Home automationMay 2, 2009
After doing a little bit of research, it appears that Z-wave technology is making it realistic to remote control many household devices, such as lights, thermostats, garage doors, etc. All that is required is a USB stick for your computer, a C# API, and then Z-wave devices. Even the dimmer switch that we just bought for the baby's room appears to support Z-wave.
It would be fun to be able to control household devices via a voice interface as well as a BlackBerry interface.
Here's one clever application: Tie in my BlackBerry's GPS coordinates to
Grace, and then configure it to watch my rate of speed and location. If my rate of speed is approximately that of a bicycle and I'm pedaling down our street towards home on my way home from work, open the garage door.
A lot of fun could be had with this stuff!
IBM does JeopardyApril 26, 2009
http://gizmodo.com/5228887/ibm-prepping-soul+crushing-watson-computer-to-compete-on-jeopardyVery cool. A group of IBM researchers are trying to develop a question-answering system that uses natural language processing. I will be very curious to see how successful they are. I wouldn't be surprised if they're not entirely successful at this.
Smart alarm clockApril 21, 2009
Something that I've wanted to try for some time is to create a smart alarm clock that would determine whether you have an appointment the next day and wake you up in time. (I'm great at forgetting that I have a chiro appointment at 8:15 am)
The other half of this is to have the alarm clock speak useful information to you such as:
  | The current weather and forecast weather. |
| What appointments you have that day. |
| What birthdays of family or friends are that day, or what wedding anniversaries. |
| etc. |
I got a BlackBerry last month and realized shortly thereafter that it, in combination with its charging dock, make a great piece of hardware for implementing this alarm clock.
Here's a videoI also came across
this link today which is quite interesting.
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