Infinity and Beyond

If you know me, you know that I can’t resist any opportunity to lambast Steve Scher, Senior Host of KUOW’s Weekday program here on Seattle’s NPR station.  Now, Steve Scher in the past has had some real awesome shows…again if you’ll know me you’ll know these are three of my favorites:

• “Best pho restaurants in Seattle” - this insightful hour told us that all the best pho restaurants in Seattle were located…in San Diego.  Thanks Steve!
• “Birdwatching at Marymoor Park” - Steve invited local Audubon Society members on the program to talk about great bird watching in Marymoor Park.  Conclusion: at the time of the broadcast sometime in winter, there really weren’t any great birds to be seen in Marymoor…but come Springtime….
• “Weekday Halloween Special!”  - call us and tell us about your scary costume, or what you would think would be a great scary costume.  Describe it to us.  In detail.  The show featured calls from locals such as King County Executive Ron Sims, who pretended to be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  Nice!  

Yes folks, that’s right.  Call in to the radio show and help them create a wiki on the air.  Excuse me for getting technical, but Wikipedia defines a wiki as:

 

A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.

I am a Duran Duran poster archivist in Bellevue, Washington. As curator/owner of the world’s largest collection of Duran Duran-related posters, I have a unique perspective on one of the biggest artists ever to emerge from the 80’s.    

-Durandy

One of the most interesting aspects of my archive is the comparative study of how Duran Duran has been promoted and embraced across cultures and over decades. 

The band’s influence has been felt in nearly every creative realm –from film, art and video to fashion and music. My collection offers an unprecedented look at Duran’s legacy, showing how the band has evolved, adapted to a changing musical landscape and continues to break new ground in the present day. It is a niche that I never expected to fall into, but one that has yielded an amazing journey for me over the years. 

Milestones have included a loan to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio, two public exhibitions, and recognition from the band and fan community. Posters offer a wealth of insight and information about the bands being promoted. When viewed on an international, comprehensive scale, a music artist can be appreciated in a most revealing and rewarding context. 

My website: www.durandy.com

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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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Ever watch a video on YouTube and been inspired to buy the album? Instead of using iTunes to listen to :30s previews of songs do you often find yourself on YouTube listening to the entire thing? What about video game trailers; I know I geeked out when I watched ‘Halo 3′ ads when they first came out. I was watching anything I could with the Master Chief running around and blowing things up. Lucky for you YouTube has the answer to all your purchasing needs.

YouTube Blog

This past Tuesday YouTube announced on their blog that they would be ‘taking our first steps to providing YouTube users with this kind of instant gratification, by adding “click-to-buy” links to the watch pages of thousands of YouTube partner videos.” The post goes on to say that the links will be non-obtrusive and placed beneath the video with the rest of the community features that have led to YouTube’s great success. To start they will be ‘embedding iTunes and Amazon.com links on videos from companies like EMI Music, and providing Amazon.com product links to the newly released video game Spore(TM) on videos from Electronic Arts.”

This is naturally just the beginning as the site slowly shifts to become a strong eCommerce platform for the company. When Google purchased YouTube it wasn’t entirely clear what their motivation was. Why spend so much money on a site that was drawing huge traffic numbers, but not as many advertising dollars? Well, I think we’ve found our answer. As this develops further and we see more and more product links attached with videos the site will become half user generated nonsense (as it always has been) and half corporate sponsored commercials. If only MTV had a way to have done this for television 10 years ago.

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Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google–which owns Blogger–this week finally created a blog.  The blog’s first post, which can be found at http://too.blogspot.com/, reveals that Sergy is predisposed to be at greater risk for Parkinson’s Disease.  He found this out through the genetic testing company co-founded by his wife, 23andMe (”genetics just got personal).

Interestingly, Brin’s got no comments so far on his blog.  I’m not sure if they’re turned off, or if no one has felt compelled to comment yet.  Probably the first option.  

The blog is titled “Too”, which Brin explains:

Welcome to my personal blog. While Google is a play on googol, too is a play on the much smaller number - two. It also means “in addition”, as this blog reflects my life outside of work.

Frankly, I’m hoping that future posts won’t just be plugs for Google or affiliated companies.  Reading the post, while he does talk about the fact that he carries the G20195 mutation which puts him at greater risk for Parkinson’s, I got the sense that the post was more of an advertisement for how great 23andMe is.  Then again, it’s his blog, and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.

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Apple’s iPhone/iPod Touch App Store continues to draw some heavy criticism this week. It appears that some applications which could be considered to compete with Apple’s own apps are being rejected because they duplicate functionality. Seeking Alpha reports that the a developer created a program called Podcaster because it “duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section in iTunes.” Turns out Podcaster actually offers some features above and beyond what Apple currently offers–thusly making it an arguably better app.

The blogosphere is going crazy with cries of anti-competitive practices being used by Apple.  Then again…it’s Apple’s product, Apple’s phone, and Apple’s App Store…so, it seems to me that by right they can pretty much do whatever they want.  While they are doing themselves a favor by providing devs the ability to create and deploy apps via the App Store, Apple could easily give everyone a giant middle finger and pull the plug.  That being said, it does seem like a pretty lame thing to do.

This follows on the heels of reports of applications getting rejected based on “limited utility,” such as the ill-fated Pull My Finger app.  You can watch the video here or below.  A more detailed explanation of the rejection is here.  Many people are wondering what’s up with “limited utility.”  And why should this matter with regards to free applications?  Why is Koi Pond not considered to have “limited ability”?  Does the fact that Koi Pond is supposed to be soothing allow it to pass, while Pull My Finger is only humorous to some?  Or what about the More Cowbell application?  Its seems that part of the fun of having applications on your Smartphone is so that, for every useful application you’ve got, you can download at least three more which are stupid but fun…

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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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Engadget has a story about a woman who’s camera was stolen in Florida.  What the thief didn’t know was that the SD card inside her camera was actually an Eye-Fi card.  It’s a sweet piece of technology I myself own and enjoy using.

The card somehow manages to squeeze 2GB of memory and a 802.11 transmitter inside the card.  When the camera is powered the card (using simply the internal battery of the camera–and to no noticeable detriment so far as my usage has shown) automatically looks for a wireless network to upload your pics to your computer (if a sync point was set) or your favorite social networking site(s).

My Eye-Fi card automagically uploads my pics to my Facebook account for instance.  So too did this lady’s card, uploading images taken on her vacation, and after her camera was stolen, to one of her sites.  One of the photos included a clear enough shot of the thief himself to allow the woman to contact police, who were then able to track the man down and recover the stolen equipment.

I just wish this card existed 6 months earlier than when I received mine, in which case it may have helped me to recover the Nikon D70 that was a beloved graduation gift from my mother.  Sadly, this was not to be, and I’m rocking a Nikon D80 now so I can’t completely complain, but still, kind of an unintended but pleasant use of the Eye-Fi card.

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OK, this is NSFW if you’re not wearing headphones. And it isn’t really relevant to anything. But it’s hilarious. And I suppose it shows the the power of user generated content.

Watch this first:

And then this:

Thanks Elliot!

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After months of prodding to try to get my developer friends to work together to create a viable chat application for facebook they have announced that despite the over 500+ chat applications currently available, that they are just going to do it themselves.

That’s right folks, Facebook Chat will be launched this week allowing users to communicate in real time with their friends. But, “why just talk to someone when you can experience them?” Asks Patrick Thornton who runs “The Journalism Iconoclast” blog. Well, I don’t know how much experiencingI want to be doing of my friends but, this new feature has the potential to launch facebook into second place in the instant messaging world under AOL supported AIM. Maybe now I won’t have my gmail chat going all day and have to visit facebook separately. Ahh, the joys of all-in-one convenience.

It has been clear for a while that this was going to be the next big step in facebook’s evolution. Frankly now all they need is music pages with several songs per page and I’ll have no more reason to ever go to myspace again. Sadly at this stage of the game local musicians need myspace pages to remain relevant and help them break into the industry and get gigs.

At any rate, this is a welcome addition to the better of the two major social networking sites and it was one I predicted ages ago. Sadly for me I wasn’t able to create it own my own and won’t be getting a job with facebook anytime soon. 

Justin and Naseem are going for the subtle approach I see. Facebook Chat roxorz!

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Using games developed using it’s XNA Game Studio 2.0, Microsoft announced today in a press release that users will be able to create, play, and peer review games developed by Xbox 360 users.Developers can download the XNA Game Studio 2.0 toolset for free.  In order to submit the games for distribution on Xbox Live, developers will have to join the XNA Creators Club ($49 for 4 months or $99 for 12 months).  Seven games created on the XNA platform were announced and should be immediately available for download from the Xbox Live Marketplace.  Other developers will get their chance to try out the release process in a beta starting this Spring.   It appears that games created by developers will be first peer-reviewed the game and content rated for appropriateness and conformance to the Terms of Service.  Once it passes, it would then be added to the Marketplace. 

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