michaelmassie.com

The personal blog of Michael Massie

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Hey, Milwaukee, lend me your Android's Sense-Ears for a sound mapping effort to research neighborhood health.

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What can we learn from hearing our city? I was looking to build an arduino prototype, but instead trying out Funf for android first.  I'll be tracking noise levels and take that data and overlay it into a city map, in heat maps or elevation based on loudness. Looking to see if you can assess a neighborhood health by listening to it.

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The potential of giving Google Drive an Evernote-esque UI overlay of cards and in-window editing could freshen up Skeomorphism's longest lasting joke - The File Browser.

I've been putting some hours in  lately on researching the old habits inherited with paper, from embedding Word docs into emails to the "Desktop" GUI. That means I've been taking a bunch of notes and I started to want the Evernote note window as my main file explorer, but the one thing I felt was missing was any other file that aren't compatible. I'd love to see the Evernote-esque expereince take over the current File Browser. I think the closest to do it would be with Google Drive (Web) and Chromium. - If you own the viewer and the editor (doc, presentation, spreadsheet, graphic), why can't the file browser allow you to edit?

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Building a prototype interaction to pair a phone as a game controller to a website.

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Why don't Amazon and Google have strong To-Do applications? After all, some 90% of the content is purchasing intent.

?

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A location smart index.html page - This attempt is to build geo intelligence into web pages that can benefit the user by giving them different content when they are at a specific location.

There was a map counter at our local park that had a pin on it that said "You are here". When we walked out the door and headed towards the trail, the paper map didn't update. More of us are walking around with smartphones, so why not lower the burden on handouts, fliers and maps at the entrance and potentially just point people with these devices to the sites homepage and let technology handle the rest.

I always used our Museum as a prime use case: When I am there, a map and current exhibitions are priority; but it also it gives the museum the opportunity to offer audio tours and links to additional content - More content, without all the paper. Print something out and it will be obsolete, be it an hour from now or 1 year.  So this was a challenge for me to experiment with opportunities to make our website work better in these contexts.

Additionally, this is my first public Git repo and first JavaScript app... so be nice! 

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Our mapping data, from OpenPaths, during our Zurich vacation laser cut into plastic and made into a necklace.

Inspired from Meshu - http://meshu.io

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Violin 3D Print Reconstruction: Top Complete

Peg was completed last week. Adjusted the scale slightly and finished printing the remaining pegs .

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Rebuilding a family heirloom w/ 3D Printing - Tuning Peg half is complete 

I had the opportunity to finally get a few prototype prints completed for my Violin reconstruction, and it looks like we have a winner. I’m actually printing the pegs in halves so that I don’t have to use scaffolding to prop up the uneven build.

What is original in the Violin is the body, neck and one(1) Tuning Peg. The rest will be scanned and printed in white to be placed on the violin. I intentionally will be using a pop color (white in this test run) to not obfuscate what was original and what’s filling in the full picture – You know, like how museums fill in the missing bones of dinosaur skeletons.

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A concept on how a Microsoft Kinect may help us around the house.

With JavaScripts starting to connect the web with a Microsoft Kinect, how long until cameras like these are helping us be better cooks, fix things around the house and even help us build things?

To elaborate - I can't wait till the time that I can go to JohnDeere.com and by turning on a 'Camera Assist' the website can see what I am doing and help me thru the process. Imagine flipping your lawn mower over and letting the camera look over your shoulder to help navigate you through maintenance. Consider going to FoodNetwork.com and activating your camera so that the website can assist you in cooking more complex meals and keep time from of the other events going on in preparation. With a pair of eyes and a little bit of object recognition, we can start getting help with anything around the house in no time.

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As the second screen evolves into how we engage with big screen content, could pure HTML5 or JS be used to pair browsers between a TV and a mobile device?

"Today 90% of our media consumption occurs in front of a screen." - Think w/Google

Of all the digital things that I interact with, they all share one common denominator = the web.  We can all think of plenty of situations for using a mobile device as a second screen to interact with content on a larger, TV screen sized, webpage - like Airplay - but I don't know one that are supported over every platform.

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The Violin that traveled from France with my family.  On its inside, it says it's a Stradivarious, but that is only a nod to the line that it was modeled after. Soon it will have a home on its own hook in the hallway. It's in rough shape and we are planning to only repair it on its most basic level. It will keep its scars and warts to wear proudly. I'll be experimenting with printing it's missing parts in a bright plastic from 3D images - this will allow you to know what was original and what it looked like complete. Excited to be able to display one of the oldest pieces of our family history.

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The bright side to losing your app website to the iCloud transition: You have to start over, and you really didn't like the last version.

FYI - the version shown is the one still in Development and not what is currently in the App Store

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Hey, @Braun, hobby kits like Dieter's Radio Receiver need to make a comeback. Care to inspire an new generation? 

Single handedly the most beautiful Hobby Kit ever. 

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Google Now is awesome; merge them with the iGoogle team to bring it to the browser and make it amazing.

Playing around with TV interface options, I wanted an app that I've nicknamed "Oatmeal" for a while for the iPad, but maybe it is better as a Web App on the TV. 

When layering these iframes to a dashboard it started to look more and more like Google Now... and that's a good thing - We can use more Environmental/Ambient Intelligence in our devices and ultimately it should permeate into all internet enabled devices. Merging the Google Now group with iGoogle will be an amazing combination to bring this to the web.

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HTML5 adoption of an App URL link standard

I'd love for HTML5 to introduce the ability to add a URL standard that lets you include multiple different link formats, thus giving the ability to link to content in native applications and the ability to fail back to opening in a web site.

ex: If they have the iPhone app open in there, if not than open in the browser <a href="-iOS: myapp://some/path/here; -android: my.app.scheme://some/path/here; -win8: my.tile://some/path/here -http://some/path/here">Wishlist</a>

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MIT's City Car is like an electric Zipcar. Now make it Autonomous and it's like an electric Zipcar + Uber.

The future looks bright!