Bruno Mertins

#cpeurope 2012

Bruno Mertins — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 07:43:38 +0000

Finally for the first time I was able to attend a Campus Party event and it was in their first edition here in Germany. The conference took place in the defunct Tempelhof airport which was an incredible location for the event. The keynotes speakers included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Yossi Vardi, Don Tapscott and Paulo Coelho.

I was surprised to see a lot of free software and open Internet related talks, some of them included:

Why Free Software needs Network Neutrality by Hugo Roy.
Defending the Free and Uncensored Internet by @RaineyReitman.
Free your Android: Reclaim your phone by Torsten Grote @t_grote.
Uncensorable, Untraceable Search Engines for Freedom of Information by Michael Christen.

Other interesting talks which I enjoyed were:

Accessible HTML5: Tips & Tools by Mike West @mikewest from Google.
Mobile Web Testing & Debugging Best Practices by Andre Jay Meissner @klick_ass from Adobe.
Building multiplatform mobile apps with HTML5 / CSS 3 / JavaScript and PhoneGap by Piotr Walczyszyn @pwalczyszfrom Adobe.
Firefox OS and You – Freeing the Desktop was Just the Start by Christian Heilmann @codepo8 from Mozilla.
Faster than Agile – Hack Culture and the Future of Software by Philip Su @philipsu from Facebook.

Well the place was packed with friendly people, it was great to at least once visit one of the Campus Party events. If you want to check the full online videos of the conference, you might want to check out their YouTube channel.

Video of the Event:

Photos

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data.anatomy [civic] exhibition

Bruno Mertins — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 19:07:29 +0000

Last May I visited the data.anatomy [civic] exhibition by Ryoji Ikeda. To tell you the truth I was a bit skeptic at first given it was a collaboration of a commercial nature (Honda). I must admit I was terribly wrong, I found the screening to be incredibly unique and beautiful, the graphics by Honda´s development leader Mitsuru Kariya and his team were incredible, I wonder how much time it took them to develop the composition out of their raw data.

The 3 screen video projection showed the technical data complexity of the car which outputted some stunning visuals, mixed together with Ryoji´s incredible sounds and composition. The Muma Kraftwerk Berlin location added its charm to the artwork as well.

Concept, Composition: Ryoji Ikeda
Computer Programming: Tomonaga Tokuyama

Fotos:

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Making Music in the Cloud

Bruno Mertins — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:46:45 +0000

Music Apps

Below you will find a list of very interesting tools that might help you create music online directly from your browser. I started the list with some music production tools from the most professional to the most basic one’s. I also added some multimedia apps at the end of the list I am sure you will like. I really enjoyed playing around FNK an incredible online visual programming environment that uses a dataflow approach for the analysis, processing and synthesis of image, sound and other data in real-time.

Extensions for Chrome

Back on December 6, 2010 Google officially released the Chrome Web Store, there were only a few apps available to run with your chrome browser, specially for music. We saw a very nice revamp of the store this passed October and since I’ve been seeing a very reasonable amount of audio apps and extensions to make music and sounds in the cloud. One of the first apps I did try was Audiotool, blew my mind the first time I used it and really recommend it to you.

For the more classic music lovers I also added some online guitar tuners at the very bottom of the list.

Production Studios

Audio Editors

Aviary Audio Editor

Audio / Multimedia

Audio / Multimedia / Games

Beat Counter

Beats Per Minute

Guitar Tuners

[Español]

Apps y Extensiones Musicales para Chrome

El 6 de Diciembre del 2010 Google abrió oficialmente el Chrome Web Store, comenzó con solo unos pocos apps y extensiones para poder utilizarlos con tu navegador Chrome. La tiende fue re-diseñada el pasado Octubre y note que han agregado una mayor cantidad de apps y extensiones para crear música y sonidos en la nube. Por lo que decidí probar algunos de ellos, uno de los primeros que instale fue Audiotool, me pareció un app muy estable y con características muy buenas para crear música.

He creado una lista de herramientas que te podrán ayudar a crear música directamente desde tu navegador. La lista comienza con algunas herramientas de producción desde las mas profesionales a las mas básicas. También he agregado otros enlaces a otros apps y extensiones relacionados con multimedia que estoy seguro te gustaran. Me divertí mucho con FNK un increíble entorno de programación visual que utiliza el flujo de datos para el análisis, procesamiento y síntesis de imágenes, sonidos y otros datos en tiempo real.

Para los amantes de la música que les gusta componer música de una forma mas clásica también he agregado una pequeña lista de afinadores de guitarra hasta abajo.

Producción de Musica

Editores de Audio

Aviary Audio Editor

Audio / Multimedia

Audio / Multimedia / Juegos

Beat Counter

Beats Per Minute

Afinadores de Guitarra

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My Chromebook

Bruno Mertins — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:33:25 +0000

Since July I’ve been using the new Samsung Chromebook which was given to all Google I/O 2011 attendees. After a few months of use, I can now finally write my impressions of the machine. I have divided them into Pros and Cons:

Pros

Light weight
Very nice LCD screen
Battery life is awesome
Sleek design, very user-centered
No need for antivirus software
System constantly updating

Cons

No Ethernet port (Need to carry a USB ethernet adaptor very useful when traveling)
Very tricky to manage files, copy or move them
Not to many Apps in the Chrome Web Store
The mouse pad is not very responsive
Offline Gmail is still on beta

Conclusion

The device is not intended for intensive processing tasks but yes it’s perfect for what it was designed for, surfing the web… Fast! The price might seem a bit high in relation with its hardware specs but it is difficult to calculate the value of the product, mainly because It’s hard to measure the long term benefits of having a device that gets better & faster through time. You might want to consider it as an investment! lol…

Mi Chromebook

Finalmente recibí mi Samsung Chromebook en Julio, después de unos meses de espera. La maquina me la regalararon en la ultima edicion de Google I/O el pasado mes de Mayo. Llevo más de dos meses usandola y hasta ahora creo poder escribir las ventajas y desventajas de este producto.

Ventajas

Peso ligero
Muy buena pantalla LCD
Bootea en menos de 10 segundos
La duracion de la bateria es genial
Diseño muy moderno y enfocado en el usuario.
No necesitas tener algun antivirus
Es sistema esta siendo constantemente mejorado

Desventajas

No tiene puerto de Ethernet (Dolor si viajas mucho, tienes que tener un adaptador)
Es algo complicado el tema de la gestion de archivos.
No existen muchos apps disponibles en el Chrome Web Store.
El touchpad no es muy sensible

Conclusión:

El dispositivo no esta diseñado para el procesamiento instensivo de tareas pero si esta diseñado para lo que fue hecho, navegar en el internet lo mas rapido posible. El precio puede parecer algo elevado por las caracteristicas de hardware, pero es muy dificil medir el retorno de inversión de algo que con el tiempo va mejorando, como es el caso de este producto. Espero que con el tiempo el producto se vaya consolidando y claro ojála que la rapidez con que se navegue tambien vaya mejorando!

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The future of Twitter: Twitter Gadgets

Bruno Mertins — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:32:07 +0000

We’ve heard all about “Promoted Tweets” and the possibility of adding “Paid Tweets” but do you really think that this model will be sustainable? I think it might be a great start but in the long run they will need to develop some new alternatives. I do believe that Twitter has great potential on ways to monetize, I will share with you my vision of the future business model of Twitter.

Twitter has some great advantages over other social networks and believe that its biggest one is its simplicity. This makes it a perfect platform to conquer what most techies call the final frontier: unite the virtual world with the physical world.

Unite the virtual world with the physical world?

Twitter has rapidly shifted from a few technology enthusiasts to millions of members. The large majority of them follow already non-living things from toasters like @mytoaster to telescopes @MKII. Well yes, we have started to follow tweets from non-living things and suddenly Twitter has blurred the borders between virtual world and the physical word, with most of us not even realizing it. I particularly find this to be very interesting, a few years back the concept of merging the internet or virtual world with the physical web was very difficult to explain, at least to non-technology enthusiast. Today, Tweeter has made this concept easier to be understood.

The Internet of Things

To take this interesting interaction to the next step we will need an additional ingredient. A few years ago I collaborated doing some research studies for a High Tech Company who developed a product based on Wireless Sensor Networks for the mainstream market. A wireless sensor network is a computer network made out of Miniature-Computers, so-called sensor knots or Nodes that are equipped with sensors that accomplish common tasks by interoperation. When I say common task, I mean simple tasks such as monitoring environmental parameters, movements or posting status messages through Twitter.

With the experience I’ve gathered in the search marketing industry I can see the great potential in merging this technologies for a future business model for Twitter. I have divided this new business model into two areas of development:

Twitter Gadgets (Or Twitter hardware)
Twitter Targeted Adds (by Geo Location or Project Theme)

Twitter Gadgets

Today, sensors are cheaper, equipment and nodes for configuring wireless sensor networks are easier to acquire, many European and American companies are currently selling them online. Code can easily be developed for non-living objects to send twitter posting of measured environmental parameters through sensors. In other words we are in the perfect position and time to create a device that would make the internet more interactive with the real world, not only to a few technology enthusiasts but to any mainstream user.

I would like you to visualize the concept of Twitter Gadgets as a, let’s say “LEGO for any internet user”. Devices that can help you build your own projects and applications. By adding different sensors and devices you could build scaled projects, just like “LEGO pieces”.

To illustrate the concept, let’s say this is your small “Twitter Gadget Home Project”, as shown below in the diagram. The Main Twitter Gadget would be a in other words a node with small processing chips that can interoperate with other scattered Twitter Gadgets with small sensors.

The diagram illustrates how all of the nodes can perform simple monitoring tasks and all of them could be sending parameters to be posted to your Twitter stream. Wouldn’t that be great, to know if your stove was left on, if your plants needed water or if the kids left the lights on. Imagine the immense possibilities and variety of projects that could be undertaken.

Now lets translate this technology into digital marketing concepts, in order to validate the business model. Could sensors mesure the amount of food left on our fridge? the amount of gas left on your lawnmower? Well the answer is YES. Now imagine having a set of suggested retailer offers on your twitter stream according to your specific needs. This would be highly targeted adverts built by the same consumer based on their very unique needs.

I am currently working on a small prototype and hope I have enough time to finish it. Please let me know if you find this idea viable or have any comments regarding it, please drop me an Email!

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Fun with Processing

Bruno Mertins — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:50:24 +0000

I first heard of Processing about a year ago, but never really installed it on my computer. Inspiration came after visiting the examples area and decided to dowload the software right away. For those who don’t know about Processing programming language you can read all about it here.

I went on to expand the libraries and found some great ones like the Physics library a simple particle system physics engine. Since I didn´t have any idea on how it worked I decided to start tweaking some code instead. Found this very nice website called Openprocessing.com with some great open source code examples and sketches. I used one example sketch by Abel Dewitz checkout his repertoire here.

After modifying the code I needed to embed the sketch into my webpage. For this you need to export the sketch and create an applet folder in the same directory of the sketch and then upload it to your webpage directory. This is the outcome:

I do really encourage you to go through each one of the sketches and try to modify the code so you can familiarize with the IDE. I´ve been playing arround a bit with it and finished a set of sketches mostly self portraits. Check them out:

Hace unos dias instale Processing en mi computadora. Ya había oido sobre el programa pero nunca lo utilize. Para los que quieran saber que es el lenguaje de programación Processing aquí encontraras todo acerca de Processing.

Justo después de instalarlo me dedique a expandir sus librerías, las cuales puedes encontrar en este enlace. La librería que mas interesante me pareció fue la de Physics la cual es un motor de física de partículas simple. Como nunca había utilizado su IDE decidí jugar con código ya terminado. Navegando por el internet encontré este sitio en la web Openprocesing.org la cual contiene una infinidad de ejemplos. Tome como modelo un sketch de Abel Dewitz y lo modifiqué para poder entender mejor el IDE.

Después de terminado exporté el archivo para poder agregarlo a mi pagina web. Tuve que crear una carpeta para el applet en el mismo directorio del sketch. Este fue el resultado:

Les recomiendo que utilizen algun tutorial para mas que todo se familiarizen con el IDE. Este tutorial les ayudara a familiarizarse con Processing . Jugé con el software y logre terminar algunos sketches. Espero les gusten:

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All set for Google I/O 2010

Bruno Mertins — Sat, 15 May 2010 21:48:13 +0000

We are just a few day’s away from the Google I/O developer conference and I am very much looking forward to check out the new innovations of the search giant.

Given all the activity these passed few months from some of their competitors, starting with Facebook’s new products and alliance / collaborations with Microsoft, it will be very interesting to see Google’s response and will be expecting some great announcements that will show why they are still the search market leaders. I’m really hoping to see new features on their search technology and Google apps, also very interested in finding out more about Android client applications and the Google Wave API.

This is why I’ll be attending the following Sessions:

Scripting Google Apps for business process automation
Google Analytics APIs: End to end
Data migration in App Engine
Make you application real-time with PubSubHubbub
Google Wave API’s design principles + Anatomy of a great extension

And of course I will also be at the SEO related sessions:

SEO site advice from the experts – with Matt Cutts
Optimize every bit of your site serving and web pages with Page Speed

I’ll be embedding the live Wave’s of the sessions for you to follow. You can also check out the live video broadcast keynotes live on the Google Developers YouTube channel. There will be a developers sandbox where developers who have built applications based on Google technologies can exhibit their work.

I’m very interested in checking out some of them, mainly the one’s concerning the travel industry:

Stay tuned I will be writing my impressions of them… I will also be twittering in spanish at Acento-Digital.com!

Live notes in Google Wave:

Google I/O 2010: Day 2 Keynote

Estamos a solo un par de días de la conferencia Google I/O 2010, estoy seguro que esta edición estará cargada de muy interesantes propuestas del monstruo de los buscadores.

Debido a las nuevos productos lanzados por Facebook con su Social Graph y su alianza estrategica com Microsoft, Google tendrá que demostrar que aun poseen el liderazgo en la web. Estoy muy seguro que nos darán a conocer muchas innovaciones especialmente en el área que lidera, la búsqueda.

Aunque después de los problemas de Facebook por el tema de privacidad y de Microsoft por su falta de innovación al presentar un producto que realmente no tiene ninguna ventaja sobre el software gratuito ya ofrecido por Google y Oracle, no creo que tengan mayor problema en recobrar su momentum.

Espero también aprender más sobre las tecnologías y soluciones para empresas. Es por eso que he decidido dedicarle mayor tiempo a las platicas de relacionadas con los App Engine y Enterprise.

Entre las charlas que estaré participando están:

Scripting Google Apps para automatizacion de procesos de negocios
Desarollando aplicaciones Android REST para clientes
API’s de Google Analytics de fin a fin
Haciendo aplicaciones con PubSubHubbub
Migracion de Datos en App Engine

Estaré incrustando los Waves en vivo de cada una de las platicas de arriba, por lo que estén pendientes! De igual forma podrán ver los videos de las notas claves del evento en el canal de Youtube desarrolladores de Google.

Dentro de la conferencia también habrá un espacio Sandbox para que los desarrolladores y varias empresas presenten sus tecnologías. Entre las empresas y tecnologías que mas me interesan son:

También atenderé a todo lo relacionado al posicionamiento web y optimización de páginas web. Para mayor información sobre esto pueden visitar de Acento-Digital.

Notas del evento Google Wave:

Google I/O 2010: Day 2 Keynote

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