http://blog.alessiosignorini.com Tech, ideas, and cool stuff that go through my head every day... Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:52:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/peer-to-peer-online-jukebox-with-songs-from-each-user/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/peer-to-peer-online-jukebox-with-songs-from-each-user/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:53:55 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=720 Today we have Pandora, Spotify, GrooveShark, and a dozen other sites to listen to music online. Each has its own caveats, does not really let you hear the music you want, has ADs or a subscription model, … I often wonder why nobody created an online peer-to-peer Jukebox… where each user contributes with some songs. The songs will be played/streamed directly from the each other’s computers, so if only one user has a particular song, who wants to listen to it will have to wait its turn in a queue.]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/peer-to-peer-online-jukebox-with-songs-from-each-user/feed/ 0 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/car-sharing-done-right/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/car-sharing-done-right/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:25:01 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=717 I often dream about creating a system that allows real car sharing…. There will be a set of similar cars shared among all the users, and each will pay a quote of the global expenses every month. Nobody will own a car but will be allowed to (respectfully) use one from the pool. When you need a car, you will just pull out your phone and say where you need to go.]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/car-sharing-done-right/feed/ 0 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/password-fatigue-touch-points-in-pictures-to-unlock-your-device/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/password-fatigue-touch-points-in-pictures-to-unlock-your-device/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:29:34 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=714 In the last weeks I have read of a million new ways that people are thinking about to let us unlock our devices. A few months ago somebody published a list of the most common iPhone passwords. It was funny to see 1234, 0000, 6666, GOD, LOVE and SEX on that list. Microsoft claims that we suffer of “password fatigue” and to help out it seems they are going to let you draw some geometric figures on top of your pictures in their next version of Windows Mobile.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2012/01/password-fatigue-touch-points-in-pictures-to-unlock-your-device/feed/ 0 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/10/photos-in-the-cloud-geolocation-auto-tagging-virtual-albums/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/10/photos-in-the-cloud-geolocation-auto-tagging-virtual-albums/#comments Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:48:51 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=696 Yesterday I was thinking to my next photocamera…. I want it small but with some buttons (no clumsy touchscreen), capable of taking pictures at night, waterproof, with integrated GPS, and capable of backing up the pictures automatically when I get home. Unfortunately, I do not think that it exists yet. Then I started thinking about how I would like the computer to help me organize my photo collection.]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/10/photos-in-the-cloud-geolocation-auto-tagging-virtual-albums/feed/ 0 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/replacing-household-power-outlets-with-powered-ethernet-plugs/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/replacing-household-power-outlets-with-powered-ethernet-plugs/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:40:17 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=671 Between TV, cable box, surround stereo, game console and DVD Player I am sure I can find this mess of cables behind most of the TV sets all over the world. At home I just had to move my satellite box from one room to the other and realized I had 4 wires (power, normal antenna, satellite antenna, and SCART) to disconnect and reconnect.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/replacing-household-power-outlets-with-powered-ethernet-plugs/feed/ 1 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/app-help-what-to-watch-on-tv-right-now/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/app-help-what-to-watch-on-tv-right-now/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:57:44 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=637 Going through the hundreds of channels available on the on-screen guide of modern cable boxes looking for something to watch right now is a crazy experience. Sometimes you have just a few minutes to spare and spend most of them scrolling through dozens of cooking shows, reality TVs, old episodes of Seinfeld, and tons of how-to-get-skinny programming. It’s insane, yet we all do this every day.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/app-help-what-to-watch-on-tv-right-now/feed/ 1 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/forget-the-filter-bubble-personalization-done-right-will-just-hide-what-you-really-dont-like/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/forget-the-filter-bubble-personalization-done-right-will-just-hide-what-you-really-dont-like/#comments Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:04:32 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=636 In the last month more and more of my friends are talking about the negative effects of personalization for news websites and search results. Eli Pariser even wrote a book about it and sold lots of copies. The points made in “The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You” are correct but certainly not new. Most of the personalization systems today are based on collaborative filtering, a technique made famous in 2007 thanks to a paper by Google.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/07/forget-the-filter-bubble-personalization-done-right-will-just-hide-what-you-really-dont-like/feed/ 0 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/improving-mass-transportation-efficiency-using-credit-cards/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/improving-mass-transportation-efficiency-using-credit-cards/#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:59:57 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=596 In these last weeks I have taken multiple subway, trains and busses, all across the US. For each of them, before boarding, I had to purchase some sort of ticket/pass with enough credits to go from my departure point to the destination. On the California’s BART, for example, one is required to purchase a single-use ticket with enough credit before boarding.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/improving-mass-transportation-efficiency-using-credit-cards/feed/ 2 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/future-of-tv-everything-on-demand-with-targeted-ads/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/future-of-tv-everything-on-demand-with-targeted-ads/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 05:00:15 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=594 At first there was TiVo, then basically all the cable companies followed with their own DVR solution. Having a DVR is great. No tapes, no timers to set, no rushing home to see your favorite show. You just need to remember to record it and it will be there went you want to watch it. But there are still some problems for the user: (1) you have to remember to record things, (2) you can record only a limited amount of shows at the same time, (3) space on the device is limited and (4) you have to pay attention on which channel you record the series/show, if it is HD, etc.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/06/future-of-tv-everything-on-demand-with-targeted-ads/feed/ 1 http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/05/more-effective-email-use-smart-folders-and-tags-in-thunderbird/ http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/05/more-effective-email-use-smart-folders-and-tags-in-thunderbird/#comments Thu, 26 May 2011 20:05:25 +0000 Alessio Signorini http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/?p=584 Email overload is common between who works in technology. Launching a new Startup with my co-founders located in other parts of the US exponentially increased the number of messages that I/we receive and send every day. While our email is maintained on Google Apps servers, I still prefer to use Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client. Starting from version 3 they added two functionalities that can become pretty handy if you use email as your main medium of communication: Tags and Smart Folders.…]]> http://blog.alessiosignorini.com/2011/05/more-effective-email-use-smart-folders-and-tags-in-thunderbird/feed/ 1