| Saturday, 30 October 2004, 3:21 pm Tags: Blogging |
I have just returned from Toronto, exhausted after taping 15 shows in four days, but very happy with the results.
It’s really starting to feel like winter there, but I didn’t let that deter me for signing up for another season of Call for Help. Rogers has committed to continue to produce the show at least through July. They’ve also just hired a full time person to sell it in the US and worldwide, and the drumbeats to bring it back to the States are getting louder all the time. It shouldn’t be long now.
It was also great to have Alex Lindsay, our wonderful Photoshop expert from the old show, agree to do a segment a week for us. Things really seem like they’re starting to click in The Big Smoke.
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 9:46 pm Tags: Camera Phone |
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 9:36 pm Tags: Camera Phone |
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 7:04 pm Tags: Call For Help, Camera Phone, Friends, Photos |
The new Call for Help host?
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 5:53 pm Tags: Camera Phone |
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 12:02 pm Tags: Blogging |
Go Sox! The curse has been lifted!
Halloween’s almost here. Time to fire up the pumpkin Dremel.
Columbus discovered Cuba on this day in 1492. Eli Whitney applied for the patent on the cotton gin in 1793. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886. It’s French you know. The first baby was born in an aircraft in 1929. The Cuban missile crisis ended in 1962.
Happy birthday Jonas Salk, 1914.
- Big announcements from Apple. As expected Apple announced the new black and red U2 iPod on Tuesday, and for once the rumor sites were right about the iPod Photo. But up here the biggest excitement is reserved for the announcement that the iTunes Music Store will be available in Canada next month. That’s what I’m talking aboot.
- Gateway has also announced a digital music and photo player. The 4 gig Gateway Photo Jukebox is $250.
- GeorgeWBush.com has figured out how to handle the Denial of Service attacks that closed it down last week. According to Netcraft, the official re-elect Bush site is rejecting all traffic from overseas. I was able to get in from Canada, but that’s a province of the US anyway, isn’t it?
- Yahoo is matching Google with its new SMS search. You can use your cell phone to query Yahoo, and unlike Google, you can click the search results to dial the phone. Yahoo prez Dan Rosensweig is calling cell phone search the “tipping point.” Both companies are looking to mobile phones for future growth.
- Meanwhile, Google has purchased the earth. Well, a really big map of the earth, anyway. Google, spending a little of its stock windfall, as acquired Keyhole Corp., a company that has developed a 12 terabyte 3D image of the planet. Google is cutting the price of the Keyhole software to $29.95, but you can try it free from keyhole.com.
- I like this headline in PC Pro: Microsoft’s Ballmer tells customers to stick with Windows. No kidding. The latest FUD from Redmond is that Microsoft is more responsive to security flaws than Linux and has fewer holes to begin with. Wow. Ballmer must be really scared.
- The RIAA has given Outkast the award for most downloaded digital song in 2004. The multi-platinum Hey Ya! sold 400,000 copies online (you’re welcome, my daughter bought both the instrumental and vocal versions). The new digital gold award requires sales of 100,000 online copies. Digital platinum rewards sales of over 200,000 copies.
Listen in tomorrow at 8:35a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles.
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| Thursday, 28 October 2004, 11:29 am Tags: Camera Phone |
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| Wednesday, 27 October 2004, 4:22 pm Tags: Camera Phone |
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| Tuesday, 26 October 2004, 12:22 pm Tags: News, Technology |
I‘m in Canada to get my flu shot, but the news must go on.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hits stores today. Expect a drop in real life carjacking as thugs try out the virtual stuff. Rockstar expects to sell 4.5 million units this week alone.
Apple’s big press conference is today. Presumably they’ll announce the new U2 iPod.
The shootout at the OK Corral occurred on this day in 1881. Pan Am made the first commercial transatlantic jet crossing, New York to Paris, in 1958. Doonesbury debuted in 1970.
- Three anti-spyware bills are working their way through Congress, and the FTC has achieved its first victory in its lawsuit against Spamford Wallace. On Thursday the US District Court granted a temporary restraining order against Wallace prohibiting him from exploiting Internet vulnerabilities to place spyware on computers. Wallace was given 24 hours to pull his software from the web.
- PalmOne has officially announced the release of the Treo 650. Sprint has cornered the market on the hot phone through sometime next year. Sprint says the phone will be available by mid-November and cost around $500. Wi-Fi support will not be available at first, but PalmOne does expect to make a Wi-Fi card for the phone eventually.
- Microsoft says it will compete with Google in the desktop search arena, as well. The company plans to release its own desktop search program before the end of the year.
- Meanwhile Google shares were up another 15% on Friday, topping $180/share at one point. Thanks to a strong earnings report on Thursday, two analysts are saying it’s worth over $200.
- Maybe there’s good reason. According to a new survey by MSN Search, when men want advice they turn to search engines first. 50% of the men surveyed say they Google first, one-third say they ask family members, only one in four say they ask their wives first. One man in three has searched for his name online; only one in five women has done so.
- An AOL survey shows that 20% of home computers are infected with viruses. 80% are infected with spyware. Infected machines had an average of 93 different spyware programs on them. Technical experts from AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance examined 329 computers in the survey. More than 70% of owners falsely thought they were protected from online threats.
- AOL is giving its seal of approval to a reworked Microsoft anti-spam proposal. The technology, known as Sender ID, was rejected by the IETF last month because it was encumbered by Microsoft patents. The patent has been restated but it’s not clear whether open source advocates will accept the new proposal.
- The DOJ has given its go ahead for Cingular’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless. The merger awaits FCC approval now. The merger will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, making it the number one wireless carrier.
- A fake Red Hat security alert is making the rounds. The alert, targeting users of Fedora, encourages users to download a “patch” which is actually a Trojan horse. Red Hat says don’t install updates unless they’re digitally signed by the company.
- The tech industry received a big tax break on Friday. President Bush signed a bill offering $136 billion in corporate tax relief, including a reduction from 35% to %5.25 in the tax rate on foreign profits for US multinationals. The breaks have been criticized for encouraging offshoring of jobs, but the US tech industry lobbied heavily for them saying they needed the money for additional R&D and investment. Senator Feinstein’s amendment requiring companies to spend their tax windfall in the US was rejected.
Listen in Tuesday at 6:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KGO 810 AM in San Francisco.
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| Monday, 25 October 2004, 12:46 am Tags: Camera Phone |
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