Posts tagged ‘art?’
As we end the first financial year for Stealthcopter Technologies the staff are treated (for tax purposes) to a box of 16 dead zebra collectibles.
Box of 16 dead zebra android collectibles
16 dead zebra android collectibles unboxed
The Cupcake one actually smells of cupcakes!!! amazing!
We actually ordered the last box (sorry!) of 16 from funkypeanut.co.uk for just over £100 including delivery, singles are still available though. There were actually some issues with paypal when checking out for this, but the admin of the store sent an email shortly afterwards to sort it out manually, great customer service!
To celebrate getting over 1/4 million downloads of my live wallpaper I decided to put extra effort into fixing problems some of my users were having. A common gripe with live wallpapers is the amount of battery they use and the associated performance hit when navigating on the home screen. I used to use java drawables to create and manipulate all of the particles on the screen, but I have successfully moved over to OpenGL-ES. This has an impressive benefit in performance (back of the envelope calculation shows >13x performance increase) and also improves the overall sexyness as OpenGL handles the blending nicely.
Anyway enough of the boring stuff, let’s see what’s new. Something I’m REALLY excited about (hence the caps) is multi-touch! It is so much fun just playing with a blank home screen creating particles! Unfortunatly this isn’t something which translates well into a screenshot, so you’ll just have to try it out for yourself.
Nexus Revamped 1.98.01 screenshot
New Particle Appearance Screen
I’d like to thank all of my beta testers for the very helpful feedback I have got over the past couple of weeks. There is much more to mention but I am now absolutely knackered. I’m sure I’ll follow this post up soon with some more interesting things. Enjoy!
Changelog
1.98.01
- Improved: Now using OpenGL to draw the live wallpaper, which should give approximately a 16x performance increase (awesome eh?)
- Added: MULTI-TOUCH!!! :O
- Improved: Lowered file size from over 1Mb to less than 300Kb
- Added: Option to not spawn particles when dragging / swiping across screens etc, set by default
- Added: Anayltics see which areas need improving
- Added: Sexy Particle appearance dialog to set saturation and tail length
- Removed: Tail length and particle saturation (see above)
- Added: Custom colors for battery level colored particles
- Added: Speed now allows you to set the minimum and maximum speed
- Removed: Removed speed deviation (see above)
- Improved: Scaling can go negative now (i.e. shrinking)
- Improved: Lots of default values changed to make prettier on first run
- Improved: Speed and Spawning decoupled from FPS settings, should be uniform now
- Improved: Max FPS setting now 80 (25 is recommended still)
- Improved: Max speed increased
- Improved: Max tail size increased
- Improved: Max particle number increased
- Improved: Added some nice icons in the about menu
- Bug Fix: Particle alignment works more consistently on different screen sizes and scales
Android Market Links
Either click the following android market links (in android phone) or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)
Free Version
The free version is the same as the pro version but with some of the fancier features are missing, and some non-intrusive adverts. Both versions are fully supported.
Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)
So my livewallpaper just got over 250,000 downloads and what better way to celebrate than a massive update/improvement? Previously I was using java drawables to create my livewallpaper and although easy it was inefficient. I have now moved the code over and am using OpenGL ES to draw the particles which means (by a back of the envelope calculation) that I have got a 16x performance increase. This equates to no lag/delay when performing actions on the home screen (swiping left/right, opening draw, dialogs etc.). Importantly it also means that battery life will be improved. I will probably add a few posts on OpenGL android tips specifically for people moving away from java drawables, and links to a few good tutorials.
AND guess what else??? I’ve added multi-touch! Unfortunately as exciting as it is, it doesn’t translate well into a screenshot so you’ll just have to try the beta or wait for the release on the market.
How do I sign up for this awesome beta?
Just send me an email (beta at stealthcopter.com) or leave a comment below with a valid email (it wont be displayed on-site) and I’ll add you to my beta testers mailing list.
Android Market Links (FOR OLD VERSION, NOT FOR BETA)
If you don’t fancy the beta, but still want to install the livewallpaper you can install the old version and wait for the update (probably about 1 to 2 weeks away) either click the following android market links (in android phone), scan the QR codes or search the market for nexus revamped.
Pro Version
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)
Free Version
Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)
I have received some more dead zebra android figures from deal extreme following on from the green ones I got and my all the ones yet to arrive. Unfortunately as matto pointed out (and I suspected) these are fakes and are not produced by Dead Zebra. Dealextreme are slightly infamous for the amount of bootlegged products. The quality of the painted figures is poor, but better than nothing (imho).
Hi-voltage – link
Hi-voltage dead zebra android figure
Can see the black behind the yellow outline and arms are coloured slightly differently.
Copperbot – link
Copperbot dead zebra android figure
Line along middle of head doesn’t line up but overall quite good quality
Reactor – link
Reactor dead zebra android figure
Overall quite good but again the arms don’t quite match, the glow in the dark is very cool though. Below shows photos of the reactor android figure under UV light and then it’s residual glow (apologies for my poor photography skills)
All together
Dead Zebra figures from dealextreme
Note: These are not official deadzebra figures, they are fakes and some of the paintwork is poor, please see this post
I love the Dead zebra android toys but I’ve found that they are impossible to get a hold of any. Thankfully dealextreme have them in stock 
each picture links to the dealextreme page for each android:
Most of the figures cost around $5 with some of them a little bit more $7.50 (suit, space invader, tribal). I’ll post an update with images when they arrive.
Fun with LED’s and liquid nitrogen
Working in a physics department has it’s perks. Below shows an orange LED changing colour as it is submerged into liquid nitrogen.
Many thanks to my house-mate for letting me play with liquid nitrogen and try this out.
I have been quite pleased with my previous microscope but I decided to buy a slightly better one from dealextreme as double the magnification was available for only a slightly higher cost.
product link) It only cost $48.20 USD (about £31.27 GBP) only $8 than my previous microscope that could only achieve 200x!
20X-400X 1.3MP Digital Microscope
20X-400X 1.3MP Digital Microscope with nice markings of the magnification
Quick Review
Advantages
- Large dynamic zoom range (labelled 20x – 400x)
- Easy to setup (plug and play)
- Can take some awesome photos, see below
- Variable illumination settings (using a wheel at top)
- Rubberised casing gives better grip and good overall feel
- Much improved build quality over the digimicro
- Stand is sturdy and can hold camera still in place
Comparison to the digimicro
Digimicro vs New Microscope
Comparison of microscopes at minimum zoom level
Comparison of microscopes at maximum zoom level
Magnification measurement
The images are taken with the edge of the camera case pressed right up against the ruler. You could probably remove casing to increase zoom slightly, or create a slot to slide a microscope slide into it. The camera has two focuses the first:
First focal point of microscope
And the second (maximum zoom):
Second focal point of microscope (0.5mm spacing between lines)
6mm displayed over 170mm: zoom ~ 30x
0.5mm displayed over 180mm: zoom ~ 360x
This isn’t far off the specified 20x – 400x so I am happy! (Note: Measuring magnification level is rubbish as it depends on screen the image is viewed on, so viewing it on a projector would make the statistics seem more impressive.)
The minimum zoom is less than this as we can move the camera further from the object
Setup in Linux
The beauty of this webcam is that it requires no installation with ubuntu 10.04 you simply need to run the software and the camera works! woo! The output of `lsusb` shows the device as:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0ac8:3610 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp.
Software
Most video programs will pick up the device, I am opting to use a program called cheese which is awesome not only because of the name but also because of its simplicity.
sudo apt-get install cheese
Bonus Picture
This is a photo of the pixels on a nexus one phone to show the pentile pixel layout
Nexus One Screen Under the Microscope
As before any requests for microscope images (within reason) will be considered
Polygon live wallpaper
Following the success of my first live wallpaper (Nexus Revamped Pro) I have created another. The wallpaper bares similarity to the windows screensaver mystify but much more ascetically pleasing.
Features
- Background color
- Polygon color or cycle through a range of colors
- Line thickness
- Number of apexes
- Number of trails
- Speed of movement
- Performance settings, anti-aliasing and Frames per second (FPS)
- More to come soon, feel free to request something!
Images
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- polygon livewallpaper 1
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- polygon livewallpaper 2
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- polygon livewallpaper 3
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- polygon livewallpaper 4
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- polygon livewallpaper 5
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- polygon livewallpaper 6
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- polygon livewallpaper 7
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- polygon livewallpaper 8
Video
Market Links
Polygon Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.polygon)
Android Robot Keychains Received
I have received my android keychains (as mentioned previously) that I ordered from dealextreme, they are a little bigger than I was expecting and certain not suitable for strapping onto a phone, however they are the perfect size to be used with keyrings 
They cost $2.70 each (£1.80), or for 5+ $2.39 (£1.59), or for 10+ (£2.12). When ordering more than 5 remember to enable bulk rates, this adds a delivery charge but the prices calculated above include this, and you still save more.
Green android product link
Photos:
Android keychain
Android keychain
Android keychain
Android keychain
You can also get a pack of 4 (one of each colour) for $8.10 (£5.38) shown below:
4 Colour android pack product link
4 Colour pack of Android Robot Keyrings (for phones)
Android Robot Keychain (for phones)
I just noticed that dealextreme are selling some android memorabilia, in the form of mobile phone strap android robots!
Green Android Robot Keyring (for phones)
They cost $2.70 each (£1.80), or for 5+ $2.39 (£1.59), or for 10+ (£2.12). When ordering more than 5 remember to enable bulk rates, this adds a delivery charge but the prices calculated above include this, and you still save more.
Green android product link
You can also get a pack of 4 (one of each colour) for $8.10 (£5.38) shown below:
4 Colour android pack product link
4 Colour pack of Android Robot Keyrings (for phones)
I have ordered lots of the Green android cell phone straps, and I will post an update with images when they arrive!
