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August 29, 2005
Sam's Ticker
Courtesy of Lillypie.com, this widget keeps track of how old Sam is. Time to update the javascript at the top of the page to something in months rather than just days...
Posted by jetrotz at 08:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
All about Viiv
I've been meaning to catch up on this announcement from last week - Intel took the wraps off their new technology and branding effort called Viiv - rhymes with 'five', by the way.
The announcement notes that:
Working together with a variety of Intel-verified consumer electronics devices, online services and software -- including movies, music, photos and games -- Intel Viiv (pronounced "vīv" and rhymes with "five") technology, disclosed for the first time at the Intel Developer Forum today, will help usher in a new era of entertainment choices for consumers. PCs based on Intel Viiv technology will be easy to use with a remote control and will be powered by a suite of Intel technologies, including a dual-core processor, chipset, platform software and wired networking capabilities.
Aside from the PR-speak, the blogosphere has a lot to say about this new effort. Stephen Speicher (writing on Engadget.com) wonders aloud about the comparisons between Viiv and Centrino; but also notes that Viiv is a set of standard components a manufacturer needs to include to get the Viiv logo, rather like Centrino. These machines will include, according to the entry, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, 5.1 sound, a dual-core processor, remote control, etc.
So what does that mean to me in my home? Basically, just as the Centrino badge tells me my PC laptop will work at any Wi-Fi hotspot, the Viiv label should clarify that this hardware will make for a great home entertainment experience, allowing me to experience my content from one device to another. Chris Lanier talks about how "This will surely be a boost in sales for Microsoft for the MCE platform, plus consumers will get to bring a new world of growing opportunities with Media Center Extenders, much like the built-in Extender that will ship with the Xbox 360." Cool!
Interestingly, ArsTechnica wonders aloud if Apple's move to the Intel platform might not mean that Macs of tomorrow might also share this Viiv brand. Good food for thought.
Posted by jetrotz at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hurricane Katrina targets New Orleans
Here's a list of live streams, blogs and resources for Katrina:
Live streams: WWL | WDSU | WPMI | WLOX | WKRG | WJTV
Blogs: NOLA | WPMI 1 & 2 | Weather.com | CNN | MSNBC
New Orleans: Nola.com | WWL | WDSU | WGNO
Mobile: Al.com | WPMI | WKRG | WALA
Jackson: Clarion-Ledger | WAPT | WJTV | WLBT
Citizen journalists: MSNBC | CNN Storm track | Hurricane warning | NWS | Satellite | Map
Posted by jetrotz at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lullaby, and good night
I've been meaning to post this photo of Sam at his most precious. Here he catches a few winks on our bed when we were in upstate New York for a wedding a few weeks ago. Cute, cute and cute!
Posted by jetrotz at 07:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Savannah on a Segway
Carriage tours are so passe. An entrepreneurial gentleman with connections to Savannah, GA is offering tours of the city's historic district - on Segway HTs! At $65/person for a two-hour session including training, the tours are not cheap, but what a great way to enjoy a Segway short of plunking down $5k for one yourself. I wouldn't recommend it in the August heat - but you snowbirds heading down I-95 this Winter should stop by and check these out.
Link: Kinetic Tours - Tomorrow’s Tours of Yesterday
Posted by jetrotz at 07:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Shave and a Haircut
So as my long time feline buddy Chaos ages, he has been less and less thorough with grooming himself. That job usually falls to Amy and I, but with the arrival of Sam we've had less time to help him with these tasks. That combination of events means a fair bit of matting for the old guy, so off he went to be shaved at the vet recently. He looks like a goofball/alien/creature with his new 'do - puffy around the head but stubbly everywhere else. You be the judge.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
Canon EOS 5D Is Alive
The Canon 5D was officially announced today. And it's a beauty - 12.8 megapixel, full-frame goodness at a cost of $3,299. Now that's not quite in the prosumer price range, but it's a heck of a lot closer than the 1D ($7k+). Anyway, this one has a 2.5" monitor, and captures bursts at 3 frames per second. Not gonna work for you sports shooters out there, but perfectly peachy for capturing pics of Sam at home and in the wild! Of course, maybe I'm more addicted than I realize to the 1.6x effect on my 80-200 - it does let me reach out and touch the animals at the zoo...
Link: Canon Makes it Official; Announces Full-Frame EOS 5D [DigitalCameraInfo]
Link: The Canon EOS 5D Is Real [Digital Photography Blog]
(Via Gizmodo.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 16, 2005
iTunes Goodies
The weekly iTunes New Music Tuesday email was a welcome sight in my inbox today. News of Death Cab for Cutie's first major-label disc (with bonus video, liner notes and exclusive tracks for preorders) and a single from Fiona Apple. Happy, happy, joy, joy! Fiona is available today (2 tracks), and the DCFC disc called Plans comes out August 30th.
Link: Fiona Apple O'Sailor/Parting Gift.
Link: Death Cab for Cutie's Plans (preorder)
Posted by jetrotz at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sgt Pepper, French Horn & the Mac
As Sir Paul McCartney was prepping for his Live 8 performance, he realized that there was no arrangement at hand for the four french horns in the piece. With the help of Sir George Martin and a Mac laptop running Sibelius software, these missing parts were recreated and emailed across the pond in time for the performance.
(Via MacWorldUK)Posted by jetrotz at 03:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
$50 iBooks cause stampede!
Yes, there really was a stampede. No one was seriously injured, but this morning's $50 iBook sale was an insane mob scene by all accounts. Lines of parked cars started to form around 1:30am and by 7:00am, when the sale was to begin, the line was said to be more than a 1/2 mile long, while thousands of people rushed the gate for an opportunity to spend $50 on a 4-year old iBook that stood a good chance of barely being worth even that little. There are reports of baby strollers being tipped over and mangled and one old man in a walker was reportedly trampled to the ground!
One of TUAW.com's readers, Jason Coleman, sent in this first-hand account of the scene:
"My wife and I just came from the Henrico County iBook sale. It was absolutely insane. The estimate was that about 12,000 people showed up. There were a number of people injured when people rushed the gates. [link]"
"We left after 4 hours of baking in the sun, empty-handed. There were some rumors that the actual number was something less than 1,000, but I couldn't say for sure. However many, there were many times that in people who wanted one and the crowd control... well it wasn't being controlled really. Just the police shouting at people to keep backing up, even though there was no where to go. Insane. Your readers should be very glad that they didn't come. Just wait and buy one for cheap on eBay next week.
"
Phi sent in a link to some video footage. It's not pretty.
Related link from CNN.com: Panic ensues in rush for cheap laptops
(Via TUAW.com)
Posted by jetrotz at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Very Pink Hotties Provide Football Fantasy
Talk about convergence! Girls and (fantasy) football, courtesy of the advertising geniuses at Weiden + Kennedy. ESPN.com fantasy football implements a tried-and-true way to get the attention of the coveted 18-34 male demographic - babes. Link to the videos here(Quicktime).
(Via Adrants)
Posted by jetrotz at 12:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Drudge dusts off eight-year-old picture of CNN's O'Brien to promote himself
On August 9, Web gossip Matt Drudge reprinted the cover of an issue of Small Business Computing magazine on his website. The cover showed CNN American Morning co-host Soledad O'Brien posing next to a computer monitor displaying the Drudge Report website. Drudge's item is headlined "CNN ANCHOR DISPLAYS HER FAVORITE WEBSITE." While Drudge presented the cover as though it were a current issue, the cover actually dates from September 1997 -- a time when O'Brien wasn't even employed by CNN. Click image to see a larger view
The item's text proclaimed:
Soledad O'Brien knows where the latest news can be found on the Internet: The DRUDGE REPORT! The fast-rising cable news star was all smiles as she posed for SMALL BUSINESS COMPUTING magazine, proudly displaying her "favorite website."
When the September 1997 issue of Small Business Computing was published, O'Brien was the host of MSNBC's now-defunct daily program The Site. O'Brien did not join CNN's staff until 2003.
(Via MediaMatters.org).Posted by jetrotz at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ads in games, ads not in games
Video game advertising company Massive recently signed a deal with Vivendi to integrate 'live' advertisements within their titles. The first title was the strategy-shooter SWAT4. As one might expect, gamers took about two seconds to find a way to block the origin of the ads. Details here. Nothing a dedicated anti-marketing gamer wouldn't have already done to block ads on his favorite gaming sites - disallowing ads.* in your hots.etc file is an old trick to block web ads - but it's probably not going to be long before a patch is going around to enable this with a simple Doubleclick of the mouse (pardon that ad-related pun, please) to allow the less-technical gamers to avoid these in the future.
Gamers love to hack these titles (see 'Hot Coffee'); if in-game ad technology is going to take off, it's going to need to be smarter about how these features are implemented. And I have to guess that there may not be too many sponsors who would be happy to see that hostage's blood spattered on their ad if the player is too slow and the terrorists get to her first. Or maybe that's just me.
Link: Details of how the hack was found are here.
(Via MarketingVox.com)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
Kitten War
Kitten War is a site with a simple idea: people send in scans of their kitties, and then two kittens enter, with only the cute kitten leaving. Fair enough, but the golden nugget of this site is not the cute stuff, it's the hall of losers. These are not happy animals. Looks like the kitten equivalent of a media indecency watch group.
Link: Kitten War
(Via Eyebeam, via Screenhead)
Posted by jetrotz at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Coke downloads for Wipeout Pure
Coca-Cola is creating custom content for the PSP game Wipeout Pure, available only to users in Japan as of now. The content will include new ships, courses, menu graphics etc. This is, AFAIK, the first time a sponsor has developed this type of 'add-on' functionality for a portable title like this. Could this be where the much-discussed advertising dollars start being spent to reach the refugees from traditional media who spend their time blowing stuff up sted watching the boob tube?
Link: Cokestyle.net (in Japanese).(Via PSPvault.com)
Posted by jetrotz at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SOCOM PSP Hits November
Gamespot's cobbled together quite a collection of interesting details about SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo for the PSP. The handheld version of the shooter, set to hit stores on Nov. 8, will feature WiFi multiplayer mode, data syncing with SOCOM 3 on the PS2 and an instant action mode which will drop you into a firefight for five to 10 minute bursts.
The game will include 14 single player missions, each set in different international locations.
SOCOM Enlists PSPs Nov. 8 [Gamespot]
Posted by jetrotz at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Stream Podcasts to your Mobile
Now you can stream a podcast to your SprintPCS phone using Pod 2 Mobile's Pod2Mob software, which is currently in beta. The company says it only works with SprintPCS because "they have the best data package," which allows for unlimited data transfer - handy for streaming long-winded podcasts.
(via Dave Winer's Scripting News via TUAW.com]
Posted by jetrotz at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2005
Sam goes to Cooperstown
The extended Handelman family visited Cooperstown, NY in June, 2005 for a little get together. Attending were (obviously) the Handelmans as well as the Hogans, Sagans and Trotz family. Pics include time at the lake, a colonial-era farm, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (go Sox!), and a few pics of the family en masse. Enjoy! Contact joey dot trotz at turner dot com for access to more family photos.
Click here to see the gallery.
Posted by jetrotz at 08:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sam Photos - July 2005
I'm trying to catch up on all the photos I've taken but not posted for the last month or so. Here now are pictures showing Sam with a really cool 'do, as well as a few where he demonstrates his amazing ability to hold himself up during 'Tummy Time.' As you can see, he's developing into quite the cute little guy!
Link: Sam Photos - July 2005 Gallery is here.
Posted by jetrotz at 08:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Time Warner Cable testing broadband TV service
In what sounds like IPTV in Cable's clothing, GigaOm (and Engadget) talk about the new experiment Time Warner Cable has announced in San Diego to allow subscirbers to stream up to 75 different cable channels over the web using Real Network's Real Player (including CNN and other networks). No plans announced to roll this out more widely, but they do mention that the next version will add DVR-like functionality to record content on your PC, closed captioning, VOD and multiple live streams.
Link: Broadcasting & Cable on the project
Link: GigaOm's blog on the trial
(Via GigaOm)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NYT profiles Rooster Teeth, machinima makers
The New York Times has published a a seven-page spread that chronicles the emergence of the machinima series Red Vs. Blue as a crossover hit, beginning with the series first episode, Why are we here? in which a couple of soldiers ponder the meaning of their existence.
The Times even quotes that classic piece of dialogue in which one of the red soldiers ponders,"Why are we out here? Far as I can tell, it's just a box canyon in the middle of nowhere, with no way in or out. And the only reason we set up a red base here is because they have a blue base there. And the only reason they have a blue base over there is because we have a red base here."
The article will either educate you (if you've never watched machinima).
(Via Joystiq.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One stop portal on the PSP - WinPSPortal
I'd use this if I upgraded to 2.0. What this is meant to be is an offline website, accessible at all times by your PSP. If you do have an internet connection, there is an assortment of links to help you through the internet without using PSP's dial-a-key-board, including fast links to e-mail, searches, and online messengers. This is accessible to anybody using the official PSP Firmware 2.00 built-in browser. Link to WinPSPortal is here. Via Makezine.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iChatAV on CNN's Situation Room
You go Wolf! On the debut of Wolf Blitzer's new show yesterday, our favorite blog reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton held a webcam interview with Joichi Ito, who then wrote about the interview on his blog. Joichi explains that Abbi had found him via a mention on another weblog (BuzzMachine) where Jeff Jarvis discussed Ito's op-ed piece on the anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons over Japan. Macworld UK also talks about the use of the technology.
Link: Macworld UK talks about the use of iChatAV on CNN
Link: Ito talks about his appearance on CNN
Link: CNN's show page for The Situation Room
Update: TVNewser has a round up on reax to the first broadcast.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bob Mould releases Body of Song
So thanks to a hat tip from my buddy Andy Mitchell, I just bought Bob Mould's new album off iTunes. Wow. The new disc harkens back before Modulate - all at once, I'm hearing the influence of Workbook, Sugar and Copper Blue, all rolled into one nice package. It's got an edge, but perspective at the same time. Good stuff. I shot the photo above for Bob several years back on the Modulate tour, and hope to see him again when he comes through Atlanta.
Link: Bob's got a blog now! Boblog is here.
Link: Here's the gallery of my pics from the Modulate tour.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iPod's cousin, iPood
This is a followup to last week's iPod onesies. Taking a bit more poetic license, this site creates baby clothing for slightly less likely to be closed down by Apple's attorneys. J!nx features stuff for what they call 'gamers, geeks and hackers,' like the 'Level 1 Human Baby Creeper' for all you AD&D fans out there, or the 'Hello, World!' outfit for the coders among us. iPood is probably more mass market, but all would look awfuly cute on Mr. Sam, 'natch.Posted by jetrotz at 07:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2005
AP-News Corp JV: How Will Sports Leagues Take It?
The Associated Press and News Corp.-owned Stats, Inc. announced yesterday that they were forming a joint venture to "create a one-stop shopping destination...providing the best and most comprehensive sports information and context to their customers." It's an interesting play (sorry for the sports pun), combining two of the biggest sports data companies, a potential blow to #3 provider Sportsticker, owned by ABC/Disney/ESPN.
PaidContent.orgtalks about potential conflict with the leagues over the consolidation, citing the now-ancient NBA v. Stats, Inc & Motorola suit. That set the precedent in the mid-90s allowing the 'facts of the game' to be public domain. But the real battles in terms of statistical access have revolved around reporter/data gatherer's access to some venues. My old company, Morris Communications, sued the PGA Tour relative to rights to gather and distribute detailed golf scoring information, but for all intents and purposes, Morris lost that battle. And there have been various dustups over reporter's rights to gather detailed MLB data, like pitch position and such, and the ballyhooed controversy recently over the official licenses for fantasy sports activities.
I would argue, however, that the leagues will appreciate the fact that the data consolidators are also now all tied, in some way, to business units that own broadcast rights. That just gives them more ability to press these providers to behave how they want them to.
If more leagues go to great lengths to create data themselves about their events, the PGA Tour case could have great ramifications. But on the flipside (and I'm no lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt), if the scoring aggregators are performing similar feats to provide their content, they may gain other protections.
Posted by jetrotz at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 04, 2005
Baby Gastronomy
This answers the ongoing question of 'What do italian babies eat?' Prosciutto, of course! The Food Section also reports that pasta and biscotti are quite popular as well. Duh on those last two. Macaroni and zwieback, just I-talian-style. I think Sam would love this stuff - just as soon as he takes his fist out of his mouth. We will hold the line on solid foods for as long as possible, though.
(Via The Food Section).
Posted by jetrotz at 07:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 03, 2005
iPod My Baby
And I quote:Because the only thing cuter than a baby, is an iPodified baby.What that really means is unknown to yours truly, but it sure is an interesting concept. $15.95 from iPodMyBaby.com. Does anyone expect Apple's lawyers to take this one lying down? Expect a domain name change pronto. I do think, however, that Sam would look darn spiffy in one of these. (Via Engadget, via iLounge).
Posted by jetrotz at 07:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CVS Camcorder download alpha
Someone has created a how-to for extracting video from the recently released CVS disposable camcorders. They are cheap devices intended for one-time use. Had the opportunity to fool around with these at a recent off-site for TBS. Interesting possibilities...
First you need to build a USB cable. Next, plug in the camera and create an inf file using libUSB. Finally, grab the OPS program and start extracting the video. Here is the thread announcing the release. Congratulations to BillW, morcheeba, daBass and anyone else who helped contribute to the project.
Here is Make's chronology of how this latest development happened.
(Via MAKE:Blog.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 02, 2005
GTA: Liberty City Stories First Look
PSM has an in-depth look at GTA: Liberty City Stories for the Playstation Portable and boy is it juicy. I think this may be the killer PSP app to date.
Guns? Check. Carjacking? Check. A fully realized 3D world in which you are free to do pretty much anything you want, including meeting with shady characters who send you on missions of questionable legality? Check, check and check. Yep, this is GTA all right.
This GTA takes place in the Liberty City of GTA 3, but this time around you play as Tony Cipriani, the guy who handed out missions in 3 - that role was voiced by Michael Madsen - hope he's back in this version too.
Taking place three years before the events of GTA3, that's about 1998 or so, for those who dont want to do the math- Liberty City Stories follows Toni Cipriani as he moves up in the criminal world. While it may not seem like it, three years is alot of time, and there are bound to be some changes. For example, three years before Sex Club 7 became the place where Luigi (Joe Pantoliano) gave work to the mute GTA 3 protagonist, the strip club was called Paulie's Revue Bar.
The game sounds like it's packed with almost everything that we love about Rockstar games, no, that doesn't mean it's just really, really violent. Liberty City will be a truly open-ended game, feature tons of customization and lots of vehicles to jack.
According to the article, the game will support downloadable content, but Rockstar is still being tight lipped about whether it will offer up WiFi multiplayer, MP3 support, etc.
GTA: LCS Unplugged [GTA Central]
(Via Kotaku.)Posted by jetrotz at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Flickr auto-finds coolest photos, related photos
Flickr has just released some new features organized around their the nature/relationships implied by user activity around the images on their site, an interesting expansion/improvement on their tagging structure.
Interestingness creates a daily page with the most 'Interesting' pics uploaded as defined by how favored the image is, how many comments exist for it, and how widely distributed the user interest happens to be. Very slick. The other new feature, Clustering, groups tags by concept. So the "cute cluster" gets broken in to "cute kittens," "cute puppies," "cute babies" and "cute smiles." Bush gets broken into 'protest president politics', 'green-flower-nature', 'grafitti-sticker-stencil', etc. The flickr blog discusses the new features. Very slick stuff.
(via BoingBoing.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)
Creating the Xbox 360's Interface
Design Interact has a fascinating story up that talks about the two-year process of designing the Xbox 360's user interface. The process included Microsoft designing their own Flash-like animation tool, working with design firm AKOA and narrowing ten ideas down to one. The end result is a sucked in interface that resembles the console's own sleek design and features the ability to quickly cycle through games, photos and other entertainment capabilities.
(Via Kotaku.)Posted by jetrotz at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)
The Mighty Mouse Roars
After 21 years of denial, the Mighty Mouse roars.
I can just hear Steve Jobs to his product dev team - "Bring me a two-button mouse - with no buttons! Forget about that VideoPod you've been working on!"
Posted by jetrotz at 07:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 01, 2005
The Great Flickr Tools Collection
(Via Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection.)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)
Night Moves
Thomas Hawk makes note of this blog dedicated to night photography on Flickr. Check out the Nighthawks - Night Photography blog. Below is an a photo I shot at a country fair in Hinesville, GA in the early 90s. I loved the way a longish exposure at post-sunset dusk could bring out these wonderful purple-to-pink colors in the sky.
Posted by jetrotz at 07:56 AM | Comments (0)
Brown-Bag Your Way To Half a Million!
Over at personal finance blog Hello, Dollar! they've got a great post about how bringing your four times a week can eventually earn you half a million dollars.
So let's see, four days bringing lunch at $2 plus one day out at $7 equals $15 per week. Eating out every day would cost $35 per week, so I save $20. $20 a week! That's over $80 a month -- that covers my utility bills right there. Who couldn't use that?
40 years and the miracle of compound interest turns that into $581,826! Nice!
(via Lifehacker)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)
Xbox 360 gonna have a qwerty controller?
Update: This image came from a demo Microsoft did in Spain, showing off this detachable QWERTY keyboard for the controller, plus lots of other goodies. LINK
This might make the whole Media Center Extender experience built-into the Xbox 360 a whole lot more useful for those applications requiring more text input than you'd want to hunt and peck with an on-screen virtual keyboard.
(Via Engadget)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)
WiFi GPS via MSFT Location Finder & MSN Virtual Earth
Interesting free app from Microsoft, the 'Location Finder.' Does a lookup of your location based on your WiFi access point or IP lookup and displays your position on MSN Virtual Earth.
(via Charlie Owen's Retrosight).
Posted by jetrotz at 07:42 AM | Comments (0)
More on Windows Vista Beta 1
Interesting commentary and insight on Longhorn UI. Sean Alexander of MSFT takes note of a positive report from eWeek on the just released beta.
David Coursey at eWeek wrote:
Windows Vista is the best-looking OS Microsoft has ever produced and is competitive with, and in some ways better, than Apple's recently-introduced Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger.
That's great. That's super. But one would expect a beta product far from general release with close to two years of development left to be at least on par with a shipping product to tens of millions of users. The UI changes are spiffy in Vista - PC Magazine has a good overview on the UI changes alone.
(via Addicted to Digital Media)
Posted by jetrotz at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)