Category: Cool Tech

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Oh No! The Death of Waze

Waze iconI’ve been a long-time user of Waze, especially since the GPSes I own don’t have traffic subscriptions. I am fortunate to have a cellular plan with a generous data allowance, meaning I can use Waze often without being concerned that I will exceed my data cap. Heck, I would even use Waze to get to and from work, a route my car could probably do with me blindfolded. But it was a route that often had accidents, and Waze would change the route to get me work or to home as quickly as possible.

So it was with interest that I read the article “Did Google Just Deliver A Death Blow To Waze?” this morning. Continue reading “Oh No! The Death of Waze”

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LED lamps are great for the environment, but bad for our health

“LED lamps are great for the environment, but bad for our health”

Harsh words. I can’t dispute whether flickering lights are truly bad for our health, but it should be fairly easy to quantify the varying qualities of LED lamps by the amount they flicker1.

This would make for an interesting project at school. In my Computer Tech class, for instance, we could build a simple circuit with a light sensor and then display it on an oscilloscope (yes, I still use one!) or sample it into a computer at a high enough rate to measure the flicker rate.

Anyone else up to the challenge?

1 I keep wanting to type “flickr”. It’s the photographer in me trying to get out…