Even as touch-enabled devices take over the world, along with other natural interfaces like voice and
gesture, the mouse remains an integral part of computing. But what if we
built a better mouse?
The team of German hardware designers behind Flow hopes the computing world will soon be beating a path to its door.
Flow is a "freely programmable wireless controller" which combines hand
gesture recognition, touch, and haptics in a mobile, hockey puck-shaped
design. The idea is to take the core functionality of a traditional
mouse and expand it to also include much broader capabilities found in
touch-based devices, video game controllers, and even motion-and-gesture
sensors.
The Flow team on Monday launched an Indiegogo campaign
for their open-platform device, seeking to raise $50,000 in seed money
to jumpstart their dream of producing a product for general release by
2016. Just hours into the 40-day crowdfunding effort, Flow had already
raised $12,398, or about 25 percent of the final goal.
Flow is being billed as a multi-use device which can be used as
traditional mouse with a PC but also to interface with mobile devices
and even hung on a wall as a smart device controller. It measures 70mm
in diameter and 15mm in height, and "connects directly to anything that
speaks Bluetooth Low Energy with no additional hardware required,"
according to its designers.
The device, made from aluminum and stainless steel with a durable
polycarbonate touch surface, packs a long-life, replaceable battery
promising four months of charge. Flow's sensors enable capacitive touch,
360-degree angular positioning, infrared-based hand gesture recognition
and luminosity.
Flow CEO Tobias Eichenwald and his team say they eventually aim to code
their controller with "dozens of controls out of the box," including
synchronization with Linux-based software, popular design applications
like Photoshop, the Arduino and Raspberry Pi "maker" boards, and media
platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and Pandora.
"We'll start off by supporting Mac, then add support for iOS devices,
Android, Linux, and Windows. We're making progress fast and we'll keep
you posted along the way," the Flow team said.
Windows 10 is everything Windows 8 should have been. Now, it's still
early: the technical preview is just a week old, and barely scratches
the surface of what Microsoft has promised is coming down the pipe. It's also buggy, and definitely shouldn't be installed on your primary PC.
But
this fledgling operating system is at once panacea and prescience, a
remedy for Windows 8's identity-crisis that also rethinks and reworks
the overly-bold approach to Microsoft's dream of unifying the desktop
and mobile experience.
Fresh start
Boot up a PC running the Windows 10
Technical Preview, and you'll be dropped off at the oh so familiar
desktop. A taskbar with familiar looking icons sits on the bottom, and
the recycle bin sits in the upper left corner. A build number sitting on
the right side of your desktop is the only indication that this isn't
Windows 8 all over again.
And then you press the Start button, and
are greeted by the return of the Start menu. It's a proper Start menu
too, with your apps all stacked in that endless column of nested folders
we've all been scrolling since Windows 95. And sitting alongside that
column are Windows 8's lovely Live Tiles, with news-bites and social
updates spinning ad infinitum. The revamped, customizable Start menu.
Screenshot by Nate Ralph/CNET
Some
blasphemy here: as someone weaned on DOS and then Windows 3.11, I've
always found the Windows 95-and-beyond Start menu to be a bit daft.
There are always far too many apps on my machines for a single,
scrolling list, or even nested folders, to make any sense. So I turn to
search, or shortcuts littering the desktop, or -- with Windows 7 -- a taskbar packed with colorful icons arranged in some arcane order that makes perfect sense to me.
And
that's why the Windows 8 Start screen seemed like such a good idea:
tiles that served up useful information, and you could arrange as many
as you wanted into neat little groups. But that image falls apart once
you actually get to using the thing. Add a lot of apps and you'll end up
scrolling endlessly; a nightmare if you're on a keyboard and mouse. And
most apps rip us back to the traditional desktop, while others dominate
entire 27-inch displays, oblivious of our need to multitask.
Old is new again
With
Windows 10, the familiar and the new are mashed together in a form
that's only a little different, but suddenly more useful than ever
before. You can have your Start menu, with familiar apps and services
that you can pin to a list. And I can have my Live Tiles in a form that
actually makes sense: informative nuggets of information feeding me
calendar information, the status of my inbox, and social network
updates, called up unobtrusively with the press of the Windows key.
Press those Live Tile shortcuts, and the "Modern" apps open as classic
windowed apps. You can drag them around, snap them to half of your display, minimize and maximize them at will. Virtual desktops keep work and play separate.
Screenshot by Nate Ralph/CNET
Windows
10 let's you work smarter, too. Click the search button to do exactly
that -- search your files, the Windows Store or the entire Internet,
right from the taskbar. Click the Task view button, and you'll get a
quick glimpse of all of your open apps and can create virtual desktops
with ease. That feature alone tempts me to install the preview on my
primary machine, but it's far from perfect. You can press Ctrl + Windows
key to jump between your desktops, and right click on apps when in task
view to move them around, but I'd really like to be able to drag and
drop those open apps to different desktops, or -- more importantly --
rearrange the virtual desktops I've created. Of course we've had virtual
desktops on Linux and Mac machines for years (and on Windows, from third-party apps), but it's nice to see Microsoft catching up here. Modern apps no longer take up the whole screen.
Screenshot by Nate Ralph/CNET
But
Windows 10's real game-changing potential is still purely theoretical:
this'll be one operating system to rule them all, serving up a
device-specific interface that'll scale from desktops down to
smartphones, and everywhere in between, with universal apps that will
run everywhere too. These features haven't yet made their way to the
technical preview, but you'll eventually be able to pop a 2-in-1
convertible device like the Surface Pro 3 onto its keyboard base, and watch the full-screen Start screen melt
away, offering instead the new Start menu and the familiar desktop.
That could be a cure for the confusing mess that is the current Windows 8 PC ecosystem, chock full of laptops that bend over backward or split from your keyboards, or simply graft touchscreens onto familiar devices.
We should finally see an end to the jarring, generally unsatisfying
experience that urges us to dance between the desktop and that weird,
full-screen purgatory where Modern apps live.
And if you want to
flirt with the Windows 8 experience you can do that too: just right
click the taskbar and choose the option that disables or enables the
Start menu. If Windows 8 had shipped with that option to begin with, we
would probably have avoided this issue entirely.
Future-proofing
Windows
10 isn't going to fix everything, but a seemingly simple tweak to one
of Windows 8's most divisive elements has made a world of difference to
the OS. And that's crucial to Windows' future, as Microsoft is still
looking at the big picture: PCs are old news.
Desktops and laptops
still handle most of our work and play, but tablets and smartphones
have long since stolen the limelight: future operating systems will need
to work to bridge that gap. We've seen steps in this direction from
Apple, with OS X Yosemite's ability to hand off files and things like emails and calls from your phone or tablet. And some Android apps are making their way to Google's Chrome OS, and interesting sign of where Google might be headed.
Microsoft's vision of tomorrow's ideal operating system is grander
still. The goal is to offer a unified experience across devices of all
shapes and sizes, and one that will morph to make sense: icons to tap
and home screens when you're on a phone or tablet, but windowed apps and
nested folders when you're armed with a keyboard and mouse.
Windows 8 dreamed of dragging us into that future, but we kicked and
screamed at the inefficiency of its one-size-fits-all approach. With
Windows 10, Microsoft seems to be getting it right.
We take a look at the top 5 Software used to download youtube videos and videos from some other sites. Enjoy.
YouTube is a phenomenon unto itself and possibly the most
successful product for Google after Google search. Launched back in
November 2005, the website attracts more than 1 billion unique users
every month, and more than 6 billion hours of video are watched during
the same period.
Although it might be frowned upon, there
are many legitimate reasons to download a YouTube video. One is when
you've recorded a video, uploaded it to YouTube, and then lost the
original copy. And then there are copyright-free works to consider —
from open source and creative content videos to those available in the
public domain. You might not even be interested in the video and may
just want to download its audio (or soundtrack) instead.
As with peer-to-peer (P2P), just because a technology can be used
illegally, that doesn't mean it should be banned. From the myriad of
options available, we've plucked out what we consider to be the best
ones. They're free, but it's worth bearing in mind that they they may
try to install add-ons that you haven't asked for - such as search
engine toolbars or software to clean your computer's registry - that you
can opt out of.
With that out of the way, here are our
top 5 best YouTube downloaders. If we've missed any, feel free to
comment and let us know.
1. Freemake Video Downloader
Freemake Video Downloader
is a simple-to-use tool for downloading YouTube videos, along with
their accompanying audio, in a few clicks. Simply paste in the URL of
the video you want to download and click 'Paste URL' to set it running,
or install the Firefox add-on to start the download from the YouTube
page itself by right-clicking on the video. The
program comes with a slew of extras, including the ability to download
YouTube Playlists and convert videos into multiple formats - including
AVI and MP3. One of the program's more useful features is a nifty
restrict bandwidth option that allows you to slow down your downloads if
your internet connection isn't the fastest in the world. This allows
you to keep them running smooth as butter while carrying out other tasks
- such as streaming online video or gaming.
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2. Free YouTube to MP3 Converter
YouTube
is first and foremost a resource for watching videos, but there's
nothing to stop you just ripping any video's accompanying audio. And, of
course, there's more to YouTube audio than background music.
Guitarists, pianists and other musicians, for example, could benefit by
downloading one of the many instrumental backing tracks uploaded by
professional and amateur musicians. Looking
for a funky guitar backing track in B-Minor to jam along to? Or how
about downloading a karaoke track for that party you're hosting at the
weekend? With Free YouTube to MP3 converter,
you can do it in a snap. Copy the URL of the YouTube video you want to
rip the audio from and open the program and hit CTRL + V to queue it up.
Before
ripping, you can select the quality you want to rip the audio in from a
variety of formats - including MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV and OGG. Next, pick
your desired bit-rate quality and hit download to send it hurtling down
the wires.
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3. aTube Catcher
With aTube Catcher
you'll get the usual array of tools to download and convert YouTube
videos (with audio), but it does a whole lot more too. One of its
handier features is the ability to resize video, which allows you to cut
out parts of clips for your own projects (if they're copyright free, of
course) or lower the size of videos before saving them to your
computer. Another
cool feature not found in many other programs is the Stream Capture
tool, which allows you to load up a video stream from YouTube or other
video sites to save streamed content straight to your hard drive,
meaning you don't have to wait until a program is made available to
officially download, which can take days - or even weeks.
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4. Free Studio
Where some YouTube video downloaders focus on performing a single task well, Free Studio
offers a comprehensive conversion package that can do tons more after
you've made the rip. It's simple enough to get going: load up the
program and you're presented with the option to download a YouTube
video, or rip its audio as an MP3. From
there, you can choose from multiple conversion options to optimise the
file for a certain device. Choose the mobile option, for example, and
with a single click you can convert the video for viewing on Android,
BlackBerry, HTC, Motorola, Samsung and other handsets.
It
means that factors like resolution, bit-rate quality and suitable audio
codecs are automatically chosen and optimised, perfect for making sure
you can view the video offline on your mobile device with no
compatibility problems. There's also the ability to burn your video or
audio track to a CD or DVD, and you can even give videos a
psychedelic3D-type effect using the built-in 3D Video Maker.
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5. YTD
YTD
is a no-frills video downloading tool that features the handy option of
converting your files before they're ripped, saving you from having to
do it afterwards. And unlike some other downloaders that only support
YouTube, YTD is compatible with a whole range of video sites: from
DailyMotion to Facebook and beyond. It
may not be the most feature-packed option on our list, but its
uncluttered, compact UI makes it a suitable choice if you're something
of a prolific video downloader, allowing you to instantly get a snapshot
of how many downloads you've got on the go.
You're also
provided with information on their progress, the speed that they're
downloading and how long it'll be until they're nestled on a corner of
your hard drive to be viewed whenever you're ready.
Step 1 - First put your hands in front of you as shown in the drawing - In each hand, ascribe a value from 6 to 10 to each finger
Step 2 How to Multiply
Step 3
Step 4
Step 1 Choose the numbers to multiply. Example: 7x8 Step 2 Put together the fingers whoses values you want to multiply. Step 3 Now count the touching fingers and the ones below them. The number you get will be the tens. Example: 5
Step 4
Now multiply the fingers above the ones touching of the left hand and
the ones in the right hand. The number you get will be the units. Example: 3x2=6
Para conmemorar el centenario del canal de Panamá, History le rinde tributo a todas las personas que le dieron al mundo la obra mas ambiciosa de todos los tiempos...
—Son los elementos folclóricos tienen
forma física y concreta y que son del diario vivir del campesino en diferentes
actividades.
—Muchos de estos elementos son populares
dentro y fuera de nuestro País, es el caso de la pollera, las molas
panameñas, el sombrero pintado y los
tambores.
Problems memorizing number, letter, and word sequences
Mis-sequencing of sounds or syllables in a word (pissgetti – for spaghetti)
Perceives letter and number
sequences correctly but remembers and recalls them in a different order
Misreads and skips words
Trouble sounding out words
Problems spelling
Word finding difficulties
Difficulties with rote
memorization
Repetitions, transpositions,
additions, substitutions, and omissions of letters, numbers and/or words
Difficulty understanding idioms,
inferences, and jokes
Problems tracking from left
to right across a page
Dizziness, headaches or
stomach aches reported while reading
Problems discriminating the
difference between similar sounding letters and words
Trouble understanding word
problems
10 Solutions:
Black text on a white
background can be visually uncomfortable for many children, as the contrast can
make the letters appear to move or vibrate.If this is the case, you can make color
overlays. You can cut out your own overlays by using transparent,
colorful report covers or pocket folders.I like to use a paper cutter and slice them into strips that can be used
as bookmarks too. As another option, you can purchase glasses with
color-tinted lenses. The most popular colors are blue and yellow.
Similarly, if changing the
background color is helpful when reading, these students will probably benefit
from changing the background when typing. On a Mac computer using MS Word,
this can be completed by selecting the Format drop down menu, and then choosing
background. Here other background colors can be selected. Please
note, the background will not be impacted when printing documents. On a
PC this can be done by choosing Page Layout and then Page Color.
Play search
games with words and letters that are confusing. For instance, if a young
learner mixes up the letters b and d, provide a magazine, newspaper or other print
out and ask them to circle all the letter b's. They do not have to read
the text. They will just be scanning for the letter or word. If you
ask them to look across one line at a time, you will also help them to improve
tracking skills.
Locate some
jokes on the internet or in a book. Review each joke and discuss what
makes it amusing. Talk about words that have double meanings, and make a
list of as many words that you can think of that have multiple meanings. Lastly,
suggest that the learner makes his or her own joke book.
If spelling
is a problem, go through the student’s notebooks and handouts to uncover commonly
misspelled words. Place each word on a single page, and have fun inventing
memory strategies that will help the student recall the correct spelling.
For example, if a student is having difficulty with the word “what,” he or she
may notice that the word “what” has the word “hat” in it. Then, they may
draw hats on the page and then write down the question, “What hat?”
Play enjoyable,
free internet games and watch videos that review basic phonics.Look at sites like, Star Fallor Phonics chant 2 and MagicE
Integrate
tactile and kinesthetic modalities into lessons to make them enjoyable and
memorable.Form
difficult letters, numbers and words with the learner out of tactile
manipulatives.You can use jelly
beans, wet spaghetti, pebbles, raisins, pipe cleaners, a sand tray, shaving
cream, clay etc. You can also place difficult numbers, letters and
words on balloons and balls and play games.Every time a player grabs hold of the ball or balloon, they
read the first word that they see.
Read
aloud or utilize books on tape. While listening, ask learners to close their
eyes so they can picture the story in their mind. Many learners with reading
disabilities never fully develop their ability to imagine or visualize a story,
because the process of reading is so mentally taxing that they do not have the
cognitive space to envision imagery. Helping these learners to develop
the capacity to utilize their mind’s eye will improve attention, reading
comprehension and memory. Another alternative is to have learners read
along with the audio, so they can begin to observe whole words and phrases. An organization that offers a large selection of books on
tape for students with reading disabilities is Learning Alley.
Create a enticing reading area. Fashion a fun name for this place too, such as the “cozy corner.”
Together, decorate it, and fill it with stuffed animals, pillows, blankets and
other soothing objects. You can make a tent out of sheets, hide a bean
bag under an elevated table, or build it in a bay window or around a hammock. Have highlighters, colored pencils and
paper, and a selection of books within reach.
Schedule a consistent time, a few
times a week, when the whole class or family selects a book and reads. Everyone
should gather and read in a common room. Make sure to provide yummy food as
well as comforting objects so that reading has pleasant associations. This
is a time unwind and take pleasure in the company of one another so make
this a treasured time. If
you are interested in purchasing some products that help students with reading
disabilities, consider downloading a free sample of Dr. Warren’s Reversing Reversals, Making Inferences the Fun and Easy Way
or, Reading Games..
