Slingbox and Orb transport TV everywhere

I believe i've spoken about this before- SlingBox is a unit you connect to your TV and your broadband connection; afterwards, you can access your actual television from any web-browser. When you load up the app on a laptop, you see your remote and everything you could control on your tv, and actually interact with it (so if someone was watching at your house, you would change their channel). SlingBox just rolled out a test of their app for Windows Mobile, which means you can now watch tv from a smartphone or PocketPC. This pretty much makes television accessable from absolutely anywhere you have an internet connection, if you so desire.
Orb, a computer based competitive solution, allows you to control any media on your computer, as well as TV if you have it jacked into your computer.
Articles on NY Times and Washington Post lauding the service.

Technorati Tags: SlingBox, Mobile TV, Windows Mobile

Bob Sagot to Direct "March of the Penguins" Spoof

Bob Saget is reportedly directing a spoof of the oscar-winning documentary "March of the Penguins." His film, "Farce of the Penguins" will mix wildlife footage and an r-rated screenplay (which sounds a lot like America's Funniest Home Videos, his old show). Press releases describe it as "one penguin's search for love while on a 70 mil trek with his libidinous buddies on their way to a hedonistic mating ritual." Samual L Jackson, Lewis Black, Tracy Morgan, James Belushi, Norm Crosby, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, Gilbert Gottfried, Jon Lovitz, Norm Macdonald, and Abe Vigoda will all be doing voices for the film.

Technorati Tags: movie, penguins, sagat

facebook to sell for $2 billion?

BusinessWeek is reporting that Facebook is up for sale for $2 Billion, after the founders turned down an offer a $750 million. This is only about 2 years after the site was built as a sopohomore college assignment. The site is now the 7th highest ranking site in terms of monthly page views, and had over 37 million unique visitors last month. If it sells, it would make 4 guys very rich before they EVEN GRADUATE COLLEGE (or at least reach that age).

Custom Designing Your Soda on the Fly

"Massachusetts-based
IPIFINI (the bold is part of the branding) has exceeded our wildest dreams with their Programmable
Liquid Container, which contains small, flavor additive-filled (or paint-filled, for the home improvement set)
"buttons" around the periphery of the plastic container. Consumers press the appropriate buttons to create
different flavors from a common base, such as cherry vanilla cola or raspberry tangerine lemonade, or get even wilder
with aroma and food coloring options. IPIFINI claims to already be licensing the technology around
various industries, so don't be surprised to see sodas and coffees (and probably some alcopops too) in the near future
that let you choose your level of buzz"
via Engadget

Google 3.0

via ObnoxiousFumes

Can your online reputation cost you a job?

BusinessWeek has a scary article about the increasing trend of companies to review candidates for jobs via Google before hiring them. While this may not seem like a big deal, remember this: anything you ever did or said online is usually preserved. Unfortunately my computer is crashing and I can't link to the article, but look up "you are what you post" on BusinessWeek Online.

Moore's Law for Razor Blades

A really funny article by The Economist that discusses the possiblity of an emerging "Moore's Law" of razor blades. Moore's Law, for those of you who don't remember, states that the power of computer chips will double every 18 months, a rule that's held true for a while now. If the "power" rule (think time of developing speeding exponentially) that's trending out over the 5 inagurations of razor blades continues to hold true, we will have 14 blades by the year 2100.
Also note that The Onion predicted the 5 blade razor in a farce article two years ago.

Foreign Players in the NBA deal with tensions at home

From the Orlando Sentinal, in regards to Darko Milicic and Mario Kasun, team mates on the Orlando Magic:
They are Orlando Magic teammates, but they probably never can be
friends -- not in the truest sense. A civil war-torn history between
their countries makes a relationship uneasy in the locker room and
potentially dangerous back in the former Yugoslavia. Darko Milicic is
Serbian and Mario Kasun is Croatian. Milicic and Kasun have been thrown
together by the fates of pro basketball ... but distanced by grim
reminders in their homelands. ... Kasun fears how his comments might be
relayed and interpreted in Croatia if he has befriended a Serb
teammate. A peace treaty might be in place, but he says tension
remains. "I don't blame Darko," Kasun said. "But I can't say, 'Yeah,
there's nothing going on.'"

Technorati Tags: basketball

The Office to have 10 episodes online (internet exclusive)

NBC's American version of The Office will have a 10 episode season internet only some time during the summer. Accroding to sources, "the story arc will cover a missing "stash of cash" and will feature
some of the staff of Dunder-Mifflin that typically gets a lesser amount
of air time during regular broadcast episodes." Another great step in bringing television online in an on-demand format.
[via arstechnica]

Privatizing common goods (econ 101): Windows on a Mac

This is a really interesting example of econ theory playing out. When Mac switched over to Intel, there was a lot of curiousity if someone could boot Windows alongside the Mac platform. Unfortunately it seemed to be something that everyone wanted to do and benefit from, but no one wanted to take the time to figure out (think all of the reasons research in general faces challenges). A group of people got together and donated some money, and then more and more people donated money, to the "boot Windows on a Mac" fund, a collective bounty to the first person to prove it could be done. The pool reached over 13K, a team of hackers figured it out, and were paid for their efforts, in return for a public video and instruction on how to do it.
http://onmac.net/

SMS Google Sports Scores

You can finally get sports score updates by text messaging google. Just send a text message to GOOGL (46645) with the name of your team (or city and league) and you will receive a score updated to the minute and time of the next game.
See the demo here

Technorati Tags: sms, sports, scores, google

baseball and college basketball newspaper archives

Catch up on your sports history with two sites dedicated to archiving the news for college basketball and pro baseball.

The other jordan commercial

After a long hunt, Santosh sent me the link to the other Jordan commercial - this one being for Gatorade - that showed great moments in sports history that, had they not happened, would have changed everything.

Google brings us Mars (begins inter-space travel)

Google opened a Mars discovery center yesterday, complete with infrared scanning, elevation shots, navigation of major points of interest, and descriptions of historical events such as shuttle passings. Also see Google's visit to the moon; both clear leveraging of their relationship with NASA.

ABC Viral Videos (Narnia and other SNL clips)

ABC feels it needs to fight back against YouTube and Google Video, who they believe are profiting off their content. Recently they sent cease and desist letters demanding the removal of any of their content from the video apps. Now they've released their own "web favorites" center, where you can watch clips from SNL, Conan, and others, as well as email them to friends. Sure, there's still the same content, but do they realize how much less people will watch these clips if they have to run to the ABC website to do it? The viral nature of videos requires people to be able to spread it around themselves. And ABC is only benefitting from the exposure millions of clip views all over the internet is generating. By controling the use of these insignificant clips, they're negating future television earnings for the lesser dollars a few more pages views will generate on their website.

Technorati Tags: viral, videos, abc, narnia

apple ipod mini's for 150 (that's a good deal)

anyone still looking for a cheap ipod, they're selling the refurbished ipod mini's (4gb) for $150, or the longer battery units for $160, which is a 40% discount from their original price.

Refurbished iPod mini 4GB - Silver

Holds up to 1,000 songs, Up to 8 Hours Battery Life, 3.6 ounces, 2.0 x 3.6 x 0.5 inches, Belt Clip, Apple Earphones, AC Adapter, FireWire cable, USB 2.0 cable, Holds up to 1,000 songs, Up to 8 Hours Battery Life, 3.6 ounces, 2.0 x 3.6 x 0.5 inches, Belt Clip, Apple Earphones, AC Adapter, FireWire cable, USB 2.0 cable

Technorati Tags: deals, ipod

k.b.$kob@c

Now here's a pricing plan for iTunes video that works - Pay $10 dollars for an iTunes multi-pass that lets you download up to 16 Colbert Report and Daily Show episodes. Hopefuly shows begin to realize there will be more of a market for people taking content on demand with affordable price points. Why Fox doesn't do this with 24 is beyond me, since the fan base would pay quickly to catch a show they missed, and hopefully HBO rolls out an offer on iTunes for Sopranos before Sunday, but its definately not likely.
Colbert Report - iTunes link
Daily Show - iTunes Link

Technorati Tags: iTunes, VOD

Peter Gammons on Barry Bonds

In discussing Barry Bonds after the announcement that there is a book coming out revealing in detail his steroid habbits, Peter Gammons noted poignantly:
"the enhancers were not illegal in the baseball workplace and were a
part of the workplace's culture, but for such an intelligent, talented
man to make the alleged decision that he had to have more because
McGwire and Sosa had it is the sort of greed that led to the demise of
Richard Nixon and former Enron CEO Ken Lay, and Americans have little
pity for a fall based on greed."

Technorati Tags: sports, baseball, barry bonds, steroids

funny how secrets travel (flickr photo)

FLOTSAM
Originally uploaded by HOGBARD.

Taken from Flickr, out of appreciate for how cool this photograph is. (Words below by the artist, displayed how he/she wanted it)

"I'm Deranged" (David Bowie)

Funny how secrets travel
I'd start to believe
if I were to bleed
Thin skies, the man chains his hands held high
Cruise me blond
Cruise me babe
A blond belief beyond beyond beyond
No return No return

AOL brings free tv to the web

AOL has launched a free tv service for the web on their AOL.com portal, called In2TV. It's in beta, so there are glitches, and it seems to only work on Internet Explorer. There is advertising built in, with pre-roll and mid-roll video spots, but for the most part its free, on demand, television in decent quality. The content includes a random collection of old shows so far, among them the original "The Fugutive" tv show, "Perfect Strangers", "Batman" the original cartoon, "Wonder Woman", and "Pinky The Brain". You can receive alerts when new television is available via IM or email, and there are random features such as Karaoke, where you sing along to theme songs. As far as I know, this is the most complete free content on the web to date, and is a direct challenge to other television networks to provide something similar.

Technorati Tags: VOD, Free TV, AOL

The new Jordan Nike commercial is amazing

If you haven't seen the new Jordan Nike commercial yet, you're missing out. His greatest moments re-inacted perfectly by kids, no details of the scene left out. Does anyone have a link to the previous great Nike commercial where they play back great events, such as Jordan hitting the winning shot over Utah, but instead he just misses?

Paint.NET, a free photoshop alternative

If you don't have Photoshop, and want a free alternative, take a look at Paint.NET for image edting. A senior project by some guys at Washington State University, now kept up by the alums.

Technorati Tags: photoshop, freeware

Bill Gates will send you a flash drive

i never received the flash drive from IBM i posted about somewhere around a year ago, but here's another one that is supposed to go out to the masses - sign up to receive some information on windows security, and you will receive it on a flash drive curtousy of microsoft and bill gates.
drop your address here

Technorati Tags: free

Windows Reveals "Craigs List" Killer - Expo

Windows has taken the covers off their social selling application (think Craig's List) - Check it out here if you're looking for something
Windows Live Expo