Miscellany
Microsoft has released the first in a series of ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld to combat Apple's Get a Mac adverts, and the results are... well, you really just have to watch how strange it is:
As our own tiny dancer predicted, the ad tries too hard to seem viral while making it painfully obvious that it misses the mark. It's like Microsoft is *that* dad that tries to be "cool and hip and 'with-it'" but just ends up embarrassing both himself and his progeny with a failed terrorist fist jab.
Typical Microsoft.
Continuing with my DVR theme today, a recent survey commissioned by the NDS Group (a digital technology service provider) shows that not only do households with DVRs value them fairly highly (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you'll pry my TiVo out of my cold, dead hands!), but that DVRs have even saved many of their relationships!
Out of those surveyed in the US, a full 79% said that DVRs have helped their relationships with their significant others (I, and I'm pretty sure tiny dancer, can attest to this):
In the US, UK and Australia, respondents attributed this improvement to having the ability to watch their own programmes while sharing their favourites with each other," says NDS. "Surveyed Italians feel that their improved relationship happiness is due to the DVR allowing them to plan their evening's viewing better.
DVRs also stacked up pretty well when rated against other gadgets in the household. When ranked against other electronics for highest priority (if someone were to say, take away all their other gadgets) the DVR came second only to the mobile phone amongst those surveyed.
Yeah, I'd say that's about right for me too.
Hit the link for more information nuggets, including differences among US, UK, and Italian sentiments regarding household appliances.
Survey: DVRs more important than dishwashers, iPods [ArsTechnica]
A newer trend in the computing world is the "closed garden" approach to application development. These environments are typified by their openness to applications developers, with the caveat that the "garden" proprietor have sole discretion as to whether the application goes up, stays up or gets pulled down. Many times, the creator of the given platform may remove apps without the prior knowledge or consent of the app developer, or possibly have a very limited appeals process should the developer question the platform's decisions. Often, the platforms reserve such rights in an attempt to protect the user from malicious applications, but sometimes non-malicious applications are removed as well.
These platforms are usually the larger, more popular platforms as well. They give the application developers a huge audience to work with, allowing for niche applications and broad-based apps as well. Many developers have used these platforms as proof of concept, or as a way of building a resume, or even as a business model. Consumers are often given the choice of hundreds of applications to suit their needs, providing an easy avenue for the individual to customize their experience as they see fit. So if both the consumer and the developer are winning under this model, why is it that the idea can still be bad for overall software community?
You'll have to hit the jump to find out.
Who says tools can't be fabulously gay? If you've ever wanted to inject just that little homo-touch into your IKEA assemblage routine, then PB Swiss Tools is here to fan the flames with their set of Rainbow Series Hex Key Wrench Set!
Assemble your flat-pack furniture with all the colours of the rainbow!
How much will you pay for the priviledge? $30. Style ain't cheap, though as far as hex wrench sets go, not too bad.
I have an admission to make: I *like* assembling flat-pack furniture. You give me a big IKEA box to work on for the day and I'll be happy as a clam. I even own a swiss army knife-like set of hex key wrenches like this one. Yeah, I know... I'm a freak.
Product Page [PB Swiss Tools]
[BBG]
Either this is the start of the zombie takeover of the world, or Steve Jobs isn't quite dead, as Bloomberg news mistakenly claimed yesterday:
Steve Jobs, Apple Co-Founder, Arbiter of Cool Technology, XXXX
by Connie Guglielmo
DATE (Bloomberg) -- Steve Jobs, who helped make personal computers as easy to use as telephones, changed the way animated films are made, persuaded consumers to tune into digital music and refashioned the mobile phone, has XXXX. He was TK.
Yes, it seem that whilst updating Steve Jobs's obituary (newspapers regularly keep obituaries of people who are alive up to date just in case they kick the bucket), someone mistakenly hit "publish" instead of "save as draft" and the story got put out to the wire.
Bloomberg news was understandably embarrassed, and issued a retraction when they found out what had happened:
Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- An incomplete story referencing Apple
Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m.
New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and
has been retracted.
Boy, what a dismissive way of saying "Hey, sorry we said you're dead."
The mistake comes at a time when Apple investors and the media are jumpy regarding Steve Jobs health, following news of his battle with pancreatic cancer and his gaunt appearance at his last keynote speech at WWDC (pictured.) Lucky for Apple (and Bloomberg), the erroneous news story hit the wire in the evening, when the stock market had already closed, saving the story from causing a panic induced sell off of Apple stock.
Gawker managed to obtain a full copy of the draft obituary, and it makes for interesting (albeit morbid) reading, with notes for reporters and who they would contact in the case of Jobs's death. Read it at the link.
Steve Jobs's Obituary, As Run By Bloomberg [Gawker]
If you don't already follow XKCD (shame on you!), then today's comic is absolutely wonderful, and I had to share it with ya'll:
This recalls to me one time when a couple of hurricanes were coming through Miami (maybe it was Wilma and Katrina?) and in order to protect their networks, the University where I work decided to shut down the servers and routers on the network.
This meant they shut off *my* internet access during the storms.
Cutting off my internet access makes me desperate. And cranky. And obsessive. It eventually starts driving me insane...
...so much so that after suffering through most of a day without internet access, I realised the phone lines still worked. I cringe now at what I did then: I desperately searched the mail room for an estranged AOL trial CD.
Yeah, I used the free AOL trial CDs to get dial-up internet access during hurricanes to feed my addiction. Not my proudest moment.
Have you had an internet connection horror story?
Moving [XKCD]
Now this is a hot deal: if you've been looking for a hot new piece of Sony gadgetry, SonyStyle has a great deal: apply for the SonyStyle card and get $150 back on your first purchase of $300 or more at SonyStyle.
I used this same offer last year to get my PS3 for a sweet $150 discount, and on top of that, the SonyStyle card comes with 12 months no interest on purchases of $299 or more, so you can pay off your new gadget over time without repercussions.
With this offer, you can get yourself an 80GB PS3, the best Blu-ray player on the market (used even by the Criterion folks as a reference Blu-ray player) and a games console to boot, for only $250 after discount, and free ground shipping!
At that price, it's the cheapest Blu-ray player out there.
Sony Card: Get $150 Car Credit [SonyStyle]
PlayStation 3 Systems [SonyStyle]
Microsoft has launched its Windows 7 blog, but aside from a lengthy introductory post the site has more text concerning the rules of commenting on the site than actual content.
But the blog does at least let us know when to expect more information - Windows' Steven Sinofsky announced that both of October's tech conferences, PDC and WinHEC, would see more of Windows 7 revealed:
"The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week both represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7,"
This blog will provide context over the next 2+ months with regular posts about the behind the scenes development of the release and continue through the release of the product."
So far we know that Windows 7 will be using the same driver model and basic kernel approach as Vista, which gives me brief visions of yet another version of Windows that occasionally loses the ability to load USB drivers, but thankfully I'm not nearly savvy enough to imagine that scenario in any great detail.
Windows 7 details to come in October [CNet]
According to Digital Daily, Apple's market cap is now bigger than Google's, making Apple now the third richest tech company behind Microsoft and IBM.
Apple's market cap of over $159 billion beats Google's $157 billion, and is a healthy growth from May 2007, when Apple first broke the $100 billion market cap line.
The current rankings (as of Wednesday's closing) of some top tech companies by MacDailyNews gives some insight into the rankings:
- Microsoft (MSFT) - $255,648,204,000
- IBM (IBM) - $169,964,678,000
- Apple (AAPL) - $157,012,662,240
- Google (GOOG) - $156,392,862,560
- Cisco (CSCO) - $142,125,692,160
- Intel (INTC) - $135,658,860,000
- Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) - $111,866,423,760
- Nokia (NOK) - $97,746,699,520
- Research In Motion (RIMM) - $71,143,935,000
- Disney (DIS) - $59,257,501,500
- Dell (DELL) - $50,483,256,060
At this rate, Apple's poised to easily overtake IBM, and perhaps even Microsoft in the coming years.
MacRumors points out that this recalls a famous quote my Michael Dell back in 1997 when Apple was struggling through its dark ages. He was asked what Apple should do to recover, and he answered:
"What would I do? I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders."
... or rehire your egomaniacal, controlling, secretive, visionary co-founder again as a CEO and watch the money roll back in. Could have gone either way, really.
A new flexible sheet of nanoantennas developed by the U.S. Department of Energy could help solve the world's energy problems with its super efficient design.
The nanoantennas, consisting of nano-sized gold spirals or squares set in polyethylene, absorb and convert infrared radiation into electricity at an efficiency of 80%! Compared to the 15-20% efficiency of traditional solar cells, these nanoantennas are set to revolutionise the solar power sector.
Because they absorb and convert infrared energy, they can also make electricity at times and places solar cells cannot, e.g. from the latent heat released by the Earth during the night. The nanoantennas can also be used as a cooling system for electronics, buildings, and factories; converting excess heat energy into electricity. The flexible nature of their construction also means the nanoantennas can be incorporated into the skin of many consumer devices to provide power from nearby heat sources - even the user's own body heat!
There's one big problem, however: the nanoantennas currently produce electricity with an AC current that oscillates trillions of times per second, making it unusable in current devices. There is currently no modern rectifier technology that can covert this super alternating current into a more usable state (for comparison purposes, your wall outlet provides an AC current that oscillates at a rate of 60 times per second.) In order to convert the output to usable electricity, we need to develop nanoscale rectifiers that "need to be about 1,000 times smaller than current commercial devices."
With an efficiency of 80%, I hope they get crackin' on those rectifiers!
Flexible nanoantenna arrays capture abundant solar energy [EurekAlert]
[via: Engadget]
Has Manhunt.net really changed us as a community? What about Gay.com? AOL M-4-M rooms? According to one essayist, at least, they sure as hell have.
It's an idea I've heard before, but one that I've never really given much thought to. Maybe it's because I'm part of the generation that has grown with web tech, and the first time I even seriously flirted with another guy was in an AOL chat room, but I've never really looked at the Gay Web as a deterioration of gay culture. I didn't know gay life when the only way we could relate to each other was in a bar or at a protest rally. I don't know what it is like to know that just exploring gay culture came with the huge risk of exposure. I've always had my safe haven, my computer and my internets.
The article is a great read, so you should absolutely check it out. The basic idea is that sites like Manhunt, which makes ridiculous amounts of money, have facilitated a complete change in the gay identity, for better and for worse. We have been able to minimize the absolutely sexual tones of the bars and clubs because we can move that on-line, and in the process, have made our nightlife more about friends than hunting. The author suggests that we have been able to become more "normalized" into society because we've been able to be more secretive about our sex lives. We can be happy, essentially sexless people in public, but in the privacy of our homes, we can chase down that hotty we saw in the chat room and pray that his picture isn't 11 years old.
Whether we've actually gone through with a hook up before, I'm sure we've all been on Gay.com and/or Manhunt and been propositioned or propositioned someone else. But what do you think? Has our community been drastically changed by the Interwebs? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Even outside of hook-up sites, what about dating sites? I rarely meet a LGBT couple anymore that didn't meet through a website (even if they try to lie about it initially). Give us your thoughts!
And girls who like girls who like fembots!
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