Tracking Consumer Search Results

News: Google Now Will Switch Languages on the Fly

The latest update to Google Search—which is Google Now—includes the ability to switch languages on the fly. This means that "spanglish", or any other popular combination of languages, will be understood in context by Google's search engine. The feature is live, so give it a shot for yourself. With recent additions of parking location tracking, bill reminders, and a stellar World Cup tracker, Google Now just continues to get better and better. Let us know what you think of the latest addition ...

How To: Use a Needle Mounted Row Counter When Crocheting or Knitting on Circular or Double Pointed Needles

I like to use a row counter as it saves me the trouble of counting rows when increasing, decreasing, or working a cable pattern. All I have is a small needle mounted counter that is hard to keep track of when it is not mounted on a knitting needle. When knitting on circular or double pointed needles, or crocheting, I have to count rows ever so often. This is time consuming, and I have to admit to sometimes being inaccurate. To solve this problem I threaded a piece of fishing line through the ...

News: Exercise Daily (While Playing XBox 360)

ProjectExciteBike is a device that harnesses the manpower pedaling speed of an exercise bike and in turn, converts the energy into a single control button on a gamepad (which would translate as the "gas pedal" for racing games). This particular project works with XBox 360, but can be adapted for other systems as well.

News: Japanese Built Mini Fiat Cinque Tank-Tractor

This is no ordinary tractor. Nor is it an ordinary Fiat. Not by a long shot. Japanese ironsmith Kogoro Kurata custom built this bulldozer from an old Fiat 500 body and caterpillar tracks, which can only reach a speed of 3 km/h. It may move at the pace of a snail, but I wouldn't mind using this beast to shovel my driveway (in style) this come winter.

How To: Hack Together an Accelerometer-Aware Mobile Website by Accessing Motion Sensors in JavaScript

Christian Cantrell, Adobe's Air Product Manager and Evangelist, has released a video to demo websites that take advantage of the motion sensors in a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop via JavaScript. Now, let's take a look through the code and break down the core pieces that you'll need in order to build your own sites that can determine the 2-axis tilt, 3-axis gyroscope, and compass direction of the mobile device it's being displayed on.

Play GIRP: All the Finger Strain of Climbing without the Risk of Death

Great controls are the most important and difficult part of game design. Games with vector graphics and non-existent stories are classics because their creators managed to create a system where using buttons to control a shape on a screen was intuitive and fun. This is the tradition that Pac-Man has left us with, a gaming world in which controlling the character onscreen in an engaging way is the crux of the game's enjoyment.

How Do You Create Your Own Job: An Example

On Thursday, March 9, there was a news story on the evening news about Khan Academy (NBC News). The story began when Sal Khan started tutoring his cousin in 2004. Since he was in Boston and she was in a different city, he decided to make and post videos on YouTube so anyone could watch the videos. Later he added videos for her brothers and for people that contacted him with requests for other videos. During this time Sal had a job that he later replaced with another job. Today Sal has 2010 vi...

How To: EFF's guide to ebook privacy

One of the costs associated with buying an Amazon Kindle is going to be the fact that Amazon now has your info, and can track your buying habits with ease. If this is going to be a factor in your ereader purchase, you should know what you're getting into. EFF's written up a handy guide to what information different ereaders track.

How To: Create and animate a tank track in 3ds Max

In this 3ds Max video tutorial you will learn how to create a tank track piece. The video shows you how to attach multiple objects and use path deform. Make sure to hit "play tutorial" in the top left corner of the video to start the video. There is no sound, so you'll need to watch the pop-up directions. Create and animate a tank track in 3ds Max.

How To: Use The DROID 2 Smartphone From Motorola (25 Video Tips)

The DROID 2 from Motorola came out last August, but it's just now exploding— literally. The 33 News reported yesterday that a Motorola DROID 2 smartphone exploded in the hands of Aron Embry from Cedar Hills, Texas. He was making a phone call outside his home when he heard a POP sound— blood was dripping down his face and the glass was broken around the phone's speaker— his DROID 2 cell phone actually exploded against his ear. He ended up getting 4 stitches and a CAT scan, but thankfully, he d...

How To: Play blues on an electric guitar like John Lee Hooker

If you're a musician in need of some lessons, there's no better way to learn than with MusicRadar's so-called "Tuition" instructions. Although the title tuition is misleading, this video class is anything but costly, because it's free, right here. Whether you're looking for help with your voice, bass, electric guitar, drums, guitar effects, piano, Logic Pro or production techniques, Music Radar is here to show you the way.

How To: Reverse Check a Phone Number

Prank Calls, Masked NumbersWho is calling your phone or your child's? Pranksters use a lot of tricks to make sure they can get on your nerves. Being able to trace prank calls is important because you're not going to learn much from your Caller ID, since most prank callers use an unlisted number - such as, a cell phone number. Many also use special code *67 to mask the number so your Caller ID will show "Blocked Number" or "Private Number". There are a lot of mild cases of so-called phone bull...

Edit on a Dime: The Week Ahead

Happy Monday to all of you out there, thankfully the Consumer Electronics Show is now behind us. It feels quite possible that a cold was caught by yours truly simply by reading the numerous reports of germs being spread from booth to booth on the show floor. I'll do my best to soldier on, in the meantime if you haven't already, you can experience the convention vicariously by reading my 'Best of CES' post here.

News: The Best of CES

This year's Consumer Electronics Show is nearing an end so of course it's an occasion for the 'best of' lists. To save you time I thought I'd compile my 'best of' the 'best of' lists.