Archive for January, 2008:
Bittersweets
Normally, I’m in favor of holidays that involve candy, but like most men, I’m not a fan of Valentine’s Day. It’s a day where women expect us to shower them with affection and gifts for no apparent reason. How is that different than every other day of the year? That said, I may just have to buy some Valentine’s Day candy this year at Think Geek. I’m not sure if my wife would appreciate a tin of Bittersweets or not though. She would, however, like their caffeine candy and their chocolate avatars.
Do we really need a device to tell us what a dog is thinking?
Scientists are working on a device that will interpret what your dog is trying to say when he barks at you. Is this really something people need? Is it that hard to understand your pet? My dog has 3 or 4 different barks, and they’re all pretty obvious to me. One means “give me your food or else,” another means “let me outside or I’m going to pee on the carpet,” and then there’s the really grouchy one he makes at my wife that means “lift me up on the bed now, I’m too small to jump but I can still poop in your shoe if you don’t do what I say.”
I think this is a waste of time and technology. What we really need is a device that would figure out why women like my wife insist on bringing annoying, yapping little dogs into our homes.
Nintendo Wii-nning Big
I was first in line for a Nintendo Wii in November, 2006. Well, that’s not exactly true. I pre-ordered mine from Amazon.com and received it the DAY BEFORE it was released to the general public, so I never actually had to stand in line. Based on the articles I’d read on Nintendo’s new product and the few preview videos that were circulating on the web, I knew I had to have one.
It turns out I wasn’t alone. Nintendo’s profits are up in a year that saw slow holiday sales for most products. Chances are, if you don’t have a Wii, it’s not because you don’t want one. It’s because you can’t find one. I knew the Wii would be popular, but who knew it would be impossible to find for two straight Christmas seasons in a row?
It really is a great product though, so if you can find one and you can afford one, you should really give it a try. I had a family gathering at my house right after the Wii came out and it was amazing that my mom, my grandma, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and, well, everyone in my family, wanted to play the thing. I’ve had dozens of family gatherings at my home over the years and I’ve had Playstations and Xboxes on at every one of them, but only the kids ever showed any interest in using them. When my eighty-year-old grandmother asked to play Wii bowling with me after seeing me play against other family members, everyone was surprised.
Grandmothers don’t play video games. Well, they didn’t until the Nintendo Wii came along, that is.
Jan. 24 – Nintendo announced a dramatic jump in profit on Thursday, driven by strong holiday sales of its Wii and DS game machines.
The Japanese gaming giant’s profit more than doubled in the last nine months, looking at full-year earnings over $4 billion.
Dan Sloan reports.
Are you paying too much for video games?
I’ve always been a bargain hunter, as my parents used to drag me to garage sales and flea markets on a regular basis when I was younger, instilling in me a sense of frugality. I’m constantly snooping around clearance bins, checking out dollar stores, clipping coupons, and doing whatever else I can to save a buck or two. Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone that I don’t like to pay full price for video games (or anything else for that matter).
Etree.org – Free legal concert recordings
The Etree community was formed in the summer of 1998 for the online trading of live concert CD-R’s. These CDs are traded in a high-quality, lossless digital format which can be burned to CD or listened to on certain media players. While the site was originally formed by Phish fans, it has grown to include concert recordings from hundreds of popular bands such as The Grateful Dead, 311, John Mayer, Ben Folds, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Primus, Queens of the Stone Age, and The Smashing Pumpkins (just to name a few).
The George Foreman iPod Grill
I don’t know what’s more scary, the fact that they’re putting iPod speakers in just about everything these days, including an indoor/outdoor George Foreman Grill, or the fact that I kind of want one. My only concern is putting my expensive iPod near that heat and grease, although I would hope they designed the thing with protecting your mp3 player in mind.
The $99 price tag isn’t bad either. I’m curious to see some reviews on this.
Free wi-fi in Indiana?
So I was checking out the latest spam from Apple about new features on the Ipod Touch, and while e-mail, maps, weather, and stocks on the go are cool concepts, the Ipod Touch requires a wi-fi network in order to supply this data. The problem with this is that when I need a map I’m probably in my car, nowhere near a wi-fi hotspot like Starbucks. Sure, there are plenty of free wi-fi hotspots in Indiana (and every other part of the country), but there never seems to be one nearby when you need one.
Steve Jobs talks about the MacBook Air
What’s so special about the MacBook Air? Well, it’s the thinnest laptop of all-time for one, making it extremely light and ultra-portable. Second, the MacBook Air doesn’t have an optical drive (meaning CD or DVD drive). Why? Because as Steve Jobs says, it doesn’t need one. Apple has actually developed software that lets you use the optical drives on other PCs and Macs, so you can pop a disc into your desktop drive and run it on your laptop wirelessly.
Some people will love this concept and others will consider it an inconvenience, but I think we are slowly moving away from optical drives anyway. Why distribute content on discs when everything can be easily downloaded these days? Still, the option to use discs is still there, you just need to have access to another computer that has a disc drive.
The price for the MacBook Air, $1799, isn’t bad and I wouldn’t mind owning one myself. There are several things an Apple still does better than a PC, such as photo and video editing. Check out the video and see for yourself why this is sure to be one of the hottest selling laptops of 2008.
A Local Myspace
The problem with a large social networking site like Myspace is that there are millions of users on there, and it’s often difficult to connect with people from your specific community. Even if you do manage this, you still have to deal with all of these other voices on your radar, and you have to compete with people all over the world when you want to share your local photos and videos. People from your own part of the country may never even find your content.
Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard at CES 2008
The Optimus Maximus keyboard is insane. Every key is a separate OLED screen with a resolution of 48×48 pixels. This means that you can program your own fonts, reconfigure the letter order on your keyboard (my Dad could stop whining that keyboards have a QWERTY configuration instead of alphabetical), change the colors of your keys (I see ugly flashing rainbow keyboards coming to an office near me in the future), or even play games like Minesweeper using your keyboard as a gaming surface. This concept has a lot of possibilities, and I’ll definitely buy one once the price drops down from $1500, which with the drastic decreases in OLED prices we’ve seen in the last year or so, shouldn’t take too long.