Infinity and Beyond

So, say you just got a shiny new iPhone 3G.  Say it’s an awesome 16GB version.  Yeah, you’re the cool guy now.

Say you then leave your iPhone in the restroom at a concert, and 3 minutes later its gone for good.

Sad panda.  Sad panda, indeed.

You think to yourself…”No worries!  My phone has GPS–they can track that shiz!”  This is a very logical assumption for you to make.  But, sadly, without a 3rd party app installed, you’re out of luck.  Here’s some info so you don’t waste your time:

• AT&T phone support cannot/will not locate your phone for you
• AT&T in-store representatives, despite what the phone support might tell you, cannot/will not locate your phone for you
• Calling Apple’s iPhone support line at +1 (800) 694-7466 will not, sadly, tell you any more information about the whereabouts of your phone.

However, there is some marginal amount of hope for you.  Not that I was one of those folks who douchebaggedly left their phone in the bathroom at a rock concert.  But if I were one of those folks, I would have found out that Apple supposedly has a team of people who work on this with local authorities.  Here’s what you need to do (so far as I was told someone told me):

1. File a theft report with your local police
2. The police have a special phone number (or they can call the number above) which is an internal stolen goods team at Apple
3. That team can compare flag your serial number in their system, and watch to see if someone else registers the phone
   • If whomever stole your phone (or the poor soul who buys the stolen phone) decides to actually use the phone, they’ll need to have a valid SIM (unless of course they unlock or jailbreak it)
   • In order to use the iPhone they’ll also have to register the phone again in iTunes
   • This will send all the information about that person to Apple and the authorities

If all goes as planned, the police would actually be able to recover your stolen phone.  Maybe.  I’m somewhat skeptical that they will actually take the time to go get your phone.  But I’m hopeful The person I spoke to is hopeful.

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Today the Walt Disney Co. announced it’s future line-up of animation classics that will be released on the Blu-Ray platform. Now that the format war is over Hollywood is looking to bring the cautious public into the HD world. With price tags of $300-$700 for the players alone the recession-like American populous is being forced to spend their money on an increase in gas and food prices instead of luxury items like HD TV’s and Sony’s Playstation 3. The Disney Co., hoping to repeat the initial thrust that brought home video into the mainstream back in the 80s, has planned an unbeatable lineup of classic animated features to be released in the HD platform.

First up is my personal favorite, Sleeping Beauty (set for an Oct. 7 release). While Sleeping Beauty isn’t part of today’s announcement it is the next classic to come to Blu-Ray and absolutely worthy of mentioning. This classic is almost worth buying the player and an HD TV for all by itself. If you are a fan of the old traditional classics it just gets better from here. The five films that will be making their way out of the Disney Vault over the next two years are ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Fantasia’, ‘Fantasia 2000′, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’! 

I know this is the logo for the store in Downtown Disney but what are ya gonna do?

The studio says that each disc ‘will include a BD Live component, allowing children to connect directly onto the internet to play the included interactive games with friends in other locations.’ While the BD Live component will be a new venture, president of BVHE, Bob Chapek, told the Times “BD Live is not a niche product… We see mass adoption of the technology.”  We’ll see how well this technology is adopted, as interactive components were one of HD DVD’s strong suits and not Blu Ray. As long as this new technology doesn’t take away from other bonus features that hard-core geeks like myself crave. It’s always hard enough buying cartoons at the store, but having to suffer through something like a Raven Symoné version of ‘Part of Your World’ while I try to find some vintage Ink and Paint Club material can be rough.

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NBC/Universal might have shelled out $900mil for exclusive U.S. coverage of the Beijing games but it looks like they might have made their monies worth. The company says they raked in more than $1bil in ad sales for the games. While that $100mil might be what ‘The Dark Knight’ made in its first 12 hours it’s still enough to make almost every aspect of the games a great success.

One failing point however came from online ad revenue which accounted for only $5.75mil of the total. According to NBC the games official website NBCOlympics.com was a “research laboratory” to see how users consumed the product via the internet. It might be clear from their findings that when venturing into the digital world of the internet you need to be as fast as Michael Phelps on the home stretch. I’ve said it time and time again, people view televised events on their computer for one of 3 reasons: #1 They missed the show they wanted or are otherwise unavailable when it airs, #2 They want to re-watch the show, and #3 They want to be the first to see the live event not being showed on their TV for another 12 hours.

Maybe another Direct TV spot would have brought in more cash $.

NBC made the decision in many cases to delay many of the events event online. This is a large part as to why Yahoo!, who streamed live events, received 4.7 million unique visitors a day versus 4.3 million for NBC.  That would have more than doubled their total, and probably their revenue.

Those on ‘Avenue Q’might say “the internet is for porn” but it’s more than just that. It’s for having everything you want at the type of your fingertips. If that happens to be porn then fine, but people can watch tv for regularly scheduled programming, you go to the web to search, discover, and find out the latest and greatest.

With this weeks Democratic National Convention the networks are presented with another time zone issue. After last nights opening day it’s clear the broadcast networks just don’t get it. More and more people will turn to cable news and to the internet to receive their content if it means having it live-as-it-happens and not live on the East coast but actually 3 hours past live for the people on the West coast.  As Yahoo! proved during the Olympics, if you want to increase traffic you don’t hold on to the news until it’s more convenient for you. The internet and it’s billions of users wait for nothing.

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OK, so you’re a great [Rock Band | Guitar Hero] guitar player. But you just don’t feel like you’ve got the proper equipment to truly become a Rock [Band] legend.

Never fear, Peak Products has come to the rescue.

CNBC is reporting on the introduction of the Peak Starpex Guitar Controller, which works with both Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It’s a realistic wooden guitar–not like the cheap feeling lightweight plastic models that ship with the games.

The units will start shipping the first week of September, though they’ll set you back a bit–$179.99 “and up.” But hey…true rock stars don’t worry about stuff like that.

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TDS–no it’s not a new compact car from Volkswagen. Instead, it’s the Tongue Drive System, a new user interface device created by Georgia Tech researchers to allow users to control various systems with their tongues.

Use of the tongue would allow for much broader and quicker interactions with systems–the current “sip and puff” setup which you’re likely to have seen apparently limits users to only four commands at a time. The Georgia Tech solution uses a magnet placed under the tongue to give you forward, back, left, right, single- and double-click abilities–essentially all the interactions a standard two-button mouse would give you. Sensors outside the cheeks determine the magnets placement and motion.

The researchers also talked about expanding the number of commands that could be given. I assume that the tongue is agile enough to mimic the kind of gestures that you do for instance with a pen on a table computer or PDA. I also wonder about using something like a cheek piercing to make the sensors a more permanent part of the wearer’s face, but right now I think they have to be wired up.

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As we continue into our second year we’ve decided to make a few changes. Some of then you’ll see and some you won’t. One change that will help us to bring you the most up to date information is our upgrade to wordpress 2.6.1 which allows iPhone acess.

The volume of posts should increase and we’ll continue to bring you the latest reviews and industry news.

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Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale are welcoming their second child together into the world. Zuma Nesta Rock was born via c-section today and the baby weighed….. some sort of poundage and I don’t really care and am a little weirded out that it makes it into international news stories.

I’m just hoping that this means in another month or so and baby #2 is able to be in the care of the nanny for great lengths of time that Gwen can get back in the studio with the boys of No Doubt. The band is currently working on a long-awaited follow-up to 2001’s ‘Rock Steady’. Has it been 7 years? Was I really a teenager when they last came out with something? Shiiiiit.

Congratulations Gwen and Gavin!

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Canadian’s often feel overshadowed by American media. I mean, aside from Bryan Adams and Alanis Morissette, Canadian pop stars are fewer and farther between than their American counterparts.

But now Reuters reports that Canadian’s who have been rubbed wrong by the lack of Canadian generated porn, and their boredom with American porn, can anxiously await the launch of the Northern Peaks adult pay-TV channel. It will be “Canada’s first adult video channel offering significant Canadian adult content.” Canadian regulators just approved the channel.

What’s more significant is that while Canadian regulators require 15 percent of content to be Canadian-generated on channels, Norther Peaks is going to have no less than 50 percent of Canadian-generated content. This will likely spur a large number of auditions to star in new channel content–and of course a large collection of “auditions” and “outtakes” for later use on the channel or direct-to-DVD production.

Most interesting is this though:

“Northern Peaks will be restricted to certain types of programming including long-form documentaries, dramatic series, feature films, game shows, mini-series, sitcoms and made-for-TV movies.”

So, let’s just think of this for a few minutes…adult pay channel content in the form of:

• Long-form documentaries (a. “long-form” hahah b. “documentaries”??)
• Dramatic series (aka porn with too much dialog)
• Game shows (what are the prizes??)
• Mini-series, sitcoms, etc (can we see a new take on “Twin Peaks”??)

Sorry if that was a bit immature, but I couldn’t resist. Here is an interesting hook however: a featured Xtube [NSFW] users amateur hour show. Xtube is a Canadian-based company, so this completely makes sense and would make for great cross promotion.

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Music DVDs seem to be all the rage these days, and every band must have at least one. Everyone loves the “behind the scenes” videos and clips of band members doing things that, were they not your favorite band, would otherwise be not funny and entirely stupid.

LiveDaily is reporting that Morrissey is bucking this trend and asking fans to boycott the “Morrissey Live at the Hollywood Bowl” DVD because it is in breach of contract. What I enjoy more however:

The singer also said the DVD is the work of cash-hounds, and the sleeve art is appalling.

I hate appalling sleeve art.

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Can’t afford a burial plot for your deceased loved one in Japan? Here is a solution that CScout reported on–store the urn in a facility which uses RFID cards to automatically retrieve them from storage for viewing.

This use of RFID is a new one to me. It makes sense though, especially in a situation like this where space is at a premium. You would think though that they’d make the viewing areas a little more private for mourning purposes.

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