Apple’s media event today brought a lot of big news, the biggest of which was probably the update to AppleTV. The new iPod Nano looks pretty cool, though, and I’m glad to see the return of physical buttons to the iPod Shuffle. If I were on a more reliable connection, I’d dig up one of those stupid VoiceOver ads, just so you could laugh at it with me.
Instead I’m leaving you with this cute little picture, courtesy of Engadget, of the new iPod family. I’ll have more thoughts and impressions on the full lineup of Apple changes tomorrow (yay home internet connection).
Do you remember your reaction when you saw the first iPod Nano commercial? Those two hands fought over something that seemed, at the time, ‘impossibly small.’ By today’s standards, that first Nano would look commonplace – some people might even mistake it for a new iPhone. All signs point to a Nano announcement at this week’s Apple event, and from all the leaked pictures and accessories, we know it’s going to be small.
This picture, which comes from Apple Insider, shows an old Nano up against a render of the new, touchscreen version. There have been some concerns raised about controls – that screen is awfully small to comfortably navigate your music library. Apple could be headed toward an inline control system, similar to that of the iPod Shuffle. Personally, I hate the idea. I want to be able to use my own headphones without worrying about a stupid control dongle.
From the looks of things, I’d say Apple also scrapped the crappy little camera it added to the most recent generation of the Nano. Thank god. That thing was the laughing stock of Flip SD owners everywhere, to say nothing of all the portable HD handcam owners of the world.
Just how much money does it take to elbow your way in between Apple and Google in the mobile market? Remember, you’ve also got to beat back RIM while you’re at it, and hope none of those three develop anything you didn’t expect. Got a number? Is it in the billions? That’s what Microsoft may be betting to make Windows Phone 7 work.
The $100 million Goldberg estimates that Verizon, Motorola and Google collectively spent on marketing helped turn the Droid line of phones into a serious stable of competitors against the iPhone. (Compare that to Google’s fizzled Nexus One launch, where the search giant pinched pennies on marketing.)
To spend 10 times that amount could be either a great idea or the world’s worst gamble. Microsoft has completely scorched consumer bridges with its previous mobile offerings, none of which will transition to the new system very smoothly. Even with a billion dollars behind it, Windows Phone 7 could be too late.
I’ve covered some iSkin products here in the past and been very pleased with them, so I’m happy to pass along the news about this upcoming Back-to School contest from iSkin. By entering your name and the school you’re headed for in the fall, you could be eligible to win up to $1000 worth of iSkin products to furnish that new dorm room.
Here’s what you win:
- Apple iPad 64GB 3G
- iSkin Vu for iPad
- iSkin silo Messenger Bag
- iSkin Eartones
- iSkin Cerulean RX
That’s a hell of a prize package if you ask me. The contest is only available to US and Canadian residents.
Netflix streaming is just about the greatest thing around (yeah, it’s better than Hulu) for video content. The interface is clean, easy to use, and the selection is good enough for my $10 a month. Streaming has also saved Netflix a whole lot of money.
To stream a movie in HD costs Netflix around 5 cents, 3 cents for standard def. That’s it. Now granted, that doesn’t account for licensing and all that, but it sure as hell beats the pants off sending things through the mail. That cost could even go down as more competitors enter the back-end market responsible for supporting the Netflix streaming system.
My question – why aren’t more things available for streaming? If it’s so cheap, that extra revenue could be kicked back in part to studios for freeing up more streaming content. Everyone wins.
It seems like I get asked this question nearly every time a tech challenged person sees that I have an iPhone. “Do you have that app that lets you look stuff up by taking pictures of it?” The first few times it took a while to figure out what the inquirer meant. Now, I answer before the sentence is done – Google Goggles? Sadly, no.
It’s not that I want GG all that badly. From a functionality standpoint, it’s not all that great. It does have great wow factor, though, so I was thrilled to find out that the camera-powered search would be coming to the iPhone this year. The app has been Android-only since release, but Google will be developing a proprietary app for the iPhone, not just some crappy port.
Cleveland’s trash collection services are about to get a major overhaul, including some high-tech methods for monitoring residents’ recycling habits. The program is supposed to roll out next year, and will include RFID-equipped bins for monitoring trash disposal.
The simple idea is this – every time your trash is collected the truck scans your bin’s RFID code. If your recycling bin doesn’t make it to the curb for a couple weeks, an auditor takes a peek at your trash can. If more than 10 percent of your trash is recyclable material, you get a fine. It seems like an odd system, and one that could be easily gamed, but then why go through the hassle if you could just recycle your waste. It is nice to see the city trying to encourage community involvement in green activity.
Apple’s advertising for FaceTime is already being lauded as some of the best ad video the world has ever seen. It’s personal, evocative, and total bullshit. I think we all know that working with technology is rarely as smooth as those FaceTime ads make it out to be. For that reason, I bring you this video, courtesy of Funny or Die. This is what FaceTime is really like.
You probably know Mafia Wars as one of two things – the game you’re hopelessly addicted to or the game that constantly spams your Facebook news feed with annoying updates. In either case, you know Mafia Wars is a big deal, big enough to draw attention from Snoop Dogg, no less.
Just a month ago, Mafia Wars launched it’s newest iteration – Mafia Wars: Las Vegas – and the game has already hit the 10-million-visitor mark. To commemorate the event, Snoop Dogg will be in Las Vegas to blow up a four-ton armored truck. That isn’t blow up like your cell phone, that’s blow up like a bomb. Bullz-Eye’s own Will Harris will be on site for the event.
I wanted to put together a post today about the recently announced Blu-ray set of all six Star Wars films. The set includes never before seen footage, an exciting clip of which was shown at the Star Wars Celebration event. The clip showed Luke in a cave, creating his green lightsaber. Unfortunately, Lucasfilm has been crazy about removing it from YouTube and the like, so in it’s stead, I give you this – one of the funniest Star Wars spoofs I’ve ever seen. Thank you, Robot Chicken.
I haven’t really tried to hide the fact that I love Booq’s line of products. The bags are stylish, classy, and functional in a way that makes your laptop bag never want to show its face at laptop bag school ever again. Booq’s gone and made a slick little iPad bag for all the tablet lovers in the world, too.
Here’s the official feature list:
booq: Boa push features include:
• Elegant and compact way to carry your iPad, iPhone, credit cards, and other necessary items
• iPad compartment lined with non-scratch fabrics, exterior pocket sized perfectly for the iPhone
• Equipped with easy to use snap button flap closure and super-comfy seatbelt nylon shoulder strap
• Made from genuine Nappa leather and durable booq Twylon
• Equipped with Terralinq service, helps reunite you with your lost and found bag
• Available in sand or gray
The Boa push iPad bag is available for $89.95 at www.booqbags.com.
We have regular porn. We have streaming porn. We have 3D porn, giant porn, mobile porn, and now, NOW we will have 3D IMAX porn. Yes, folks, gigantic people parts smacking all over each other IN 3D! This is just sad.
The film, based on a classic Chinese erotic text, is being shot in Hong Kong. Director Christopher Sun thinks 3D porn will bring the “wow factor” that porn viewers long for. “Somehow when you’re doing a 3-D movie you always want to make an impressive image because the viewers … are going to buy tickets with double or even triple the ticket price to get into a world they’ve never seen before,” he said. He’s right on one count. I don’t live in a world of giant balls.
For all of you thinking this is a great idea, remember that there is someone sitting next to you. On both sides. Someone you don’t know. Oh, he’s also probably touching himself. I can think of very few things I would rather do less in a theater than watch porn. And just in case you thought maybe this one time the porn industry would try to make a respectable film, consider this: “The sex scenes are explicit and sometimes violent, but the main theme of the story is love,” according to the director. NOthing says good love like violent sex.
I constantly struggle to find new music. Yes, there are a million resources out there – blogs, fan sites, news and reviews, venues, torrents, etc. etc. – but there’s so much music in the world that a lot of it ends up sounding the same, and I don’t want something that always sounds the same.
I decided I was going to try a streaming service for the sheer amount of music available. Pandora isn’t on-demand so that was out. I gave Rdio a shot because it was free and had just launched but their selection was woefully slim (they were missing big names like The Arcade Fire among some lesser stuff I was hoping for). From there I turned to MOG and I’ve been fairly impressed. Their selection is good, the iPhone app is passable, as is their web-based player, but I don’t think I’ve discovered all that much.
MOG does have a feature on the web player that allows you to broaden your horizons by including similar artists to the one at the top of your playlist, but it’s just not diverse. It’s the same thing with Pandora. What I want is some sort of discovery mode, where the player throws a wide selection of stuff at you, based not just on the music you’re listening to, but what other people interested in that selection listen to. I would love if it there was even some sort of blacklist feature so that you wouldn’t get the same old mix.
As a for instance, I’m listening to The Hold Steady right now. The similar artist list is about what you’d expect – Modest Mouse, A.C. Newman, Spoon, White Rabbits – all bands that someone listening to The Hold Steady would probably say, “Hey, you’d like these guys, too.” I don’t need that kind of guarantee, though. I want to hear a mix of stuff I might not like and might like and might be surprised I like, and I haven’t found a music service that provides that.
I probably won’t renew my MOG subscription beyond a month because I’m not getting a whole lot more from it than I can get from a Pandora. The on-demand is nice, but the web-player is a little clunky, and I have plenty of music to get through on my own.
Do you want to ride in a plane that looks like it’s been exposed to hours of direct sunlight, its paint chipped and dinged from debris? Of course not! Still, it’s tough for me to imagine that part of my ticket cost is going toward paying all of these people just to repaint a plane. I’ve also never noticed how dingy a plane really is until I saw the plane at the end of this video. That thing is glowing.
At any rate, a very cool video about what it takes to make a plane look brand new again, luring you back in to a sense of security about one of the more unnatural things human beings have found a way to accomplish.
Of all the things in the world to be able to lay claim to as “the longest,” email addresses probably wouldn’t be the first to jump to your mind. For Peter Craig, though, it’s a badge of honor. He currently holds the URDB (Universal Record Database) World Record for the longest email address at 345 characters. Here’s the full address:
Why you would want such a thing is completely beyond me, and this is probably the easiest WR to own. Want to beat Peter? Buy a domain, make an absurd subdomain, and voila! Three hundred and forty-six characters here I come.
Since the dawn of the Internet, electronic mail, or e-mail, has gone through a number of changes. From something that was once only available as an inter-office messaging system, this technology now allows users to check their e-mail from their phone regardless of where they are in the world. Here are some changes that have taken place over the last few decades regarding this technology.
E-Mail Hosting
There was a time when most companies that offered e-mail hosting charged for their services. People were paying $9.95 a month and even more just for the luxury of having an e-mail address. Today, however, paying for a basic e-mail service is almost unheard of. The only time people pay for their e-mail accounts these days is if the host provides more services along with the e-mail. Even then, many companies still offer free addresses.
Instant Messaging
Some e-mail providers offer instant messaging services that allow you to chat in real-time with other people who are online. This is faster than e-mail messages because it goes directly to the person’s screen without the individual having to check the messages. The person doesn’t have to open anything up; the message is simply there, waiting for a response. Many e-mail services provide a sound or a visual alert to let you know when a new instant message comes in, too.
Storage Space
Before the Internet became such a staple for everyday life, you could only store a certain number of emails in an account with many providers. However, some e-mail providers are now offering unlimited storage of emails regardless of how many you have. You can create folders and organize your emails, too, so they are easier to find when you are searching for something in particular.
As technology continues to evolve, you can be sure e-mail hosting will, too.
According to the LA Times, Netflix is looking to add more titles to its streaming options by adding exclusive access to Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM film catalogs. The deal, which would manifest as a partnership with EPIX, would cost Netflix something like a billion dollars for five years of exclusivity.
Any time Netflix says it will expand its streaming catalog, I’m a happy man. I do most of my movie viewing via streaming on my desktop, often while I’m doing work throughout the day. More options is always a good thing. Unfortunately, this deal would still suffer, as the current streaming system does, from Hollywood mandated “windowing,” pushing streamable titles beyond the rent date. Hopefully studios will start to get more flexible as streaming becomes more and more popular.
When I travel I tend to drive. I prefer the sense of space and there’s something cathartic about putting in 11 hours or so behind the wheel of a car. Over the past three weeks, though, I’ve traveled by both car (as a passenger) and plane, and in both cases my travel was significantly delayed so I had a lot of time on my hands. Thank god for smartphones.
For the road trip, my girlfriend and I made our way up to NYC to visit some friends. It was a great little vacation, but we got caught in traffic outside every major city between North Carolina and the Holland Tunnel. I laid in the back of the car while our friend drove, playing Words With Friends with a couple people, reading forums, updating the blogs I write for, cruising Facebook, and watching ridiculous YouTube videos. It made the stop-and-go that is DC rush hour not only bearable, but almost enjoyable.
After being home for just under a week I left again, up to Ohio to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday. I hopped a plane from Wilmington to Charlotte, wherein I was trapped next to a nervous flier. I don’t think anyone is truly comfortable with the bangs and clicks associated with flying, but nervous fliers stress me out. They’re always shaking, breathing heavily, whimpering any time the plane takes a quick dip. It is as awkward a situation as you can create – two strangers mashed up against each other, one of which will be in desperate need of some consoling. I’m sorry, but I don’t fly to console people. I queued up some Tap Tap Revenge, put on my noise-canceling headphones, and tried to ignore the fact that my seat was shaking from this person twitching.
We landed in Charlotte despite some thunderstorms, but my flight to Ohio was delayed by a solid two hours (I already had an hour layover). I started digging through the App Store for something to do and found Angry Birds (all of the addictive stories are true). I started downloading an episode of This American Life for the next flight, and flipped over to some Angry Birds. In between levels I could flip back and forth between Words With Friends and text messages from family members wondering when they should be at the airport.
None of this is new or thrilling, but when it’s you stuck staring at terminal screens, trapped in tiny coach seats, or staring at the ceiling in the back of a friend’s car, you start to appreciate just how great all of our tech can be.
Bill Gates has had a lot to say at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe this weekend, and this is just one among many interesting things he offered up. Gates thinks the future of higher education will be less place-based, at least for students with a little initiative.
“Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world,” Gates said. “It will be better than any single university.” To some extent you can already see this happening. iTunes U already offers up some of the best lectures in the world for free. As education continues to embrace technology we’re sure to see more and more examples of the best educators providing free content for the rest of the world.
I don’t agree, though, that education should be less place-based. There’s a lot to be said for the experience of getting away from home, away from family, away from comfort, and immersing yourself in your education. It doesn’t work for everyone, and certainly a lot of the current college system could use an overhaul, but to eliminate the concept of place from the educational experience seems like a mistake.
There’s no doubt that the iPhone 4 launch was one of Apple’s sloppiest hardware launches to date. The antenna issue was definitely the worst PR we’ve seen from Cupertino and yet, somehow, the iPhone continues to blow through millions of models. After all that, Apple’s finally made an inside move, a sort of quiet omission of guilt despite its protestations over the last several months.
Mark Papermaster, the exec at the helm of iPhone hardware, has left Apple. There’s no word on whether he was given the boot or left of his own accord. His departure is a bit coincidental for me to believe that, whoever initiated his departure, it wasn’t all related to the antenna issue. When consumers are making joke band-aids and “End Call” stickers to fix your missteps, you can bet someone’s head will roll.
As you might imagine, Papermaster declined to comment.
It seems like I get asked this question nearly every time a tech challenged person sees that I have an iPhone. “Do you have that app that lets you 
