talking innovation
Archive for January, 2010
Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is Bulls**t,: Apple’s Steve Jobs
Jan 31st
One of the few times that I will agree with Steve Jobs: Google IS EVIL.
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On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
No Camera = iPad FAIL
Jan 28th
Sorry but its true. What is it with Steve Jobs and his ability to release products which are mostly cool but crippled in some horrible way? Like the iPhone not multitasking, or supporting copy and paste in its first iteration, or the iPad not having even ONE camera. WTF I say. Just wait folks. don’t be the first one out to buy the first cool this he puts out – it will get better and fairly soon as well.
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Let's face it – the camera has become an integral part of our Web experience. We post pictures of beautiful sunsets to share with friends on TwitPic and we post videos of our kids dancing to James Brown on Facebook. And when we aren't putting video or pictures on the Web, our friends are. They stream live video on Ustream of the concert we had to miss because we had work the next morning.
Apple Creates ST:TNG PADD?
Jan 26th
Just wait until the tablet is launched. Anyone remember the Newton? Great example of being too early. Question is: if the tablet is just a bigger iPhone, who really needs it? Me, of course. The Apple Tablet is simply the PADD from Star Trek: Next Generation come to life. I NEED that 
Apple's holiday quarter was especially sweet thanks to strong iPhone and Macintosh computer sales, sending shares higher Tuesday.
via My Way News – Apple rockets to most profitable quarter ever.
FUNCTIONALL
Jan 26th
As we wanted to keep things straightforward and hands-on this month, were highlighting “FUNCTIONALL”. Which is all about a new breed of products that are simple, small and/or cheap with a dash of sustainability, giving them global appeal, from India to Sweden. Now, if that doesnt warrant a brainstorming session…
via trendwatching.coms February 2010 Trend Briefing covering “FUNCTIONALL”.
Augmented Reality Event
Jan 19th
This may be an interesting conference. Personally would love to see more devices which can augment reality properly. iPhones and other smartphones are pretty small windows on the world. Perhaps the new Apple tablet will be a better job of it.
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Augmented Reality Event (ARE), the first global event dedicated to advancing the business of augmented reality, announced today that the inaugural event will be held at Santa Clara Convention Center, June 2 – 3, 2010. The activities will be kicked off by a highly anticipated keynote from the “augmented reality prophet,” world-renowned author, futurist, editor and critic, Bruce Sterling.
Free Speech and Google or China? A Toss Up
Jan 19th
So in terms of actually killing and imprisoning people, China does come out on top. If that’s the scale you use. However, when you are talking about free speech, I’d say that both China and Google have a lot of ‘splaining to do.
Google is so far deep into the pockets of this administration, that they have been shown to censor or degrade in the search results any anti-Obama discussion or videos posted to YouTube (one of their companies). Plus even though their motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, they still have a database tracking your every move. And when their CEO comes out and actually says “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
So you are telling me that privacy is over in the Google Era?
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Google Inc. is enjoying an avalanche of good will because of its threat to leave China over e-mail hacking attacks against dissidents.
Does the Internet giant deserve the praise?
via Google Search Engine’s Future in China Is Unclear – NYTimes.com.
Star Trek Online: First Impressions
Jan 18th
As a total and complete trekkie – yes, I remember watching TOS way back when I was a kid, I was pretty excited to hear that there was a MMO set in the Star Trek universe in the works. Having watched every series – and yes I include the animated series as well – remember when Uhura ran the ship? – including Enterprise (yes, I know), I thought, how could they possibly keep to the mythos of Star Trek in an MMO.
Well I have to say that its pretty good – it works. From what little I’ve seen of it, its pretty cool, from both the ship battle and away team views. The tutorial puts you through both situations.
- First you build your character. Nothing new here, just like Warcraft or any other MMO, except you do have a choice of races and you can create your own, but most of them are still humanoid
- Then you name him/her and your ship
- Then you are thrust into a few missions, first beaming over to a ship attacked by the Borg, then a ship battle or two, then a rescue mission, then another ship battle, then you are promoted and then its on to free play
I’d say that the graphics are pretty good, having played on two systems, one better powered than the other. The slower system was still playable, but some of the resolution suffered. Still early days yet, not ready to plonk down for a monthly fee, but theres still 2 weeks in the beta for me to make that decision.
Oh boy does it have bugs though. First, really tough to log in, get kicked out at the login and character creation a lot over and over – they say on the news that they are working to add new servers etc but I mean really, they should have realized that with a franchise like Star Trek that they would have huge demand.
Star Trek Online is produced by the same group that did City of Heroes, while a decent MMO, does not have the draw of this one. They should have taken their server estimates and increased them by at least one order of magnitude.
Funniest bug: sometimes, your ship appears where you should be, and you appear where your ship should be. So there you are, walking around deep space, or a mini version of your ship appears in the mess hall, tooling around on thrusters. It rights itself eventually, but its pretty funny while you are seeing it happen.
More to come…
5 Ideas I Came Up With In The Shower
Jan 7th
A colleague of mine said the other day – not jokingly – that he comes up with 5 new ideas every day while in the shower – so i thought: I can do that: Here’s today 5 new ideas:
- Weight Loss Idea 1 – a scale which never shows an increase in weight. Normally, when you step on a scale, it will report your current weight. For those who are on a diet, seeing that weight go back up – even if its a normal fluxuation, will get very discouraged and possibly stop dieting. This scale checks your current weight against your last recorded weight and simply shows the lower figure.
- Weight Loss idea 2 – a scale like the above, but which reports a lower weight every week, whether you lose weight, gain weight, or stay the same. This scale will decrement your reported weight by .5 of a pound, or whatever you lost since last time. Again, showing progress keeps the dieter on track
- A Sugar Burger: take two things which taste great and put them together. Take a hamburger and coat with brown sugar, then pan fry in butter
- An unhealthy vegan burger – but one that tastes awesome. Why do all vegan things have to taste bad and/or be healthy for you. Why not a Vegan Sugar Burger!?
- A conditioner exuding hairbrush. Hair in a knot? Hard to style? This hairbrush has leave-in conditioner inside it, and can release it into your hair at the press of a button.
What do you think? Good ideas?