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In Which the Apple Tablet is Willed into Existence

Posted on December 31, 2009 | Leave a comment



Everyone’s talking about the Apple Tablet. Will it come in 2010? Will it be announced in February, released spring/early summer? The rumors have “ramped-up” indeed (LA Times). This has got to be one of the most blogged-about, tech-gossiped-about topics of the year (and years past, even… I remember eagerly searching Mac Rumors for “tablet” back in ’07. The archive goes back to 2002 (Jobs, curtly, on iPhone and Tablet PC)). Techland writer Peter Ha conjectured a few days ago that the OS of the phantom tablet will be something like iTunes, which makes sense given that uses for a tablet will be largely music, photo, tv/movie and book-based. Forget wondering IF it’s happening (the collective will of the tech community has conjured it into existence (and if Apple doesn’t deliver I fear something like the Quietus))… it’s happening, now the question is WHEN and HOW.

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How to Kindl(e)y Fight Back against the TSA

Posted on December 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

In “How to Be a Kindle Terrorist,” lalawag’s Sean Percival writes a comeback to the TSA’s new security restrictions thanks to recent in-flight mischief. Funny stuff, and actually quite ingenious (the article, not terrorism (just to clarify)).

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Media Announcement: OLPC

Posted on December 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

One Laptop Per Child reveals plans for its new design today – the $75 laptop (down from $100). Forbes just advanced the announcement along with a photo slide show. Here’s another (not-yet-released) photograph of all the views of the new design and one additional (but crucial) insight into the new design, courtesy of Nicholas Negroponte (chairman and founder of OLPC). What Forbes didn’t mention is that the laptop will be completely flexible (a low durometer). Awesome! Here’s the release: Product Road Map Announcement 12.22.09

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Websites We Couldn’t Do Without

Posted on December 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Guardian has released its list of the 100 most essential websites of 2009.  There weren’t many suprises; Twitter, IMDb, Digg, Flickr, Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and WordPress were on the list, among many similar others. Perez Hilton also made it, as well as old time favorite Dilbert, Passive Aggressive Notes, and Club Penguin, a “minigame-tastic virtual world for youngkids.” Huh. But Lolcats… really? That’s been essential to 2009? I don’t really understand the Lolcats phenomenon. I’ll look at a cute cat any day, but I don’t need to read captions in grammatically incorrect terms that extrapolate some bizarre motive for the cat’s actions/look in the photo.

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Cannon’s Ready to Fire

Posted on December 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

Vibe reports that today Nick Cannon launched NCredible Entertainment, which will take on his projects in TV, film, music, publishing and more. Other than an upcoming Disney parade appearance and plans for a “currently untitled Hip-Hop puppet project for Adult Swim,” Cannon doesn’t seem to have anything particularly fiery in the works; we’ll just have to wait for signs of smoke from NCredible’s newly opened New York and LA offices.

In the meantime, remember when Nick was on Nick? Those were the days…

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Going Ba-looney for the Internet

Posted on December 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

Today is the celebration of the 40th anniversary of DARPA’s (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) creation of ARPAnet, the first packet-switching network and a precursor to the Internet. As an homage to the ‘Net’s ability to facilitate networking, mobilization, and the rapid spread of information, DARPA released 10 red balloons all over the country and is offering a 40,000 prize for the first group to locate them all (DARPA Network Challenge). According to TechCrunch, MIT has a team (obviously), and is promising a cut of the reward to those who contribute a balloon’s coordinates to the team. If one happens to drop by the window at the Penn library, I’ll be sure to hand over the information…

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MovieWedge

Posted on December 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

I was recently made aware of this while browsing TechCrunch:

…the MovieWedge, a bean bag-like object upon which you can rest your iPhone or iPod Touch that enables hands-free, slip-free screen viewing.

I was determined to prove that I could make something like the MovieWedge cost-free with items found in my house. I tried pouring salt into an old sock, but the cotton was too porous and now the papers on my desk get nicely seasoned by the briny residue. Delicious. You win, MovieWedge. I guess it’s worth the $9.95.

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A History of Thanksgiving

Posted on November 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

…through Google logos from the last 10 years. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And now, drum roll for 2009…

Continue reading →

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The Important Questions

Posted on November 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

Surprise, surprise, the LA Times reports that searches for the word ‘”turkey” (not the country) skyrocket during November. According to Google trends, today’s big queries are black Friday deals, cooking time of turkey per pound, and something about winning a car, a sweepstakes of some sort through Cartoon Network. Other fun topics include “is walmart open on thanksgiving?” (#11), “who won dancing with the stars last night” (#16), and “the singing nun” (#29).

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Pogue and Carr on e-readers

Posted on November 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue teams up with Times media columnist David Carr to quickly review — but mostly kibitz about — three of the e-readers currently on the market, the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader Touch Edition, and the COOL-ER reader (text review here). The Kindle comes out ahead; it’s less expensive than the Sony reader but allows one to wirelessly download books wherever there’s a signal. I’m not sure what to think about the fact that Pogue and Carr meet in the New York Public Library… Funny? Tragic? You decide.

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