An intrepid reader of the British website theregister.co.uk tipped the site off to an interesting bit of code on Apple’s Powerbook product page. Apparently, a 1×1 pixel tracking gif from marketing firm Avenue A is labelled as ‘apple_g5_powerbook.’ A typo, perhaps? Probably, but all other such tracking tags across the apple.com site have the appropriate (and correct) processor and product names. It’s probably just wishful thinking, but we can hope, can’t we?
Category Archives: technology
Google Browser Rumors
In more Google news today, Reuters reports that Google has hired the lead engineer for Firefox. This comes on the heels of their registration of the Gbrowser.com domain and hiring of several Internet Explorer engineers last year.
Googling Television
Google and Yahoo are expanding their search products to television. Google Labs released their beta of ‘Google Video’ today. This system allows a user to search closed captioning and see still frame grabs of the relevant video. Some PVRs and TV tuner cards for PCs have done this in the past – tuning to or alerting when certain keywords were matched. But these projects are on a much broader scale.
In a New York Times story this morning (free registration required), Google’s vp for product management says “The long-term business model is complicated and will evolve over time.” I’ll say – the rights to aggregating video from hundreds of local television broadcasts, not to mention networks like CNN, ABC, etc., are going to be complex. But given Google’s audience, it wil be interesting to see if broadcasters see value in placement here. The Times story digs briefly into the touchy issues of rights and network deals related to these types of technologies. A worthwhile read.
The Best Media Center That Isn’t
Guest columnist Ross Rubin blogs on Engadget today that despite Apple not calling the Mac mini a media center device, it has all that in spades. DVD-player? Check. Rip, Mix, Burn? Check. Ken Burns hi-res slideshow effects? Check. Add on a USB TV tuner, and this thing is your TiVo on steroids. Rubin suggests the mini is a stealth MCE. The apps in iLife are all that a user is looking for when they want to access their media (movies, music, photos), and of course, there is the elegance factor. He also talks about the possibility that Apple is waiting to enter this market for a true media center once the CableCard standard is settled. That’s a great point – you should see how my IR blasters are scattered around with my MCEs, TiVo, etc. Anyway, others have blogged about ‘mini as media center’, but I think he hits the nail on the head here.