Will all the talk going around about how “going green” is a fad due to media saturation and its status as pretty much a buzz word, I started thinking about how environmentalism affects technology. Are they mutually exclusive? While the very essence of the green lifestyle is natural, technology is its polar opposite. It is man made, created and unnatural.
You see them several times a year. They stand in lines for hours. They shell out hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars at a time. And what do they walk away with? The latest piece of technology, of course. But they also walk away with envious stares boring into their backs. “They” are the early adopters. And if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of them, too. (Initiates secret club handshake).
I have always loved Craig Ferguson, I suppose I have the same fascination with him as I would have with a drunken monkey. Although I’m aware he has laid off the booze, he still has that permanent drunken monkey syndrome. Well today he gained even more of my respect after I saw the video about him commenting on GTA IV.
He readily admits that he hasn’t played a whole lot of recent video games including Grand Theft Auto IV, and he makes several references about Pacman as well as Donkey Kong. All in all, he makes quite a bit of sense and doesn’t bash on GTA IV for the amount of violence it holds. He actually believes it is up to the parents to monitor what their children play.
Android phones are starting to slowly come out of the woodwork with no official production ready models being announced yet. However there is an event in London involving HTC on May 6th, a company that vowed to release the first Android phone. They are also known for making some of the best Windows Mobile handsets that are on the market. So the question is, how does Microsoft feel about this, and more specifically, how will manufacturers like HTC keep the peace within their own companies?
It just wouldn’t make sense for mobile phone manufacturers like HTC to make the exact same phone twice just offering your choice of Android or Windows Mobile, it would kind of be nice, but exclusive handsets tipped to one OS or the other are what really moves units. For example, would the XPERIA X1 be such a big deal if it wasn’t running the next generation of Windows Mobile software? Maybe, but I’d guess not.
Now kids, it’s time to play good idea, bad idea. Good idea, playfully attempt to get your girlfriend to do a slightly dirty task by holding her iPod for ransom then giving it back as soon as she gives you, the look. Bad idea, stealing an iPod from a female classmate and holding it for actual ransom until she makes a dirty video for you.
That’s right; you can now get a thin-client in a mobile form. It doesn’t have a hard drive per se, but rather a 1GB flash drive that can hold the Windows XPe OS and maybe a few other apps, likely just the ones necessary to access the remote apps.
According to a new patent filed by Apple, the company is considering applying some software to your iPod that will gradually turn down the volume at which you listen to your iPod for you. Sure it’s for your safety, but when you pay for a product, you don’t want the company’s software coming in and saying you’ve had it on max volume for too long.
I rarely have reason to crank my iPod Touch above about 50% volume provided I am using one of my good sets of headphones, heck, provided I am using headphones at all. I have a few devices that I connect my iPod to via the headphone jack that give me better audio if I crank up the volume on the iPod to 100%, that doesn’t mean I am listening to my iPod at 100% of the volume, what about then?
Sure, you can go deaf from listening to your iPod too loud for too long, and Apple has implemented optional measures for those too dumb to turn it down before they go deaf, but implementing mandatory measures such as these just to keep from getting sued is dumb. Especially if Apple is going to continue supplying crappy ear buds with their players that require you to crank up the volume to get any semblance of sound quality.
So the people at Palm were kind enough to send me their latest Bluetooth headset offering, the Series 3, for review. I have had it for about 2 weeks and I have been using it a lot, primarily with my Helio Fin, but I paired it with the Centro I have here too.
It works amazingly well. I truly was impressed, I have a Jawbone sitting around here, and the Palm, in my opinion, worked better than it. Part of that was due to the fact that the Palm headset has easy to use buttons, where as with the Jawbone I had to nearly drive the damn thing into my skull.
Lovely, beardy Walt Mossberg – whom I know many of you consider to be a figurative uncle – unleashes a barnstormer of a piece today that turns the unpleasantly bright light of truth onto the Machiavellian US cellphone carriers. Walt, frustrated by the lack of network openness and tight stranglehold on the mobile market, calls for government intervention to force AT&T, Verizon and the rest to not only play nice with the consumer but to cooperate with third-party suppliers of software and hardware that, traditionally, have had great problems getting their products seen by the consumer.
Video of the Vandyke Vixen after the cut…
SlashGear Japan
MobileMe – Why It Makes Me Angry and Hopeful
By Brenda Stokes on Thursday, Jul 24th 2008 No CommentsSo with MobileMe, I was pretty excited. It offered a convenient way to connect all of my junk (as I call it) and since I already had a .mac account, this was a no brainer. Of course when .mac switched to Mobile Me, all the images on my website disappeared, but that’s an entirely different story…
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