Daily Observation - Technology, Culture, Tips and Tricks

The Wikitude browser has to be one of the coolest things around for a smart-phone.  Originally only available for Android enabled phones, Wikitude World Browser overlays relevant information on the live picture of a phone’s camera.  Doing some sightseeing on vacation?  Just point your camera and learn about landmarks and other points of interest as information is displayed onscreen in real time.  Basically, it’s like Wikipedia meets the Terminator…sort of.  Now also available for the iPhone.

Playing downloaded video files can be a pretty frustrating experience.  Instead of simply hitting “play” and watching a video, I am often stuck having to download some format specific codec or update to the media player I am using.  That all ended, however, when a friend suggested I give VLC Media Player a try.

VLC (apparently short for VideoLAN Client), is a flexible player that supports playback of a number of audio and video formats including OGG, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP3, DivX, etc.  I like the fact that it is available for free at CNET’s download.com (much better than downloading software from a random website) and carries a 4 out of 5 star editor rating.  I recommend giving it a try - you won’t be dissapointed.