Adobe Kuler for iOS

Adobe reports:

Kuler lets you capture colour inspiration anywhere you find it. Capture colorus from a mural, garden, or wherever you happen to be with a snap of your iPhone camera. Browse, create, and customize themes for your designs – all on your phone.

The color themes you create with the Kuler app can be synced to the Kuler website, an online community for colour enthusiasts, for use with other Adobe applications such as Illustrator and Adobe Ideas.

Whether you’re a designer, artist, developer, hobbyist, craft maker, or just somebody who loves colour, Kuler will transform your phone into the ultimate color inspiration tool.

- Choose and adjust your colour themes with the colour wheel

- Edit your colors using RGB color sliders

- Five pre-set colour moods in camera mode, such as colorful and muted

- Six pre-set colour rules in the colour wheel, such as monochromatic and complementary

- Set the base colour to quickly identify other colours that will work well with together
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Printable Papers

Doing what it says on the homepage, a site that hosts PDFs (some customisable) that allow you to print out a wide range of page grids.
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Scientific 7-Minute Workout Video

LifeHack reports: [edited]

News about the 'Scientific 7-Minute Workout' has been buzzing around the web for the last month.

The workout was developed by The Human Performance Institute and requires only resistance from body weight, so you don’t have to purchase any fancy exercise equipment or visit a gym to get in shape. The downside is that the 7-minute workout explanations from Institute and The Times only featured descriptions of the exercises paired with pictures or illustrations -something hard to base an exercise routine on if you’ve never actually done these workouts before.

Fortunately, we are here to help and have created a video of the 7-minute workout so you can see exactly what goes into the routine before you try the famous 7-minute workout for yourself and, when you do try it, this video can help you keep track of the exercises and your time.
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London, Nottingham, Lincoln, London - 25-05-13

London to Nottingham
Sigh’s Smell Of Farewell - Cocteau Twins
Thank You Girl - John Hiatt
September Night - Van Morrison
Married to a Lazy Lover - The Auteurs
Streams From The Fountain - Kevin Prosch
Jump - Paul Anka
Oh, To Be Back With You - Steve Forbert
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl - Nina Simone
I Think I'll Disappear Now - Crash Test Dummies
Words With The Shaman Pt. 1 Ancient Evening - David Sylvian
Chemo Limo - Regina Spektor
Man Gave Names To All The Animals - Bob Dylan
Your Lucky Day In Hell - Eels
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Elvis Presley
Good-Bye To Carolina - Lyle Lovett
Distant Sun (live) - Crowded House
Wrapped in Grey - XTC
Rock & Roll Heaven's Gate - Indigo Girls
Take These Chains From My Heart - Hank Williams
Nasty Dan - Johnny Cash
Help Me Somebody - Brian Eno & David Byrne
My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains - Captain Beefheart
Violin - They Might Be Giants (TMBG)
Wings - Josh Ritter
The Same Old Rock - Roy Harper With Jimmy Page
Hang On Every Word - Vigilantes Of Love
Livin' In A House Full Of Love - Glen Campbell
Sunshine After The Rain - Elkie Brooks
Honey Child What Can I Do? - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
The Wind Cries Mary - Sting
Sad About Girls - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Homecoming / The Death Of St. Jimmy / East 12th St. / Nobody Likes You / Rock And Roll Girlfriend / We're Coming Home Again - Green Day
Rebel Without A Pause - Public Enemy
Window Wide Open - Scritti Politti

Nottingham to Lincoln
L'Americano - The Gypsy Queens Feat. Madeleine Peyroux
Fire - Kasabian
Super Freak (Part 1) - Rick James
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
Down In Mexico - The Coasters
I Love You Always Forever - Donna Lewis
Parklife - Blur
Three Small Words (Movie Theme Song) - Josie and the Pussycats
Human - Daughter
Breakout - Swing Out Sister
I'm Beginning to Think You Prefer Beverley Hills 90210 to Me - Fight Like Apes
Reptilia - The Strokes
Big Girls Don't Cry - Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons
TVC 15 - David Bowie
Get Lucky [ft. Pharrell Williams] - Daft Punk
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher - Jackie Wilson
Moves Like Jagger (feat. Christina Aguilera) - Maroon 5
Mountain Sound - Of Monsters and Men
Helena Beat - Foster the People
Diane Young - Vampire Weekend

Lincoln to London
Do You Believe In Magic - The Lovin' Spoonful
Only Imagine This City - DJ Schmolli
Who Loves You - Frankie Valli And The Four Seasons
Float On - Modest Mouse
Whiskey In The Jar - Metallica
Half Moon Street - Pete and the Pirates
The Boys of Summer - DJ Sammy
That's Alright - Laura Mvula
Shoot the Runner - Kasabian
Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart - The Coasters
Bottle Rocket - The Go! Team
The American - Simple Minds
Policy Of Prutataaa - DJ Schmolli
Never Wanted Your Love - She & Him
Where Do You Go to (My Lovely) - Peter Sarstedt
Get Dancin' - Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes
A Taste of Honey - Herb Alpert
The Jean Genie - David Bowie
Dashboard - Modest Mouse
Hooked On A Feeling - B.J.Thomas
While We're In Love feat. Ghost Beach - Viceroy
There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner - Noel Coward
Chelsea Girl - Simple Minds
Respect - Otis Redding
Gudbye T'Jane - Slade
Chop Suey - System Of A Down
GMF (feat. Sinéad O'Connor) - John Grant
Rock On - David Essex
Lady Like - The Coasters
Want You In My Soul (daft punk mix) - Stee Downes
Feel Good Inc (Single Edit) - Gorillaz
Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) (bootleg?) - Frank Wilson
Silence (single) - Delerium
Burst - The Darling Buds
Charlie Brown - The Coasters
I've Been Thinking about you - London Beat
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me - Sandie Shaw
She Will - Savages
Fighter [Sped Up] - Christina Aguilera (mix by djbj)
It's Better To Have (And Don't Need) - Don Convay
Generator - The Holloways
Tiger Feet - Mud
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Free FontFont Fonts

25 in total, Motter Festival and Fancy Writing being my personal favourites, available from their Pinterest site.
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Photography Infographics

Designzzz has curated a useful range of photography infographics.
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Why 3D Printing is Overhyped

Gizmodo has published an excellent article on the current limitations of 3D printing. The whole article is worth reading, but for the time/attention deficient, snippets follow:

"The main issue lies with raised expectations, build quality, price and usability."

"3D printed parts are not as strong as traditionally-manufactured parts.In something like injection moulding, you have a very even strength across the part, as the material is of a relatively consistent material structure. In 3D printing, you are building it in layers — this means that it has laminate weaknesses as the layers don’t bond as well in the Z axis as they do in the X and Y plane."

"Surface finish: People hear you can print in plastic, so they visualise a plastic item [that is] glossy and smooth. They don’t visualise a matt finish with rough layer lines all over."

"Cost is based on material used, so big things are expensive, and small things are cheap. That’s it. There is no economy of scale, so if one item is $1, a thousand items are $1000. Producing anything in bulk that is bigger than your fist is a waste of time."

"Items regularly take hours to print, even days. The notion of ‘but it’ll get faster in the future’ is not necessarily true, as we are limited by the chemical properties of materials such as ABS and PLY — these materials can only be extruded so fast, and at such a rate before you start to destroy the properties of the part."

"To print something, you need a CAD model. Getting that is hard. Really hard. When you write a letter, you don’t just click ‘print,’ do you? You have to actually type it and check it for mistakes. Now this is the same for 3D printing, but a million items harder."

"A great analogy I once read was the comparison of 3D printers to the bread making machine. In the '90s, bread makers suddenly became affordable and everyone got one; they then went and spent $4-7 on the ingredients. They followed the instructions and left the bread cooking overnight. In the morning they came down to the wonderful smell of freshly cooked bread. They smugly sat eating their bread thinking "this is the best loaf of bread ever". Two weeks later the bread machine is in the cupboard and they’ve gone back to buying their carbs from the shop. I’d say that 99 per cent of the population would rather go out and buy a loaf of bread for $1, rather than making one for $3, despite it being more rewarding."

"3D printing will continue to grow in areas like the prototyping market, low-volume production runs (on very high-end machines), medical, aerospace — the list goes on. But as an everyday household object? I’m not convinced."
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Pixelmator 2.2

9to5Mac has published a review of one of the best budget (£10.50) Mac image editors.

Snippets follow:

"Pixelmator 2.2 focuses heavily on shapes and vector drawing options. The new Shape Style palette lets you set and tweak a variety of different settings on your shape. From the Shape Styles palette, you can edit properties such as fill and stroke colors, stroke size, drop shadow, inner shadow, and more."

"Any text, from full sentences to individual letters, can be turned into a shape, making it much easier than before to work with fonts and type. Once you’ve turned text into a shape, all of the same shape style properties that are applicable to normal shapes are available to your text shape as well, meaning it’s now really simple to create great looking, stylized type, right in Pixelmator."

"Pixelmator 2.2 gains a new retro Light Leak Effect, which contains 8 customizable Light Leaks, each offering a unique look and sliders for adjusting the intensity.These new effects are great for pictures that you want to a retro feel."

"Pixelmator 2.2 includes many other small tweaks, including an improved Type Tool, new gradient presets, improved Drawing Toools, the ability to copy a shape’s style to another shape, as well as some much welcomed performance improvements."
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Adobe Project Mighty

core77 reports: [edited]

The Adobe Mighty Pen is designed for sketching on tablets. The screen can distinguish between the pen's nib and your mitts, so you can draw with the pen, then erase with your finger. No more having to click a submenu to change the tool. And when you do need a submenu, you click a button on the pen itself to make it appear on-screen.

The second device is the pen's Napoleon Ruler. Adobe's VP of Product Experience Michael Gough was trained as an architect, and wanted to bring the efficacy of sketching with a secondary guiding tool to the tablet experience.

The pen and ruler are not available yet, and no release date has been given.

For a video demonstration, see below.


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Grenade Reload Protein Flapjack (Chocolate Browning)

Protein bars have three things in common. They possess daft names, upset your stomach and taste dreadful. The featured bar stays true to the first, but (for me at least) escapes the second and third.

The consistency is dry, chewy, not-too-sweet and with a pleasant mouth-feel and after-taste. The 70 gramme bar contains 280 calories, similar to a Kit Kat Chunky or a 45 gramme chocolate bar. However you get 14 more grammes of protein and a much slower release of sugars, helping to stabilise your insulin levels. One thing to note, if you're intolerant to oligofructose products, you should avoid these bars.

There are other flavours available, but I haven't tried them.

For those who study these things, nutritional details follow:

Energy: 279 Calories
Protein: 15.5 grammes
Carbohydrates: 32.4 grammes
Sugar: 18.9 grammes
Total Fats: 9.9 grammes
Of Which Saturates: 2.9 grammes
Dietary Fibre: 11.7 grammes
Sodium: 0.1 grammes
Salt: 0.4 grammes

Ingredients: Oat Blend (Jumbo Oats, Rolled Oats, Oat Bran) (34%), Oligofructose, Protein Blend (Soy Protein Isolate, Defatted Soya Flour, Whey Protein Concentrate, Casein Protein), Invert Syrup, Rapeseed Oil, (Vegetable Oil, Water, Emulsifier (E471)), Dark Chocolate Pieces (4.3%) (Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Vegetable Fat, Soya Lecithin), Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder (2.8%), Natural Flavour.

Price: £24.99 for a box of 24

Thanks to Zak Jordan for the heads-up
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Sony Xperia ZR

The Verge reports: [edited]

Sony has unveiled a new variant of its flagship Android smartphone, launching the LTE-enabled Xperia ZR with enhanced waterproofing for use at depths of up to 1.5 meters. The Xperia ZR is a mid-range smartphone and ships with a slightly smaller 4.6-inch display than the Xperia Z. While the device utilizes Sony's Reality Display technology, it only features a 720p panel.

The Xperia ZR still offers plenty of power with its 1.5GHz S4 Pro quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, with Android 4.1. The device also includes the same 13-megapixel sensor as the Xperia Z, and with an IP55/IP58 Ingress Protection rating, offers slightly improved water resistance compared to its bigger counterpart. Sony says the Xperia ZR will launch in "various global markets" in Q2 but has yet to set a price.
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€250,000 test-tube burger served soon in London

The Verge reports: [edited]

A hamburger created from bovine stem cells will soon be served in London. The €250,000 (roughly $325,000) burger is the result of years of research led by Dr. Mark Post in the Netherlands, who hopes to show the world that so-called "in-vitro meat" could become a viable food source.

The burger was crafted using cells from the neck of a slaughterhouse cow and techniques developed for the creation of organs. Stem cells have the ability to turn into a multitude of other cells, including the muscle cells needed for the burger meat. Dr. Post's team used tens of billions of muscle cells to create 20,000 thin strips of cultured muscle tissue, which amount to a quarter-pounder. Although his in-vitro burger has no fat, Dr. Post assures The New York Times that it tastes "reasonably good."

In the future, Dr. Post believes the cost of in-vitro meats will come down significantly, but admits there are major hurdles that will have to be solved by the scientific community before the mass production of meat could start. One hurdle isn't scientific, but cultural: persuading society that meat grown in a lab is safe to eat is a tall order.
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Olympus E-P5, Video Review

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London-Nottingham-London

London - Nottingham
Analogue - a-ha
Blood Red Roses - Sting
Big River - Johnny Cash
Aftermath - Vigilantes Of Love
Midas Shadow - Al Stewart
Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls - Sparks
Chain Gang - Sam Cooke
The Liberation (Red, Black & Green) - Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
If You Go Away - Dusty Springfield
A Letter To Heaven - Wynona Carr
Why Get Up? - Robert Palmer
I Come And Stand At Every Door - This Mortal Coil
Cry, Cry, Cry [Live] - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Parting Shot - Vigilantes Of Love
Avalanche - Vigilantes Of Love
Dizzy Dean Movie - Charlie Peacock
Cannibals Hymn - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Abbey Road (entire album) - The Beatles
Perfect Stranger - Steve Forbert
Get Off Of My Cloud - The Rolling Stones
Lucille - Little Richard
Liar [2011 Remaster] - Queen
Available Space - Ry Cooder
Ms. Jackson (live) - Outkast
Miracle Of The Rosary - Elvis Presley
The Valley Of Malls - Fountains Of Wayne
Gun Shy (live) - Natalie Merchant
True Love - Elvis Presley
Good On the Sally Army - Cliff Richard
Rock Island Line (alt 2) - Johnny Cash
Crown of Thorns - Yngwie Malmsteen
For A While - Nina Simone
Afraid To Fail - Josh Rouse

Nottingham - London
6 Music - Sasha's Dance Mix
Spin On A Red Brick Floor - Nanci Griffith
Life On Mars? - David Bowie
Our House (Stretch Mix) - Madness
Mind Games - John Lennon
Girl In Saskatoon [Album Version] - Johnny Cash
Go (up) - Moby
Life In The Fast Lane (live) - Eagles
Life's Been Good (live) - Eagles
Democracy - Leonard Cohen
Words Of Love Spoken - Vigilantes Of Love
Wobbling - Victoria Williams
Front Porch - Slobberbone
Cinderella Man - Eminem
I'm Looking Through You - The Beatles
On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 1) - Gil Scott-Heron
Just - Radiohead
Why So Close - James
The Painter's Link - Kate Bush
Boots Of Spanish Leather (alt) - Bob Dylan
Furry Sings The Blues - Joni Mitchell
Seven - James
A Million Days - Prince
I Think Ur A Contra - Vampire Weekend
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The Scientific 7-Minute Workout

The New York Times reports: [edited]

An article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal does just that. In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it (allegedly, Ed.) based on science.

“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.

Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

The original article is available here, complete including a link to a PDF describing how to perform the exercises.
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Free Font - Clutchee

A decorative block face, designed by Sinisa Komlenic.

Available from Font Squirrel.
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AL13 iPhone case

ZDNet reports: [edited]

The AL13, referring to the abbreviation for aluminum in the periodic table and the fact the case weighs 13 grams, the product has the same brushed metal look as the iPhone 5. It's available for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5, in five colors —black, silver, red, blue, and gunmetal. It's half the weight of most other metal iPhone cases, doesn't require any tools to install, and has a shock-absorbing rubber lining inside the metal.

The AL13 sells for $79. It is undoubtedly a premium product. But, for those who want the best case that money can buy to suit up with an iPhone, then you'll be hard pressed to find a better alternative than the AL13.
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Specialized Turbo

Wired reports: [edited]

The Specialized Turbo is their first electrically assisted bike. It’s been on sale in Europe for a year.

“Turbo” is an appropriate name for this rig. With a 342 watt-hour lithium-ion battery pack sending juice to a 250-watt hub-mounted motor, this e-bike will hit its top speed without breaking a sweat. It’s also the first electric bike that doesn’t look like a grade-school science experiment or a rejected Blade Runner prop.

This is among the few electric bikes that actually looks like a bike. It’s an odd blend of mountain bike ruggedness and city bike ergonomics. It’s sized like a 29er, but the lack of any suspension combined with the stiff tires that look like over-inflated tubes make it strictly something for the street. And be prepared to use your legs as buffers when going over ruts and uneven asphalt.

This thing is huge. The downtube, which holds the battery, is about the size of a softball bat, and every other tube had to be similarly oversized to maintain some semblance of visual balance. And although the frame is made of aluminum, the Turbo tips the scales at more than 50 pounds. You’ll feel every ounce of it as you huff and puff along without the electric assist and, worse, as you schlep it up and down the stairs to the train. Shouldering this thing is quite a workout, and will leave you with more than a few bruises and aching muscles if you aren’t careful.

Flip the motor to its highest of four settings — called, appropriately, “turbo” — using the red button near your right thumb and this thing flies. It’s like a tailwind on demand, providing superhuman boost that has you over the 20 mph mark in seconds.

The instantaneous speed is a blessing and a curse. While it’s crazy fun while riding, you must keep that hair-trigger acceleration in mind when stopped. Apply the slightest bit of weight to the pedal and the Turbo rockets forward beneath you. It’s best to hold the front brake when stopped.

If unfettered speed isn’t your thing, Eco mode drops the assist down to 30 percent of capacity to maximize range. “Off” is self-explanatory, and useful only if you really want to build up your quads. “Regen” applies a little drag to the rear motor while coasting to send power back to the pack. The pack is good for 45 minutes to an hour of moderate to high-speed riding.

Price: $5,900
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Joby Grip Tight Micro Stand

Digital Photography Review Connect reports: [edited]

The Grip Tight Micro Stand is small enough to carry it in your jeans pocket or even use as a key fob. Yet it's a nicely made and sturdy mini-tripod that firmly holds your smartphone in place and allows you to easily adjust the shooting angle.

The Grip Tight Micro Stand is two products. The Grip Tight is a foldable spring-loaded smartphone holder that screws on to any standard size tripod mount. The Micro Stand is a foldable micro-tripod that can be combined with the Grip Tight but also works well with compact cameras. The mount's socket joint is stiff enough to even hold larger models, such as a Micro Four Thirds camera with a kit lens.

It works well as a table tripod but doubles as a smartphone stand for watching videos or conducting Skype calls.

Price £25.00
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Google Glass - A 60 second introduction

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Nikon D7100

Digital Photography Review has published a very positive (85%/Gold Award) in depth review of Nikon's 24MP 'enthusiast' APS-C DSLR.

Edited snippets from the conclusion follow:

"The D7100 is a fast, responsive camera in most operational aspects. Most impressive though is just how many features it shares with its higher-priced full frame siblings. The D7100 one-ups its Nikon stablemates with an RGBW rear LCD which offers more efficient operation and gives the option for greater brightness than an RGB panel.

"The D7100 delivers outstanding image quality and detail rendition at low ISOs in both JPEG and Raw mode. Noise does start to become visible at the pixel level even at moderate ISO sensitivities, but is kept well under control given the pixel density of its 24MP APS-C sensor."

"The camera's auto white balance does a fine job of rendering accurate colors in all but the more extreme lighting conditions. We also find that the camera's default JPEG settings produce pleasing files that avoid prominent sharpening and/or noise suppression artifacts."

The D7100 maintains nearly every operational and handling feature we liked about the D7000, improves upon those we found fault with and offers a compelling upgrade in resolution, image quality and high ISO performance. And at a list price of £999 (body only), the D7100 inherits an impressive amount of features and performance from the much higher-priced full frame Nikon DSLRs.
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