guns, comments, hello kitty

i guess this is only funny if youre not a gun nut. my uncle wanted me to carry, but its just not my style. maybe if it were a pearl-colored hello kitty gun with some of them sparkly blingy adhesive jewels...

ive found over the last year that the comment section can yield some pretty interesting and funny posts. i especially like the irreverent comments on digg that are already sorted by their snicker-worthiness. the following comment is reposted from engadget. i used to be a gun nut myself, until schoolkids started shooting other schoolkids. no freedom is worth paying that price.

http://m.gizmodo.com/site?t=RiAslaOnmf0b9I.iM0yk3g&sid=gizmodoip

(missing attribution)

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:58:28

"@Badlands99: 'A firearm is THE greatest equalizer. Two large young men attacking an elderly woman is a foregone conclusion. Unless she has a pistol. Then their advantage disappears.' 

Can I join in here?... let me finish that paragraph for you. 

"Unless those two large young men also have a gun each - another forgone conclusion. Unless she has two big guns & has been practicing to some old school Clint Eastwood movies." 

Wait... 

"(cont...) Unless those two guys happened to be die hard fans of 50(fitty) cent, carrying a couple of pieces themselves..." 

and then... 

"But what if the elderly woman was actually the 'Old Woman' from Worms 2 (I'm sure someone will get the reference)... then uh-oh" 

...in the (distant) future 

"... Unless the two cybernetically enhanced guys happened to have a portable version of the laser just demoed by NIF and threatened to turn the old lady into a small star through readily available Nucleur Fusion technology... it'd be a forgone conclusion... we could use elderly women as a clean source of energy" 

All humour aside... I'm sure you can see my point... it'd be great (?) for only old (and otherwise defenseless) people and oppressed groups to own guns, but sadly in your country (I'm in Australia - we don't have such liberal gun laws... thankfully) and in any country for that matter, guns aren't restricted to those that need them... those that already have an edge have equal access to them to gain yet more power. 

For every instance that a weak person has a gun to protect themselves... how many are there that the antagonist has the gun to intimidate their victim. As unlikely as it may sound, imagine a scenario of an elderly woman with a gun attacking a couple of fit young men... the guys could just back off and escape quite easily if little miss pensioner wasn't brandishing a pistol in their faces. 

Guns (like any weapon) give an advantage to he/she that wields the weapon. Period. Furthermore the bigger/better/more efficient the weapon (or better trained the individual)... the bigger the advantage... 

I'm not saying I know or have thought of a magic solution to world peace... i don't know any stats, but I get the feeling gun related "incidents" are a lot higher in the US than they are in OZ... because (as I understand it) you guys have "the (consitutional) right to bear arms"... 

Don't get me wrong, I've held guns in my hand before aand I freely admit to enjoying an afternoon at the shooting range (and I'd like to go hunting as well)... but I also have a healthy respect for their destructive capabilities... As a (hopefully) future (geeky) LEO myself, I can train in hand to hand... I can even train against knife attacks... but guns are a whole different kettle of fish... 

IMO guns don't belong anywhere in public unless there's a target or game animal involved... With the exception of LEOs - who (here at least) use them as a final resort... not the "primary weapon" you make it out to be. Outside of the aforementioned "guns-for-sport" domain... guns only beget more guns. 

This isn't a personal attack on you, but your argument has a gaping hole when the gun is in the wrong hands - which can so easily be the case."

CES2010: Temple of Sony

First off, let me say that I can spend all day watching movie trailers on the gorgeous Sony displays. Ultra high contrast ratios, eye popping color, the deepest blacks, WOW.

Sony was showing off their new Exmor digicam processor. New must-have feature: Intelligent Sweep Panorama Mode. Click the shutter then sweep the camera to the right about 180deg, and the camera creates a perfect panorama for you IN the camera. No software required! Now that is worth paying for. If you have ever tried to create your own panorama you will know what I mean. The more I think about this, the more I think I have to have it.
Sony Panorama Image contest.
Description on Amazon.uk

If Canon abandons their SD-series high end digicams, will Sony fill the gap? Their top of the line Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V has HD video mode, twilight mode ("twilight mode takes six images and combines them to create a single optimized image with lower noise levels"), the aforementioned Intelligent Sweep Panorama mode, and it accepts SD cards!! CES gave this an award, maybe to welcome Sony back from their parallel universe where everyone (no one?) uses Memory Stick.

Sony showed a prototype web-connected photo frame, sorry, "DASH personal internet viewer", that had very nice graphic design for showing weather and news widgets. Didn't have time to survey all the internet photoframes at the show, I really do want a kitchen clock replacement. Yes! Now that I think of it, an extension of a kitchen clock is much more compelling to me than extending the picture frame concept. To get my kid off to school on time, I need the time, the weather, real-time traffic (e.g. Google Maps), and Google Calendar (e.g. is today Wildcat Wednesday?). Don't need to see pictures. I give the DASH the edge over HP's DreamScreen which can only display Pandora, internet radio, and Facebook along with your pictures and video, but no traffic, no 3rd party apps, and no web browser.

I am a news and FB junkie, so I really like the idea of internet widgets on my TV, and several TV manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, and Sharp have incorporated Yahoo's Widget Engine into their HDTVs. This showed up at last year's CES, so it's not new. Sony claimed that they did not have to downgrade the picture quality, like their competitors, in order to display the widgets. This feature is only in Sony's lowend EX TV's, not in their high-end TVs, humph. As my world includes more and more online content, I do want to see it on all my screens (tv, computer, phone, etc), but it needs to be customizable with a wide array of apps, or include a web browser. The Boxee Box puts a full keyboard on the back of their TV remote control - genius!!

Casio - showed off their 240frames per second video mode. Here's a sample video. Pretty cool if your kid is in karate or sports.

Ok my feet hurt. I'm done with show for this year. I saw only a fraction of what was at the show. But I found several things I "need" to purchase this year like:

- Sony DSC-HX5V digicam (because my Canon is on its last legs after several repairs)
- LCD TV with internet capability (we currently have a 36" HD tube TV if you can believe it)
- and if Yahoo Widgets isn't complete enough i'll take Boxee
- portable external charger for the Crackberry, something like the Just Mobile Gum

We ate really well on this trip:
- Cantor's Deli at Treasure Island - desserts and sandwiches were fantastic
- Paris buffet, almost as good as Bellagio's buffet for a third less ($25 instead of $35)
- Red Rock Casino buffet, a steal at $17

See you next year, Las Vegas!

CES2010: Green power

A few items I saw:

Solar/wind:

The Hymini Biscuit, powered by either solar or wind, uses 2 AA batteries as power reservoir. To charge 2 900mAh batteries, takes 12 (12??) hours of 9 mph wind or 6 hour of solar. Usb connector.

Solio battery pack, with 3 big dragonfly-wing solar panels that are collapsable, 1650mAh. Usb connector

The Surge solar case for iPhone. Puts a Solar panel on the back of your iphone. 1500mAh capacity. Couldn't find out how long it takes to charge but the booth rep said it takes 2 hour to charge 30min talk time. Sounds slow.

Hmmm. Personal portable solar is a nice idea, but for one thing I'm never outside for that long, my office is not near a window, and a power source that takes longer to charge, than my phone takes to discharge, is a non-starter. But a cool concept. I think community solar farming - where a group shares the output of a large solar array - is probably more efficient for a technology with a high install cost.

Fuel cells:

Horizon Minipak Fuel Cells, for consumers. You could not get near this booth. Fuel Cells is such a buzzword right now. The hydrogen cartridges are slightly larger in diameter than a AA battery (22mm), and about 3.5" (81mm) long, weighing 90g, storing 12Watt-hours. This would charge my blackberry's 1200mAh battery about 10 times!! The Metal Hydride "creates the highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage, including liquid hydrogen." The odd thing is the cartridge charger that delivers the hydrogen gas to the cartridge is...wall powered?! This doesn't get you off the grid exactly but does give you fairly high-density and "portable energy in one package, at a lower cost than existing rechargeable battery-based options." A solar front end is in the works, but I wonder how big a solar panel would be needed to capture 12Watt-hours in, say, a day.

A few "old skool" chargers:

MiPlus keychain charger - tiny box approx 1" cube, holds 320mAh. Mini usb jack to plug directly into your device. Low capacity but the perfect size. I can't find this item on the internet but iLounge has already identified a much higher capacity USB charger, the Just Mobile Gum that stores 2200mAh in a device the size of a pack of gum.

HyperMac Nano iphone/ipod battery. Not solar, just an external battery pack in colors to match your Nano, with Ipod connector built in which is pretty handy. 1800mAh - charges an iphone twice.

CES2010: World's thinnest LCD panel - 6.9mm

From LG. LG had a nice "wall of monitors" at the front of their booth too but *nothing* like Samsung's tour de force. LG, you better pay more for your competitive intelligence next year.

CES2010: Panasonic 153" Super High Def HD plasma display

The current champion of ridiculously large screens. This is a "4k display" 4096 x 2160 - 8M pixels instead of the normal 2Mpixels.

I saw a Buddhist monk in orange robes walking around in the Panasonic booth. He was smiling and shaking his head. He was probably thinking "here's a bunch of people that need salvation - look at all the false idols they are bowing down to." A Buddhist would not use these Christian terms but you know what I mean. :P

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I have been dedicated to the false idol of consumer electronics for many years.

CES2010: I put 3D glasses in the same category as this monstrosity

Geeks, listen up: people are not willing to sacrifice their cool for a better viewing experience. Again I call FAD on 3D glasses. 3D will only succeed if it becomes direct-view (no glasses). If you think this TV Hat won't fly, but that people will wear 3D glasses - how much difference is there really. We'll come back to this post next year and see if I am right.

Here's a review of this crazy "TV Hat" product that lets you view your iPod hands-free. The hat even comes in camoflauge color! How American is that!

AsSeenOnTVHat.com

CES2010: Sony Bravia widgets

I don't even *watch* TV and I'm ready to throw down for a Bravia XBR-HX900 LCD tv!!

CES2010: Friday: Samsung

I have SERIOUS monitor envy after going to the Samsung booth and seeing the beautiful monitors.

The Samsung booth design was incredible. Huge as always. The traditional "wall of TVs" was more like a futuristic cathedral-like cylindrical structure plastered with TVs, reflected in the mirrored ceiling above. Almost as entertaining as going to Cirque du Soleil! (Oh, the blasphemy!!)

Amazing range of devices on display, you can't spend just 5 minutes in the Samsung booth, it'll suck you in for an hour.

- NX10 14MP hybrid digital system camera, with no mirror in the body - resulting in a body only ~1" deep, with a big 3" AMOLED display. Samsung lenses only for now. "Hampered by the lack of any meaningful photographic 'pedigree' Samsung has to prove itself worthy of a seat at photography's top table, and on first impressions the NX10 is an incredibly promising start: only time (and sales figures) will tell if its enough." -dpreview.com

- tiny "chiclet" TicToc mp3 players in Hello Kitty colors with single button operation. When the button faces up, clicking it raises the volume. Flip it 180 degrees, clicking now lowers the volume
- IceTouch mp3 player with *transparent* display
- Lay your index finger on the MyFit's sensor to read your heartrate. Reads your fat level and it's a pedometer too.
- a display with 178deg viewing angle - which gave it the appearance of paper, not electronics
- what seemed like dozens of models of TVs, all subtly different & impossible to tell apart!!

CES2010: Friday: Panasonic 3D

The show is very crowded this year but we were still able to get tickets for Love just a few days in advance. Woo hoo!

OK let's start with the obvious. 3D TV - everyone was showing it. Panasonic was showing the world's first 3D live feed from DirectTV. The question was asked, what has to change for consumers to get 3D in their living room. Well, only: the feed (the content), the converter box, the cables, the TV, AND you need 3D glasses. The 3D image does look terrific (and even more so on OLED displays), but the ugly 3D glasses are a nonstarter. I call FAD on this one. Technology that makes you look ugly won't last. Maybe I'll be wrong but don't underestimate the vanity of human beings.

This is also, of course, the year of the app. The booths are full of big signs extolling apps, with teeny tiny devices on pedestals (Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola). Very few paper brochures being handed out. Almost makes the booths look empty. Could be the bad economy forcing manufacturers to cut costs and slim down the booths? Mot and Nokia were openly soliciting developers for their devices. Where is HP in this race to grab mindshare of developers??

One group of people noticed my badge and asked me where the HP booth was and where they could see the new tablet. It was embarassing to say that we didn't have a booth. At least we couldn't find it. Only an HP meeting room... I assume that HP's booth commitment would have been made about a year ago when the economy was in total paralysis - but then how could we be the only major manufacturer to have not signed up again once the $$ started to flow again?? I am baffled.

HP Slate teaser video


Back to Nokia: The Ovi mapping app is pretty cool - it shows major landmarks which I'm not sure google maps does.

Blackberry was showing some great apps, some a repeat from last year like Schlage internet locks and Slacker, but the 2 coolest ones I saw were:

- Xobni, somewhat similar to Motorola's Blur. Aggregates & timelines emails, MSC conversations, tweets, and FB updates, apparently inside Outlook. Won't replace facebook as a single place to go to see everyone's status updates, tho. Found out Xobni for Blackberry is in Beta and is not widely available. Ugh - vaporware!!!

- Poynt, location based searching. Similar to Where on the iPhone. Uses your gps to display cheapest gas stations near you; best sushi restaurant near you. One-click integration with google maps. Displays Citysearch reviews - but not sure how accurate those are or whether their review database is large enough to be statistically meaningful. So I downloaded Poynt and played with it in Vegas and on the drive back home. The percentage of businesses that have reviews is shockingly low, like less than 10 percent, and the number of reviews per business is very low (1 - 10). Why would I switch to this from Yelp??

- Urbanspoon finally comes to BB - nice app, I enjoy it on my iPod Touch, but I prefer to understand all my choices, this control freak doesn't like to do things at random.

Nice to see that *some* key apps are being replicated for Blackberry. In the 1.5 years since I got my Blackberry, it's fallen from the number 1 smartphone platform to #3 behind iPhone and Android...

Blackberry also showing the Presenter, $99 adaptor to allow a BB to stream powerpoints to a projector. 1024x768 resolution did not seem high enough for technical presentations - image looked blurry.

I've been trying to convince my husband to get a Droid. Got a chance to play with it at the Mot booth -- and kudos to Mot for having, like, 50 Droids on display to reduce wait times... Some notes:

+ built-in external speakers sounded nice and loud
+ haptics (that little buzz under your fingers when you actually connect with a button) - iPhone *needs* this
+ smaller than iphone
+ google maps seemed to run fast
- no Blur app yet for droid
- physical keyboard is not centered on device, making typing surprisingly awkward for the right hand unless you have long fingers.

Also at Mot - the Backflip phone has a small square area on the backside called Backtrack, a touchpad that enables you to control the controls on the screen without your fingers getting in the way of your view.

Kodak booth - pretty much the only things in their booths were tables for salesmen, and Microsoft Surface tables to display product information - no paper collateral in the booth at all. There was a long "river" (great pictures here) of Surface panels flowing down a column, turning 90deg to flow across horizontally, then another 90deg turn over the edge towards the floor.

Saw an ad for a bar at the Rio Hotel that uses Microsoft Surface tables, including overhead cameras to spy on other tables and send them messages...

CES2010: We are here to serve you.

One of my favorite signs in Las Vegas.

CES2010: Another busy show

Fwd: Nexus One vs iPhone, Droid & Palm Pre - Total Cost of Ownership

great display of information.

http://www.billshrink.com/blog/nexus-one-vs-iphone-droid-palm-pre-total-cost-of-ownership/

CES2010: the evolution of the CES experience

going to CES is very different these days. today, all the cool stuff is leaked days in advance on engadget, etc. i mean come on, who can keep up with the cnet and engadget army - they know everything about everything, immediately. so we sit in our las vegas hotel room and surf the web, reading up on all the cool stuff and make plans to search it out at the show. kinda kills the joy of going to ces. back in the day, i really enjoyed the serendipitous nature of ces, where my posse and i would discover cool stuff that much of the world did not know about, and we'd discuss and debate it endlessly over the crap cafeteria lunches at the show. did you see so-and-so's such-and-such? was it cool? was it crap? why? what are all these new terms and acronyms? it all used to culminate in "geek dinner" that i would schedule for friday or saturday night at Quark's in the Las Vegas Hilton. then we'd go invade an arcade and play the daytona racing games. But now Quark's is gone, few of my friends come to CES anymore, maybe because of the big dry spell at CES over the last 5-6 years after the big wave of HDTV crested. CES may be getting more interesting with 3D TV (don't all new technologies seem ridiculous at first?) and perhaps other things ??? we shall see if there is anything really exciting that will make us say "we've got to come back to CES next year to witness the unfolding revolution!"