HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray is becoming a classic case of superior implementation vs. superior stats. While Blu-Ray has higher potential capacities, data-rates and greater potential interactivity due to it's Java support, HD-DVD has a simpler web-scripting based technology called iHD, mandatory dual-encoder inclusion, persistent storage, and a network interface.

It really took listening to a podcast from a Microsoft XBOX marketer for half an hour to blow my 'Blu-Ray is technologically better' bubble. The truth is that the Blu-Ray we're expecting is still in the works. Due to it's simplicity, HD-DVD content-providers achieved a lot of its potential advancement in a relatively short time, while Blu-Ray discs have no where approached theirs. Implementation is what really matters. HD-DVD has employed Microsoft's VC-1 compression to overcome Blu-Ray's future capacity advantage, while Blu-Ray discs currently use MPEG-2 (even though H.264 and VC-1 are supported).

Meanwhile, neither camp has settled their respective formats and there is news of HD-DVD discs being incompatible with certain HD-DVD players. Future firmware upgrades will address issues such as these but their presence indicates that it isn't too late for Blu-Ray content-providers to show the market whether their alternate standard is up to snuff.

MORE: XBOX Live's Major Nelson: Show #183 The one about HD-DVD via [Addicted to Digital Media]

edited for clarity

Settlement approval is good news

Just wondering why Google's stock is down, especially since the 90 million dollar class action settlement, which was originally met with objection and a rush by some advertisers to exit the class in order to be entitled to further compensation has been approved following an independent report by an NYU Information Systems professor. It appears that the terms were fairly beneficial to all parties, seeing that the advertisers who were (at least) originally unsatisfied with Google's attempts to thwart click-fraud get some free advertising and that Google has significantly increased transparency over how it handles click-fraud, first with opening its operations to a suprising level of scrutiny as well as showing AdWords customers how many invalid clicks Google is catching.

SOURCES: Official Google Blog, BetaNews, Download Squad

Two, maybe three, official Zune links

Thanks to CNET's blogma blog, we have two links to official Zune sites. A product information site (sign up for a funny wallpaper plus updates) called ComingZune.com and a blog called ZuneInsider authored by Microsoft employees.

Very interesting. [The ComingZune site teases with phrases like "thanks for sharing" and "we're all friends here".] One thing that might play a role in the Zune software is that old Microsoft patent about using software to train users and then letting then describe and categorize music in many new and interesting ways (mood, rhythm, etc.)

SOURCE: Blogma and Techdirt

I'm giving jogging a shot

So you don't get disappointed [in the least] with [the] Nike+iPod [Sport Kit], here are couple of things you might not have known about it.

First, it has a non-replaceable battery. Second, I couldn't get the sensor and receiver out without damaging the packaging. Third, It doesn't record a heck of a lot of distance vs. time data points as I would've liked. Whether that's enough is another story.

For example, for a 20 minute jog then a 10 minute walk, it graphed about 6 data points. Fourth, a nice thing you can get is a nice long continuous sequence of workout music where a guy talks you through your run. That's extra stuff that you have to pay for.

Asides from those surprises, the Nike+iPod kit was great to use just by sticking it under my laces (I'll probably go the velcro way promoted on digg) and sticking some masking tape over it just to be safe. Even though it runs on batteries, I think as long as you're not moving it, it doesn't consume much and presumably lasts a long time or at least your 30 dollars worth. There is a button underneath that lets you turn it off on an airplane.

Some nice features of the nikeplus.com site are the ability to track your last 1000 runs and being able to challenge fellow 'community members' to races and when you dock your score, it'll compare the result with your challengee and declare a winner.

Anyone up for a challenge? A really easy one?

[And, what you probably did know is that it only works with iPod nano and it doesn't do magic. I found that even the power song was unable to keep me from slowing down to a walk as you can see from the chart. I think it's a matter of conditioning.]

Text in brackets added 2:39 AM

Google Inc. doesn't disappoint

I got a lot more information from the Q/A session than from the prepared portion of the Q2 2006 conference call, but the gist is that Google is happy to have done well in what is a "seasonally weak" quarter. They're stock price didn't change too much at the end of the day, which probably means people are not too surprised. That as opposed to Yahoo, who dropped 20 percent cause they waited too long to announce a delay in their service upgrades.

Here's what I thought was worth sharing from the Q/A session:

• Distribution deals relating to the Google Toolbar (presumably with companies like Adobe) cost Google on the order of 24 million according to a question-asker during the Q/A session.)
• In response to a question about macroeconomic issues, Google remarks anecdotally that after 9-11, while they thought customers would cut back in spending, they experienced accelerated customer aquisition. They take this as a testament to the cost efficacy and reliability of advertising through Google.
• Customers have larger budgets than Google can deliver on, so they're working on increasing inventory (more effective ads like video, increasing number of adsense publishers, ad real estate). In otherwords, when a customer says, place 5000 dollars worth of relevant ads and Google can't satisfy demand.
• Net neutrality: Google doesn't foresee itself being significantly impacted by a compromise of net neutrality. Why? They have good relationships with ISPs and they have good content that is virtually essential. If ISPs were to start charging more for premium content, Google would probably be part of the package. They could probably get into the ISP game themselves in one way or another. They fight for it because it helps internet companies like themselves a couple of years ago (who'll probably be their customers or provide content for them to index). Finally, they mention how while the internet is fast, end-user access is slow and bottlenecked to the point where if ISPs want to upgrade this connectivity for end-users, they'd want to make tons of money from it. However, this seems to only be a problem in the US, as other developed countries don't have that "last mile" bottleneck and don't have an issue with net neutrality. I think that was Sergei talking.
• Google isn't using Google Checkout to charge advertisers per purchase and before doing so would inform users that their data is being used in such a way. Google has a page that explains Checkout very nicely. In principle, Checkout could help people sell stuff with low processing costs no matter how they market it but there are big pluses for AdWords customers. For example, processing is free/discounted proportional to Adwords spending, etc.

SOURCE: their webcast

Bush finally addresses NAACP

... and doesn't once mention the war on terror. Times coverage and the original speech. Seemed like he did it as a personal favor to the current President of the NAACP.

I'd be curious to know, however, why he pronounced it N A A C P instead of N double-A CP.

SOURCE: NY Times

Notes from Apple's Q3 2006 webcast

categorized under I'll post good news about CREAF when I find it

Apple always finds some excuse to be conservative in forecasting future profits. Last time, it was delayed purchases for the Intel transition (which was still the case this last quarter with respect to their 'pro' line in anticipation of the new Core 2 Duo-based Mac Pros and the Adobe product suite's transition to Universal binaries that can be natively run on Intel Macs). This time, it's that we can't expect a repeat of the fantastic components market we had last quarter or past Tiger/iLife-driven sales.

But, great news overall. iPod sales were relatively flat, which was expected, but education (highest in 210 years against what was thought to be a shrinking market), back-to-school sales (free iPod nano with Mac purchase), and portable Mac sales (new Macbooks and Pros) were great. Interesting tidbits include:

• Ninety something percent growth in non-iPod music related revenue (accessories/made-for-iPod licensing program, iTunes (probably less so)
• Investing heavily in iPod and iTunes (maybe a quote, not sure), very confident in product pipeline.
• 50% of Mac buyers at retail stores are new to the platform (switchers). I stand corrected on my previous speculation.
• 12% of portables market share up from 6 according to someone (check webcast), in the course of just 6 months (Jan-June '06) (have to check this out later)
• Can't forget about the Apple employees selling Macs at Best Buy pilots started not too long ago.
• [Out there: Possibly working/collaborating on developing better music phones (although at this point, I can't imagine how this could be), saying that phones today don't make the best music players and soon later saying that they're not sitting around doing nothing (I'm not sure this isn't referencing their continued work with Motorola, but this was in response to a question about Sony Ericsson's succees with music phones elsewhere.]

SOURCE: [Apple Computer, Inc.] Conference Call Webcast

Earnings webcasts for Apple and Google

Apple is due to announce their quarterly earnings today at 5PM ET (2PM PT). You can listen to their earnings conference call or catch it later in their earnings podcast. Tomorrow, Google follows suit but a half-hour earlier at 1:30PM PT, so check their page at 4:30PM on Thursday.

Equivalences

Just 6 days ago, we saw on digg that South Korea decided to earmark 150 billion over the next 5 years to enhance their capacity for national defense. That amounts (annually) to more than a 20 percent increase over their estimated military spending for 2005 according to the CIA World Factbook.

China, which already spends in excess of that amount, aims to spend 150 billion over the same time span to address their own pressing problem--no, not North Korea--environmental pollution. Take for example this factoid from the Wall Street Journal, that China dumps 40% of its contaminated water into the river it's spent on the order of 25 billions to dam exacerbating a projected shortage of water for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

SOURCE: digg, wsj asia, [BBC News]

That was rather pointless

Today, I finally caved and sold my Creative stock (x100) and bought some Apple stock (x10) back. I figured, keeping the money in AAPL was probably better. This analysis pretty much sums up what I had been afraid of for a couple of weeks. Apple's quarterly conference call is tomorrow afternoon and today's as good a day as any. Other times I've considered making the switch*:

• After Microsoft makes their iPod killer announcement.People know about this already and the announcement will probably be after whatever Apple announces at WWDC.
• After their settlement with Creative.Any settlement is probably good news for both parties.
• After their earnings are publicized. No... There's been pessimism about Apple lately (iPod delays, Microsoft competition) that's probably, well, not justified. I think people just need to be reassured.

*I didn't really want to add any money to my brokerage account, hence I had to sell Creative before buying AAPL.

Verging on a nightmare

Pirates 2 gave me this weird dream where I refused for the duration of a meal to eat a thumping brain. I ate the accompanying cold-noodles, though.

Not preaching to the choir

I can finally see how those Apple ads may not be as effective as I had thought they would be. I'm not sure who Apple PR was (NOT WERE) targeting, but if they were as obnoxious as this parody (you like I may not have been able to see them before due to high traffic) makes them look, most purchases of new Macs were probably by existing Mac users/iPod snobs like me.

SOURCE: gizmodo and nadyne

My Inspironic Anatomic Ignorance

Amazing. All this time and I didn't even know about the coolest part of my Dell laptop: the battery has a built in charge meter. Of course, I always saw it but wondered why it never lighted up. Now, I know. I have to push the little circle! It has 5 leds that represent 20% charge a piece. It also shows battery health if you hold down the button. I have 1 led's worth of incremental degradation : /

Go: Dell Battery FAQ: For what use is the strip of LED lights on my battery?

A possible answer to an eternal question

categorized under likely boring

I admit that I often let little things get in the way of big things. I have posted about this before, but recycling poses a big problem for me. It turns out that it's much crazier in Taiwan where you have to recycle all kinds of paper (think of the box that holds your big mac), buy special garbage bags, get fined for not recycling, and bring your trash at specific times to the garbage truck. Regardless of how much easier it is to dispose of trash in the US, I still wonder about whether the little clear windows on envelopes are worth tearing out before recycling.

Behold the possible answer, glassine:

Pics of the i.Tech Bluetooth Media Player Headset

As promised, here is a Picasa web album of the bluetooth headset I posted about.

Go: i.Tech Bluetooth Media Player Headset picture gallery

A baby turtle goes free

The first movie clip I uploaded to Google Video: "At a temple in Nanjing, China, you can pay something like 20 RMB to free a pair of baby turtles into a "spiritual liberation pond (?)" (放生词). "

It's got the power

If only I could justify/afford a Tyan personal supercomputer.

I saw a billboard for it in Taipei:

One headset to rule them all

UPDATE 6/22/06 12:33 AM GMT +8: The i.Link bluetooth media player headset preceded Motorola's bluetooth stereo headset by 2 years. The S705 connects to multiple bluetooth audio devices (i.e. your phone and your audio player) at the same time wirelessly in contrast to my older i.Link, which connects only to the phone wirelessly. BTW, I got mine for only 220 RMB, which is about 28 USD.

I bought something pretty cool yesterday I'll describe in what I think is my 200th post. It's an i.Tech Bluetooth Media Player Headset that allows you to use one pair of headphones with both your digital audio player and your bluetooth cell phone.

I haven't extensively tested the device but the bluetooth is pretty clear and static-free and the music pass-through doesn't add noise to the sound coming from my iPod. It also doesn't use the AAA battery while in music mode.

The interface is as simple and standard as it gets. One all-purpose button (answering/ending/and I believe placing voice-dialed calls, pairing, on/off), a switch for switching between the bluetooth and music, and a volume button that toggles though about 4 levels.

To use it, you plug in your favorite headphones, pair it with your phone (0000 passkey), and plug in your audio player with the included male-male cable. Switch it to Bluetooth mode and hold down the all-purpose button to turn on the device. Now, switch it to music mode and you'll be able to hear your music. When you get a call (I believe you hear the ring through the headset), just toggle it to Bluetooth mode to answer and toggle back to end the call.

The included alkaline is supposed to last through 10 hours of talk-time, or 500 hours in standby. Also included is a set of both stereo and mono earbuds.

I hope to post some pictures after I get home.

instruction manual

Into the memory hole

That's certainly an overly dramatic title, but the irony of my blogging situation in China is that I didn't have to use writely to post. I can directly access blogger.com. I don't get to see blogspot.com. No matter. I don't need to see what my blog looks like as I'm quite satisfied with my current template.

I can also see comments via the pings I get in email but can't respond to them. I'll leave off with some interesting pictures taken in the Walmart in Nanjing. <overdramatization>It broke my heart</overdramatization> to see the Walmart because in one fell swoop, it might put out of business tons of less efficient small grocers and other business owners. On the other hand, it was remarkable how modern, no... American, everything looked inside, from the familiar Walmart aisles and signs to the slick uniforms the associates had (red polo shirts with jeans and sneakers... most chinese wear actual shoes). Also on the brighter side, if you look past the business practices of Walmart, they certainly were very inspiring with the story of Walmart's success posted on the wall behind the registers, the incredible efficiency and the benefits to the consumer and the reverse pyramid management/leadership heirarchy poster where leaders support and serve associates. I'm not sure if I was just imagining the camraderie of being well-trained efficient synergistic parts of the Walmart family among the many many employees in various departments working inventory or manning the electronics department as many customers sat in folding chairs watching the cup.

Without further ado:

Several things of note:

• handheld inventory device with network adapter
• magnetic shopping cart on sloped flat escalator whatever they're called
• Vendor employees (note the Good Humor logo in one of the pictures) taking an active role in the store (saw several cleaning up demonstrations, a huggies employee walking around and a coke bottling employee stocking a fridge)
• a 'warehouse' backroom?
• french fries
• 16th strongest brand in China

This time's more for real

Contrary to what my previous post implied, I did have access to blogger up to and including right now. That was my way was saying that I'll be on vacation in China as I hear blogspot is inaccessible from China. However, as serious readers (?) already know, China's blacklisting, implemented by ISPs, is not consistently enforced. You can post stuff to Blogger through it's API (which is implemented in Writely) and access it via third-party feed aggregators such as Bloglines or Google Reader.

There are many ways of measuring activity during vacation. How many new foods did you try? How many friends did you meet? Insights gained (homogenous vs. multiracial society)? How many whatever. We of course, measure the worth of a vacation by the value of the souvenirs and unfortunately, while it's nice to buy gifts for people at home, I'm regretfully not in the practice of doing it. I only have a few more waking hours in Hong Kong (hello, cogito) so here's what I got for myself:

• The latest Naruto manga
• An electric airsoft g36 replica w/ essential accessories
• Some kubricks I'd been collecting (Special Forces and another part of the evangelion box sets)
• A naruto character figure (shikimaru)
• A tiny G3 rifle that dissassembled, fits in a small plastic suitcase
• 2 tiny gun replicas (beretta with moving slide and removeable magazine on display stand and another one made of metal)
• The latest Naruto manga

... on a neighbor's generously open wifi network

Will not have access to blogger for a while

Of course, there are plenty of ways to access Blogger vicariously, but we'll have to see. So long for now.

Fleet Week and another visit to the Apple Store

So some friends and I went to see the visiting navy ships at Pier 88 during Fleetweek yesterday (Memorial Day). There are some comments in the captions to the pictures but some things that weren't captured:

• The long line starting at 42nd street until 46th that proceeded rather quickly.
• The geography and number simon games we played
• Frantic finishing of food before the security checks.
• A nice submarine (orange) hanging off the back end of the HMS Scott.
• Pulling the trigger of an M16. Tip: Lean forward when shooting as assault rifle.

We also took the trek over the Apple store, a walk that spanned 7 avenues and 13 streets. When we left, I tried to press the button for the glass elevator that the spiral staircase winds around, but it didn't respond and didn't seem on. Well, here are the people that got stuck in it when it broke. I don't know if it'll be reserved for special needs people in the future, but maybe there should be a person limit enforced.

SOURCE: Trying not to offend via UNEASYsilence via TUAW

Subscribe to online calendars from MS Office 2007

Since I have my calendar online and published via Google Calendar, I'd like to see it in Outlook. Outlook will default you to a Office online website where you can learn more and subscribe to public calendars, but here's a more direct way:

1. Go to your calendars box in the left column, click the arrow next to whichever one you'd like to get the web address for and from the pop-up menu, click 'Calendar Settings'.
2. To get all the appointments, right/ctrl-click the orange-colord button that says ICS and copy the address/shortcut/URL.
3. Paste the address back into your browser's address bar and replace the protocol prefix from 'http://' to 'webcal://'.
4. Press enter or GO and choose to open the location with Outlook (or whatever calendar application you prefer).

I think this is more straightforward in iCal and SunBird.

Maybe it's a British/Canadian thing

When I refer to a company or a sports team or a collective group, I (and it seems most people) do it in the singular. The rationale is that Google is an entity, much more than the CEO, his board, and their employees. For example, if Google undergoes a merger with Sun Microsystems (not likely), Google undergoes one. Some people will say "Google undergo merger". That is one of my pet peeves. Now, today I read an article on Cricket in BBC where the West Indies team is mentioned as follows:

West Indies do not have any matches scheduled for the Queen's Park Oval at next year's World Cup.

However, when they refer to Google, they do it in the singular. What do you think? The most frequent annoyance appears in the form of "Microsoft are...".

The bigger they are the harder they fall

Yeah, you can just ignore this... it's about click fraud.

Before Google can actually become the next Microsoft, it has already become the first choice in criticism in any arena in which it’s ‘big’. As the popular saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. From the perspective of a Google investor, criticisms deserve attention. Obviously, Yahoo, Microsoft, and maybe Ask.com are viable competitors in the online search/advertising space. How well Google performs has everything to do with expanding advertising opportunities for publishers as well keeping people coming back to Google.com, advertising on which nets Google the majority of its revenue. A potentially bigger obstacle (but not one that is unique to Google) comes from the prospect that the recent click fraud settlement of 90 million dollars may not actually settle much. I don’t know who the original plaintiffs were, but companies like web hosting provider AIT are unsatisfied and are withdrawing themselves from the class, hoping to get a larger settlement or a ruling against Google.

FuckedGoogle.com, perhaps the most strident anti-Google blog, apparently has heard from inebriated Silicon Valley sources that the majority of Google's revenue growth is derived from such clicks. While Google takes steps to ban publishers who benefit from click fraud, the suits allege that Google has not been doing enough to stop fraudulent clicking. The blogger there goes as far as to claim that the majority of Google’s revenue growth comes from click fraud, implemented, for example, by bots that spread like viruses or malware. These bots would browse to sites and click on ads shown on the malware beneficiaries’ sites, earning them commission.

Even if Google was good at catching fraud, it’d be difficult if not impossible to detect sparse and distributed fraudulent clicks from bots on ads for expensive keywords like ‘asbestos’ (my friend says law firms buy such ads for as high as $50 a click) or let’s say ‘web hosting’. Since Google prices keywords on an auction system, highly contested ads will naturally be very expensive in order to be given top spots (and get clicks).

Surely, click fraud is nothing new and if anything, online advertising has come a long way in meeting the needs of advertisers. We’ve come a long way to Google’s brand of context relevant ads from the dot-com days of paid advertisement viewing (I got checks in the mail for keeping an ad bar open). I’m not trying to say that Google is blameless (although zombie computer owners surely share a large part of it with the bot writers and beneficiary publishers), but it is a pity that with the great progress we’ve made, Google is coming under fire for small segments of the market (albeit highly profitable).

Currently, advertisers are free to contest clicks and apply for refunds from Google. There is a market for fraud detection tools as well as alternative advertising options such as impression-based ads as opposed to click-based ads. In the end, I think it comes down to a matter of whether or not people believe advertising on Google helps companies achieve their goals and whether advertising in another medium or with another provider like MSN or Yahoo’s Overture is more efficient.

Office Word 2007 beta 2

I’m writing this on the beta version of Office Word 2007 and so far, I’m impressed with the new user interface. They’ve added a feature that I appreciate from OpenOffice that saves space where they show toolbars contextually. For example, if I create a chart, buttons relevant to charting are displayed as long as a chart has focus. They’ve also increased the relevance of the buttons as well as their accessibility with tabbed button panels grouped by function. The context-sensitive options appear as new tabs that have focus.

As far as not being able to find features, the most trouble I've had is with finding the file menu, but that has been prominently replaced by the circular office logo in the top left. Also, if you’re wondering where all the menus went, they don’t exist anymore, replaced by tool tray tabs that appear and disappear contextually.

Coolest feature asides from the UI? I’ve spent many hours playing with formatting in Office. First, they added font previews in the font list. Now, they’ve added live previews when you hover over formatting options.

A big annoyance is a strange conflict with Vongo, so if you use Starz's movie download service, you might have to rename the MSOXMLMF.dll file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12 just to be able to run it.

Free lunches

Posted this a while ago, but decided that it was somewhat weak. I'll post it anyway and see what happens: will people design their own UI elements or will they just use Google's?

In recent history, a number of companies have released free services or products. Google (nothing new) released a free and commercially usable AJAX framework that allows you to code your web-UI in Java (with or without eclipse) and convert it into mutiple browser compatible javascript and html files. Skype made calls to US and CA land and mobile lines free. Napster made its music service free. Each of these acts of generosity was motivated (or at least justified) by a not so obvious strategic decision.

1. Skype doesn't only charge its users to call out, it offers phone numbers where you can receive calls and accept voicemail. Allowing people to depend on the Skype service will lead to a lot more paying customers for long distance calls and incoming calls.
2. Google's release of the GWT or the Google Web Toolkit lets people take advantage of many Google web UI widgets. These are just like the kind Google uses and the more widely adopted they are, the easier and more intuitive Google's services (calendar, mail, etc.) that use the GWT become.
3. The idea for Napster is actually obvious, it's free for the first 6 listens to any song.

Apple Store Under Construction

The cost of these pictures was not being able to take any others on the trip. But, what will hopefully be finished on Friday, May 19th 2006:



I'm hoping to be able to see the products(?) to be announced on Thursday at the new Apple store on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in NYC (in front of FAO Schwartz). It is a dramatically compact structure relative to its magnificent surroundings, but it might have been a requirement of the FAO people that they keep the store small. Reasonable, but imagine the lines on opening day to get the free t-shirt.

UPDATE 1:05 PM EST 5/16/06: So now we know! The MacBooks were announced today (I realized this 4 hours too late.)

UPDATE 10:31 PM EST 5/18/06: Pictures of the finished and unveiled product found at TUAW. And they're giving away a MacBook an hour? Oh, and via that last link also, only the first 2500 get the t-shirt.

Search box wars

According to Forbes, Google has raised a red flag over the addition of a search box in Microsoft's new IE7 browser, warning government investigators of Vista to against the possibility of Microsoft using MSN as the default and the difficulty in switching to a different engine. As far as I know, IE7 leaves the decision of which search engine is actually used through the search box to the OEM (like Dell, HP or Lenovo). In the case of retail versions of Vista, customers who upgrade their own operating systems should be able to figure out how to customize their search engine.

On top of that, Google.com makes switching so easy for visitors of its home page by allowing you to automatically set Google as the default search engine. It's perfectly plausible for Google to pre-empt Microsoft, but I think Microsoft has covered their asses fairly well and have ensured that the box remains a field of search engine competition. I uninstalled it because of its bugginess, but if I'm not mistaken, Google was the default search engine in the beta version of Windows Internet Explorer. I'll reinstall and check again.

SOURCE: Forbes [via Google Finance]

UPDATE 10:36 PM EST: I was mistaken. The search engine choices were a relic from my previous installation, and by default, only MSN is offered. It is also harder to switch because there are no alternatives offered locally, but they are only two clicks away (one for the down arrow and two for Find More Providers...)

So ends another chapter

So after being president of the RUTTC for three straight years, we're finally going to have a change. I believe things are more organized now such that we'll be much better off. For starters, the new president Ethan is actually good enough to be on the varsity team and has the skill and greater pedagogical ability to back up his authority. At practice our VP and best player Adam organized a going away/graduation party for me with snack and drinks to which several members of the club contributed and I appreciated the gesture. What I didn't do was give any farewell statements or remarks and I think I should prepare something for next weeks practice which will be the last on my college career. I'm pretty excited about it as Adam asked our coach Chetan Baboor to give me a private lesson, but I'm also a bit hesitant as it might seem like hogging our coach.

Over the years I've met and befriended cool people, experienced so much enthusiasm, witnessed high levels of athleticism and improvement, and certainly made a lot of mistakes in my involvement in the table tennis club and I really plan to reflect on them and perhaps share what I hope is beneficial and motivating to the rest of the club next Saturday.

The Walmart Approach?

Will cheap LEGAL dvds that more accurately reflect the cost of distribution win out over similarly priced illegal DVDs? In China? Time Warner is trying to sell The Aviator in cardboard packaging for the equivalent of USD 1.50.

SOURCE: Gizmodo

Robert Jordan Get Well Project

Matalina over at Dragonmount is organizing a Get Well Talent Display campaign to keep Robert Jordan's spirits high as he undergoes his treatment for amyloidosis. The gist of it is to get as many people to contribute what they can to a website in the form of poetry, art, design, or anything creative and well-intentioned. Here's the project info. The deadline for submissions is May 11th. To find out more about Jordan's condition, read up on his personal blog.

I'm trying to figure out what I can contribute, but the best I can think of right now is an animated gif or a get well badge of some sort that includes a rel tag of some sort that can be traced by Technorati.

SOURCE: Dragonmount

Apple's outgrown its headquarters

Why does this news make me so happy? Not that this in and of itself would make them more likely to hire me, but according to Reuters, Steve Jobs announced to the city council of Cupertino that that Apple is building a new headquarters a mile away from the old one. Due to the company's tremendous growth in recent years, they've "rented every scrap of building [they] could find in Cupertino".

SOURCE: Reuters [via Google Finance]

Apple's earnings for Q2 beat expectations modestly. I don't have any apple stock in real life anymore, btw. Bonus, via TUAW, video of the initial iPod launch.

Keynote delivery tool

I came across this combined vibrating timer/slide advancer/laser pointer on Buy.com last week and I figured I would share it here because it's remotely Apple related. Its wireless adapter dongle slides out and is conveniently stored in the top of the device.

 

One thing essential to giving presentations like Steve is having a magical presentation tool like Steve's blue box.


Source: alt1040.com

One share one vote?

Today I received a proxy statement for Google's Annual Shareholder Meeting. The only thing I stumbled upon was this question:

STOCKHOLDER PROPOSAL TO REQUEST THAT THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS TAKE THE STEPS THAT MAY BE NECESSARY TO ADOPT A RECAPITALIZATION PLAN THAT WOULD PROVIDE FOR ALL OF THE COMPANY'S OUTSTANDING STOCK TO HAVE ONE VOTE PER SHARE.

According to Google's proxy statement, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt (founders and CEO) own only 25.5% of Google, Inc. (as of 3/17/06). Together with the rest of their Board of Directors, they own just under 30%. You won't see those percentages anywhere else, and even if you do, they'd carry as little weight as they do here because the triumvirate holds 84.8% of the special privately traded Class B stock. They are convertible into Class A stock for sale, but if held, they count 10 times as much as the Class A shares that you and I can buy on NASDAQ. I did some more arithmetic and figured that the combined vote of Larry, Sergey and Eric's Class A and B shares is equal to more than two thirds of any corporate vote. Since we know that the directors are recommending against the above proposal, barring Larry and Sergey (themselves directors) both voting for it, the probability of the above motion passing is zero.

Whether I say yes or no to the above question is clearly not going to make a difference and even if it did, it'd be 1 out of 1098435728. I'd like to put this in a bit of perspective, though. You know those people who paid 85 dollars for a share of Class A stock back in 2004? They all knew what they were getting themselves into because they were required to read the prospectus that made it all very clear in the first or second page.

First of all, unless I think the company's doing a terrible job, I don't see how people would change their minds about increasing their power to decide who serves on the board of directors. Second, their supply of Class B stock (which is can only be publicly traded as Class A) is disappearing with every conversion and subsequent sale as Class A stock. Larry and Sergey are unlikely to eternally hold this stock, and over the past 2 years, Larry and Sergey sold about 18% of their Class B stock. Thirdly, any fair recapitalization would probably involve either a conversion of the super shares into a greater number of regular shares thereby increasing the number of shares and potentially decreasing the price.

There were a number of other things that crossed my mind as I considered my choice. One of which was that if we can't trust people make decisions about who would best run a search company, how can we trust them to make decisions about who to run our countries? Didn't Google recently kowtow to China and give in to the Communist government (I happen to think that exposing more of our information economy to more people is good, btw)? These issues aren't exactly analagous due to the distinctions between a corporation and a polity. Corporations are at the mercy of consumers. The shareholders control the corporation by virtue of property rights, because they either started the company (Larry and Sergey) or the chose to pay for a part of it (Class A shareholders). We can choose who we give our patronage. We don't have to use Google. In contrast, we are all citizens of our respective countries, in my case, the United States. No one can buy and I can't (and won't) sell my citizenship. But, I sure as hell (well, sure as heck) can sell my share in Google.

Essentially, Google is not a completely publicly owned company and I'm assuming few are. I don't presume to know a lot about finance, but having read what Google's asked its shareholder to read, I agree with their recommendation.

Google's serious about Calendar

Finally, after the initial speculation over a year ago, Google's Calendar application is live. Considering that it's been in development for over a year, this is certainly something that wasn't made using someone's 20% time (it's definitely not in Google Labs) and is a core feature. I'm waiting to try the Gmail integration where it detects events in emails and lets you add them to your calendar. I just wish this was out earlier.

Let's just say my next PC will be a Mac

Great, now Apple will be even harder to resist with Bootcamp. It even lets you burn all the Windows drivers for presumable every Intel Mac.

SOURCE: Forbes [via Google Finance]

Naked Day and the word persons

If my site looks weird, it's because it's Naked Day. I hope it's not too much of an eyesore. Naked Day is to web standards as fasting is to food. Now if only this site's compliance with web standards actually validated, right?

The other topic of this post, is the word persons. I finally appreciate the use of the word (or so I thin me if I'm wrong) to refer to several distinct individuals as opposed to the use of the word people to refer to a group of people or several groups of people.

SOURCE: CSS Insider

Three birthdays

So, this weekend marked several things. I'll mention them not in order of priority, but of occurrence. I went to Swarthmore with my debate partner Marielle for our last collegiate debate tournament. We had a pretty good time and were even able to come back the same day. It's no longer ambiguous whether I'm to be classified (by virtue of tournaments attended) as a novice or varsity debater. I really will miss the tournaments.

Next, I noticed that Gmail had put up a birthday logo with confetti and a candle. I originally thought it was in honor of Apple's 30th, but it it just occurred to me that it's Gmail's birthday as well, since the product was announced on 4/1/04.

Now, the most significant celebration, one that's been deferred by our part of his circle for almost a month, is my friend Jehangir's birthday. We had hibachi at Benihana, and watched our food being cooked in front of us along with a good amount of culinary-implement flourishes and rhythms, vegetarian offenses and a bottle of sake.

I think it may have been the first group organizing efforts I've undertaken and it was largely successful due to help in regards to transportation, ideas, and implementation. I might update this post later.

less

more

Thanks, Greg, btw for the birthday cake picture link.

Not so lucky this time

So, um... despite getting warned by JP about gambling, I went to Atlantic City again (last last Tuesday 3/14) with a friend from high school. I'm not sure how this trip ended up being planned, but it started way back at the beginning of the semester when we reminisced about old times, particularly my birthday party during 1st grade at which he was one of two guests. Well, I don't remember whether I blogged about my first riskafilic experiences in Atlantic City, but I was lucky enough to leave up 20 bucks. This was helped by the fact that none of the other people with me were interested in gambling and I was able to stop after only 3 hands of blackjack.

But, while the goal of the last trip had been more to enjoy the increasingly rare company of friends, this trip was driven by aspirations of debauchery. No, that wasn't serious, but for example, instead of spending an hour and a half arguing about where to eat dinner last time, Pat and I spend 20 minutes looking for video blackjack. Instead of going to Wawa's to get some refreshments, we were served beverages at the table. The drink of the night was Vodka 7-up, however, recognize that I only had one of these. We did meet up with KK who lives in AC and persisted the tradition of always eating at Sharon Zheng II's buffet, however. Traditions are nice.

On the way back, we did spend a significant amount of time looking for Dunkin' Donuts and we saw no less than 5 Wawas on the same road. All in all, I learned some rules about blackjack, had a great time, and got to know my old friend a little better. I also found out that I'd prefer to lose 100 dollars on gambling for hours over losing it on CREAF (true story) over a couple of weeks. Of course, in the long term, it's a different story. GOOG is doing ok right now.

In the vein of casino outings.

Whoops

And I tried so hard during lunch :/

The Stanford Conspiracy

There seems to be a rumor that Google is going to buy Sun. [Some think it's a conspiracy to boost Sun's stock price, but that could be illegal and it wouldn't be so high profile]. This speculation isn't totally ungrounded or new, because rumors of Sun and Google being in cahoots go back (perhaps further) to a highly anticipated press conference back in October that disappointed a lot of people (including me) who were expecting something like Google selling Sun workstations to access the Google OS. What they did end up agreeing to do is cooperate in driving up adoption of Google Toolbar and Sun's Java Runtime Environment over the course of a multi-year partnership. Now, you can read up on what signs point to a merger or aquisition or more tight cooperation, or read up on why it's just hype. What I want to do is to explore how their cultures are aligned.

Google's had some experience in acquiring companies (see a surprisingly long list here). It's usually more like them acquiring smart people who produced fantastic stuff. The big names I can remember are Blogger (way back in 2003), Dodgeball, Picasa, KeyHole, and now @Last. Many times, it didn't seem like the products really aligned with Google's typical web-based ones, especially Picasa and KeyHole's Google Earth precursor. The one thing that remained extremely important, however, was the cultural fit. Google's culture is that of competence/intelligence/innovation (see what they're doing to make sure this doesn't change). They also like to think of themselves as having a small company feel where employees are highly resourceful and independent (20% of the time they manage themselves and work on their own projects). This matches the qualities of many of their acquisitions, which had one or two products each. That also makes for an easy transition to the GooglePlex.

I can't imagine Google [just taking Sun] and just merging them into the GooglePlex, despite having many times the market capitalization of Sun. Sun is in 100 countries and it really would be a headache. However, their cultures are not all that different. From a financial analysis report quoted in the pro-merger post, Sun and Google have a lot more in common and posit that Google's existence can be traced back to Sun, which is in turn traced back to the Stanford University Network or S.U.N. Company. Google's founders are Ph.D. students of Stanford University who have been "on leave". Stanford, which has a great reputation of putting out strong technology innovators owns a sizeable chunk of Google because the technology is technically being licensed from them, having been originally conceived by its students. Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, who at one point, ran Sun's Java development as CTO (btw, Sun's CEO recently announced his resignation, seemingly satisfied at completing a milestone in Sun's history). According to vault.com, Sun's culture is that of individualism where employees are expected to "take initiative, make decisions, and be creative in solving problems." This sounds like the typical Stanford graduate.

The standard intuition regarding mergers is that the buying company's stock price falls and the company being picked up sees a rise. It seems the case based on very rough estimates. Google's price has dropped around 15% since a February 23 article sparked interest. Sun is worth about 16 billion to Google's now 100 billion. Of course, there is all that click fraud controversy, with the settlement and worries of more trouble down the line, the slowing of Google's growth statement by Google's CFO. It's fun to think about a Stanford conspiracy, though, and it's not hard to understand where the rumors come from.

Other Stanford people (not surprising): Vint Cerf graduated from Stanford and is now Google's Chief Internet Evangelist. Half the members of Google's Management Team have a very obvious relationship to Stanford and Eric (through SUN) and Vint (undergrad) don't even have Stanford in their descriptions so maybe there's even more. Of course, Yahoo's founders Jerry Yang and David Filo are Stanford alumni along with Steve Balmer, but that doesn't mean much.

UPDATED 12:43 PM, 11:57 PM

You, too, can be a hacker

If you're using Ubuntu Breezy (5.10) and haven't upgraded packages since Sunday, do it as soon as you can. Digg reported the fix for a flaw that allows any user to read the root password from an installation log file found here: /var/log/installer/cdebconf/questions.dat

SOURCES: Digg and Digg

Time Machine: Rough times ahead for GOOG?

Institutional shareholders losing faith in Google?

Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Jennison Associates have each dumped roughly 35 percent of their entire holdings of Google stock. Alliance Capital Management has sold 13 percent of their stake, and Wellington Management has unloaded 18 percent of their shares.

It's not like they liquidated the majority of their holdings, but I thought I should pass this along. FYI, I'm still holding on to my one share of Google stock (but for how long?)

SOURCE: FuckedGoogle [via Xooglers [via Digg]]

drafted @ 4:23 AM 3/12

Gluttony tempered with courtesy

I don't like finishing good food. If there's a piece left, I'll slice it in half. This can naturally be repeated many times. My sister played a trick on me she convinced me that I eaten the last piece of brownie when in fact I'd left a very small piece she caused to disappear. It's good to know there are many like us out there with at least good intentions.

SOURCE: Slashfood

I dreamed a dream

So I had a dream today that my friend and I met Steve Jobs somewhere (blasted details leaking out of my skull) and he talked to us about a new Apple product. Conscious of the fact that it seemed like I had become privy to insider information that might be just what Apple needed to boost it's lagging stock price, I conquered the temptation to deal in insider trading. He then asked us to help him do the product demo/announcment! Steve seemed like a nice guy and I just wish I remembered what product it was... I think it was something to do with wireless.

Not that it would matter what I dreamt up, but I thought it was a pretty exciting concept.

Everyone sin a

Every once in a while, I have something interesting to say. This isn't one of them.

Everyone sin a wildeye halve sum thingie enter ass tint oh say. The cistern ton oft hem.

iTunes offers shows in bulk

Would you pay 63 cents an episode to stock up your fifth generation iPod? Betanews calls it a subscription, but this is essentially the same as buying albums of songs at 9.99[.] except you get to choose which 16 shows to buy and the pass presumably doesn't expire (certainly not at the end of the month). It's a natural extension of Apple's business model of letting you buy content in contrast to renting it.

SOURCE: BetaNews

UPDATE 4:38 PM EST: I am so dense. Betanews is right. Apple doesn't call it one, but what they're offering is a subscription in it's time-tested sense and is not a subscription service like Vongo or Napster.

UPDATE 10:33 PM EST: They're also offering seasonal subscriptions. [via Digg]

Strange resemblances

It's a pretty strange coincedence that my background picture looks strikingly familiar to elements in this Penny Arcade comic from 1999 (one is a little harder to notice). I found it via a comment here for the most recent switch-related comic in which Gabe tastes the forbidden fruit. The corresponding news post promises a very tangible analysis to come on Monday as to why the Mac platform is so appealing.

It is extremely good at what it does, which is to say, exposing functionality.

Now, that's a much better was of saying "Macs are easy to use" and more. Let's see what Tycho has to say on Monday.

SOURCE: TUAW

This was going to be big

Last night I read a digg headline stating that ABC's Shows Will Be Free on iTunes. Then I read that Apple will be launching a movie subscription service so it hit home even more. But, alas, it was all a misunderstanding.

Now as per Apple's existing record, they don't release bad products [the mac mini and macbook are only recent incarnations of older products so let's not talk about them right away...]. If they do something, it's with flare. Take the video downloads. They don't just offer a video-capable iPod, they get Disney and Pixar on the boat to provide content in a way that's never been done before and sell the most popular show on TV. The FM tuner accessory? They release something that's thin, light, and has RDS. So when is Apple going to sell movies? When they can do it the best. That data center in Newark won't hurt.

BTW, doesn't the origami look like an OQO with higher resolution? Who bought an OQO? Unfortunately, I'm not the first to say it.

Sometimes I think all I can do is repost stuff from elsewhere. It's because when I'm on the computer, I can post stuff before forgetting :-/ <-updated to be compatible with Google Talk/Gmail Chat.

UPDATE 9:32 PM EST 3/4/06: I've got some following up to do regarding these topics. The origami might be a software platform running on Intel's Ultra Mobile PC since it looks right and will be announced the day after the UMPC debut. Makes sense. So it's a Intel-based OQO instead of a transmeta-based OQO. But, there's this 2.2 lb Centrino-based tablet from Motion Computing. More hints that iTunes will sell movie subscriptions: a market analysis survey (not something they do a lot of it seems, if it was them).

iPod Hifi gets B grade in a review at iLounge, but a 4.5/5 from PC Mag, and Creative is launching a video store a day before Apple's birthday? Darn, can't find the source of this, but probably digg. And finally, one last mac link before the next post: Anandtech thinks imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (regarding the mac mini). I disagree with the concept. When you imitate, someone may get the impression that you admire them, but your well-being is certainly not the motivation.

Hectic weekends

The past two weekends have been hectic and have been rather troublesome, but here's a part of it. As well as this, this, part of this, and this.

In case you missed it in the links above, I tried sake! I also got confirmation that everything they say here is true!

Thanks, Dave for the link.

Smaller is now more expensive

Mac mini with Intel Core now $100 more with 64 MB integrated graphics (that does support Core Graphics) and front row. Google announces slower growth. Apple also releases a nice big iPod accessory called iPod Hifi equipped with the universal dock, integrated power supply and battery operation for $349.

SOURCE: Macrumors.com

Thanks, number 14

I lost a bunch of stuff today. Here's what I didn't lose that wouldn't have been nice: iPod, key generator, phone, bluetooth headset, napsack with laptop, pocket pc, um... paycheck. Yes, I couldn't resist an opportunity to do that pretty weird enumeration. Think of it as crude materialistic thanksgiving.

Someone found it near a class building and had a friend call me up letting me know where I could pick it up. Since I heard our past realtor getting mugged and forced to divulge pin numbers, etc, I asked my roommate to come along and he generously did. When we did arrive, I gave a holler as instructed (no doorbell) and a girl opened the door. I got to meet the person who found the wallet as well as the guy who called me up. They refused the 20 my roommate offered them as finders compensation and asked that I do the same for someone else. I gladly accepted the condition and went back home. I treated my roommate to a milkshake for his time and patience, ate my favorite turkey and pepperoni sub and have been procrastinating ever since!

Here's what I still lost: souvenir from Bloomberg interview visit (my keychain/lanyard), computer case key, two sets of keys = 4, a totally unimportant slashcard, and um... 60 bucks for replacing one set. No, that would not be the first time in the past 4 months I've lost my keys.

BTW, the #14 refers to the good samaritan's house number on unnamed street. The actual number was changed to preserve the anonymity of its residents.

SOURCE: I could've made this up but it'd just be sad.

Google, China, and Censorship

The Google side of the Google.cn story has more than you think. Plus, older Communist party members take the moral high ground when speaking out against censorship, namely against the shutdown of a news magazine for an article criticizing the way textbooks portray the government as infallible:

History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance

I learned a lot of things I didn't know from Google's testimony before Congress. For example, the Chinese government[, through individual ISPs, ]has been filtering Google.com for years, making the site slow and unusable and driving users to search engines that are self-censoring, or redirecting it to these sites which doubtlessly had indexed less information.

Also, I saw proof of what my Students for a Free Tibet friend first told me--that in the least, Google.cn (which complements the sporadically available Google.com) makes an effort to inform its users that what they're getting isn't the complete picture--that results have been filtered. The following is displayed at the bottom of every page of censored results:

据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示

It translates into, "In accordance with local laws, regulations, and policies, portions of these search results have not been shown." This is not trivial, as it's not displayed for normal queries like "cats". They still With Google, as opposed to other major search engines, people might at least be heartened to see at least a shadow of the truth with hope that at least it is out there. That, in addition to all the other content available in the internet.

SOURCE: Googleblog and digg

A funny thing happened on the way to the dining hall

I'll admit that I don't always use my bluetooth headset as makes me somewhat self-conscious. However, due to it's 3-meter range, it's very convenient to use when roaming about the apartment doing things. Asides from it's intended purpose, the bluetooth connect also acts as an invisible tether or homing device if you will.

On the way to the dining hall [yesterday], in an attempt to slip it into my coat pocket, I dropped it straight through and apparently into the snow. When I turned on my headset and got no response, however, I realized that I no longer had my phone on me. I retraced my steps and when I was back in range, was able to voice dial my dad and ask him to call back and make my phone ring so I could locate it.

Now, I didn't actually hear it ring, but after a few more steps, I saw it peaking out of the snow. Now, it would've worked if I'd shut off the headset and avoid the ring from being bypassed to my headset, but that's a lesson learned for another day.

Revised and formerly titled: "On the virtues of..." bluetooth headsets

Lets step on a few more toes

Now, even Google has beat Microsoft to the release of widgets.
Here's a similar heap of Yahoo! Widgets:

No point in trying to do anything

My Gmail server sucks. I tried both tips (only one was possibly helpful).

UPDATE 11:42 PM EST 2/15/06: This situation has been resolved. I still have no invitations, though.

"That volume can't be good for your ears"

That's exactly what I said to one of the guys on the bus unknowingly sharing his music with the everyone else. From personal experience, listening to music using the out of the box headphones just doesn't work when you're competing with the noise from the bus's engine. And, what did the guy say in response after maintaining eye contact for the entire length of my statement? Nothing.

Although that certainly wasn't the first time someone's ignored me, it was the first time I witnessed the "I know you're talking to me but I can't hear you so I'll just ignore you" phenomenon.

SOURCE: Commuting between campuses

Now we're talking

So, wondering how Google was going to make money on Google Talk? They can now put Google Ads unobtrusively next to your chat history as they've added a Chats view in Gmail so you can search and revisit your old conversations from anywhere (except China?). What easier way to capitalize on IM than this. Now, if they just recorded the voice chats as well...

What if you don't want to save your conversation? Go off the record. Don't want to (or can't) download Google Talk? Chat right in Gmail! Ok... that was all very excessive, especially for something that would become immediately apparent to anyone who uses Gmail. Just to reiterate, the point of this blog post was to point out how Google was going to finally make money from Google Talk. Also, here's a new logo with talk tucked in right under Gmail.

SOURCE: Gmail

UPDATED 2:08 AM EST

The beauty of Akamai

Students at my school are limited to a small number of GBs of external bandwidth. Luckily, we have an Akamai cache server on our network that stores, among countless other data, Vongo video content. That means, I can download any number of videos via my subscription service at very high speeds and not worry about blowing my limit. Moral of the story? Not sure... maybe I'm just bragging.

I'm in

Ok, so since Google missed expectations by about 12%, I bought a single share at about 12 percent less of Wednesday's starting price, about 300 dollars above it's initial price... Here's to growth! I'll sell at 361.

UPDATE 2/13/06 12:40 PM EST: So my foresight to just sell wasn't enough. I was tempted to buy it back afterwards, but forgot that since I only had one share, the eventual 33 in commissions didn't justify selling at 361 and buying back at even a slightly lower price, much less selling again : / So I'm holding one share with no profits in sight.

Count your deductions

Ever wonder why you never got that Tax Statement for donating through the Amazon Honor System? Well, if you said yes, you won't get get it because it's not really meant for charitable giving. Not that there isn't a reason to donate, even if there are other avenues. First, it's easy. Just log in and boom. Second, you can unpay within 7 days. You just might want that tax credit is all. Just FYI.

Typical pragmatism

I wouldn't have waited for a Firefox version to announce the new Google Toolbar which has tons of new features, but just so you don't get prematurely excited like me, it's only for Internet Explorer (Windows 2000/XP).

SOURCE: Google Blog (first reported in the Wall Street Journal).

Trends among college students

Facebook, a social networking website for college and separately for high school students, is the 51st most visited site based on a weekly average (Alexa says it's currently the 38th most popular English-language site). Although less relevant to the meat of this post, it also gets about 1.5 billion pageviews a dayit gets .15% of all web traffic, or about twice that of nytimes.com.


They've been doing something interesting, along with captivating the attention of millions of college students and garnering funding from CIA-linked sources, which is to track trends among student preferences for movies, music, books, affiliations, etc. Now take a look at this:


The left side is the Top 10 for my east coast public school and the right side is for the all students on facebook. If you're confused, look at #2 and #10. I'm not shocked, but am slightly disappointed that the "most students are conservative" meme is probably true or at least that most politically active partisan youths are. It also makes me want to say that I'm non-partisan, but progressive (in other words, not Republican). Of course, it could be the CIA trying to convince people that conservativism is mainstream. You know, sometimes I think it's easier for me to rationally agree with Republicans, but there's always an unexplainable reason in my mind as to why Democrats have to be on the right side of the aisle.

SOURCE: Facebook | Pulse

This one's for the logo

I doubt anyone really comes here for Apple news, but some happenings:

Apple's holiday quarter earnings were higher than ever with 14M iPods sold and over 1.25M Macs sold. Unfortunately, they saw a drop in Mac orders before their announcements at MacWorld so they're lowering their forecast. We saw this type of language after they announced their transition to Intel, but it was to little surprise that it made no dent in sales. If anything, shouldn't sales increase because Intel-based computers represent a really large jump in performance for the average consumer? Their forecast is a little below what it was for the holiday quarter, which they of course blew out of the water.

Even though the iTunes mini store (recommendations based on the currently playing song) could be turned off, Apple now has turned it off by default to appease those with privacy concerns, even after Apple claimed that it didn't store what songs users were playing.

Speaking of privacy, Google was actually the only major search engine not to open its search data to the federal government. It refused to do so since October and now the administration is asking a federal court to force it to comply with a law concerning access to pornography by minors. As if we needed another reason to like Google. By the way, if anyone missed it, Google, Inc. now has a lobbying presence at the Capitol. See 'Google Goes to Washington'. I knew there was a reason why Mr. Smith Goes to Washington caught my eye.

Back to Apple, the mini-controversy over Apple's Intel commercial went from Intel distancing itself from Apple's claim in it that PCs were boring to the video's obvious resemblance to a music video produced for Postal Service. Their[The band's] publisher later revealed that the producers were the same for both videos. [+]

[-]

Leeched straight from Apple because, hey, it's a commercial. Requires Quicktime.



SOURCE: Mac Rumors

1. Intel: Our other customers aren't boring [via Digg]
2. Another Apple Ad Ripoff? See Such Great Heights [use IE, via TUAW]
3. False Alarm: Same Directors Behind Apple Intel Ad/Music Video

Vicariously be at Macworld for the Jobs Keynote

Automatic updating: MacRumors.com - Macworld San Francisco 2006 Live Updates

Non-automatic updating:

• Engadget
• MacWorld Keynote Live
• TUAW Macworld 06 Keynote Chatcast Extravaganza
• CNET: Live from Macworld

SOURCE: Digg (for first link)

CES Trends

There seem to be a lot in common among products announced around CES time. Here are some I've noticed:

• Using E-ink for things that don't refresh often. No backlight, flickering, and super realistic, low battery consumption
  • Sony's Reader
  • SD cards with e-ink
  • USB keys with e-ink: Lexar JumpDrive Mercury
• Players that look like the nano but may or may not play video along with audio.
  • Sandisk Sansa that plays videos! Too bad they won't play Vongo. Neither will the Zen Vision:M nor obviously the newest iPod.
  • Samsung's YP-Z5
• Portable satellite radio + MP3 players. Apple's got to compete with these when they release whatever they're releasing at Macworld later this month. Killer feature: discover and bookmark new music while listening to your favorite satellite radio station and then download it from Napster (unlimited subscription).
  • Pioneer's Inno XM2go
  • Samsung's Helix XM2go
  • XM Passport "sim card" that lets you take around your XM credentials
• Wireless webcams
  • Linksys WVC54GC-UK
  • Creative's Live! Wireless Web Camera
• Skype phones
  • Creative's Skype Internet PhonePLUS
  • Netgear's Wifi Phone
  • More...

Um... I give up. Others I'd include are video download services (Urge, Vongo, Google, and others). All of a sudden, the CE space seems awfully crowded. As I've said before, the Apple brand will only triumph as other devices compete each other to death using features. This would be bad, of course, as I no longer own Apple stock, and, instead, have shares of Creative. Speaking of Apple, Apple doesn't seem like it wants to restock the 1 GB shuffle. Are they replacing it?

That took 45 minutes... :/

UPDATE 5:17 PM EST: April Fools Jokes? Google releasing Norton Antivirus and RealPlayer in a bundle with Picasa, etc? Quantum Memory?

UPDATE 6:08 PM EST: Ok... maybe it's not so surprising that Google would do something like this. At least the apps in the screenshot are stuff that everyone would install on Windows, not to mention that you have a choice in what you install. Think mainstream people. Let's not forget that Google is not only progressive, but realistic. And super corny.

UPDATE 7:28 PM EST: Full list of Google Pack software...