BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Category: Technology
With the iPad just days away, I just read and interesting post over at engadget. It looks like the Apple/Google break may be closer then we think. If you haven’t been following Apple’s mobile platform you might have missed the lack of flash on the iPhone and the upcoming iPad. I believe in part flash is a pig of a plugin and Apple is in the business of selling content on a closed platform. Google on the other hand is an open platform selling an experience and a different gateway to the web. Google has announced that it will build in the Flash platform as a component of its Chrome OS. There are a lot of similarities between the two companies. They are both innovators and have built their market share by making the best product.
The conflict that will divide the two will be the overlap into the same sectors of technology. As Google has branched out into the hardware sector it has begun stepping on Apple’s toes. Apple has been an end-to-end company from its inception, building the hardware and writing the software to run on it. Google has always been up in the cloud. Providing a service via software running on off the shelf hardware. Now that Google has stepped out of the box it will get more interesting as more components of there hardware platform emerge. Lets hope this won’t turn into another Apple/Microsoft implosion.
Societies come and go over time and with them their history and people. Ancient societies recorded their history in rock preserving the language and leaving a glimpse into their story for a millennia. With the advent of paper and printing press books became the standard lasting for centuries. With the advent of the digital age we have become dependent on magnetic and flash based media to contain ours hopefully lasting a decade.
Perhaps the most crucial loss will occur after half a century or so, as any surviving engineers, scientists and doctors start to succumb to old age. Their skills and know-how would make a huge difference when it comes to finding important information and getting key machinery working again. The NASA tape drives, for instance, were restored with the help of a retired engineer who had worked on similar systems. Without expert help like this, retrieving data from the tapes would have taken a lot longer, Cowing says.
A century or so after a major catastrophe, little of the digital age will remain beyond what’s written on paper. “Even the worst kind of paper can last more than 100 years,” says Season Tse, who works on paper conservation at the Canadian Conservation Institute. The oldest surviving “book” printed on paper dates from AD 868, he says. It was found in a cave in north-west China in 1907.
It will be interesting to see what types of initiatives will be taken to preserve our societies history, into the uncertain future…
[Via NewScientist]
That has to be the best looking “vacuum” I’ve ever seen. 
I never thought robotic vacs could be so captivating…
It may take a little movie knowledge to get this one but the first time I saw this phone I was waiting to hear it say “I’m sorry I can’t do that Dave”. The phone looks pretty damn impressive and I like the idea behind the Android platform, but that thing might some how eject you into space and kill everyone around you. To scary… If you’ve every seen 2001: A Space Odyssey you know what I’m talking about.
If you’re willing to take the risk check out the Droid and learn more about Google’s Android platform.
After releasing a remastered catalog the Beatles will finally take the plunge into digital music. In a limited edition release available on a collectable USB drive. It looks like they will produce 30,000 units and include 13 documentaries about the studio albums, expanded liner notes, re-touched album art, and several rare photos.
[Via TUAW]
That is one awesome looking phone and interface. From engadget the specs look pretty darn impressive.
A 1GHz Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm, wide 4-inch capacitive touch display, 8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash, and a thoroughly tricked out Android skin named Rachael. Sony Ericsson stressed to us the symbiotic importance of both the new flagship device and “open OS” UI — the X10 was presented as the patriarch of a whole new family of handsets, which we can expect to see in the first half of 2010
[Vai engadget]
Well maybe not yet, but I wouldn’t hold my breath greed seems to outweigh most things these days. But don’t give up hope.
Contrary to widespread web reports, the wildly popular TV and movies streaming website Hulu is not planning to start charging for all its content — although you would certainly be forgiven for thinking so. On Oct. 21, a high-ranking exec. at News Corp., which owns Hulu along with NBC Universal and Disney, told a trade conference that “a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of [Hulu’s] content,” positing that the site could start charging as early as 2010. That was enough to get the web all Twitterpated about Hulu’s entire beloved catalog falling behind a dreaded paywall.
[Via EW.com]
Google has partnered with Lala and iLike (MySpace Owned) companies to bring the new service to market. For the time being it will only be available in the U.S. to start, but this should be interesting. The cool thing is that you can preview the entire song and search using lyrics. Check it out http://google.com/music
“Just imagine if when a consumer searches for a song, alongside all of those Torrent results is a heavily integrated Google music offering.”
When users search using OneBox a pop-up widget powered by iLike or Lala offers to play the entire song.
According to Google, the words “music” and “lyrics” are among the top 10 search terms of all time.
“At Google, we see millions of music-related queries every day,” said the company’s vice president of search Marissa Mayer at the launch in Los Angeles.“It is clear to us that for our users music holds a very special and particular place.”
[Via BBC]
