QQ Queue is a special feature covering widespread weeping across the blogosphere. Crybabies beware: this feature is ruthless.
If you’re in tune with the tech scene, you’ve probably heard about the Kutcher/CNN race to 1 million Twitter devotees. The dashing celeb threw down the gauntlet when he noticed both his own massive following and CNN’s similar numbers. As you can see from the link above, though, the battle was not one-sided. CNN tried to keep pace with breaking news updates about the current standings. In the end, Ashton won, but not before sucking world-class companies like EA into the ridiculous scrim.
Enter Oprah. Billionaire, Cultural Icon, Celebrity so big She gets the words that describe Her capitalized. Oprah saw CNN and Ashton duking it out and decided to enter the fray. Today she’s hosting Kutcher and (gasp) joining Twitter! This is…ridiculous.
First of all, Twitter from people like, come to think of it almost anyone, is pointless. Yes there are stories of Twitter helping people out of tight spots (like Egyptian prison). Yes there are some journalistic benefits. For the most part, though, Twitter is just adding to the noise. Knowing that someone is eating a sandwich or drinking coffee or getting a haircut (all of which are being tweeted as I write this) is not relationship building, despite what Twitter’s promo video says. These little blurbs are no more real human interactions than a video camera cataloguing a person’s life would be.
So why do I care? Continue reading »
Think your car got stolen? No problem. Just send a text to shut it down. That’s the idea behind a new anti-theft device from the minds at the University of Saskatchewan. The system works by linking your cell phone to your vehicle’s on-board computing system. Just send a text and the car drops to limited power over the course of 60 seconds, giving the thieves enough time to pull over (and probably make some sort of escape). With GPS capable phones, it seems a simple matter to get direcitons from your location to your thieved ride. The prototype comes in around $600. Think you could haggle a premium reduction from your insurer?
