Nicholas Carlson, writing for BusinessInsider, posted this story from a user named Tim Smith:
[quote] I dated for years a young woman whose father was Steve Jobs’ neighbor in Palo Alto. I thus found myself in the neighborhood often, at dinners, or parties, etc. We would see the Jobs come and go – they have a “normal” house, no gates, no guards, no high fences, not even a big lot. Often, leaving a party at my girlfriend’s house late at night I would drive past their house and you would actually see Steve sometimes, working on a Mac.
One afternoon I attended a party, driving an old Sunbeam Alpine sports car I had the misfortune to own at the time. After the party, I started the Alpine, pulled away from the curb, and – as classic British sports cars will oft do – the electrical system blinked out and I coasted gracefully to a stop, directly in front of the Jobs’ driveway.
As I was putting my jacket on, I heard a call from across the street behind me – the Jobs’ driveway – “British or Italian?”. It was Jobs’ lovely wife Laurene. “British,” I said, “and acting like it.” “You want a beer?,” she said. I tried to decline (shocked I guess at first), but she insisted, said “you’re not going anywhere”, and walked back in the house – only to return with two bottles of beer.
At which point – being an admirer of Jobs for many years – I guess I knew was inevitable, and I both dreaded and anticipated it. He ambled over. I think he had a beer too. And asked what was going on. He was joined by one of the kids.
The Jobs’ made small talk and joked with their friends – dressed to the nines, repairing my car – while I politely thanked them over and over and tried not to throw up at the insanity of the scene. And then of course it got even weirder, or funnier, depending on whether you were me or not.[/quote]
Really nice story, be sure to read the full thing.
In other news, a computer science student in the United Kingdom has used the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to create a virtual keyboard.
According to the Telegraph report, “the system, dubbed Vibrative, uses the three-dimensional accelerometer in Apple’s smartphone to measure the characteristics of each tap on the table, such as the strength and frequency of the vibrations it causes, and compares them to “training data” to work out its approximate location.”
Florian Kraeutli, a computing student at Goldsmiths had this to say, “The signals I’m collecting are very weak. At the moment it’s more of a proof of concept but if you made the accelerometer more sensitive you could improve the accuracy quite easily.”
Sources: Telegraph, BusinessInsider