A video book is a great way to honor an anniversary, wedding, holiday, retirement and more. When the recipient opens the book, the video starts playing.

For $149, a company called Tribute will do the whole thing for you. The video appears on a big screen inside a book with an elegant cover. Try the virtual version for free, no credit card required, at Tribute.co.

Start by choosing a prompt, like “What is your favorite thing about Joe Doe?” Or: “Why do you love Jane Schmoe?” Next, invite participants to answer. You can import up to 200 contacts. Each will receive an email asking for their participation. Later, you can nix the clips you don’t want.  If you only need Tribute’s production help, without the book, it’s $35.

An alternative to Tribute is “Heirloom,” at sendheirloom.com. Choose a design for the cover, or create your own, then upload photos and videos from your phone, computer, web address, or webcam. Heirloom’s video books start at $49 for a 10-minute version and go up to $89 for an hour-long book. They have book covers for birthdays, weddings, memorials and business. No credit card is required for the free trial.

For a totally free tribute, invite friends and relatives to join a Zoom call, then record it, either via Zoom, or with a free app like the one from Grain.com. Once it’s recorded, you could email it, post it to social media or share it on a site like MuchLoved.com. Though MuchLoved is mainly a place to honor the deceased, it lets you create a free private or public tribute page for anyone. You can add photos, videos and music. I made one for my aunt years ago. Then I posted “MuchLoved” on my Google calendar as an annual event so I’d never forget to visit it.

Bitcoin Predictions

After soaring from $42,000 in late January to over $106,000 in mid-December, Bitcoin fell back a bit. Some are worried about further drops, thanks to Google’s new Quantum computer, “Willow.”

Willow can perform a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years. That’s over seven septillion times the age of the Universe. Some worry that Willow could crack Bitcoin’s security, but experts say it can’t. According to EconomicTimes.com, a quantum computer needs a 13 million qubit processor to break Bitcoin safety checks. Willow has a 105 qubit processor, up from 22 qubits in 2016, a far cry from 13 million.

Bitcoin rises when the market is going well, when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, when companies endorse it, when regulations turn favorable and every four years when the reward for mining Bitcoin transactions is cut in half, such as 2024. The last halving is in 2140.

Making Stickers for Text Messaging

I love Bitmoji, a free app Bitmoji that creates stickers to paste in text messages and emails. Each sticker includes a cartoon version of yourself, inspired by the photo you upload. Each time you include a Bitmoji in a text, you choose a theme, like “Happy New Year,” or a simple checkmark to acknowledge receipt of a text. That’s what my realtor does, which is how I discovered Bitmoji. But with Google’s new “Whisk,” you can go wild creating stickers with other people, animals and scenes.

Start at the site Labs.google. Then, scroll to “Whisk” and click “try it now.” You’ll see an equation: one image plus another equals a third. In the slot for the first image, choose a style: sticker, enamel pin or plushie. Or click “create from scratch.”

After choosing “sticker,” I uploaded an image of my one-year-old niece. She looked great but I didn’t like the pumpkin that Whisk used for a hat. To refine it, I typed “no hat” into the search box.

Whisk is great, but I’d still choose Bitmoji for making stickers for most adults. It’s easier and more flattering. See “Is Google Whisk Worth It?” on YouTube for step-by-step instructions.

Solar Soars

Oxford University scientists have created a material that’s 150 times thinner than the silicon wafers used in solar panels and is five percent more energy efficient. It can go on any surface.

Such a great material may boost the solar industry, which has already seen prices drop by 90 percent in the last ten years as the number of solar farms has soared. Recently, for example, the US Department of Energy announced it’s making a solar farm out of the 8,000-acre Hanford Site, which was part of the Manhattan Project’s nuclear weapons program.

Forgot your PIN?

If you ever get locked out of your Android phone, use a factory reset to get back in.

First, turn your phone off. Then, hold the power button and either the volume up or volume down button, depending on your model.  Your phone will be restored to the way it was when you first bought it. If it was running slow before, it will be quick now.

Internut

“The World’s First Carbon-14 Diamond Battery.” Search on that phrase to read about a battery that could last just about forever. It could be used to power devices like pacemakers, hearing implants, and prosthetic eyes. It might be especially useful in space, in the deep sea and in areas where it’s impractical to change batteries.

Filed under: Uncategorized