Parrot announces GPS with Memory a better battery and Director’s Mode for AR.Drone 2

Parrot, the makers of the awesome AR.Drone 2, quadcopter that is controlled with an iOS or Android phone has announced a GPS with 4GB’s of memory to record your flights and video and a new director’s mode for their app to make better videos. Now you can record your flights via GPS and upload them for others to see.

A new battery with 50% better battery life.

And a new director’s mode for the app, which will let you program in moves that are equivalent to dollies and camera cranes.

Very cool. I so want one!

Surgery Update, 8 Months out

So I am about 8 months out from my surgery and thought I should give an update. Overall I am doing great. I am much less sore than I have been, though with occasional twinges of pain, but much much better than it has been. I did have to take a break from work for a little while at the beginning of December because I was so sore and run down, but am doing much better now.

The scar is doing pretty well, though as you can see is still pretty red most of the time. Hopefully that will improve, though it is much less sore, but I am still using a pillow bellow the seatbelt when driving.

As for the results from the surgery, well that has been phenomenal. The most telling thing was a couple of trips to museums over the holidays with my mom and wife, and I never had to stop from being tired (when I would have previously had to stop many times). It is an amazing difference! And I have been doing an average of about 7000 steps a day, and lately that has included 15-18 flights of stairs (taking the subway has not only added steps, but also flights of stairs to my daily exercise) and that is in addition to a walk on the treadmill in the morning. And once it warms up a little I plan on doing the 2.1 walk around the veterans center near me again (did it with my mom while she was here, and since, but 41 degrees is pretty cold, especially with how much I am sweating). Still seem to be overly sweating. Especially once I stop I sweat a lot! In fact I am bringing deodorant, a new t-shirt and a towel to work so that I can dry off and don’t smell at work. Embarrassing, but at least I am getting exercise.

I had lost weight after the surgery, but gained it all back and more pretty quickly, and the recent holidays didn’t help. Have been trying to eat lots of salads and very healthily lately, and for a few days now have been trying the 8 hour diet, where you only eat in an 8 hour period in day. It actually seems like a diet I can do (as I never used to eat breakfast and have gained most of my weight since I did start eating breakfast). And you can supposedly even eat fatty foods, though I am trying to eat as healthily as I can while doing it. Right now 11AM I am starved (as I am eating at noon till 8 PM), but so far have been able to to it. Once I get used to it, I could see doing this forever.

Now the brain thing. Well I still have it. My memory sucks compared to pre-surgery! Things like I need kleenex at work and I have it in my car with my bags, which I get when I park, and I keep forgetting the kleenex. Even when I thought about it earlier in the morning. Memory is just not what it used to be. I really hope that improves. Creativity seems to be coming back, though a big hard drive failure which lost me a lot fo a current personal project has thrown a monkey wrench in things. Hopefully this will all be better in the next few months. One can only hope!

Back is still out, and I do need to go to the chiropractor again soon. Haven’t been much as the activator helps, but not like a real adjustment and my chest has to really heal before he can do that. Not sure if he will wait till a year for that, but I am having some serious back pain!

So overall I am doing great, and am so happy I got the surgery and it is behind me. Have also talked a bit with someone who had the surgery after me and read my blog, and it helped. So I am so happy about that. Glad my experience could help someone else! Awesome!

Review of NVIDIA Geforce GTX 680m Graphics Card

I have been interested in the new top of the line Graphics Card for the new 2012 iMac, which is an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 680mx, and was wondering how it faired against my Desktop GTX 670. Everyone has been claiming it makes the iMac the most powerful Mac Editing machine out there, but I doubted it, as I have not seen any speed test against equivalent graphics cards. The 680m is actually a 680 slowed down.

I found a EuroGamer review of the GTX 680m, which tells me what I wanted to know about a 680M, but not a 680MX, but I found a review of that at Notebook Check.

Here is some of what they have to say:

Compared to the GeForce GTX 680M, the GTX 680MX features 1536 instead of 1344 CUDA cores and higher memory clocks (720/2500MHz vs 720/1800 MHz)


the graphics performance of the GeForce GTX 680MX should be 15 – 25 percent above the GTX 680M and similar to the Desktop GTX 580.

And specs on the GTX 680mx from NVIDIA’s site.

CUDA Cores – 1536
Core Speed – 720 Mhz
Memory Speed – 2500 Mhz
Texture Fill Rate (Billions per second) – 92.2
Max RAM – 2GB



And as for the GTX 670 from NVIDIA’s site.

CUDA Cores – 1344
Core Speed – 915 Mhz
Memory Speed – 2500 Mhz
Texture Fill Rate (Billions per second) – 102.5
Max RAM – 4GB

So the iMac has more CUDA cores, but it’s speed is not as fast, and it’s memory speed is less than half the speed.

So basically the 680MX it is a really powerful mobile graphics chip, but not as powerful as it’s equivalent Desktop GPU the GTX 670, and is more in line to a last generation GTX 580.

And yes it is not the easiest thing in the world getting a new generation NVIDIA card running in your MacPro, but it is not that hard, but should put your speed above that of the top of the line iMac GPU, and have more processing power, making it still champion, even though it is such dated technology at this point. Have to love expandability though as an old machine can still hold a performance edge, which is something the iMac will never have.

Lets just hope Apple makes a really good new MacPro this year.

Red Giant Price Drop

Red Giant Software has made significant price drops on their software, of up to 50%. You can now get the entire suite for $899 down from $1740.

And check out these prices on individual software.

Great deals.

I love there software and have been using it for many years.

Amazon adds Autorip for purchased CD’s

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Amazon has added an autorip feature for music you purchase from them via CD, where they automatically rip many of your purchased CD’s to the Cloud. This is especially helpful to me as I RIP my CD’s to apple losseless, which are incompatible with upload (they can match on Amazon, though not on Google’s new music, but I still find many albums miss being matched on both services). And it doesn’t cost anymore, and it will automatically happen if their is an AutoRIP logo on the album. Very cool. Good job Amazon!

And amazingly this applies to all CD’s purchased after 1998, though it doesn’t seem to do whole albums all the time (I have a few tracks from may different albums), but it is still very cool, and certainly help me with my Apple lossless problem!

Now if only they had a solution for me having each iTunes playlist show up 9 times! Youch! That is not helpful at all!

RED Dragon sensor has 20 stops, but loses Scarlet Upgradability!

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Cinema 5D has the announcement which was made at reduser.net and leaves all Scarlet users out in the cold. 20 Stops in unbelievable, especially considering the market leader, the ALEXA has (only) 14 stops! Now if this is true, it will be phenomenal. 20 Stops and 6K!

What will not be so phenomenal is that the Scarlet X will no longer be able to use the dragon as it will no longer be able to be used in the Scarlet, which was previously announced. So I bet they will have some upgrade path to epic for disgruntled scarlet owners.

Parrot AR Drone gets GPS with 4GB of memory and new battery!

CNET has the news, that the awesome Parrot quadcopter, the Parrot AR Drone which is controlled from your iPhone or iPad is getting a new GPS add on which goes into the GPS port (and includes 4GB for memeory) can then use GPS maps to program it’s moves.

They are also adding a new battery that will last 50% longer, and are updating their app with new commands and ways to improve the video including lens correction and image stabilization!