My short adventure with FPV (Quadcopter TBS Discovery Pro)

Oculus Rift /Development Kit/

I had opportunity to spent some time with Oculus Rift, testing it with multiple different demos and Team Fortress 2. It is an excellent concept and I believe that it will become as popular peripheral as joysticks and keyboards are at the moment. I really like this idea of freedom of movement and deeper connection with an artificial world. We are slowly moving towards innovations which will allow us to receive virtual words of computer games with all our senses. 

• Cons:
• screen quality is not good enough - pixelated screen,
• it causes motion sickness - I was laughing when I have heard about people having this problem but at the end I have experienced it by myself :-( and it did not happen just once :-(
• Pros:
• great idea / concept

I cannot wait to play with the consumer version of the Oculus Rift. I wish Oculus team perseverance in developing and marketing this brilliant idea and I believe that it will become a great product one day.

Screenshots from Team Fortress 2

Equipment itself

My experience with Micro Black scooter

I bought Micro Black scooter more than one year ago and I managed to use it for less than 6 months. I decided to buy it because I wanted to shorten my commute time. It used to take me 20 mins to get to the railway station and about 25 mins to get from Waterloo Station to the office. I was able to shorten the first part of the trip to 10 mins and the second one to 15 mins all together I was able to save 40 mins every day. If you think about my trips in the terms of distance and 20 working days per month, I rode about 880 km = 546.806649 miles in 6 months. This result would be even more impressive if I could use it for the whole year. My scooter broke terribly in the middle of December leaving me without an alternative way of transport. :-( Please have a look at the attached photos.

On the first photo you can see the break pad which broke after a few months but it was not a big issue for me. Second and third photos present the real problem, the place where the frame snapped stopping me from unfolding and using the scooter.

My opinion is that Micro Black scooter is for a casual / relaxing riding but definitely not for people who commute to work every day and need to overcome serious distances.

Is it really our future?

Microsoft Technologies

Microsoft Technologies - An infographic by the team from Next at Microsoft