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How to Search Ngram More Effectively with Google Ngram Viewer

Google maintains a multilingual database of published language. By scanning books en masse, Google is able to process the text and provided statistical data-based frequency of word appearance. With the Google Ngram Viewer search tool, you can search through that voluminous statistical data rapidly and effectively. By comparing the relative popularity of words, you can map how language and culture have changed over time. Ngram can do much more than simply report word frequency within Google’s vast textual corpus, however. Basic Searches (1-grams) 1. Type your keyword in the Ngram search box. 2. If you want to search for all capitalization of a word,… Read more

BoneTalker Adder Bone Conduction Bluetooth Headphones review

REVIEW – I love music and podcasts, and I like to experiment with all kinds of headphones: over the ear, in-ear buds, noise canceling… but up until now, I had never experienced bone-conduction headphones. The Bonetalker Adder headphones promise quality sound and open-ear design. How did they fare?

What is it?

The BoneTalker Adder is a lightweight wireless headset utilizing Bluetooth 5.0 for a strong audio signal and bone conduction technology for listening to music without blocking ambient sounds.

The next evolution in audio technology?

Hardware specs

  • Speaker type: bone conduction transducers
  • Frequency response: 20Hz20KHz
  • Sensitivity: 100 ± 3dB
  • Microphone: -36dB ± 3dB
  • Bluetooth version: 5.0
  • Wireless range: 15 m (49 ft)
  • Battery: rechargeable lithium ion
  • Playback time: 4 hours
  • Standby time: 15 days
  • Charging time: 1.5 hours
  • Weight: 35.5 g (1.24 oz)

What’s in the box?

We’ll get to those foam earplugs in a bit.
  • BoneTalker Adder headset
  • micro USB charging cable
  • foam earplugs

Design and Features

At first glance, the BoneTalker Adder (I’m just going to call them the BoneTalkers for the rest of the review since the Adder is the only headset they currently make) looks a lot like a typical behind-the-neck style sport headset. Instead of earbuds or small over-the-ear receivers, there are bone-conduction transmitters that rest on your cheekbones, just at the base of your ears. The speakers transmit the sound through the bones of your cheeks and cartilage of your ears instead of pumping it directly into your ear canals.

They certainly are sporty, and water/sweat resistant.

The BoneTalkers feature a flexible, durable band that rests slightly above the neck, behind the head. This band didn’t really land right on my neck, exactly, but seemed to instead curve around and bump into high shirt or jacket collars. Unless I just had a t-shirt on, I seemed to hit that band against collars and hoods quite a bit and it made me self-consciously hold my neck still. Your mileage may vary.

Here’s about where those transmitters should rest, on the cheekbones and ear cartilage.

The headset has all the normal controls you would expect: volume, play/pause, and forward-reverse. The placement of these buttons are great. It also includes a small rubber cap on the micro-USB charging port for added water resistance. Lastly, there is a microphone built into the headset which features noise cancellation. I got a chance to test the call functionality out and it seemed to work just fine. I could be heard fine on the other end. Overall, the construction of the headset is excellent.

Top volume/stop buttons.

Bluetooth pairing and charging are what you would expect from any other Bluetooth headset. It utilizes the latest version of Bluetooth for fast pairing, low power consumption, and good signal.

Usage and Sound Quality

As mentioned, I was excited to try out the BoneTalkers to see how they would sound while keeping my ears completely open and free of obstruction. Like, the actual sound quality.

The sound is similar to hearing headphones being played very close to your ears, but not inside or on them, allowing other sound to enter your ear canals. I wondered sometimes if I was using them properly, but no matter how I positioned the transmitters, I just couldn’t get a loud, solid sound. Only if I pressed them against my cheekbones at the base of my ear, the sound seemed to work well, but I couldn’t keep them tight enough in normal use.

The transmitters are enclosed with rubber and transfer sound through vibration rather than audio waves.

Considering this placement to be normal, I felt like the audio quality as below what a normal ear-enclosing headset could provide. That is, of course, a huge concession. The sound is tinny and far away. Bass is almost nonexistent. You get used to the sound, sort of like getting used to a cold pool, but it’s not enjoyable. Merely serviceable.

They have a slim profile, even on my big ol’ ears.

The BoneTalkers do come with foam earplugs, which made me chuckle. It’s like, here’s this thing that allows sound to get into your ears in exchange for poor audio, but also, here’s earplugs so you can’t hear anything but the poor audio. Or instead of all that you could use the headphones that came with your phone and be better off.

Maybe It’s The Right Situation…

Providing good sound is kind of the only job headphones have. So to accept that sort of sacrifice in audio quality, I can imagine a couple of scenarios where these open-eared headphones would be ideal. For instance, if you worked in an office space that required constant interaction and interruptions. I know I hate to have to take off my headphones every 10 minutes because of phone calls or drop-ins, so the BoneTalkers would simply continue to pump in audio while you engaged in a quick conversation.

There could also be people who are sensitive to having earphones inside their ears, or who feel sort of “claustrophobic” with earplugs, over the ear cans or noise canceling headphones.

The other situation would be where you simply must be aurally aware of your surroundings such as riding a bike in busy city street traffic or working in a potentially dangerous place like a warehouse or construction site. Having full use of your ears would be a good idea if a forklift could speed around a blind corner. However, I have to wonder if headphones are allowed in situations like that.

Personally, every minute I wore the BoneTalkers, I missed having the music or podcast I was listening to completely envelop my hearing. I love music. I love spoken word. And missing a sentence or two because a truck drove by while I was out for a safe stroll on the sidewalk was annoying. Perhaps that’s where the earplugs come into play, but there are many more times I’d rather block outside noise than letting it in, so I’d rather use in-ear headphones in those cases anyway.

What I like

  • allows ambient noise in, as advertised
  • comfortable to wear for extended time

What needs to be improved

  • blocks zero ambient noise (yes as advertised) but audio gets drowned out easily outdoors or in other noisy environments
  • optimal position of earphones is hard to keep in place
  • audio quality is very lacking in bass and volume
  • placement of rear neckband rubs against collared shirts/hoodies

Final thoughts

Bone conduction is an interesting technology to bring into a headset, but while there are a few niche situations where keeping your ears open would be beneficial, I feel they’re too far and in-between to recommend these over a regular set of earbuds. And for $100, you could get some pretty great high-end cans and simply pop them out when you need your ears.

Price: $99.00
Where to buy: You can pick up the BoneTalker Adder headphones directly from their website.
Source: The sample of this product was provided by BoneTalker. You can find out more about their headphones and bone conduction technology on their website.

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BoneTalker Adder Bone Conduction Bluetooth Headphones review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 7, 2019 at 11:17 am.

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The Wooly Snuffle Mat feeds your dog’s belly and brain

NEWS – In the past, I’ve written about my dog Zoey’s voracious appetite, and my search for ways slow her down during meal time. I recently wrote about the Rock ‘N Bowl dog feeder from Paw5. Now they’ve come up with another item that’s not a bowl but looks more like a shaggy mop than a dog feeder – the Wooly Snuffle Mat.

Here’s how it works. Just scatter the dog’s food directly on top of the shaggy mat then let them go to town. Snuffle Mat actually taps into your dog’s natural instinct to hunt and forage for food.   

Like the Rock ’N Bowl, it slows your dog down and makes the everyday routine of mealtime engaging and more fun. But with a softer approach.

It also works as a puzzler to help stimulate fido’s brain.

Snuffle Mat is made to be used with any dry dog food or treats.

It’s fully machine washable for easy cleaning between meals.

The Wooly Snuffle Mat comes in a modern gray color and is perfect for any size, breed, or age dog. You can buy one for your pooch from The Grommet for $39.95.

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The Wooly Snuffle Mat feeds your dog’s belly and brain originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 7, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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Skylum AirMagic drone image editing software review

REVIEW – Drones.  Love them or hate them, they’re everywhere.  If you have one, you probably like taking photos, but they don’t always look awesome, since you are at the mercy of Mother Nature and her available lighting at the time of your flight.  If you’re gifted at Photoshop, or some other image editing software, you can usually tweak your images into something that matches your vision.  For many hobbyists, photo editing remains a mystery.  Skylum is here to save the day with AirMagic drone photography software.

I was given a chance to play with a pre-production version of AirMagic, so some of the features, or specific commentary may or may not match the production version, but it should be pretty close as I encountered no issues with this version.  With that said, let’s take a look.

What is it?

AirMagic is software designed specifically to modify images taken by drones.  Silly, you say?  What’s special about drones?  Like any other camera, drone cameras have their own unique personality. The specifics of the sensor, lens distortion and other parameters all contribute to little things in images that can be corrected.  Drones, with their overhead perspective, bring another variable into play, especially when photographing architecture.  AirMagic can read the metadata that is automatically attached to your drone images and apply corrections specific to your drone model.  AirMagic was able to detect that my images came from a DJI Mavic Pro and Mavic 2 Pro.  I was not provided a list of supported drones, but I expect most popular consumer drones will be supported.  Even if your drone isn’t directly supported, you will still benefit from the general image enhancements.

AirMagic’s big differentiator is that it is AI-powered, meaning that the software will make enhancement decisions based on each individual image, applying different corrections to each image to deliver the best possible images.

What’s in the box?

The software was made available as a download.  AirMagic will be available for Windows and Mac platforms.

Setup and installation

For Windows, AirMagic requires:

  • Win 7,8,10  64-bit
  • Open GL.3 or later compatible graphics card
  • Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon 64 processor, 2 GHz or faster
  • 4GB RAM, 8 GB recommended
  • 1024 x 768 display, 1280 x 800 recommended
  • 4GB hard drive space, SSD recommended
  • DirectX 10 compatible video adapter
  • Internet access for registration and access to online updates

Setup on my Surface Book was simple and pretty standard.

Design and features

Once you open the software, you can either drag photos or a whole folder, directly onto the welcome screen or click the Open button to browse and select images.

AirMagic supports RAW, TIFF, JPG and PNG file formats and images of 800 x 600 or larger.  Once you open your selected images, AirMagic presents you with a thumbnail view of all open images. At this point, you can just click the “EXPORT <x> PHOTOS” button on the bottom right and let the software work its magic with default settings. It will process all open images in one shot.  Basically, it’s one-touch image enhancement.  Tell it to go, and come back in a few minute to improved images.

If you double-click on an image, it starts an open process where AirMagic analyzes the image.

The AI process provides multiple statuses along the way like “Lens correction”, “Looking for skies”, “Looking for haze”, “Detecting scene objects”, “Doing some magic”, and “Final touches to make it awesome”.  It is processing multiple parts of the image individually using its AI engine:

  • Color recovery
  • JPEG artifact fix
  • Foliage enhancement
  • Auto color temperature
  • Auto lens correction
  • Smart dehaze
  • EAW processing
  • Sky enhancement
  • Exposure compensation
  • Natural light correction
  • Noise reduction
  • Tint perfection

Once done, the image comes up with a slider that allows you to see the before and after images, side-by-side.

The above screen capture shows how the software enhanced the sunset image with me providing exactly zero input.  It made its own decisions on everything.  You can see how the sunset is only slightly enhanced, but the ground detail and colors were significantly updated.  To my eye, it essentially was able to apply a high dynamic range (HDR) effect without me having to supply three or more images, all with different exposures.  Pretty cool.

If you click on the paintbrush button, you get a slider that allows you to decrease or increase the effect. By default, it is set to 60% boost.

The button on the bottom left opens a palette of styles.

The different styles, left to right, are: no style, Chinook, Cinematic, Emotional, Sandstorm, and Zephyr.  There is no description of what each one does, and there is no online help yet, since this is pre-production software. According to the documentation, these five styles performed better than any others in testing, so they are included.  Essentially, the AI chose the best styles.  I didn’t see a whole lot of difference in the default style and Chinook. Cinematic boosted blue levels. Emotional seemed to increase color saturation.  Sandstorm lowered color saturation and flattened the image. Zephyr was similar to Chinook, with slightly muted colors.  The plus sign on the right allows you to purchase additional styles from Skylum’s online marketplace.

When you go to save your images, the software gives you a menu with a single option to save to disk.  The fact that there is a menu suggests that there may be other options in the future.  Choosing to export to disk brings up a standard save window with location, filename, multiple format choices and a quality slider, if your output format supports it.

Advanced Settings gets you a treasure trove of options.

First, you can choose your output file folder and select to warn before overwriting an existing file.

Next, you can do file renaming, changing the prefix of the name, the base filename, or suffix.  I added a suffix of “airmagic” and when I exported, all my images were named <original filename>_airmagic.jpg.  The LETTERS options allow you to change the case to all upper or lower case.

Like in the basic export window, all file formats are available here as well.

Beyond file formats, AirMagic allows you to change the color profile.  Basically, a color profile defines how colors are managed in the image, and therefore, in image editing software, displays and printers. For most users, sRGB, the most widely used color space, especially on the web, should be your go-to choice.

There is a really nice sizing section. You can ensure that you save in the same size as the original image, or, resize by providing a long-edge or short-edge measurement in pixels.  The software will scale the image to keep its original proportions.  You can also prevent the software from enlarging your image, if you provide a long-edge or short-edge measurement that would force enlargement. You can also resize to specific dimensions, but it will skew your image if your dimensions are different than the original image.  You can’t make a 600 x 300 image scale to 800 x 600 without distortion.

Finally, there are a couple of presets provided on the left side, Web JPG and email.  These presets have all the settings, other than file location and filename, to optimize the image for the web or for email.  You can create your own presets as well, which can really streamline your workflow.

OK, enough about how to use it.  Does it work?  In a word, yes.  But, your mileage may vary.  Photography, and image enhancement is an intensely personal thing. What looks good you one may drive another to distraction.

Here are a variety of examples with several different types of lighting. All image pairs have the original on the left and the automatically enhanced image on the right. All images were processed with the default, no style setting.  I didn’t change anything, other than the output filename.

Water – a lot of it.  I liked this outcome.  The software did a great job making the colors richer and improving contrast.

The homestead.  Again, colors boosted, contrast improved.  I like the sky – it really looks like that here.  The golf course looks perhaps a little too boosted to my eye, but that can be adjusted easily. It’s really more of a preference than a criticism.

A sunset. I like the sky. It looks more like what I saw with my eyes.  I like the fact that the ground is also visible, where it was a mottled mess in the original.

A scenic hill. This one was a bit more subtle. I like the deepened color in the river and improved detail in the sky and trees.  I was impressed with this, given the challenging direct lighting on the left side.

A view down the river. The glare on the water is gone, revealing the nice blue water.  The sky, which was cloudy and blown out in the original now appears flat and featureless, which is what it looked like that day.

The alma mater.  Again, this one is subtle, since the original looked pretty darned good.  Slight tweaks to improve color saturation and contrast make the enhanced image pop more than the original.

The old neighborhood.  Again, subtle.  There is more saturation in the grass and better contract, making the houses pop.

Another lake image.  Again, nicely improved color saturation, although it did add a touch of blue tint to some of the white buildings.

Finally, another lake image. This one really jumped out for two reasons.  First, what it did to the lake was awesome.  Look at the improved detail under the water in the bottom left.  Second, look at the blue tint added to the white building in the upper left.

What I like

  • Easy, one-click image enhancement for single images or batches of images
  • High-quality output
  • Tons of options for saving images
  • Ability to tweak the final image with a side-by-side view
  • Can be used as a plug-in in Photoshop CS5 or higher and Lightroom Classic CC

What needs to be improved

  • Several images exhibited a blue tint, especially visible on white structures
  • Sometimes, the colors can seem overblown and tweaking means having to process images individually
  • An explanation of the output styles would be nice

Final thoughts

Skylum’s AirMagic is an intriguing addition to their existing AI-driven software portfolio that includes Luminar photo browsing and editing software and Aurora HDR photo software. For drone enthusiasts, and those that use drones professionally, like real estate agents, being able to whip through enhancing a batch of images with a couple of clicks makes AirMagic a compelling choice.

There will be a free version available with no batch processing, output file size limitations, no plug-ins and watermarks applied in addition to the full-featured paid version.

Price: $39 for activation on two devices
Where to buy: skylum.com – pre-orders begin March 7, 2019
Source: AirMagic was provided by Skylum

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Skylum AirMagic drone image editing software review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 7, 2019 at 9:00 am.

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Field Pen Twist – Notable crowdfunding campaign

CROWDFUNDED – A good pen is a treasure, especially one with a cool style that is durable and writes well.  Machine Era has some very respectable experience in these matters, and their latest Kickstarter campaign—the Field Pen | Twist—looks more than promising, it looks like a big hit.  Let’s check it out!

What is it?

The Machine Era Field Pen | Twist is a compact pen that “fits Parker style refills, has a machined body, tactile details, smooth ‘lock in’ action, and [is] an effortless gel writer from Itoya.”

Why do I like it?

As I’ve stated previously, we like pens here at The Gadgeteer.  Personally, I favor pens that are compact, durable, and have a cool look.  Plus, one of my two current favorite pens is a twist-style.  So when I stumbled upon the Field Twist pen from Machine Era, it immediately caught my eye, particularly the version pictured above.  For starters, it is machined from stainless steel with a Schmidt Easy Glide twist mechanism, an Itoya Aquaroller 0.7mm acid free gel ink cartridge (Parker sized), and a clip made in a New England from spring steel.   It also has subtle tactile grip details, and a balanced center of mass.  Three versions are available: stainless steel in black with Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC), a type of PVD coating,  solid brass, and stainless steel.  If all that isn’t enough, the folks from Machine Era’s have experience with pen campaigns on Kickstarter, having successfully delivered two of them previously.

Where can I find more info?

The Machine Era Field Pen | Twist campaign ends on March 31, 2019. To date, over 300 backers have already pledged over $20,000 toward the $6,500 funding goal. Pledge packages start at $65 for a single pen of any of the style, or $195 for a set of all three. After the end of the campaign period, rewards are expected to start shipping in May 2019. Visit the Field Pen | Twist campaign site for more information or to become a backer.

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Field Pen Twist – Notable crowdfunding campaign originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 7, 2019 at 8:00 am.

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