Damon's Tech Review

Entry #23 Like Moths to a Flame

2009-01-12T13:53:00.001-06:00

Tech Humor

In Columbus Ohio a man was car jacked and the crooks got away with this car, money and cell phone. After been car jacked the man and his friend came up with a plan that relied on most criminals not being the smartest of people. The man texted his cell phone saying that he had drugs and women and wondered where he was. Like moths to a flame the carjacker stupidly replied back their address and instead of a party on Saturday night they found them selves visted by the police. The crooks were caught red handed and the man will get his car and hopefully the rest of his belonging back shortly.

Entry #22 I Love You But... I'm Hungry

2009-01-09T10:42:00.000-06:00

Facebook

Before the creation of Facebook it was easy to drop friends by just never talking to them again. Now with the creation of social networks like Facebook dropping friends has become harder. I now myself I am having to go through and clean up my friends list as there are people on there I barely new in the first place and other that just well... annoy me.
For those of you looking for a good excuse to drop Facebook friends Burger King as launched a new app call, Whopper Sacrifice. The app that allows you to hide your friend abandonment under the vail of delicious flame broiled patty.
The new app will remove friends and them post a message saying "Joe Shmoe sacrificed so-and-so for a free Whopper. Who, will be the next to go?"

So now for those of you looking for a good excuse to drop those old friend from school you only friended in the first place to see how fat they got... and don't deny it you know you did. So happy de-friending and remember some one be hurt but you will be full.

Entry #21 Steve Jobs is The New Celeb

2009-01-05T10:37:00.001-06:00

Tech News

Welcome back to a new exciting year of all that is tech and like last year we started this blog with Apple so I think it only right to start this year with Apple.
Last year the big Apple news was not the release of a new line of Mac books but instead the health of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. Myself, I avoided blogging these rumors as my opinion is that Steve Jobs should not be treated as a celebrate and everything he does, does not need to be public information.
Today though Steve Jobs has release a letter stating that his much published weight lose was not because we is dieing but just a hormone imbalance. Steve says that he is beginning treatment and will regain the weight shortly. I hope now with this letter release this can be put to rest but will probably just fuel more speculative blogs and and Apple stock price drops.

Entry # 20 Nintendo DS Scrabble Teaches You Essential Vocabulary

2008-12-23T14:58:00.000-06:00

Tech News

A mother bought her eight year old son the Scabble game for the nintendo DS in hope to help him with his vocabulary. To her surprise the game started to teach the child words that no eight year old should know. Words like fuckers, and titts started to be generated by the computer player. Surprised the mother looked at the definition the game offered and sure enough they meant exactly what they referred to.
The women of course was understandably furious and I hope Ubisoft the maker of the game will pull this game from the selves and off refunds to those that purchased the game.
Although this is a very serious topic one thing I did notice is this child better learn these word anyways because he is in for a world of teasing as here appears in the picture with is mother and a pink DS. brave boy or mean mother, one of the two.

Entry #19 'Tis The Season To Be Scammed

2008-12-18T08:57:00.000-06:00

Security

With Christmas upon us and our hearts in a state of giving and joy it is a perfect tie of year for crooks and scam artists to pray on the naive and week. While going through my countless news feeds I discovered a story published by the Leader Post about a women that discovered a scam that prays on one's love for puppies. According to the story the women was interested in by a dog and though she had found a breeder online with the dog and price she was looking for. Now luckily in this cases the women was smart enough to do some background checking on the breeder to find out the address given to her was a fake and the information though appearing legitimate did not jive considering this breeder was willing to flight the puppy to her in -50C temperature. This story is a good example of how people should act online when purchasing anything.
When purchasing anything online people should do what they do in real life, use common sense. In real life you always make decisions about the places you shop. You look at the store and judge them by appearance. You ask friends what experiences they had there. You find out what type of shopper insurance they offer, things like return policy, price guarantee, warranties, etc. So why would you not do that online?
When shopping online research, Google is not their to just find funny pictures it is there for research. before shopping at a site find reviews of the site. If you can not find any well then that is a good indication it might be a place to avoid. Also read multiple reviews both good and bad because often just reading one review will not give you the true picture as reviewer tend to be over dramatic about something and either give a site a really high review or really low review and neither are really warranted. Also read reviews from independent site not the reviews on the site itself as though reviews are easily faked or moderated.
Other thing you can do to protect yourself is check scam warning sights like www.phonebusters.com. You can also use third party trusted purchasers like Paypal or Google Checkout as these sight pay for the products for you and you pay them. This gives you a layer between your credit card and the merchant. Most reputable online sites will support these services because they know the value of them their selves.
There are many other things that a person can do to protect themselves when shopping online but the best advice is do do exactly what this women did and research and use common sense. As the saying goes, "if it is to good to be true, it probably is."

Entry #18 The Mouse Went Over The Hill

2008-12-17T11:09:00.000-06:00

Tech News

All though it is a little belated but on December 9, 2008 t he computer mouse turned 40 years old. The mouse was first used by Douglas Engelbart in 1968 to demonstrated an new way of interacting with computers. In this demo Douglas used a one button wooden mouse made by Bill English and was used to show how a user could cut and paste text in a text file.
Since 1968 the mouse has become the critical interface device next to the keyboard and even possible more used then the keyboard. the Mouse has taken on many different shapes from multi tracking, ergonomic , multi button and even laser sensing, a far cry from the wooden one first used.
But what really makes the mouse important is it became the first human interface device to a computer that was not the keyboard. It also lead to greater use of graphical user interfaces on computers. Before the mouse computers were text bases terminals that used command line prompts from the keyboard forcing users to memories several text commands and the order at which to use them. With the invention of the mouse people were able to "point and click" their way through a computer using their eye for visual queues as to what to do.
The advancement of the mouse has also lead to new interface models such as touch pads that you find in almost all laptops today and even new multi touch tables built by Microsoft that allow users to interact with a computer like they would a pile of papers on their desk.

Entry #17 Drugs .... Maybe .... Linux .... NO!

2008-12-10T14:49:00.000-06:00

Tech Humor

While in high school did you ever have something snatched from you by a teacher that managed to sneak up behind you with out warning. Well then you can imagine the invasion this student felt after a teacher confiscated a set of free distributions of Linux from the student as if they were drugs. After confiscating the disk the teacher then wrote an email to the Linux group supping the disks and stated,

"...observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a conference with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal."

Then after claim the actions of the student and group were illegal she threatens to charge them illegally distributing software because as the teacher puts it,

"No software is free"

She continues to go on and claim that she tried Linux while at collage which by her ignorance I can only assume she tried DOS or Unix and would not know the difference.

"I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods."

The sad part about this email and the although not stated punishment of the student, is a clear example of an education system that is not well informed of the actual world outside of its own diminishing schools system.

The bright point to this story is the group the teacher contacted was able to set up a meeting with her and the principle and I hope that this teacher will be put in her place and the student giving back the disks that the student rightfully owns.

Although I did not include the entire email here or the response to that email I encourage everyone to read the email and response in its entirety as it made me chuckle at the ignorance some people have.

Linux - Stop holding our kids back

Entry #16 Could Apple be Removing the Cuffs

2008-12-09T09:53:00.000-06:00

Tech News

It appears that the tech rumor mill is stirring up a story that might finally be what music lovers have been waiting for. ApplieInsider a reputable apple blog has just published a story that today Apple will remove the dreaded DRM (Digital Rights Management) from their music. Now for those that still purchase there music through CD this will mean very little to you but for those of us entangled in the glorious web of the ipod and buying music online from iTunes this could mean Apple might finally let you breath.

So what is DRM and why is removing it liberating?

DRM is a digital protection method that prevents people from playing digital music on unauthorized devices. This means if you buy a song from iTunes you could only play that song on a device that Apple though fit which meant an ipod. It also prevented you from putting that music on more then five (compatible) devices or giving it away. Now the latter is of course illegal but the others are simply restrictions on people that trying not to pirate music. Therefor people that use ipods and in turn use iTunes for there music have been suffering with DRM limitations for years. Finally music lovers might be able to buy music from iTunes and easily put it on other devices besides an ipod.

Now there has been plenty of alternative music stores that have been DRM free for quit some time now but for us in Canada these services have not been available. so my hope here is that Apple is able to make this happen and also make it happen in Canada (which could be the reason it took so long for Apple to change over to DRM free.) Because if Apple don't we in Canada will get the proverbial shaft like with other online media.

Gadget

Here is a gadget that take text messaging to a whole new level. "Honey I got a text... it is time" could be the next phrase you hear from your wife's lips. Babycenter.com has a service that will text you 18 time, 3 time for 6 months, telling a women when she is most fertile and when it will be ideal to become pregnant.

Entry #15 Ah Tech Nostalgia

2008-12-08T09:46:00.000-06:00

Tech Nostalgia

At at time when the tech economy is in the dumps and companies are hemoraging staff like their is no tomorro w. It is time to look back to an age when hopes were higher and gadgets were simpler. The website Radio Shack Catalogs is a site that offers you hi-res scans of old Radio Shack catalogs all the way back to 1939. In each catalog you will find pages filled with tubes, insulators, connectors, sockets and coils all the great pieces you would rip out of your parent's stereo early in the morning before they awoke. The website also offers a history of Radio Shack and other extras such as pictures of flyers and clips of early commercials.

Entry #14 Saskatchewan Takes a Step Forward

2008-11-26T15:06:00.001-06:00

Tech News

Today the Saskatchewan government announce that it and Sasktel will fund a 129 million dollar project to bring high speed Internet coverage to 100 percent of the province and also cellular coverage to 98 percent of the population for Saskatchewan.

I think this is a admiral feat by the Sask Party and Sasktel but I worry it will get bogged down in bureaucratic and cost inflation nightmares.

Lets hope that they can pull this off but also that they do not stop there. As this is fantastic news I worry that Sasktel is slow to innovation and dramatically behind in the technology. In fact if you look at the map here the first thing that glares out is the lack of EV-DO coverage (orange color). This coverage is minuscule compared to other providers and not to mention it is also old technology. today EV-DO is being replaced with 3G networks and in some location even 3.5G the upgrade to 3G. This puts Sasktel way behind the curve in regards to their cell technology and in fact Sasktel may find them struggling by the time they finish the upgrade because cell phone company like RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, Sasktel's Smart phone choice is now making cell phones that support 3G and other cell phone companies are starting to only offer phones to providers that have 3G coverage. if this trend continues Sasktel might be in a position of having to find a supplier of second hand phones because they can not get new one to sell.

Entry #13 I See Naughty Parts

2008-11-18T10:18:00.001-06:00

Tech Humor

For those out there that have an iPhone beware it according to an innocent husband your iPhone might be taking pictures of you naughty parts and sending them to other people.
A recent form post to Apple a woman called Susan asked if it was possible for her husband's phone to take a picture of his genitals and sent it to another women without his knowledge.
Now I hope Susan is just doing this to embarrass her husband and has already kicked him to the curb. Because if this women is naive enough to think that this lame excuse is even remotely true, well then she deserves and moronic cheating husband.
First of all the man would have to be caring his phone in his underpants (nasty) and secondly since the iPhone does not have a flash he would have to be walking around with is pants open to get enough light down there to get any sort of picture. There is a reason they call it "the place where the sun does not shine."
So for the sake of humanity's intelligence will Apple please respond to this form post with a swift kick up the side of this woman's head.
On the bright side it appears that further down the forum Susan does claim she is suspicious of her husband but would like to remain open to the possibility. Susan also admits she is a former Apple Genius herself. Well now I can see why she is a former Genius if she thinks this is possible.
On the other hand you have to give the guy some credit for being gutsy enough to think this excuse might actually fly. Nice try sir, but next time you think of doing something on your phone you do not want your wife to see you might want to consider securing your phone first with a password.

Entry #12 Bore Me in 3D Now Please!

2008-11-14T13:56:00.000-06:00

Internet

With the invention of digital cameras the world wide web would soon become bloated with pictures of drunken fools and a million pictures of each of your friends children. But now why settle for just 2D pictures when with Make3D, a online application developed by Ashutosh Saxena, a PHD candidate for Standford University that will allow you to take your photos and not only bore people in 2D but also in 3D! Ashuton says 3DMake is a program that explores "Learning algorithms to predict depth and infer 3-d models, given just a single still image."

The application examines the image and using what is call Markov Random Field (MRF), the application determines the dept of the image and objects in the image to try and extrapolate a 3D model.

Ashuton has written several papers on the subject and has also worked on other projects dealing with robotics and Navigation. So if you are into this sort of think the project is worth checking out.

Links

Entry #11 E-recycling is it Really Helping?

2008-11-10T10:25:00.000-06:00

Tech News

While most time I like to write about the new and exciting news happening in the tech world, today I felt compelled to write on a more serious topic.
In today's times having the newest gadget has become an obsession and millions of people each year spend billions of dollars upgrading their computers, cell phones, and televisions. and with LCD TVs and monitors getting cheaper and more energy efficient more and more people are throwing out there old CRT monitors and buying LDC monitors.
So you might think you are helping the environment by buying an energy efficient LCD monitor. But what are you doing with the old monitor? A year ago you would have thrown it into the garbage devastating our land fills and polluting the ground because on average a 17" CRT monitor contains 8lbs of lead. Now today people can take those monitors and other electronics into a recycling depot and have them properly recycled and the hazardous material like the lead disposed of properly, or so you thing. CBS 60 minutes has just released a report that shows that in a lot of cases when you take that monitor into recycling to have the hazardous material disposed of properly the recycling companies are infact sending the electronics to poor parts of the world to fund gangs and poison children.
Places like China illegally buy the electronic and pay destitute people to meltdown the electronics to extract the precious metals within the compounds. Metals like copper, gold and silver are manually extracted using open flames and toxic baths. As shown in the 60 minute report these people are not only unprotected but breath the poison gases and are exposed to extreme amounts of lead in there water and food.
So next time you upgrade to the newest cell phone or larger computer and take the old computer to be recycled ask the recyclers what "actually" happens to the computer you might be surprised that being green does not always mean you are helping the planet.

Entry #10 Online Banking A Little More Secure

2008-10-30T11:05:00.003-06:00

Security

IBM Research has just unveiled a new USB memory stick call "Security-on-a-Stick" witch will allow people to bank online with out the fear of malware on their computer stealing their banking information or manipulating there transactions form paying a bill to sending the money to a bank in Mexico. The USB stick once plugged into a computer will make a direct secure connection to the bank and bypassing the persons computer altogether. IBM says this device will handle all of the communication to and from the bank ensuring that no malware in the back ground can communicate with your bank while you are logged into the online banking service. The device appears to collect every transaction you perform on the banks website and asked you to approve or reject the transaction using the buttons on the device before the transaction is sent to the bank.

Entry #9 Its Alive! its Alive!

2008-10-27T09:58:00.000-06:00

Tech News

Today is the first day of Windows annual PDC conference. and in today's keynote, Ray Ozzie as announced windows new cloud OS called Windows Azure. At a first place it appears the Azure is not what you think of as a traditional OS like Windows XP and Vista that you are use to seeing on your desktop. This OS will be used by Microsoft to host services that business can use to deploy applications to the users over the Internet. one of these new apps is BlueHoo which will be a mobile social network application. current cloud like apps are things like gmail and Amazon.com. So why is this exciting? well for the average user you will not notice much except that more and more software that you would traditionally by on a disk then install it on your computer you will now subscribe to a website and use the services over the Internet. This has two advantages to users. One the user no longer has to buy software and continue to buy multitudes of upgrades through out the life of the software. With the cloud computing users only need to use the service from the website and as new upgrades come out the service will upgrade automatically for you. The second point is the dependence people have one buying bigger and bigger computers to keep up with software. Users now only need to have a computer that will run the Internet and the power needed to run your applications are the responsibility of the cloud and not your home computer. This will make upgrading computers less frequent and cheaper as machines can be less powerful then those needed by people today.

Entry #8 Finally Emoticons Users Can Stop Sending Spam

2008-10-24T09:02:00.000-06:00

Tech News

As on who suffers from people continuously sending emails with those annoying and often dangerous animated emoticons in there mail I am relieved to see that these people now have a safe option if they insists on using this things.

For you emoticon addicts how also phone me wondering why you computer is slow and then after telling them that most emoticons you download are full of spyware and malwar, but continue to use them. You can now switch to Google's Gmail and have all the safe emoticons to use and annoy us into deleting each email you send.

Yesterday Google announced that they have added a wide range of animated emoticons to there online Gmail application. with over 140 emoticons people can now express the most inner emotions graphically with out causing spam and clogging there computer with junk that slows the machine down.

Gadget

As for a gadget who really want to waist energy twisting the faucet nob when a sleek looking touch screen could save you from years of coporal tunnel. The Elettronico Faucet designed by Carlo Frattini is a space aged faucet that will impress and confuse anyone that wants to use your bathroom. the LDC touch screen display will allow you to turn the faucet on and off, control the flow rate and temperature of the water. So now when you burn yourself you will can tell the nurse in the emergency room the exact temperature of the water.

Entry #7 Happy Birtday, You have an STD

2008-10-22T15:01:00.001-06:00

Tech News

Now there are not many really bright things going on in the tech world with the down turn of the market and every tech company under the sun laying off people left and right. But alas you can finally let the person you met at the bar in a depressed drunken stooper they might have left the with a little parting gift from the night before. inSpot, A website that gives information about STD's and where one can get treated has released a new service that allows one to send e-cards to those that might have gotten an STD from you.

Some of the cards read;

"You're too hot to be out of action."

"I got diagnosed with an STD since we played. You might want to get checked too."

and my personal favor it, "It's not what you brought to the party, It's what you left with."

Now the service seems like it has good intentions but more then likely it will be over run with people sending fake cards to there friend. So I give it a thumbs up for intention but I would be a little pissed if this is the way I was told I was given an STD.

Entry #6 Micrsoft's Head is in the Cloud

2008-10-17T14:33:00.001-06:00

Tech News

At the end of September Steve Ballmer CEO of Microsoft introduced an new Microsoft operating system that will run on the cloud. This new OS was first call Windows Cloud but just recently on the PDC2008 website there was published a topic called "Windows Strata". Now there has been no confirmation that this is the name of the new OS but the name fits and soon after the topic was published it was removed and Microsoft had no comment.

So what is the "cloud " and this new OS? well back in 2005 Microsoft released a project call AJAX(asynchronous JavaScript and XML) witch is a new type of web page technology that allows web pages to really become interactive and powerful. From this came the ability for developers to make application that once you used on your desktop but know could be done through the internet, like Word, Excel, Email, Accounting, etc. So now that there was this power to perform these tasks online there became a need for websites to provide storage and integration for these tools online and hence the cloud was born. Sites like Google started providing integrated office like tools online where you can create, store, and share documents, pictures, emails and anything else you can think of. As this grew more and more popular and there were many people now using the cloud for something individual companies started making their own part of the cloud to attract people to their services and this is were the new Windows Cloud came in.

Although nothing has been officially released from Microsoft we can expect that Windows Cloud will look similar to Windows Mesh but will allow for further integration of Microsoft products and other products (we hope).

Gadget

The iLogic sound hat from iWoot allows you to listen to music in style. With built in speaker the iLogic hat plugs into any mp3 player and blasts the toons in cogneeto.

Entry #5 G1, IPhone Killer?

2008-10-16T08:41:00.000-06:00

Tech News

With the release of the iPhone finally in Canada you would think we are finally starting to catch up to our American counterparts. But alas we fall short again. With our cell plans nearly double that of the US and while they enjoy unlimited data plans for under $30.00 dollars we get a 6GB plan for $30.00. But for those thinking of getting the iPhone now you are looking at shelling out for just 2GB of data. Can you feel Rogers bending you over because they are.
Along with the insulting cost we pay we do not even get the latest in cell tech. In late September of this year Google and T-Mobile just announced the new "iPhone Killer" the G1 Android phone. The phone will operates like the iPhone with a touch screen, download able applications, GPS, and media player, along with features the iPhone does not have like keyboard and an open platform. Now the verdict is still out as to if this new phone will really chop down the Apple Goliath but looking at the two phones together Apple better look out because Google is coming for your knees.

Entry #4 Election Tech

2008-10-15T08:34:00.000-06:00

Tech News

Well the Canadian election has come and gone and with no surprises and no impact. We still have a crippled government with empty promises from the parties to work together. I was watching the CBC election coverage and its sad attempt at bringing tech into is coverage with the pathetic power point presentation that looked like the producers kid put it together. So I thought I would go over the Candidate tech attempts to reach us and see if they really understand what these social sites are or if they were doing it because everyone else is doing it.

Lets start from the bottom up and review what social sites each party used:

Elizabeth May leader of the Canadain Green Party

Well May's web site does not even use any of the new social sites. She does attempt to make here own twitter like micro blog on the front page but her lack of anything is a disgrace. get out of the 90's Elizabeth.

Jack Layton leader of the NDP

Jack uses three of the most popular social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Freind Feed. ALthought his attemp was lacluster his was the cloest to an effective use of social sies.The Facebook page that the NDP made looks clean with a lot of variety in the content available my one comment is, "Jack did you look at your site?" if you are using these sites to reach people you need to understand that these are not one way sites you need to go to them and comment on it, these are interactive sites. So the lack of any comments in response to peoples comments is a definite Oops.

The Twitter site for the NDP was very good the tweets were not just propaganda but were status updates about Jack and what he was doing so the NDP atleasted used this site for what it is for.

Gilles Duceppe leader of the Bloc Quebecois

Now I am not very good at french but using a few translators I was able to find a link to Gilles' Facebook page(which was not on the front page, No No No) and the first thing I noticed is a note from August 20th. Wow a dead give away this page is never looked at by Gilles.

Stéphane Dion the leader of the Canadian Liberal Party

The liberals did use Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace but looking at these where horrible. the sites were not updates regularly and face book and MySpace as well at Twitter were huge Harper hater propaganda sites. So if you were to go to these "social" sites to get a "social" opinion of Stéphan I would say Harper might want to invest in some protection.

As well as the irritating hate campaign Stéphane Dion would not even use is name in Twitter he used LiberalTour. I would have to give Stéphane Dion the most imperssional Social sites of all the canidates.

Stephen Harper the leader of the Conservitive party

Harper used the most social network including a social news site called Digg althought Harper used Facebook, Twitter, Freind Feed, and MySpace looking at all these sites it was quickly apperent that they were not monitored regularly and full of propaganda and very few personal updates. I do have to give Stephen Harper a thumbs up for using the most sites but none of them were really used effectivly.

So what does my rembling mean? Well even though the CBC said that the internet is becoming a big portion of a campaign, it is clearly visable that none of out canidates really understand these tools and do not use any of them effectivly to reach out to people in a more personnal and interactive way. So though our politions are tring to look up-to-date by using these solial sites it is quite easy to determine that the canidates only really familliar with old meadia and not new media.

Entry #3 Yahoo Eats AOL

2008-10-14T10:55:00.000-06:00

Tech News

As I reported last week Yahoo has been looking at merging with AOL to make a a sub par search engine more readily available on a dieing AOL back bone. of course nothing is for certain till the bloated ad ware lady sings but sources say the deal is all but done and there will be an announcement soon.

Today is the big day and Apple has announced a brand new line of shiny over priced but got to have laptops.

Apple only really exciting new feature is a button less glass track pad that will allow for increased gesture recognition. The new glass track pad operates as the apple signal button mouse with click feedback although users can make the pad into a multi button mouse that most of the world uses with software. The pad is also 39% larger and will allow the user to gesture with four fingers now instead of two, greatly increasing the already popular two button gesture feature found on almost all Apple touch technology. Other then that Apple add some more power to the laptops and changed the look a little but did not introduce anything ground breaking. Overall a pretty disappointing year for Apple only announcing revamped products and nothing really new.

Gadgets

Finally a universal remote that does not look like the control panel for the star ship Enterprise.
This one button remote designed by Brian Garret Schuur allows users to perform basic remote functions such as play, pause, control the volume and power on and off your tv with just one button.
The remote appears to operate by pushing the button up and down to toggle the function you wish to control then you slide the button left and right to either turn the volume or channel up and down. All thought currently this remote is just a prototype the idea is intriguing and a welcome change to 103 button universal remotes that never really work.

Security

In the world of security Microsoft as released several new updates effecting everything from Office to Internet Explorer to Windows itself. Although the majority of the fixes are for Windows Server 2000 it is best we all fire up out computers and get the latest updates.

Entry #2 Apple Makes a Brick

2008-10-09T18:55:00.001-06:00

Tech News

After many days over speculation and rumours of a new MacBook to come from Apple, today the "Brick" or so it was code named might be introduced on October 14th at the next MacBook event. Apple is of course keeping their lips sealed but the event title and slogan make it pretty obvious as to what is coming. So for those of you out there thinking of buy your the first Mac or itching to upgrade you Mac and calm you Apple fix, you might want to freeze that credit card for another week.

So as to what the new MacBook and MacBook pro will look like well the few leaked pictures on Apple Insider shows a solid Aluminium case for better toughness and sexy factor. As for hardware specs we will probably see a larger hard drive and better battery life, but you just never know what Jobs has up his sleeve.

Gadgets

Now this really is not a gadget but its geek cred factor is way up there making this new concept car from Mazda called Kiyora our gadget of the day. The concept car is not only designed to be more fuel efficient but it also uses it specially designed hood and a built in purification system to produce clean drinkable water for you thirty travelers. The car uses a channel in the roof of the car to funnel rain water (or soupy car wash water if you think about it) into it purification system purifying the water and storing it in a bottle in the car. Now I know this is just a concept car but how many times have you been driving in the rain and thinking to yourself, "Boy I am thirsty... I could stop at 7-11 but man the rain water looks refreshing"

Entry #1 Layoffs, and Exoskeletons

2008-10-08T15:51:00.000-06:00

Tech News
With the market looking like the approval rating of Stephane Dion what would be more appropriate way to start a tech blog with looming threats of layoffs in the tech industry.

With eBay announcing layoffs and romars of Yahoo firing 3000 people along with Google canceling their annual ski trip (boo hoo). Are we looking at another dot com bubble burst? All though it would be an exciting ride if there was I would say we might start seeing companies start to canalize each other as what might happen between Yahoo and AOL talking of merger.

So What does this mean to us? Well with the tech industry being one of the most lucrative industries in the global market and one of the last to be affected by the market down turn I can only speculate that a turn around is further off then most of us would hope.

Gadgets

So now that we are looking out the window wondering if the fall will hurt you can be reassured that you can make that jump with your newly rented super powers. Cyberdyne a Japanese based company has started renting strap on Exoskeleton legs. So my dreams of becoming as fat as the people in the Disney movie Wall-E is starting to become a reality. The suit straps to your waist and will increase your leg strength my 10 times so now you will not have a major heart attack climbing the stairs to your office when the elevator is out.

Internet

Google has just announced that it will be adding RSS feeds to is search results allowing you to save your results and monitor if new content is available. Currently you can only receive updates through email but those RSS junkies out there like myself having your Google alerts come to your reader will greatly free up your inbox allowing you time to reed those important email about a 20 some blond in New Jersey wanting to meet you online.

Now to put this in terms other than a Internet news junky could understand. The new RSS feature for Google allows you to perform a search on Google then save those results in an RSS feed. After that each time you go back and check that RSS feed any new results you have not seen before will be delivered to you. So for those people out there that do repeated searches for the same thing and rely on your memory or your web browser to remember the phrase you used, this is now no more with the Google RSS alerts.

Welcome

2008-10-07T20:30:00.001-06:00

So Today I have created this blog and thought there is plenty to talk about in the tech world today is just the setup day tomorrow I will jump right into the world of tech.