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Received a box of 16 dead zebra android collectibles from funky peanut

mat — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:31:57 +0000

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!

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper: Update 1.98.01 (Multi-touch and more!) #android

mat — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 23:56:43 +0000

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)

Download link

Looking for beta testers for nexus revamped android livewallpaper

mat — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:56:28 +0000

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)

More Dead Zebra Android mini collectible figurines arrive

mat — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:29:11 +0000

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

Dead Zebra android mini collectible figurines

mat — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 01:06:51 +0000

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

mat — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:25:24 +0000

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.

Photos with my new usb microscope (20X-400X 1.3MP Digital Microscope)

mat — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:40:36 +0000

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

mat — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:10:49 +0000

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

Video

Market Links

Polygon Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.polygon)

Android Robot Keychains Received

mat — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:39:53 +0000

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

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)

mat — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 01:33:44 +0000

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)

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!

Nexus Revamped (free) updated (live wallpaper)

mat — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:53:20 +0000

Following the update of nexus revamped pro, I have upgraded the free edition! This upgrade brings many improvements over the last version and should have a considerable performance increase, therefore less lagging and better battery life.

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper in action

Below details what options the Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper now has to offer:

Theme options

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper Theme Settings

Background Themes

Image – Choose a background image
Single Color – Choose a background color

Background Options

Background Tint – Give the chosen background a colored tint

Particle Themes

Multi-color – Choose a mutli-color theme for the particles
Single Color – Choose a single color theme for the particles

Physics Settings

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper Physics Settings

Touch interaction – Enables/disables finger pressing causing spawning of particles
Hide spawning – Enables/disables particles only spawning offscreen
Speed – Choose the speed of the particles
Spawn Density – Choose how often particles are created

Enjoy!

Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

Download link

Nexus Revamped Live wallpaper

mat — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:28:06 +0000

Having recieved my Nexus one from google, I felt compelled to write a Live Wallpaper app because of how sexy they look. So I got playing around and ended up writing a wallpaper from scratch that is designed to be similar to the Nexus Live Wallpaper, but with improved efficiency and lots of customisability.

I have created a pro version of the application which features more options and extra backgrounds and themes, which is available for a small fee which will help support development.

Video

Please note that this is a video taken in an emulator using screen recording software, so it is less responsive and more stuttery than when run on an actual phone.

Android Market Links
Nexus Revamped Pro Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevampedpro)
Nexus Revamped Live Wallpaper (com.stealthcopter.nexusrevamped)

As always I welcome feedback and bug reports!

Microscope images of my eye (by request)

mat — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:40:37 +0000

More microscope image of eyes were requested (by Benjie), trying to focus more on the detail of the eye by using external illumination. Unfortunately the camera has some colour problems when not using the built in LEDs, possibly because it attempts compensates for the lack of illumination. Hopefully I am not in danger of someone cloning my retinal scan to gain access to my confidential files.

Black and white microscope image of my eye

Clear reflection of my laptop in a black and white microscope image of my eye

Coloured illuminated microscope image of my eye

Coloured illuminated microscope image of my eye (see the blood vessels)

Stealthcopter in the wild

mat — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:27:00 +0000

Whilst shamelessly searching my own domain name in the search engines I found another stealthcopter in the wild:

Stealthcopter by ~ASLICEOFPIE on deviant ART