Technabob » twitter

Tworse Telegraph Key Lets You Tweet in Morse Code

Conner Flynn — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:00:11 +0000

Want to get all turn-of-last-century on your Twitter friends? The Tworse Key is Arduino-powered and while it may not be the most effective way to tweet, it does allow you to do it in old time style.

All you need to do to tweet with it is plug it into an Ethernet port and you are good to go. You also have to know morse code, of course. Either that or just type nonsense.

Martin Kaltenbrunner is responsible for this backwards technology. He enjoys “hooking up cool old things to cool new things because it’s cool.” I agree. If you want to try your hand at making one, you can find some instructions here. Maybe you can open up your own Twitter telegraph office.

[via Hack a Day via Geekosystem]

Olly and Molly: Smell and Taste Your Tweets

Technabob — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:00:42 +0000

People are always trying to figure out ways to make the internet more tangible, and one of the more common ways to do this is to build devices that interact with Twitter or Facebook in some way. In this case, we have a pair of devices which let you smell or taste your tweets (and other online messages.)

Designed by Benjamin Redford and the OllyFactory (get it?). Olly and Molly are USB-connected, Arduino-powered gadgets which notify you when you have a new message by letting you follow your nose or taste buds. Olly is the smelly one of the pair – and can be filled with a scented oil of your choice – and then emit an aroma as a notification. You can even stack up multiple Ollies so you can have different digital events trigger different smells.

Molly isn’t stinky at all. This little bot holds onto some little candies, and drops one into its little bin whenever your tweets gets retweeted a pre-set number of times. Though it doesn’t look like it can hold too many candies – which is good if you get a lot of retweets. You wouldn’t want to start gaining weight from Twitter now? That’s all we need now.

Both Olly and Molly are raising funds now over on Kickstarter – and they still have a ways to go if you’d like one. The fundraising ends on Feb. 10, and still needs to raise another $27,000 of its $35,000 goal. A pledge of $50 or more gets you an Olly, and $55 or more gets you a Molly. Higher pledges will result in various combos of Ollies and Mollies, as well as the ability to customize the look of yours.

Tweeting Sensor: Posts Temperature, Humidity and Radiation, Eventually

Hazel Chua — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:00:43 +0000

People use Twitter for various reasons. Some users tweet senseless stuff everyday (like “I just farted” or “My cat is sleeping.”) Some re-tweet quotes that they find meaningful, while some just post jokes, rants, and anything that they feel like posting about.

Then there’s also those who post news updates, talk about breaking news or events as they occur, and post updates on the current temperature and humidity. But only those people who have the Tweeting Sensor can do the latter.

The Tweeting Sensor was developed by UC Technology. Basically, it’s a device that detects the current temperature, humidity, and amount of sunshine through its wireless sensor. It will then post the readings on Twitter. UC Technology explains: “You connect this device to the Internet and plug in the AC adapter. You can also connect a slave unit, so you have a wireless sensor that measures temperature, humidity, and sunshine. This sensor makes the wireless connection automatically, and sends its data each time.”

You could also elect to connect the Tweeting Sensor to a radiation meter. When enough information is gathered from a particular area, then the data can be used to generate a radiation map. Now that’s using the power of the Internet and social media to the fullest.

The Tweeting Sensor will be priced at around ¥40,000 (~$520 USD). With a little work, you can probably do the same (other than the radiation part) with the new Twine sensor for a lot less money.

[via Diginfo]

Q-Sensor Bracelet Determines Your Mood and Tweets About It

Hazel Chua — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:44 +0000

Everything’s all about your mood and social networking these days. Remember the heat-sensitive iPhone backing that turns your smartphone into a sort-of giant mood ~~ring~~ phone? Or that creepy Jell-O ad campaign with the giant face billboard that smiled or frowned based on the moods of people in Twitterverse?

Now take everything a notch further with your very own personal mood detector and tweeter with the Q-Sensor Bracelet.

So what makes the Q-Sensor by Affectiva any different from all those other self-proclaimed mood-detecting products? Well, for one, it makes use of sensors that measure your galvanic skin response, an indicator of your physiological or psychological arousal (and also what supposed “lie detectors” measure.). It also keeps tabs on the electrical conductance of your skin, which changes with varying moisture levels on your skin (sweaty, much?)

Aside from that, the Q-Sensor also measures your temperature and overall movement, and inputs all this information into pre-installed software to determine your mood. And if you want it to, it will Tweet your mood.

Sounds pretty cool, right? The only downside is the $2,000 pricetag that comes with it. Of course, Affectiva doesn’t intend this as a consumer gadget – it’s actually targeted at medical and research environments, where the cost shouldn’t be such a factor.

[via GigaOm via Geeky Gadgets]

Tweet Speaker App Reads Your Tweets

Conner Flynn — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:00:05 +0000

Reading too many tweets can be hard on your eyes, and besides, when you are reading them, you can’t really do anything else at the same time. It’s much better to have tweets read to you.

That’s where appcubby’s Tweet Speaker comes in handy. Tweet Speaker is an app for iOS devices that will read your tweets to you. While it is doing so, you can focus on other things and not have to be a slave to your eyesight.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

For instance you can catch up on your tweets while driving to work. As you can hear in the demo video above, the text-to-speech is clear and easy to understand and abbreviations like “RT” are read as “Retweet”. Webpage titles are mentioned in place of the site URLs. Tweet Marker support lets you pick up where you left off too. Get Tweet Speaker now for $2.99 (USD) at the iTunes App Store.

[via TNW via Ubergizmo]

Robonaut 2 Tweets from Space

Range — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:36:15 +0000

Well, it took a few months, but now it looks like NASA’s Robonaut 2 is finally tweeting from space. We knew that it had arrived on the ISS a few months ago, and now it looks like he’ll keep his Earth-based followers updated on what’s happening aboard the ISS – via twitter.

Strangely enough, his tweets sound pretty human, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. You can follow Robonaut 2 over at his @astrorobonaut Twitter account.

So far, Robonaut has about 49,000 followers and is currently undergoing ‘power soak activity’, which can only mean a recharge. It’s currently locked down in the Destiny laboratory, but hopefully it will go on space walks in the near future.

Japan’s tweeting robot will go into space in 2013 and it will probably tweet in Japanese.

[via BBC via Ubergizmo]

Restaurant Kicks Lady Out for Tweeting that Bartender was a Twerp

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:28:04 +0000

I have been in a restaurant before when someone was generally making an ass of themselves complaining about everything. I have also been in a restaurant before when I have leaned over to my wife and noted that the waiter was a tool. A lady named Allison Matsu was at a Houston, Texas restaurant called Down House on Sunday and wasn’t happy with something the bartender said.

She posted a tweet that said the bartender was a twerp and then appended the hash tags #jackass #jackoff to the tweet. Apparently, this lady has some sort of local notoriety for tweets, which is weird on its own. After she posted her tweet, the manager of the restaurant Forrest DeSpain apparently saw the tweet, called the bar, and had the bartender give the lady the phone.

DeSpain said he asked the lady if she had any kinder words and when she didn’t he asked her to leave. Matsu posted a tweet saying, “Left @DownHouseHTX in tears after GM called up & asked the bartender to hand me the phone. He proceeded to curse a me & ask me to leave. Wow.” Being kicked out of a restaurant for posting a tweet is harsh. What do you think?

[via Houston Press]

Get Free Pudding When Jell-O’s (Creepy) Pudding Face Billboard Is Frowning

Hazel Chua — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:30:23 +0000

Fancy a free serving or two of Jell-O? Feeling down in the dumps and firing away tweets laced with “:(” at the beginning, middle, or end?

If you answered “yes” to both, then you might just receive a tweet from @JelloMoodMeter with a link to claim your free pudding.

Jell-O’s new campaign is to rid sadness from America, one tweeter at a time. So how does it work? Jell-O has set up a site with the Jell-O Pudding Face that parses through the tweets on Twitter, segregating them as Smiley Tweets or Frowny Tweets. (From the labels themselves, you’d probably be able to guess which kind of tweets go where.)

Now Jell-O has moved its pudding face from Twitter to the real world with the new billboard they’ve set up in Manhattan. Having a bad day? Just look up to Pudding Face and see if the rest of America (who are at home tweeting about their joys or sorrows) are feeling as crappy (or good) as you.

Every time more frowny tweets are detected by Pudding Face, the red button lights up, and you guessed it: someone is scoring some free pudding from Jell-O.

[via PSFK via Oh Gizmo!]

White House Rickrolls Correspondent Who Complained Briefing Was Boring

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:47:40 +0000

I always think of the people that work at the White House as a bunch of bah humbug sorts that have no fun. I might have to change my notions of these political folks though. A White House Correspondent named David Wiggs was sitting though another correspondent brief when he tweeted what he thought.

Wiggs tweeted, “This WH correspondence briefing isn’t nearly as entertaining as yesterday’s.” That seems innocent enough, but someone at the White House had a devilish streak and tweeted back “Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here’s something more fun: http://tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp“

The fun part was that Wiggs got Rickrolled by the White House. Wiggs noted later that someone had already told him what the link was to before he clicked it, but still pranking from the White House is great. Now if we can just get someone to prank the VP. If Obama would short sheet the VP’s bed it would go a long way towards redeeming him in my eyes.

[via TheNextWeb]

TweetingSeat: Sit on It! (and Tweet)

Range — Wed, 11 May 2011 11:47:05 +0000

I’ve heard of tweeting objects before, like a tweeting cat door and the tweeting scale, but this is the first time that I’ve seen a tweeting bench. The TweetingSeat was created by designer Christopher McNicholl. The bench creates logs of its usage (must be very pertinent information), takes photos of people who sit on it, and tweets about it over at its dedicated Twitter feed @TweetingSeat.

I can probably see some usefulness of this kind of design if something like bus stops or highways would tweet, letting you know if your bus is late or if there is a lot of traffic .

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The TweetingSeat is currently tweeting from the University of Dundee, but it could come to a bench or park near you.

[via Inspire Me Now]

TinyVox iPhone App Helps You Break Out of the E-mail and Text Message Rut

Technabob — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:05:07 +0000

I get dozens of iPhone app announcements every day, but this one actually made me prick up my ears and listen. That’s because instead of sending text messages, Tinyvox sends voice messages.

The cool thing about the little app is that it makes it stupid simple to record personalized voice messages and send them to your friends or post them to social networking sites. All you do is click the “Record” button, then the “Share” button when you’re ready to send your audio message. You can choose to send your message to either your own e-mail box or to friends, as well as to share it on Twitter, Facebook or even Tumblr. E-mailed sounds are simply sent as an MP3 that you can play back right then and there. Sure, the iPhone already has its voice memo recorder that can send via E-mail or SMS, but it only sends .M4A files, and can’t post and share them online, and TinyVox’s interface beats Apple’s too. Sounds shared online are are stored on the TinyVox website, which is sort of like TwitPic, but for audio snippets. The only thing I don’t like is the lack of privacy controls on shared online messages, and I couldn’t find a way to delete them once they’re posted to the TinyVox site. Hopefully, they’ll add that feature at some point.

In addition, all of your messages can be stored on your iPhone on virtual “cassettes” for later playback, or shared again. Best part of TinyVox is that it comes in a free (ad-supported) version, which actually does everything that the paid “Pro” version does. And with the Pro version selling for a pricey $19.99 (USD), I imagine they really are betting on the free version taking off. On the other hand, if you really do love the app, I’m sure the developers won’t mind you buying the full version to help cover their hosting and development costs.

You can grab TinyVox over at the App Store now.

Twitterrific Mascot: Yours For Less Than $140

Lambert Varias — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:33:48 +0000

…in fact, you can have Ollie for way less than $1 a character. Just to be clear, Ollie’s the mascot of Twitter client Twitterrific, not Twitter itself. But in a way he’s actually better, because Twitter’s mascot is just a silhouette of a bird. By transitivity, the Twitter mascot is just a shadow of Ollie.

Ollie stands 4-inches tall and is all vinyl, so don’t expect him to send tweets for you or alert you for tweets. I do expect modders to try and give him those abilities though.

You can order Ollie from the NeatoShop for only $20 (USD). If you’re planning on getting a bunch of Ollies, Iconfactory – the makers of Twitterrific – are selling bundles of two for just $34. Fail Whale action figure not included.

[via Random Good Stuff]

Google Works Around Egyptian Government with speak2tweet

Shane McGlaun — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:50:28 +0000

The Egyptian government still has the country under a web blackout and they can’t access services we have all come to rely on like twitter and Facebook among others. If you want to know what’s going on in Egypt from the mouths of the folks who are there you can use a new service that Google cobbled together over the weekend.

The service is called speak2tweet and it has three international numbers users can call. The numbers are +16504194196, +390662207294, or +97316199855. If you leave a voice mail at one of the numbers it will be turned into a tweet with the #egypt hashtag.

You can also listen to the tweets from Egypt using the number as well. If you have web access and want to read them, you can hop over to http://twitter.com/speak2tweet to see what’s going on. The service was built with help from twitter and Google engineers.

Twitter-Controlled Car: Turns Out You Can Drive in 140 Characters or Less

Lambert Varias — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:02:24 +0000

Mercedes Benz engineers are developing a system to control cars via Twitter, and they seem to have nailed it.

I must admit when I first saw this video I immediately thought it was fake. First of all, the prototype car was an undoubtedly expensive Mercedes Benz CL 550; you’d think they’d use a more disposable car for their tests. You barely get a clear shot of the car, much less what’s inside, and the people who shot the video also didn’t care to elaborate about how or why they’re doing it. Here’s the video:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

However, a simple Google search proved me wrong. Mercedes Benz will be hosting a promotional “Tweet Race” Contest on Feb 2-4 2011. The Twitter account of the prototype car in the video is protected, and I’m not sure if Twitter users who join the contest will be able to control the cars directly.

But if you look at at the recent tweets of Mercedes Benz engineer Werner Scherenberg– the bald man in the video – you’ll see that he sent what appear to be commands to the Twitter account of the prototype car, such as ignition_on, volume_up, or more complicated ones like back7_left85_back7 and autobots_roll_out. Okay I made that last one up. But you never know. Here’s hoping we’ll get a more in-depth look at how the system works.

[via Shave Magazine and Mercedes Benz Facebook Page]

Viewdle Facial Recognition Phone App Tags Faces, Spits on Privacy in Real Time

Lambert Varias — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:48:41 +0000

A start-up company called Viewdle showed off some interesting smartphone software at CES. Their app can recognize faces in real time and automatically tag them, using either data from social networks or a user-created database from videos and photos on the phone itself. Obviously it’ll take care of the hassle of manually tagging new photos, but the app may be made to work in reverse as well – “the goal is then to link these names with social networks and other online sources, so that their latest tweet or Linked In job title can appear beneath their image”. So by “interesting” I actually meant creepy.

The latter feature seems harmless – the fact that the data comes from a person’s social network account means he should know that other people can access it anyway. What concerns me is the automatic tagging bit. If this thing really works, people may will get tagged and caught on camera without them knowing. Sure, if they were doing something illegal then fine, they had it coming, but what if you don’t want to be tagged and identified? I don’t know about other social networks but Facebook allows users to tag even people who don’t have a Facebook account, and can opt not to tell these people that they’ve been tagged. Who knows where photos with such essential metadata could end up once they’re sent online?

Once this thing gets released, be wary of anyone with a smartphone. So be wary of everyone.

[via Technology Review]

Twitter and Facebook Shoes: Tweet With Your Feet?

Range — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:30:44 +0000

Would you ever buy Twitter or Facebook shoes? With the amount of people using these services, I’m sure that there is a market for these.

These adidas concept shoes were designed by Gerry Mckay. Personally, I wouldn’t buy these. There are so many better looking designs for adidas sneakers out there. Plus, we don’t need to promote Twitter and Facebook any more than they already are, do we?

Although it would be funny if these shoes would tweet or post Facebook updates as well while they are being used. It’s not hard to fathom, thanks to Nike + iPod, this could be possible at some point, if they were tethered to your smartphone.

[BuzzFeed via Geekologie]

Twitter Monkey: #Plush #Arduino #Monkey

Range — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:02:51 +0000

Maker Pete Prodoehl recently came up with the Twitter Monkey. What does it do? It tweets, of course, right?

Actually, that’s not how it works. Instead, Twitter Monkey alerts you in an annoying way when it ‘sees’ specific keywords come up in a Twitter stream by wildly gesticulating its arms. This is done thanks to some servos and an Arduino controller. It’s funny how people enjoy being annoyed by their tech.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I guess it makes some sense if you are watching for specific terms on Twitter, or any other website. Personally, I’m looking forward to the Twitter Monkey which could actually Tweet all by itself.

[via Make:]

Twitter Paper Pad Takes Your Tweets Offline

Chris B. — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:47:48 +0000

Some days I think I’m the only person that just doesn’t get Twitter. I guess it’s always just seemed like Facebook without most of the features. Perhaps that’s really the point for some people. Either way, my Twitter account sits unused for the most part. What’s sad is that I would probably find this Paper Tweet Notepad more useful.

The pad incorporates all of the features one would find on their Twitter page. Everything from retweeting to direct messages and replies. You’re even limited to using exactly 140 characters, and can keep track of them in the box that says “character count.”

If you know someone at the office that’s a Twittering fiend, you may have just found the perfect holiday (or birthday) gift. For the price you’ll get 50 tweets, so you may want to consider doubling up on them, just in case.

[via RedFerret]

Paypal Vending Machine: the Faster, Safer Way to Buy a Gumball

Lambert Varias — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 12:34:49 +0000

In the future, a trip to the vending machine will no longer require bills and coins. You’ll need a mobile phone and a PayPal account though. Make Magazine spotted this concept device made by Ray Tanaka and his colleagues at PayPal Labs. The setup allows users to pay using their PayPal account by scanning a QR code on their phone.

Here’s Tanaka and the vending system, which he unfortunately doesn’t test:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It’s pretty much like using debit or credit cards for transaction, except more complicated. Also, I don’t know why they decided that people would like their purchases to be tweeted. It’s not like people tweet every single detail of their – oh wait.

[via Gearfuse]

USB Gadget Allows Your Dog to Twitter as Well! Yippie!

Range — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:12:45 +0000

If you haven’t got enough tweets to read, you can make sure that you pollute the Twitter-verse even further, thanks to this USB device, which allows your dog to tweet as well.

The Canine Twitterer allows your pet to automatically send tweets, which can then be posted to any social networking site. All right, I know what I want for Christmas! It includes a motion sensor and a microphone that will interpret your pet’s activity thanks to 500 pre-loaded tweets.

The tweets are sent from the tag that the dog wears to a USB receiver which needs to be plugged into your computer. It has a range of about 100 feet. I guess I am curious at what my dog does when I’m gone, but I’d rather have a webcam check up on things than some silly tweets. The Canine Twitterer is available over at Hammacher Schlemmer for $30.

[via Geek Alerts]