Archive for June 3rd, 2008
With all the hype over the rumored release of the Apple iPhone v2 on Monday during the WWDC, you may have forgotten that back in January (at MacWorld) Jobs promised us all 3rd party applications through the Apple App Store running on iTunes.
According to sources deep within software firms producing software for the iPhone, they are getting ramped up to launch their application on Monday post keynote speech by Steve.
[ Gizmodo has reported ] that the newest iPhone will be immediately available on Monday (which I am not sure I think is going to happen, but at least within a few days). Based on this latest information, [ the iPhone 2.0 software ]–which enables the delivery of official applications through the App Store as well as several other business-friendly features–should also be available for download on Monday.
That software will work with both the current version of the iPhone and the version 2 iPhone, so you won’t have to buy a new iPhone to start using iPhone applications, although we all know we will be. 
Mission controllers for NASA’s Phoenix lander have decided to practice digging holes on Mars for an extra day instead of moving on to collect the soil for analysis.
Phoenix began digging into the soil over the weekend and was due to start collecting soil samples for study on Wednesday.
But now mission leaders have decided to postpone the schedule by a day, performing another test scoop on Wednesday and delivering its first shovelful of Martian dirt to the [ Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer ] (TEGA) on Thursday.
TEGA is responsible for determining the composition of the Martian soil. It has eight slots for samples, each one precious because it can only be used once.
Chief scientist Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson said
“When we deliver our first sample to TEGA, we want to be absolutely sure that we have what we want and deliver it properly”
Smith likened the process of commanding the lander from 275 million kilometers away to teaching someone how to tie their shoes over the telephone.
“It’s really tricky because you have to give them all the steps and you can’t quite tell what they’re doing,” he said. “We tell the arm what it needs to think about and where the surface is and what motor motion it has to do to get there, but it’s only six or eight hours later that we see what it’s done.”
If your still dreaming of peruvian natives throwing spears, huge ants carrying off bad guys , and the Indiana Jones theme is still ringing in your ears after seeing The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, then get your whip out and get into the action and check out this charming Lego recreation of Indy’s first three adventures.
Like the epic Lego Star Wars games before it, Lego Indiana Jones celebrates the big screen magic by combining fun platforming action for all ages with tongue-in-cheek animated scenes that lampoon the films. Seeing Indy outrun a giant boulder made out of plastic bricks is priceless.
The famous bullwhip is used well, with Indy able to swing across gaps, smash open boxes, yank on levers, drag heavy objects and keep enemies at bay with a satisfying leathery crack.
Other tools come in handy too, such as a shovel for digging up treasure, a mechanic’s wrench for fixing broken Lego machinery and guns that make bad guys explode in a shower of bricks.
The levels are full of tricks and traps that can sometimes only be conquered through co-operative play, so get a friend to jump in and enjoy the adventure with you.
A few minor technical niggles don’t detract from what is stellar entertainment.
Oh, and I almost forgot … here is a cheat code being given out by the fine folks at gamestop …
If you want to unlock the character Mola Ram use this code FJUR31
In case you forgot who Mola Ram is…
From the get go, I have thought that the “Aerosmith” version of Guitar Hero was laughable, and should have just been a downloadable update of songs… but whatever, Activision stopped taking my calls on that particular topic..
Here is the track list for you Steven Tyler fan boys and girls.
Nipmuc High School
- Mott the Hoople - “All the Young Dudes”*
- Cheap Trick - “Dream Police”
- Aerosmith - “Make It”
- Aerosmith - “Uncle Salty”
- Aerosmith - “Draw the Line”
Max’s Kansas City
- Joan Jett - “I Hate Myself for Loving You”
- The Kinks - “All Day and All of the Night”*
- Aerosmith - “Movin’ Out”
- Aerosmith - “No Surprize”
- Aerosmith - “Sweet Emotion”
The Orpheum Theater
- The Clash - “Complete Control”
- New York Dolls - “Personality Crisis”*
- Aerosmith - “Livin’ on the Edge”
- Aersomith - “Ragdol”l
- Aerosmith - “Love in an Elevator”
Half Time Show
- Lenny Kravitz - “Always on the Run
- Black Crowes - “Hard to Handle”*
- Aerosmith - “Back in the Saddle”
- Aerosmith - “Beyond Beautiful”
- Aerosmith - “Dream On”
Moscow
- The Cult - “She Sells Sanctuary”
- Run DMC - “King of Rock”
- Aerosmith - “Bright Light Fright”
- Aerosmith - “Nobody’s Fault”
- Run DMC featuring Aerosmith - “Walk This Way”
Apparently Nipmuc High School was the very first venue that Aerosmith ever played, so you start there too..
I will admit that there are several cool songs in the line-up and I wish/hope they would be available for Guitar Hero 3… Let’s face it though, that much Aerosmith can’t be good for anyone.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that billionaire investor Carl Icahn will seek to remove Jerry Yang as chief executive of Yahoo Inc if Icahn succeeds in a proxy battle against the company over its failure to reach a deal with Microsoft Corp.
Icahn has proposed an alternate slate of directors for Yahoo’s board, but has yet to directly target Yang.
“It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around,” the Journal quoted Icahn as saying. “How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone?”
I was hoping we had heard the last of this story, but apparently the shareholders are a little peeved that Yahoo didn’t accept the bloated microsoft offer… I guess I would be too…
Apple has 186 stores in the US, give it a retail presence in 37 of the 50 states. Many of those states have multiple stores, California leading the pack with 38. Given that information do you think Apple would need to build an entire fake store on the Warner Brothers parking lot in Los Angeles over Memorial Day weekend in order to film a commercial? According to [ Valleywag ], that is exactly what the computer company did.
The set took two days to build and was used to film a commercial that will air during the WWDC keynote. The store was full-size and sported all of the hardware and software that one would expect in an Apple Store.
Rather then shutting down a low-traffic Apple Store somewhere in middle-America, Apple instead chose to presumably pay workers overtime and holiday time to have an almost completely private set in California. The set was apparently closed to all but a few select crew members; Valleywag assumes the move was made to prevent the amount of hoopla that surrounded the closing of the 5th Avenue store for a commercial shoot recently.
Apple seems to be up to some super-secret commercial filming here. Say it with me… ONE MORE WEEK!
During the so-called “format wars”, you couldn’t go a single day without hearing about which movie studio had signed on to which format, or some other steamy peice of HD news that would play a part in declaring the winner of the war.
Now that the war is over, so is the press coverage. As we all know, lack of press coverage can kill just about anything. So does Blu-Ray have a future?
Currently the hardware is over-priced and the movie selection is expanding, but still limited. Worse then that though is the almost complete lack of knowledge the average HD consumer has about Blu-Ray.
Recently the NPD Group (a consumer and market research company) released a study that optimistically stated that 45% of HD consumers are now aware of what Blu-Ray is. That means that 55% of HD consumers have NO IDEA what Blu-Ray is … That is mind-blowing, and remember that this is a study of HD consumers, people who have already invested in an HD Television and are currently receiving some form of HD broadcasting.
Sony has long placed faith in the advent of the PS3 and it’s built-in Blu-Ray player, but other studies have shown that a large group of PS3 owners didn’t even realize that their console was capable of playing Blu-Ray discs.
Ultimately, Sony has much work to do with marketing, and unfortunately for the industry, they seem to have shot themselves in the foot by ending the format wars as early as they did, since they now have lost a huge amount of press that would have eventually bridged the gap of ignorance that the average consumers clings too.
As time drags on, and the world slowly conforms to what will eventually be a digital standard, the door is open for others to come in and create a cheaper, higher quality alternative to Blu-Ray and stick it to Sony before most of the world even knew that Blu-Ray existed.
The Phoenix Mars Mission is easily one of the most exciting space missions in quite some time, and they have certainly provided a variety of methods to follow all the fun, which might be why it has been such an exciting project.
You can keep up with the all the action via the mission’s [ blogs ] or the Mars Phoenix [ Twitter ].
For those of you who like to watch the movie, rather then read the book, the Phoenix mission team published a ton of video clips to [ iTunes U ]. The videos cover various aspects of the launch as well as the landing. There are also five “Open House” lectures posted that cover various background aspects of the mission led by Victor R. Baker, William Boynton, Alfred McEwen, Alfred Quiroz, and Peter Smith.
You can download individual videos, grab them all at once, or subscribe to them podcast-style so that any new videos posted will be downloaded automatically to iTunes. And, of course, you can sync them for viewing on your iPod—perhaps for watching during your daily commute, or perhaps when work threatens to bore you to death. No matter which way you watch, the three dozen or so videos should get you your Mars fix… for now.
Starting Thursday, June 5th, Time Warner will begin a trial program which will impose a monthly consumption cap of 40GB on the internet for it’s customers in Beaumont, Texas.
Users will be given two months to get used to the cap, and then after that they will be charged $1.00 for every gigabyte over the limit that they go.
Time Warner Cable’s plan to test metered service was originally revealed to the public when an internal company memo was leaked in January and later confirmed by the company. The memo indicated that the results of the trial would be used to determine whether to roll out the bandwidth-capping plan to other regions.
Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable executive vice president of advanced technology, told the Associated Press that the variable billing model is being adopted to address the disparity in bandwidth consumption among Time Warner Cable users. Five percent of the subscribers are consuming half of the local line capacity, Leddy says.
The caps differ depending on the tier of service paid for by the consumer. The lowest level of service is a 768Kbps connection with a 5GB cap for $29.95 per month. The high-end package will offer 15MBps with a 40GB cap for $54.90 per month. Consumers will pay by the gigabyte for consumption in excess of the established caps. Customers will be able to see how much bandwidth they have left by visiting the Time Warner Cable web site.
This may not, at first glance, seem like a problem, but considering where technology is gong, and the concepts of cloud computing becoming so prevalant, it seems hard to imagine that even the average consumer will be able to subsist on a max of 40GB each month.
If Mr. Leddy is concerned about the 5% of subscribers who are consuming half the local line capacity, then perhaps a plan targetted towards them would be more appropriate. Time Warner is certainly capable of determining who is abusing thier bandwidth, and even if they can’t then at the very least put together a program that is more reasonable. Uncapped DSL is cheaper then $30.00 a month and for that Time Warner will cap you at 5GB ?? I used more then 5GB this month on my iPhone over the edge network…
With the advent of “set-top” internet boxes such as the Apple TV, Netflix and Blockbuster, most consumers will find that they hit these caps after just a couple of movies in the month. Scary that a cable company is able to completely establish a policy that effectively removes the ability to use a product that would be considered a competitor, and no one takes notice.
Apple on Tuesday officially kicked off its largest back-to-school promo in the company’s history, offering a free 8GB iPod touch to students and educational staffers who purchase a qualifying Mac.
More specifically, [ the promotion ] offers a $299 rebate that cancels out the price of an 8GB iPod touch, though the rebate can also be applied towards the purchase of the 16GB ($399) or 32GB ($499) model. Alternatively, participants can elect to receive a free 8GB iPod nano for the reduced rebate value of $199.
In order to qualify for the offer, the iPod and Mac system must be purchased at the same time and appear on the same receipt. Apple lists qualifying Mac systems as the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro. The Mac mini, previous-generation 17” iMac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod shuffle, iPod classic, 4GB iPod nano, and refurbished products are not eligible.
The products must be purchased from the Apple Online Store for Education Individuals, an Apple Retail Store, Apple Telesales, or an Apple Authorized Campus Store located in the 50 United States or the District of Columbia.
Faculty and staff of higher education institutions and students attending or accepted into a higher education institution are eligible. Any employee of a public or private K–12 institution or Qualified Homeschoolers in the United States or District of Columbia are also eligible.