Infinity and Beyond

So I have two “WTF” factors for this post.  One is Fred, the other is the ZipIt.  There is this YouTube dude called Fred (his YouTube page) (or his home page).  I just don’t get it.  I don’t get it at all.  I stumbled upon his blog post from Videogum, which talks about how Fred is now advertising for some bullshit my-first-Blackberry device called the ZipIt.  Which he now uses in his craptastic videos.

If you haven’t watched anything from Fred, you can try watching Fred talk about his attempt to run for class president:

Now, I don’t usually swear online (hahah), but I really have to classify this in the What The Fuck category.  I just…don’t….get it.  Are 2.5 MILLION other people also viewing this video just for the What The Fuck factor?  Judging by the comments, there are a ton of people who are either lying through their teeth, or genuinely think this kid is funny.

And i very much agree with the author of the Vidoegum post, Gabe, who says:

I think there are definitely a few things that I would totally buy after watching a Fred video, like noise-canceling headphones, or an industrial grade eye-shower, or a gun with one bullet in it.

I’m trying to think back to childhood…I know many of the things I liked growing up were probably stupid and lame and awful and unbearable if I were to watch them now (Pete will tell you that’s SeaQuest but I still stand by it)…but Fred?  Really?  Huh?  Barney is forgivable because 3-year olds just don’t actually know what’s going on.  But 14 year olds should have started to develop some kind of taste for the non-shittastic.

I wonder if Fred will really drive sales of the ZipIt.  It has some “interesting” features.  It’s an “All-in-one WiFi Messenger” which only costs $49.99, plus a $9.99/month service contract.  You can chat with up to 99 friends at the same time. 99?  Damn.  It does “let u chat, control ur IM accounts, and set IM options.”  What is good about it is that they let you send and receive text messages to other cell phones, and your parents will “luv” that there’s never any (why not “ne”??) overage charges or surprise fees.   Built-in mini-SD card for showing off “ur favorite pics” (again, why not “ur fav pics”??).  Interestingly you can listen to music and also stream live internet radio from “ur favorite stations.”  ”How much do you <3 that?”  I <3 that a lot.

So…this is almsot like a glorified pager.  For $50 that’s really not that bad, and I suppose I’d much rather see parents buy this for their kids than an overpriced smartphone.  I don’t really see this taking much market share away from mobile phones though.  Kids are going to want to have gigabytes worth of songs.  They’re going to want to surf the web.  They’re going to want to make phone calls.  They’re going to want to take pictures and send them via MMS.  So while parents will be stuck with a heftier monthly bill, I don’t really see this product taking off, unless it’s with kids who aren’t quite at the point in their social lives where they’re wanting to talk on the phone all the time.  And honestly I don’t think a 12 year old needs a) one of these, b) a mobile phone, or c) anything more than an iPod Shuffle.  

Plus this device looks huge…definitely not hip and trendy at all.  That being said, I almost want to buy stock in the company, because if even a fraction of Fred’s fans go out and buy this silly device, there’s big money to be made.  Sadly, Fred is probably getting a decent chunk of money for this.  Which is annoying.  Just like the Kev Blaze video featuring Fred.  Who the hell is Kev Blaze?  And more importantly, how did “Fred” manage to get the username “Fred”.  I suppose that means he should get some kind of “props”.  But not from me.

Update:  CNN gives a glimpse of who is behind Fred.  Ending with “it’s really incredible…”  I consider this to be…incredible yes…but I’m glad I haven’t rocketed to stardom this way.

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So, Engadget posted their invitation deets to the October 14th event being held by Apple to announce something about notebooks.  From what I can tell it’s unclear (well they never leak details before so this is all from rumors) if they’re doing an accross-the-board product refresh, if there will be redesigns of the MacBooks and/or MacBook Pros, or if they’ll unveil an entirely new form factor.

Engadget has a link with some images of a supposed new Air-like form factor.

MacRumors has an image of the supposed “brick” casing.  Rumors have gone back and forth on whether or not “brick” would be an entirely new product line, or if it was a new manufacturing process that would carve cases out of single pieces of aluminium.

You may remember when Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, in an unusual move for Apple, hinted that earnings this quarter would be lower due to an undisclosed “product transition”.  Since then everyone has wondered what exactly he was hinting at.  Looks like next week we’ll finally find out.

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Amidst the thrashing that the broader market took today, Nvidia shares closed down 13% today because an analyst at Pacific Crest downgraded the stock because he believes the company will sell its chipset division.  This is in rather stark contrast to the swirling rumors that Apple will forgoe Intel chipsets (not processors) in their upcomming MacBook revisions.  According to that MacRumors article, that could be as early as next week.  Now, don’t get me wrong–Apple has been known to hang on to bad technology longer than needed.  But it seems unlikely that they’d go through all the work to switch over to Nvidia chipsets for only one hardware revision cycle.  It’s also true that Nvidia takes a lot of heat despite not really having much competition at all–their stock seems to follow the “good news, stock declines/bad news, stock declines” policy that plagues Apple.  I suppose even if Nvida were to sell off the chipset division, there’s no reason Apple couldn’t continue purchasing the line from whomever buys the division.

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Collider still colliding? Check. Europe still around? Check. Phew

The largest and most expensive particle accelerator in the world, with a cost of $9 billion, was fired up today. The 17-mile’s of tunnel beneath France and Switzerland haven’t disappeared into a black hole yet, and as far as I know Europe hasn’t fallen into a worm-hole and is now in another galaxy, so we should be all OK.

“The Large Hadron Collider- particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe– was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event.”

Scientists hope that in recreating the origin of everything they will be able to recreate the first few days of God’s work. Wait, I mean the first few days after the Big Bang happened. I wonder if the scientists will also find a need to take a day for rest from their creation. The data created from the particles smashing into each other at near light-speed could potentially generate enough data to make discoveries by 2009. Along with working towards mundane things like proving the existence of extra dimensions and worm-holes the data from the accelerator could be used for future breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture, and of course technology. Why do we care? Well, the last time we got this technical with our molecular origins the atom split open and electrons poured out. We don’t call them electronics for nothing.

If that isn’t a good enough answer then Howard Gordon, deputy research program manager for the collider’s ATLAS experiment says “It’s important for us to know just who we are, what we are.”

If you are curious to keep yourself up-to-date on whether or not the accelerator has destroyed the earth click on over to this.

UPDATE by Jason T.:  Wired’s got an informative and humorous blog post about the best- and worst-case LHC scenarios

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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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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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Call quality and dropped call issues seem to be one of the biggest complaints about Apple’s 3G iPhone. MarketWatch ran an article today pointing the finger at the 3G chipsets in the phone, made by Infineon Technologies. According to the report, the chips are sseing one of their first large-scale deployments through the iPhone–not something I think Apple made the best decision on. Given how easy it is for Apple to draw any sort of criticism over the slightest problem, it seems strange that they would choose and unproven chipset for their phones.

It’s likely the issue will try to be fixed via a patch for the iPhone, but it’s unclear if that kind of a fix will work or not.

I personally have not had significant problems with my phone compared to my 3G AT&T 8525. I have very limited service currently in my office, but this seems to be a problem for both my phones, as well as other people on my floor–across carriers. I’ve actually found the call quality to be, in my opinion, better than my 8525. That being said, I do feel that already weak 8525 3G signal was actually marginally better that what I see on my iPhone.

People have complained about poor handoff between the 3G and the Edge networks–but this was something I experienced with my 8525. So I question how much of the problem really resides in the iPhone itself, and how much of it is due to the poor quality of AT&T’s network. Ever since I switched to AT&T a few years back I’ve questioned their “fewest dropped calls” slogans.

But at least I’m now dropping calls in style…

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I know this isn’t a Twitter but I wanted to quickly link to a story that fits right into our blog.

 Go here to learn about creating a home entertainment system using Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) from Sony and Samsung.

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Google threw up this article on my Gmail news ticker–Frogger, anyone?  Old-school gamers revel in nostalgia.  I thought it was a pretty sweet idea to turn a garage or spare room into an old-school style arcade.  I remembered a site I came across when I was trying to get into physical computing which sold a ton of sweet arcade buttons and joysticks for creating your own stand-up arcade boxes.  The site even has templates and layouts for your reference.

This makes me want to get back into physical computing projects.  The board I’ve used in the past is the Arduino board, which is pretty cheap and has an easy USB connection (no painful USB-serial converters necessary).  A good reference book that I’ve got is Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers, by Tom Igoe and Dan O’Sullivan.  It’s a little outdated, but the basic concepts are all covered, and there are a lot of code examples which can easily be adapted to the Arduino.  They cover basic tools needed, soldering, all the various kinds of components you’re likely to use, explain how to read diagrams, and much more.

But, physical computing projects aside, this brings up the point that I tend to agree with the assessment that most gaming companies these days seemed driven to provide only the best visual gaming experience, while they often seem to ignore the actual gameplay itself.  Which is perhaps why the Wii does so well–the games don’t look the absolute best, but many are geared to have a quick learning curve and are focused on fun.  Wii Tennis for instance is arguably an awful looking game when compared to the graphics of nearly any Xbox 360 game.  But that doesn’t matter, because the gameplay is super easy to learn and you can start having fun immediately.  This has always been one of Nintendo’s strong points.

Thinking about this makes me want to build a stand-up arcade and put on some of the classic Nintendo and Atari games.  Maybe some Super Mario Bros, Frogger, Pac Man, Lolo…perhaps even some Super NES games like F-Zero…or better yet, a 4-player arcade version of the original Mario Kart.

Now all I need is a crappy TV, the Nintendo from the closet in my mom’s house, and a spot to put it.

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An alliance has been forged. Microsoft and it’s Xbox 360 has teamed up with Netflix to deliver downloadable movies straight to their console (check out a video of the announcement here). The deal includes 10,000 movies and tv shows and was announced Monday  at the E3 Media and Business Summit in L.A., which I’m sure we’ll be invited to next year.

“This generation of consoles will change the face of home entertainment more than any other generation before,” said John Schappert, corporate VP of MSFT’s interactive entertainment division. This tool will help allow Netflix to move furhter from the computer towards the television screen, a line that was blurred even further after the success of Roku. This will allow more of Netflixs’ 8.2 million subscribers to stream video content and not be forced to watching it on the computer. About 8,000 more titles should become available in the next few months and Netflix is hoping this new venture is just as successful as Roku has been. Now if only someone could mention this new fangle technology called ‘the internet’ to the folks at Blockbuster they might be able to keep the battle for video home rentals alive, but much like the recent format battle, the companies that develop the best technologies and form the strongest alliances will go home the winners at the end of the day. As Blockbuster continues to sink further and further into a 10-year low stock price. I’ve been saying it over and over but Blockbuster has been making the wrong decision time and time again while Netflix continues to evolve and advance moving into every possible corner of the market it can. When it comes to streaming legal content online through second party devices I think Netflix takes the cake. “The company already has announced that LG electronics will include streaming capability on a Blu-ray DVD player that will debut this year.” Netflic CEO promised “at least one more major consumer electronics company will unveil a set-top box for Netflix before 2009.”

Netflix isn’t the only company embracing the future. This announcement came on a day when MSFT is trying to makeover the Xbox 360. With the HUGE success of Nintendo’s ultimate gaming device, the Wii, MSFT is trying to regain some the market share it has lost to its local rival (Nintendo of America’s headquarters is across the freeway from Microsoft in Redmond, WA). Moving from a hardcore gaming console to appeal to the ‘casual’ gamer the Xbox is becoming a “multipurpose entertainment machine to watch movies, TV shows, and listen to music.” With the demise of HD-DVD the ailing console has been needing a boost to bring it back into the limelight. While partnering with NBC/Universal to stream TV shows like “30 Rock” and movies like “The Bourne Supremacy” to the console might help, its ultimately going to be its diverse capabilities that draw the larger audience. If that doesn’t help get the attention of the average family then hopefully that $50 price cut will at least bring it within $100 of the cheaper Wii.

 We’ll find out how Nintendo intends to counter this new development tomorrow when they take the stage for day two of the E3 conference, which as I said before, we’ll for sure be going to next year? That and ShoWest.

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