Some of Edison's earliest voice recordings of famous Britons from 1888

Really eerie listening to these moments captured in time 136 years ago when recording equipment was basically 'unheard' of. I don't think many of these people would ever have thought their voices would be heard around the globe at just the click of a mouse 100 years into the future.

The voices of Robert Browning, Arthur Sullivan, Florence Nightingale, a trumpeter from the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, to major political figures like William Gladstone and Queen Victoria.

This really still qualifies as a mechanical invention at the time, but one which had a more significant impact than others, as it brought the ability to us to perceive something from way back with our senses. Prior to this, there was of course photography, but maybe we have become too used to seeing the many photographs that circulate today from way back when.

Hearing an actual voice recording, is to me closer to it being a real experience. The manner of speech, too, is pleasant to behold today when we have become so used to rushed speech, slang, abbreviations, etc.

Listen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrXUcEh0ncE

#technology #vintage #history

OpenGarage is an open source device that can add intelligence to any garage door opener

Apart from this device being able to connect via Home Assistant to provide all the intelligence, what I really like is that it just attaches to most existing dumb garage door openers. Most door openers have two connectors intended to wire to a switch on the wall to open or close the door (many installations never have such a wall switch fitted, but usually the openers have that ability already). If that fails, you can still connect this directly to a spare remote control.

The other clever thing comes in with the positioning of the device so that both the car is below it, and the garage door when it is in the fully open position. The ultrasonic sensors are able to measure the distance to the floor, the car roof, or the garage door when it is open. That distance then indicates accordingly whether the garage is empty of the car (you are out and the door is closed), whether the car is inside and the door is closed, or whether the door is open.

It seems the easy way to use this remotely would be to use OpenGarage's cloud service with the token, but means depending on that service being there. The other way is to rather connect and manage it from Home Assistant running on your home network, which will give you full control over it - this is a little more complicated but can also offer you even more automation based functionality.

The device costs about US$50, but wait, there is more... It could also be repurposed quite easily for doing similar things with say water tank levels, where the relay could activate or deactivate a pump for example. So, don't think of this as only for garage doors.

See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/i-too-installed-an-open-source-garage-door-opener-and-am-loving-it

#technology #homeautomation #opensource

Apple Maps on Web Now Works on Linux (But Only in Firefox)

The screenshot above shows Mozilla Firefox 132 (running on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) with the web version of Apple Maps successfully loaded.

All features work as they should, including search, directions, hybrid images, location detection, guides, places of interest, plus core interactive features like scrolling/zooming, and so on.

In other browsers, this is not the case.

Thing is, Linux users being able to access a competent alternative (not the only alternative, of course) to Google Maps is a good thing, even if most people would prefer to use another service, like OpenStreetMap.

See https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/11/apple-maps-beta-linux-support-ish

#technology #firefox #applemaps

10 non-stream things to use a Stream Deck for

I've done a video before about how I'm using my Stream Decks (I even bought a second one) for so many different things.

I'm using about 20 different pages at the moment and can quickly move between them to fire up regularly used apps, including my notes manager with specific notes, run updates, be alerted of events from Home Assistant, open certain reference web pages, quite a few of my games, change mouse profiles, etc.

The power really comes with unlimited pages that you can customise, and the ability to show status or feedback on each button.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/10-non-stream-things-to-use-a-stream-deck-for

#technology #productivity #streamdeck