run unless your psp has been charged to over 75% power and is plugged in.

when it does run, after it is complete you should be on 3.10 OE and you should be able to play PSX games at this point on it yourself.

How to make your games into eboots that run on the PSP? For now read the readme that comes with 3.10OE, it explains how to use the Popstation file. I'll make a followup post on how to continue later on.

Mario 64 on PSP using Daedalus R9 (Playable)

2007-03-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a video of me playing Mario 64 on my PSP using Daedalus R9

It is definitely playable (no sound) at 25fps average outside the castle and about 12-17FPS in level (playable but not very fun). With sound expect about 10-12% drop in framerate (basically not fun and choppy sound anyway)

I can't wait for the next release. Hopefully StrmnNrmn will make the next release faster overall and fix Tetrisphere and my favorite puzzle game Wetrix:

Review: Waawoo Wow Pen Eco

2007-03-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

Update:
March 11th 2007
My right hand is starting to hurt again (ulner nerve) where my pinky is going numb and my ring finger. I am thinking that because I was previously using the PistolMouseFPS, my hand somewhat healed and it tricked me into thinking the Wow pen was going to continue the pain-free legacy. I was wrong. So I'm going to publicly give this input device a 'Don't Buy' status....

I bought this device for $33.48 shipped using Google Checkout's $10 coupon. I've been using the ECO now for over 3 weeks full time use. One thing I would say is that I was definitely skeptical at first due to the seemingly lack of wrist rotation compared to a regular mouse:

Regular Mouse: Wow Pen Eco

What a difference! ;)

Well I don't know how but that slight difference is definitely better than a regular mouse as I can say from experience. I get pain from using a regular mouse and no pain so far with the Wow Pen Eco.

In about 10 minutes, I was already accustomed to using the the new mouse, including the scroll wheel and left and right clicking.

I will say though it loses points due to quickly gathering dust around the sensor, as I have already had to pull out some debris twice due to erratic mouse cursor movement. Whatever, it won't get permanently screwed up like a regular old school ball mouse. I will also say it loses points over the scroll wheel push in button. Its way to hard to push it in, and almost makes it useless. I never really bothered using that with a regular mouse though.

Similar Alternate Products:

Aero2bic Mouse (formerly Quill mouse):
http://www.officeorganix.com/Quillmouse1.htm

Evoluent VerticalMouse 3:
http://www.evoluent.com/vm3.html

MonsterGecko PistolMouse FPS:
http://www.monstergecko.com/products.html

I would rate the Waawoo Wow Pen ECO:
3 out of 10
I would not suggest picking one up to fix any form of pain from normal computing (Carpel Tunnel, RSI, or Ulner Nerve Problems).

Hexaxis XXI new website

2007-02-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Hexaxis XXI website:

What do you think?

I have also put it up on eBay for purchase, check it out:
eBay auction for Hexaxis XXI

Catching up Part I

2007-02-26T10:47:00.000-08:00

I've done a lot within the last couple months. So I figured I'd catch up in the blog. This is part I:

I own a Dell Inspiron E1505 Laptop, of which I paid $697 including shipping on 07/15/06. It has 80GB, Duo Core 1.67, 1GB Ram, and unfortunately I only went for the ATI X1300 Mobility (which apparently has freezing problems) Dell disagrees with me:

I decided I wanted a little more power and wish I paid the extra $150 to upgrade the video card to the nVidia Geforce Go 7300 NJ887.

After trying to convince Dell over the phone to send me the upgraded 7300 due to my freezing problems with the ATI card, they transferred me all night long and finally they put me with some woman who suggested a video card on their website (7300 PCI-Express) for a DESKTOP. So I decided that I was going to get the ATI card as I was still under warranty and keep the new one. They overnighted it to me and basically I didn't bother putting it into my computer until I found a NJ887 256MB Geforce card on ebay (pull) for only $49.95.

TIP: If you are looking for something of a niche product, and want an email when new items are listed, check this out (official ebay favorite search link):

I have saved a lot of money with this tool. I have been watching for this particular (fingerworks touchstream lp) that has been going for up to $1800 and someone listed it for $590 Buy it Now. I got the email right away and now have the product. Very very useful. Notice how I saved approx $100 for this nvidia video card alone!

Obviously I couldn't help myself, it was a pull from another E1505 and even though the dell people told me it wasn't possible to install that card because I started with the ATI card, IT HAS WORKED.

I've since received that card from ebay, and taken out my old card, sent it to dell (RevA01) and kept the RevA02 they sent me. So basically by waiting I've saved a crap load of money.

Here are a couple pics of the process:

Hexaxis XXI Development

2007-02-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

I've written this game in under 2 months.

I learned how to write shaders:

I've conquered the world in my slippers and hoody:

What's next?

Final Fantasy 7 and 9 on PSP

2007-02-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

To me, those 2 games in my pocket at all times is a dream. When I'm at Gap in the dressing room waiting for an infinite lifetime of potential game playing gone down the drain, I may pull out my PSP and save the world from Sephiroth.

Heres are the two videos I uploaded to youtube of just that: