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Photosynth now mobile…

April 21st, 2011 No comments

It’s been some months years since the once Microsoft Research Project got public and Microsoft started offering it’s great Photosynth service to the public.

I’ve been using the Microsoft panoramic and Photosynth tools for years now and I tend to say that they are the best tools one can get to create fast, easy and high-quality panoramic images.

There is photosynth.net to store all those panoramic pictures like this one from 2008:

The photosynth technology itself contains several other interesting technologies like SeaDragon which allows high quality image zooming on current internet connection speeds.

This awesome technology is as of now available on the iPhone (3GS and upwards) and it’s better than all the other panoramic tools I’ve used on a phone.

the process of taking the images

after the pictures are taken additional stitching is needed

after the stitching completed a fairly impressive panoramic images is the result

Source 1: Photosynth articles from the past
Source 2: Photosynth in Wikipedia
Source 3: Photosynth on iPhone App Store

Achievement Unlocked: Scaring the hell out of people

April 20th, 2011 No comments

Oh boy, it seems that Apple just screwed up big time when it comes to data privacy. Obviously everytime someone attaches an iOS device like the iPhone to a PC or Mac and it does a backup run this backup includes the location data of that iPhone of the last several months. Impressive logging on the one hand and a shame that they did not talk about that in public upfront on the other hand.

There’s a great tool available on GitHub which uses OpenStreetMap to visualize the logged data – it creates a quite impressive graphical representation of where I was the last 6 months…

Source 1: http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

Categories: Apple, hack-the-planet, Mobile, travelling Tags:

TechEd Europe 2010–if you’re there we could meet!

October 9th, 2010 No comments

After 5 years of TechEd abstinence it’s time to visit the conference again. This years TechEd will be held in Berlin which is quite nice since traveling will be reduced to a minimum. Since the session schedule is already available I’ve already filled my calendar for TechEd week.

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Okay it’s impressive to see that so many interesting sessions can be held in one week’ – the bad thing is that I need do decide which to go and which to watch on video later.

On later notice: Since I will be there it would be a great opportunity to meet. Let me know if you are there and want to meet.

Kürbisfest Altendorf 2009

October 4th, 2009 No comments

Wir sind dieses Jahr nicht direkt auf dem Kürbisfest, das ja heute stattfindet, sondern bei der Kürbisnacht gewesen. Da kann man entspannter Kürbisse kaufen und kommt mit den “Kürbisbauern” auch leichter ins Gespräch um nach Rezepten oder dem Verwendungszweck der einzelnen Kürbisse zu fragen.

Es gab wieder unzählige Kürbisse in zahlreichen Farben und Formen:

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Das ist doch mal eine Idee für den nächsten Weihnachtsbaum
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Da kann ich nur zustimmen !!!

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kürbisfest-panorama

Source: dreikiel.de

Categories: blueturtles, private, travelling Tags:

the first 3000 km with the beemer

April 23rd, 2009 2 comments

After more than 53 hours inside of our BMW are enjoying the car as much as we thought we would. Well I think we enjoy it even more than we would have thought.

In this nearly 54 hours we travelled 3252 km which translates to 2020 miles. With about 8,7 l of gas per 100 km (which translates to about 34 mpg) it’s less than I expected.

At around 2100 we had the first full-throttle run getting us up to about 230 km/h followed by the first car wash session and the first replacement windshield…(narf!)

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Two weeks ago we had the chance to take the car out for a great drive through the “Franconian Switzerland” (I still like “Fränkische Schweiz” better). The only thing I write about this weekend is: great fun!

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Categories: Motorsport, Reallife, travelling Tags:

Need a new windshield? Check.

April 11th, 2009 1 comment

After around 2500 km my Beemer needs a new Windshield. It happened while washing the car – don’t leave the windshield wipers up while opening the bonnet… a cracking noise is what you will hear next.

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The replacement will be installed next wednesday…

Categories: Motorsport, Reallife, travelling Tags:

der bi-em-double-you !

March 21st, 2009 4 comments

Ich fahre ja seit 2000 privat diesen wunderschönen SEAT Arosa. Nun ist das Auto Ende 1999 gebaut und damit auch nichtmehr das jüngste – eine kleine Excel Tabelle hat aufgezeigt dass das Auto de-facto durch die verschiedenen Durchsichten und Reparaturen mehr als zweimal komplett bezahlt wurde. Auch machte sich ein verstärkter Öl-Durst in den letzten Monaten eher unangenehm bemerkbar – unter anderem bekam ich erstmals die “nicht genug Öl”-Lampe zu sehen.

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Das Auto meiner Frau ist da noch viel schlimmer dran gewesen – als Baujahr 1997 und mit dem Geburtsfehler “Opel” ist es ein Wunder dass es überhaupt bis ins Jahr 2008 durchgehalten hat. Nicht ohne Blessuren: die gesamte Elektrik tut mehr oder weniger das was sie will, die Rad lager hören sich an als wären ein paar Stahlkugeln in einer Waschmaschine unterwegs und die Lenkung an sich zieht so böse nach rechts dass man sozusagen die ganze Zeit nach Links lenken muss um geradeaus zu fahren. Und da ist dieser Geburtsfehler: Die Hütte rostet dass man glaubt das wäre ein Hochseeschiff ohne Lackierung. Nun ja.

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Den Opel haben wir schon frühzeitig in 2008 dem Gebrauchtwagenmarkt zugeführt und auch – wie ich finde (meine Frau ist da etwas anderer Meinung) – reichlich Geld dafür bekommen. Für den SEAT Arosa haben wir uns ein anderes, endgültigeres Schicksal ausgedacht:

Im November 2008 klapperten wir die verschiedenen Autohändler in der Umgebung ab – all die üblichen Verdächtigen mussten befragt, begutachtet, bewertet und letztlich ausgewählt werden. Prinzipiell stellte sich die Frage: Ein Japaner oder ein deutsches Fabrikat?

Wir hatten einen Honda Civic im Auge – aber aufgrund glanzvoller Ignoranz der Händler und dem doch extrem schlechten Preis-Leistungsverhältnis haben wir uns schon frühzeitig entschieden: ein deutsches Auto soll es sein. Genauer gesagt ein BMW.

Die ersten Erfahrungen mit dem ortsansässigen BMW Händler haben dann auch recht schnell Herz und Brieftasche geöffnet. Schon nach dem ersten Besuch war die Probefahrt klar gemacht – wir hatten uns nämlich recht schnell auf einen “Einser” eingeschossen. Den gab es in der richtigen Größe und viel wichtiger: Mit der gewünschten Gadget-Dichte.

Am 08.11.2008 ging es also mit einem blauen 3 türigem 1er in den Thüringer Wald – gerade noch rechtzeitig vorm ersten großen Schnee. Wir haben natürlich die Gelegenheit für ein paar Fotos genutzt:

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Die Kaufentscheidung war getroffen – nun ging es an die Planung. Der BMW Konfigurator ist da ein ganz nettes Spielzeug, wenngleich ich mir da noch die ein oder andere Verbesserung gewünscht hätte. Über Weihnachten und im Januar wurde das Wunschauto konfiguriert und dann am 13. Januar mit der Hoffnung dass der Winter ein Herz mit uns haben möge gleich mit Sommerreifen auf den baldmöglichsten Termin bestellt. Abholen wollten wir das Auto nicht beim Händler sondern direkt in München in der BMW Welt.

Den Termin bekamen wir ein paar Tage später vom immer noch sehr zuvorkommenden, engagierten und überaus netten Händler – ja das ist nicht übertrieben, der Mann ist auf jede unserer Fragen eingegangen und hat sich speziell beim Rätsel-Thema “iPod-Integration” extra nochmal kundig gemacht.

Nun ging die wirklich anstrengende Phase des Projekts “BMW kaufen” los: das Warten.

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Da trudelten dann im Wochen-Rhythmus die Bestätigungen, die finalen Rechnungen und so wichtige Dinge wie Kennzeichen-Tragetaschen und Informationsmaterial zur Abholung ein. Alles in allem hat das die Vorfreude natürlich enorm gesteigert.

Am 12. März war es dann soweit. Unser BMW war gebaut, poliert und fertig zur Abholung. Wir sind an dem Tag extra früh aus dem Bett da die Abholung selbst auf 14:20 Uhr angesetzt war. Das ist natürlich reichlich spät wenn man hinterher noch eine BMW Stammwerksführung machen will. Deshalb haben wir die Werksführung vor die Auslieferung gezogen und mussten so recht früh (4 Uhr, urks!) raus und nach München. Wir waren rechtzeitig da und natürlich war wie erwartet ein wirklich schöner Tag für uns vorbereitet worden. Der Empfang, die Werksführung, die BMW Welt selbst, die Präsentation unseres Autos – da fällt einem nur ein “WOW!” ein.

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die Abholer-Premium-Lounge

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die “BMW Welt”

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die Treppe für die Abholenden – da geht man
gaaaaaanz langsam runter

Auf den Bildern ist ja auch diese Treppe zu sehen – da geht man nach dem Fahrzeug-Briefing – also dem Teil wo dem Abholer sein neues Auto in Theorie und Simulations-Praxis erklärt wird – gaaaanz gaaaanz langsam hinunter. Um dann direkt vor seinem Neuwagen zu stehen. Und ganz ehrlich, bei der ganzen Show ist das schon ein erinnerungswürdiger Moment wenn das Auto dann endlich vor einem auftaucht.

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Außen weiß und innen ganz in schwarz.

Endlich war das Warten vorbei! Wir haben uns dann direkt auf die Sommer-Socken gemacht. Die Fahrt versprach nämlich spannend, oder doch zumindest interessant zu werden: Schneeregen und Nebel war angesagt. Das kam dann auch, war aber nicht die Spur eines Problems – schön langsam und sicher sind wir nach einem ewig langen Tag wieder zuhause angekommen. Die Nacht war dann aber auch nicht besonders lang – denn nur zwei Tage später sind wir umgezogen. Ja da ist sozusagen die “Coole Sache Nummer 2”. Den Bericht gibts dann aber in einem anderen Artikel.

Categories: Mobile, Motorsport, private, Reallife, travelling Tags:

Clue #1 @ gone fishing

March 12th, 2009 2 comments

We just arrived in Munich.

Categories: Reallife, rocket-science, travelling Tags:

gone fishing 3

December 29th, 2008 No comments

 

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Categories: Panorama, travelling Tags:

gone fishing 2

December 25th, 2008 1 comment

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“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.”

Categories: Panorama, Reallife, travelling Tags:

gone fishing

December 23rd, 2008 No comments

Frohe Weihnachten

Happy Holidays!

Source: www.dreikiel.de

Categories: Reallife, travelling Tags:

We got us an iPod Touch…

September 29th, 2008 2 comments

After the last update and the fact that I am locked into iTunes (using it for more than 5 years…having rated almost 70% of my huge library…) I decided to buy an iPod at the beginning of this year. Sadly there was only the big and heavy iPod classic that looked promising since the touch was way to expensive.

I thought about things like: Would I need my whole library or would it suffice to have 8/16/32 GB of it? Do I want to have additional applications or just a music player?

After the last update several things came together to a conclusion:

  • There’s not a 160 GB iPod anymore. Since my library is almost that I wouldn’t be able to put my library on a 120 GB classic.
  • The touch is cheaper now
  • mostly I am listening to podcasts, which I do need to by in sync all the time, that means: remaining playtime sync and syncing without manual work

Since my wife doesn’t like the look of the new nano we decided to get the 16 GB Touch.

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It was delivered today and I am hugely impressed with it so far. It’s what I wanted and the way I wanted it. The feature of having my podcasts and audiobooks start/stop positions synced is just fantastic (listening to the first 20 minutes on the go and the rest at home is now possible because the position where I stopped listening on the iPod is synced to the iTunes).

Did I mention that we took the engraving option?

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Yo Ho!

On my way to Cambridge…

February 25th, 2008 No comments

Since two of my colleagues wrote about their work at Microsoft Research I wanted to write at least something about it…just like Andreas said:

“One reason I recently don’t blog too much is the fact that I am a bit restricted in what I can tell. Being involved in some exciting projects, the confidentiality of these projects does not allow much publicity.”

So really the only thing I can write about is that I am honored to work with these great people and being part of the process of creating great software.

So – for now I am on my way back to Cambridge – the next article will be written from there…

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Of course I will write about all the things when I am allowed to do so…

Source 1: Martin Calsyn
Source 2: Andreas Heil
Source 3: http://research.microsoft.com/ero/

ready.for.takeoff – the Microsoft Launch 2008

February 22nd, 2008 1 comment

Unfortunately I only had the time to get into the last day of the ready.for.takeoff Launch Conference for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008. It took place in Frankfurt/Main in Germany from the 19th to 21st February 2008 and it surely was a great event.

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Besides the real great tracks there’s this little thing every participant got:

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Source: http://www.microsoft.com/germany/aktionen/ready-for-take-off/default.aspx

Categories: Meetings, Microsoft, Software, travelling Tags:

24h trip to England…

February 14th, 2008 3 comments

While writing this I am still in Cambridge, England and packing my stuff to take the next plane back home…

Sadly I will only see the night-sky for this trip because I started at 0600 AM GMT+1 this morning in Nürnberg and I will start again in London Stansted at 1945 GMT…

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Categories: Development, Employer, Microsoft, travelling Tags:

on the road…erm…in the air again…

January 6th, 2008 No comments

In the next hours I will be on the plane to UK for my one week stay in Cambridge… what I am doing there and everything else when I’m there…

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Categories: Employer, Meetings, Microsoft, travelling Tags:

Movie Events

November 16th, 2007 No comments

Ever been on a film festival? Maybe, but ever been on a film festival with one of your movies getting its “world premiere” there?

So happened this thursday in Kassel on the “24. Kasseler Dokumentarfilm- und Videofest”.

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In the section “A38 – Produktionsstipendium Kassel-Halle”, one of 4 competitions, the film “Die Auschwitz-Dialoge” was screened at 3 p.m. in the Filmladen, a small downtown cinema. After the screening a discussion with the audience followed.

Back in 2004 I was a member of a film crew in Poland, where we made a documentation about the town Oscwiecim and its struggle in the shadow of the KZ.

Additional information about the movie.

The old article about the filming in Poland on Schrankmonster.

The competition is still running until sunday, so stay tuned for the results.

Jens Heymann

Categories: Movies, travelling Tags:

Ze Germans are on the road….

July 20th, 2007 No comments

…on their journey to Mongolia…

“Ze Germans …are coming! We’re taking on the Mongol Rally 2007. 13.000 kilometers, 5 mountain ranges, 2 deserts, some of the worst roads in the world and all this in car most people wouldn’t trust to get them to the local shops.”

And as of today they are on the road doing the rally:

“If you read this after about 8am, then we are on the road and on our way to London. Thanks to Mirko, all our SMS Updates will also be posted here, so stay tuned! And for God’s sake, wish us luck!”

Source 1: http://www.mongolrally.de/
Source 2: http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com/

Student Technology Conference 2007

May 23rd, 2007 No comments

We spent the last two days in Duisburg attending the Student Technology Conference 2007.

“From Software Architecture, User Interface and Robotics to Games Development with the XNA framework: in use and brand new technologies of the IT – industry will be presented and demonstrated at technologically advanced level. Microsofts Student Technology Conference is the perfect opportunity to engage with potential employers and to get in touch with Microsofts .NET technology. Additionally the German Finals in Microsofts premiere technology competition, the Imagine Cup 2007, will have its final in the Software Design invitational right here!”


the keynote


view from our hotel room…nice, eh?

Source: http://www.studentconference.de

about the 23c3 recording and streaming teamwork

January 8th, 2007 2 comments

The planning process started way earlier than last year but as usual some things remain until the very last minute before everything starts. But since this year the teamwork and enthusiasm was extraordinary we finally made it almost as planned. We surely did not reach our goal of releasing the recordings hours after the talk ended. Mainly because we underestimated the amount of knowledge and pain it took to actually get the recordings running on the iPod. It was one of the guidelines for this years official recordings: they had to run on current generation video iPods and they had to have all the metatags. So the team did it and we ended up releasing the first half (nearly) of the 23c3 recordings into the public only 2 weeks instead of the 4-6 months of last year. Even better: we managed to improve the video quality and even got smaller files. That wouldn’t been possible without the encoding-pipeline knowledge that Michael Feiri brought into the team. With that knowledge it also took several days to actually build the working pipeline.(yes the iPod is one special piece of hardware) The complete encoding-pipeline we used will be documented and released soon.

So after all that planning we finally packed our stuff and hit the road:

After some hours and the unpacking the video studio looked like this:

here’s a close up of the Windows Media Encoders, the h.264 encoding machine and the storage (all from behind):

So we surely brought enough processing power to berlin. And this is what did take the picture:


BTW: the black machine in the background just
died during the keynote speech…

Want to see what it’s like watching “out of the window” of the video studio? No problem:

or how about another view of the studio:

So. So you had some pictures of the video studio and the setup. But I bet you want to know some more details about the setup itself. I created an overview for you:

Since last years setup was completely digital (planned) and we ended up using the DV-tape backup since all the recordings were screwed up we thought it might be a good idea to go back one step and use analog video as in FBAS to transport and record the talks. We also had the DV-tape backup this year and to be honest in some cases we have to fall back to that. Less than 10 out of 130 recordings are screwed up so we have to use the DV backup. That means 120 of them worked out as planned. Great! We are currently cutting and encoding them and as you read this more than half of them should be up on the official servers and the mirrors.

Now in the aftermath of the congress we learned a new lesson: there’s maybe one or another speaker that would not allow us releasing their talk recording. In the future we think of having something like a “don’t record me”-list to avoid misunderstandings.

on the road to 23c3

December 26th, 2006 1 comment

FeM e.V. is officially taking the last steps of the “journey to 23c3″. Expect us to arrive in Berlin about 1300.

Stay tuned for more pictures and text about the 23c3 streaming and recording setup/team/…

Categories: FeM, graphics, Meetings, travelling Tags:

Speed Camera Database

November 14th, 2006 No comments

“At locations that are particularly subject to accidents, speed cameras are erected specifically to catch speed offenders, to call them to account, and thereby to teach them a lesson. This should also reduce the number of accidents.

We are of the opinion that there is also another way to reduce the number of accidents.

With the help of our database, we hope to achieve the following for our users:

  • to warn them in good time about high accident area
  • that they check their speed and adjust it if necessary
  • that they can fully focus their concentration on what is happening in the traffic

The goal of our project is not to promote “racing”! “

Source: http://www.scdb.info/en/

Categories: Internet, Mobile, Motorsport, travelling Tags:

the 23c3 live streaming and recording plannings *ATTENTION: DRAFT!*

November 3rd, 2006 6 comments

ATTENTION: The information in this article are not final and are subject to be changed during the plannings.

In less than 2 months the 23c3 takes place in Berlin/Germany (December 27.-30th 2006). And the plannings are in full progress. We had several brainstorm sessions and I think that we finally do have a plan. First of all: We learned a lot from the 22c3 live streaming and recording work. And to give you an overview of the things we want to achieve this time:

  1. permanent working live streams of all 4 lecture halls
  2. high quality recordings without using our DV-Tape fallback
  3. making low/mid/high quality recordings in different codecs available for download within 24 hours

To achieve these goals we’re going to need considerably more hardware than last year, which means:

  • 4 WMV Live Encoding machines
  • 1 MPEG-2 encoding machine with 4 MPEG-2 encoder cards
  • 4 video editing machines
  • 6 19″ TFTs + 1 4
  • at least 1 monitoring machine
  • more than 1 Tbyte of storage space
  • 5 cameras + 1 video mixer
  • a lot of helping hands (yes, we need help chaos angels!!)

So. The camera setup is almost identical to the last one. But this time we want to use a better FBAS signal instead of the in-house HF-cable-TV. The WMV encoding stays as it was last year. We plan to install an additional MPEG-2 hardware encoding machine which produces high-quality MPEG-2 data (which gets edited and compressed for download distribution as fast as possible).

Since we’re sill in planning stage we cannot speak about bitrates, live streams and such. Everything is subject to change, it’s just a draft. But stay tuned and read frequently. Oh… and comments are welcome.

Source 1: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Home
Source 2: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Angel_FAQ

why driving is not always fun and what is wrong about a Volkswagen

October 6th, 2006 2 comments

The adventure started with the the fact that I had to phone SIXT to get the car reservation done…obviously my travel office wasn’t able to get this done within 5 business days… But I finally got the reservation done and arrived at 0700 in Erfurt to grab the car. And … the worst case: a Volkswagen Golf (2.0 TDI)

The trip to Munich normally takes me 3,5 hours – this day it took me more than 7 hours. Congestion is the word of choice here. Damn was that a bad trip. And back home it took nearly as long. I got into almost every congestion that was reported by the radio/TMC.

The fact that I was on the road for more than 13 hours and that the meeting took 1,5 hours… the next time I’ll be flying… Take-Off at 0700, Meeting at 0900, Take-Off at 1100 and back home for dinner.

Oh…to say something good about the Volkswagen: It wasn’t too heavy and the 2 liter 4 cylinder TDI was quite lively. The rest of the car is just extremly bad. The whole thing is badly build. Everything queeks and rattles all the time whilst driving. The gearbox is okay, but the clutch…. The suspension was the worst I’ve seen on a car since the plate spring. Every once in a while a bump showed up the car instantly started to nod. … Oh I could talk for hours. This car needs a better build quality and it surely needs more personality. The Golf is just a pricey bad car, period. Here’s some math:

VW Golf 2.0 TDI: € 21.873,00
Honda Civic 2,2i-TDCi: € 21.430,00
Ford Focus 2.0-TDCi: € 22.290,00

I would rather drive the Civic than the Golf…

Categories: Motorsport, Reallife, travelling Tags:

on my way to…

October 4th, 2006 No comments

munich.

See you after the jump…this’ll be a rainy ride.

Categories: Employer, Microsoft, travelling Tags: