TechnologyIQ

  I am not a sport fan in any way, but I know many people are, so here are a few Alexa skills to keep track of your sports, both real world and fantasy. There are links to each app in the original article. Click through to see all of them.— Douglas Alexa can help you keep track of your favorite teams—provided she knows who your favorite teams actually are. She’s actually capable of tracking baseball, soccer, hockey, and football teams from 13 different leagues. To tell her your favorites, launch the Alexa app and then tap the hamburger menu (three lines on top of each other) on the top left side of the screen. From there, tap “Settings,” and then “Sports Update.” Then you’ll use the search bar to find the teams you like to add to your personalized list within the app. Read Use Alexa to Track Your Favorite Football Team and More via Lifehacker An interesting link found among my daily reading

I am looking at this to expand my — very basic — understanding of AI systems. I have a large Ai project I would like to develop, but it is going to be a long road to get there. That said, we all have to start somewhere.— Douglas A lot of companies are trying to make it easier to use artificial intelligence, but few are making it as simple as Lobe. The startup, which launched earlier this year, offers users a clean drag-and-drop interface for building deep learning algorithms from scratch. It’s mainly focused on machine vision. That means if you want to build a tool that recognizes different houseplants or can count the number of birds in a tree, you can do it all in Lobe without typing a single line of code. Company co-founder Mike Matas told The Verge that Lobe isn’t designed to compete with software used by machine learning professionals (tools like PyTorch and TensorFlow). Instead, it’s built to give amateurs an easy way in. “People have ideas they want to try in machine learni...

An interesting project that teaches you a number of things that could be used in other projects. A great educational example. — Douglas In these steps I show you how to simply control a GoPro Hero 4 and a GoPro Hero Session 5 using an Arduino wifi board. As you will learn, these instructions could easily be adapted for any type of GoPro.  This is useful for when you want to build you own custom controller for a project. Rather than hacking into existing controllers, you can just use the Arduino to communicate with it directly using some basic networking commands. Not only are you able to control the functionality on the GoPro, but you can also receive status updates about the camera. This makes it a versatile solution for a host of different types of projects including custom robots and drones Read Arduino GoPro Wifi Control via Instructables More GoPro Cameras and Accessories Learn more about Arduino with these books and components Arduino Boards and Components via Amazo...

At its core, Detective Dot teaches the analytical skills required for a career in STEM through the medium of an empowering narrative about an extraordinary young girl called Dot. Dot, for whom the series is named after, is a nine year old working for the CIA (which, in the whimsical world of Detective Dot, stands for Children’s Intelligence Agency). She completes her missions through math, logic, and coding. There’s a couple of things I love about this. Firstly, it’s pretty amazing that kids are learning about the core principles of STEM through storytelling. Coding can be intimidating, but this is deliberately anything but. Then there’s Dot herself. The choice to make Dot a girl of color was a deliberate one, and she’s a powerful role model for aspiring female coders. The idea that a primary school girl could read Detective Dot and think “Yeah, I can do this too” is a genuinely exciting one. R ead Detective Dot wants to teach STEM skills through the magic of storytelling via Th...

Pandora Radio This is more of a built-in feature than a standalone Alexa App but ever so useful. Working here in my home office I frequently use Alexa to fire up Pandora tunes using the playlists I have already set up on Pandora. The ease of use of calling out... Alexa, Play Pandora Station My Jazz Radio ...is amazing and doesn’t even require me pulling my hands off the keyboard. When the phone rings, a quick... Alexa, Pause ...is enough to shut it down while I handle the call. As you might imagine... Alexa Resume ...starts right where it left off. Additionally, you can say things like... What is this? — to get info on the current song playing Skip — skips to next song in playlist I Like This   — Thumb Up this song I don’t like this  — Thumb Down this song To use the Pandora functionality, you need to link your Alexa and Pandora accounts. To do this... Open the Alexa App on your mobile device or visit alexa.amazon.com  and log in with your Amazon account. ...

I tried out one of the earlier models of these security cams and I was amazed at how well it worked, especially considering its low price. I would really like a weatherproof version of them, although there are some 3rd party enclosures that might allow you do that. — Douglas Wyze Camera is a great little security option for those on a budget. Recording 1080p, motion tracking, and night vision, the little camera is a great buy at $20. I have a few and love them, as they’re great for static shots. One place where Wyze was lacking, however, was actual movement. The original Wyze camera (and V2) both were static cameras, meaning they aimed where you pointed. But, that all changes today with the Wyze Cam Pan. With its wide-angle lens, the original camera was great for most shots. A single camera could capture my entire bedroom/office, but if I wanted to put a camera somewhere with a larger area than the field of view could cover, I would have had to use multiple devices. Read Wyze Ca...

Hackspace Magazine 7: Internet Of Everything Available as FREE Download via Raspberry Pi Foundation We’re usually averse to buzzwords at HackSpace magazine, but not this month: in issue 7, we’re taking a deep dive into the Internet of Things. Internet of Things (IoT) To many people, IoT is a shady term used by companies to sell you something you already own, but this time with WiFi; to us, it’s a way to make our builds smarter, more useful, and more connected. In HackSpace magazine #7, you can join us on a tour of the boards that power IoT projects, marvel at the ways in which other makers are using IoT, and get started with your first IoT project! Awesome projects DIY retro computing: this issue, we’re taking our collective hat off to Spencer Owen. He stuck his home-brew computer on Tindie thinking he might make a bit of beer money — now he’s paying the mortgage with his making skills and inviting others to build modules for his machine. And if that tickles your fancy, why not t...

Raspberry Pi enthusiasts searching for LCD displays for the next Pi project may be interested to know thatama has announced the immediate availability of its gen4-4DPI series of LCD display modules specifically designed to support the Raspberry Pi family of single board computersAnd will start shipping in early July 2018 The Raspberry Pi display modules are available for the Raspberry Pi A+, B+, 3, Zero and Zero W with resistive or capacitive touch control options depending on your application and requirements. The displays of also been designed to be powered directly from the rise reply eliminating the need for any extra external power supplies. The gen4-4Dpi display modules are available in three screen sizes – 4.3, 5.0 and 7.0 inch and connect to the Raspberry Pi through a 30 pin FPC cable and an adapter board that conforms to the Raspberry Pi expansion header pin-out and Pi’s HAT device identification standard. Read 4D Systems Raspberry Pi Displays Unveiled - Geeky Gadgets vi...

Whenever I get a new piece of technology I try to make as much use of it as possible. With Alexa this has taken some time to develop ways of working with the device, but there are some commands I return too again and again. Photo: Andres Urena Remember This or Take A Note Stores a piece of information in your Alexa account that can be retrieved by asking... Alexa, What/When/Where and the name of the information you wish to store For example... Alexa, remember that the Wifi Password is alexa rocks Alexa will confirm it understood what you want to store. To recall the information... Alexa, What is the Wifi Password? You told me, the Wifi password is alexa rocks I am sure you can find some creative uses of your own for this Alexa command. One big use for me is to remember where I have stored infrequently, but extremely necessary parts, papers or equipment. If you only access something every few months or so this can help you to find it again when you really need it. I could ...

Song Quiz by Volley Inc. Listen to thousands of songs by your favorite artists from the past 60 years! Guess the correct title and artist for points. Challenge your friends and family in live competitions or compete head to head against music fans across the country! Master playlists from each decade. THE BEST MUSIC TRIVIA FOR ALEXA ◆ Playlists from every decade: 2010s, 2000s, 90s, 80s, 70s, and 60s! ◆ New music added often! This great app uses actual clips from the songs, not just Alexa read lyrics as some others do. This is a regular go-to app with our friends whenever we are having dinner and drinks together. Sure, we tend to list ourselves to the 60’s and 70’s playlists, but hey, we’re old! (LAUGH) Supports multiple players and network play with other Alexa users. Also keeps track of high scores for each user. Even in a group, we often just play as 1 user to simply the game and have shorter periods of play, but each person can play separately if you wish. This app has und...

Blast from the past The first issue of Wired magazine from 1993.  I called a bunch of magazines a few years ago but kept every issue from the first two years of Wired. It was an amazing time in the tech world and Wired was the voice of this new world.  and Follow Join me on Douglas E. Welch Photography on Facebook

A bunch of Google employees participating in the company’s Area 120 internal incubator have launched Grasshopper, a free mobile app for Android and iOS that teaches you the basics of programming. It’s beautifully designed and is suitable for just about anyone who can be trusted to use a phone on their own. By solving simple challenges and answering quiz questions, you’ll soon get the hang of basic JavaScript. Read Google employees want to teach you to code for free with their latest app via The Next Web Learn more about programming with kids † † †   * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library An interesting link found among my daily reading

In this tutorial, we'll be looking at how to power and drive a DC motor with an L293D and an Arduino (we're using the Arduino MKR 1000 here, but you can use any Arduino that provides enough voltage for your motor and has 2 digital output pins). The L293D is a 16-pin Motor Driver IC which can control up to two DC motors simultaneously, in any direction. Read Driving a DC Motor With an Arduino and the L293D Motor Driver via DZone IoT Zone Learn more about Arduino with these books and components Arduino Boards and Components via Amazon Arduino Boards and Components via eBay An interesting link found among my daily reading

Every year, major tech companies publish their diversity reports, with special attention paid to their gender diversity. The lack of female employees in technical or engineering positions has become a yardstick for measuring efforts towards parity. For 10 Degrees, a company of WordPress specialists in the UK, it wasn’t enough just to wait for the gender imbalance to correct itself. The company’s employees decided to take a more proactive approach to gender diversity. For International Women’s Day, 10 Degrees’ business manager, Lynda Vaughan, posted a blog entry with the rather provocative title “Why We Don’t Employ Female Developers.” Addressing the gender disparity in its technical staff, Vaughan say in the post: “…we’ve never had any women apply for our developer vacancies. Not one.” Read This company aims to solve coder gender gap by getting girls hooked early via The Next Web Learn more about programming with kids † † † * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly su...

Eight Relay Add-on Card for Raspberry Pi via EIN News Stackable to 8 levels, the card adds up to 64 relays to Raspberry Pi. A smart, web-based sprinkler controller for up to 64 zones can be built for $3/zone. The 8-Relay card is a low cost version of the MEGA-IO Card. Stackable up to eight layers, it allows users to add up to 64 relays in a very compact form factor. Competitively priced at $25, the card is offered to Kickstarter backers at 33% discount, for an introductory price of only $17.   Read Eight Relay Add-on Card for Raspberry Pi via EIN News * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs An interesting link found among my daily reading