Author Archives: feeling entropy

I have this ingranted action of wiping my phone’s screen on my clothing right after I make or take a phone call. My greasy face always leaves a nice thin blurry film on the screen. There’s no remedy to this problem, but Phillips decided to add to my greasy screen syndrome by making a touch screen flip phone. The phone features a 1.3MP camera, 11MB of storage, a swivel screen, and a pretty white enclosure. There’s no Bluetooth or infrared which makes sharing photos rather difficult. I like the fact it has a stylus, but am not sure what it’s for. I think that Phillips has the looks down, but the functionality is lacking a bit on this baby. This doesn’t get the LD approved branding, but maybe four or five models down the road this puppy will be h-o-t.

I was chatting with a friend about the Apple decision to partner up with Intel, and she said ‘it’s a marriage of convenience’. The news is littered with articles tracing back and projecting forward on what will happen and how the world will turn due to this merger of opposing forces. I found a couple sites on the net where you can find more details. And no, your non Intel Macs won’t go obsolete when these hybrids hit shelves in 2007.

By Ron Bell

8:25 a.m.: on the way to an early meeting with the new boss. What topics will she cover? Last week’s email bulletin comes up quickly on the handheld. While poring over lines of text, the jostling train commute becomes more tolerable, if a bit cramped: sharing space with a slim, sexy laptop and friendly, rather large person named Pat who works in the office down the hall. Wait — was the name Pat or Sandy? No matter, just nod and smile, we’re almost there.

8:28 a.m.: standing at the front entrance to the office building. A frigid shock of panic strikes: the notebook! Gone. Never realized the shirt collar was so bloody tight, the necktie a noose. Where does Sandy, no Pat, where does this person work: an office phone number, perhaps? Long forgotten. Wait, the cell phone address book, under “S.” No, that’s not it. Look under “P.” Ah, there it is. “Yes,” comes the ever-so-cheerful response, “I picked it up after you rushed out in such a hurry. But to ensure its safe and pleasant return,” the voice concludes sweetly, “we absolutely must spend a pleasant hour together for lunch.”

How often have you tried to remember an emotionally charged experience Continue reading →

Apple’s iPod is all over the news each and every day. The most popular music playing device on the planet gets more news media than the most popular person. Today is no different.

Apple claims the iPod battery life to last 10 hours. But at the end of the day all of us iPod owners feel like unsatisfied house wives when the iPod quits at a mere 4 hours. Less than half of the claimed amount is just not acceptable, and Apple feels that they need to correct this problem. That’s why they’re offering $50.00 to those who qualify. You do need a receipt, and you have to run a failure test (honor system is implied on this one) that proves your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation iPod battery is in fact a failure. Where the hell did I put that iPod recipt?

I was told that people are like computers. We have biological hard drives in our brain, we perform computations (sometimes we’re incorrect –ask my algebra teacher), and we can crash every now and then. The next logical step is to integrate human computers [brains] and traditional computers. British Telecom’s futurology department projects that in 2050, we’ll be doing just that. “Download your brain to a computer” is what they are projecting. I wonder if this is for a complete system restore, or more of a swap out of operating systems. Can you reformat a human brain? Better yet can you overclock one! I can just see those propeller beanies coming back into style but with a 90mm PC fan mounted on the top to dissipate extra heat.

They also noted that Playstation 3 is 1% as powerful as the human brain, and Playstation 5 will be as powerful as our brains. But then I’ve heard we only use 10% of our brains, did they factor that in? I don’t know how comfortable I am knowing my console video game player is more powerful than me.

I just ordered a dual head video card in order to run two monitors at the same time. With two monitors I can watch a downloaded video file (legal of course) and work on writing another life changing post for LIVEdigitally.com. Being able to drag a window from one screen to another, and minimize the alt+tab pushing I normally do, will allow me to maintain focus for longer, and work faster. You think I had it all figured out.

I did have it all figured out, until PureDepth came along and blew my imagination out of the water with their Multi Layer Display (MDL). What the heck is a multi layer display monitor? It’s literally two monitors in one. The first LCD display is mounted 7mm in front of the 2nd LCD. Each display is independent, there is no software necessary to run this, simply a dual head video card. There’s a tad of 3d feeling to this, but virtual reality isn’t the goal of PureDepth.
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Searching the internet is not new news. Yahoo! and Google yadda yadda yadda… I’m sick of hearing Google this, and Yahoo! that. These search engines search websites that have been posted up oh the topic you’re looking for, and brings them to you. They use a historical database, a retrospective search, they search the past.

PubSub searches the future, and delivers your results however you want them. I set up a free user account and searched my name, an ‘ego feed’ deemed by the presenter. When something new hits the net, and involves my name, PubSub notifies me via email, RSS, instant message, or even a text message to my phone via SMS. Progressive searching they call it. This isn’t a crystal ball for the internet, but it’s about as close as you’re going to get to it. Just another one of the super neato burrito cool beans tools that I uncovered at today’s Under The Radar conference, held in Mountian View, CA.

I’m a man. Men are born with certain characteristics, we have short hair, we don’t understand why women take so long to get ready, and do not stop and ask for directions under any circumstances. There’s a sub genre of asking for directions that us men just won’t do and that’s call 411 (as menwe are also cheap, one call puts a $1.50 dent in our thin wallets).

UpSnap.com has swooped in to rescue all men*. The geniuses at UpSnap have taken something that is already ingrained into my life and found a way to make it better. You register your phonen number on their site, cleverly named www.UpSnap.com, and then you send a text message with your search information. They send you a text message back to you phone with a list of contacts based on your inquiry. So it’s basically 411 text messaging style. There’s one more aspect of UpSnap that really tips the boat for me, it’s free! The first search result is a paid slot which makes this service free for cheap ol’ me, the rest of the results are taken from a public database of listed numbers.
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Shooting the breeze with a CEO (I’m not going to say of which company) during the Connections Conference a few weeks ago I found out that WiFi is cheap. How cheap you say? Mobile phone towers cost 10x the amount of a WiFi tower. Yes this means internet everywhere you go, so if you don’t have a laptop now, you’ll definitely want to get one. But there’s more to a WiFi network over the entire city than laptops at coffee shops. This phone is not something you’d buy at the Sprint or Cingular store, this is the phone they don’t want you to see. This is a VoIP phone, that’s right ladies and germs, a Voice over Internet Protocol phone. Looks like a mobile phone (and it looks like the free ones they give to you at the beginning of your contract at that). What does a VoIP phone do that a mobile phone doesn’t do? VoIP uses the internet to make phone calls. Mobile phones use carriers to make phone calls. VoIP eliminates the carriers, meaning: anywhere that you have internet access (wireless of course) you can make phone calls!

Yesterday I found some guy who held a phone and PDA hostage. Today I’ve found a company that locks your computer and then demands $200.00 in order to get YOUR OWN DATA BACK! That’s ouch.

Hackers are getting smarter I suppose. There’s adaware/spyware that sees sites you have visited, order to choose annoying pop-up ads or browser hijacks to websites that simply piss you off. Then there’s pesky viruses that contaminate files rendering them useless and force a hard drive reformat and complete loss of data. I don’t think either one is benefiting, cause there’s no way I’m ever going to purchase something off of a pop up add!!

But these guys got it right, hold the user’s pictures, spreadsheets, video files, mp3 library and all other valuable data for ransom! Instead of a virus protector, I want a ransom protector? Norton? Where are you on this?