I love Chanel Nail Color. It's super glossy and wears forever. And they have the hottest shades. In this case, I wanted a color to match my car.
My million dollar business idea is to partner with car companies to bring out nail polish colors to exactly match car colors. I can't think of a car color that isn't acceptable as a nail polish shade today. But you wouldn't want to use car touchup paint - those chemicals are not designed to be near your skin.
http://m.mnn.com/food/beverages/stories/study-abstaining-from-alcohol-significantly-shortens-life
"...mortality rates were highest for those who had never had a sip, lower for heavy drinkers, and lowest for moderate drinkers who enjoyed one to three drinks per day.
Despite the increased risks for cirrhosis and several types of cancer, not to mention dependency, accidents and poor judgment associated with heavy drinking, those who imbibe are less likely to die than people who stay dry."
" If Lake Vostok had been composed of vodka the Russian scientists would have drilled through that two miles of solid ice like a hot knife through butter.
Frankie Wheels, Las Vegas Feb 09, 2012 1:30 AM"
" Two miles under the Antarctic Ice, a mysteriouslake has been sealed off for over 10 million years. Until now. Nowa teamof scientists has unlocked an amazing discovery. And an ancient evil.
20th Century Fox presents: FROZEN BLOOD
Dave, NY Feb 08, 2012 6:34 PM"
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/opinion/ice-fishing-in-the-deepest-depths.xml
"The Russian mission in Antarctica has had for years an astonishing goal: to explore the remotest ecosystem on earth, lying directly beneath the most extreme climate on earth. The ecosystem is Lake Vostok, an enormous freshwater lake more than two miles beneath the ice-covered surface of the Antarctica landmass. The water remains liquid because it is trapped between the enormous, insulating pressure of the ice sheet above it and the geothermal energy below it.
After years of drilling, Russian scientists reached the lake surface last Sunday, just in time to close up shop and fly home before the weather worsens as the Antarctic winter approaches. This is, by any measure, an extraordinary engineering feat and a major scientific accomplishment. When drilling season comes again, scientists will be probing subglacial lakes all across Antarctica. The Russian team will begin sampling water from Lake Vostok, and American and British teams will begin their own drilling work elsewhere.
What makes Vostok the prize is that it is both the largest of Antarctica's lakes and astonishingly ancient. It has been sealed off from the outer world for some 15 million to 34 million years. Scientists hope that it will contain undiscovered life-forms that tell us more about our planet's past - and give a hint of what life might exist in lakes beneath the icy surface of other planets. When the Antarctic summer comes again, we will see what the scientists, like patient ice fishermen, manage to catch."
By the way, I love the app Stumbleupon. You sign up, indicate what topics interest you (japan? Beauty? Quilting?), and then you click thru the most amazing series of websites that you did not even know existed.
http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/the-101-signs-you-have-been-in-Japan-too-long
"Most of your vacation plans revolve around taking hot baths.
55. You don't mind when every channel on television is talking about food.
56. You get the urge to yell sumimasen at restaurants in your home country.
57. You started to think that noodles are an ok filling for a sandwich.
59. You bought a little plastic chair for your shower. "
"In December, however, seven months after the blast that killed Mr. Lai, another iPad factory exploded, this one in Shanghai. Once again, aluminum dust was the cause, according to interviews and Apple's most recent supplier responsibility report. That blast injured 59 workers, with 23 hospitalized.
"It is gross negligence, after an explosion occurs, not to realize that every factory should be inspected," said Nicholas Ashford, the occupational safety expert, who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If it were terribly difficult to deal with aluminum dust, I would understand. But do you know how easy dust is to control? It's called ventilation. We solved this problem over a century ago." "
.
These photo apps are not very stable. It's rebooted my phone twice.
Wonderful warm weather today in the low 70's. Pretty nice for January, huh?
This was a very challenging shot, basically backlit. The afternoon sun is very bright and coming from left of center. The audience is in the shade and not illuminated. The typical result would be either underexposed audience, or overexposed sky, in short a worthless shot. Pro HDR Camera did a great job of evening out out exposure.
I was hoping this was an aftermarket treatment to waterproof phones, because I've lost 3 phone to the tub or toilet. But this was a waterproofing process for circuit boards after the chips are mounted. I'm doubtful whether this is really helpful. I'm guessing the worst damage is corrosion inside the miniature connector jacks which can't be reached by coatings which would compromise electrical conductivity anyways.
The ability to waterproof a phone would be very valuable, but I don't know of a solution. I don't mean a screen protector, i mean seal the battery compartment and all the seams while leaving all the ports and battery contacts untouched.
This funny little robot sort of blew my mind. It has an internal gyroscope that keeps it upright balanced on 2 wheels! The control feedback was very smooth, no back and forth oscillation was visible that kept it upright.
Maybe I have read too much science fiction, but I could see a groups of these driving around on the street, each as large as a small person, waiting at stoplights, carrying out their programmed delivery schedules, not getting mad or flipping people off when getting in accidents, just righting themselves and carrying on, following Asimov's 3 rules of robotics...
The future is today!
From http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics:
"Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."
Automotive is one of the next frontiers for electronics integration.
Nvidia showed off an LED panel dashboard and Humongous! 17" touchscreen control panel in a Tesla motorcar.
More details here at Nvidia 's site:
http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D622CE9F579F09&version=live&prid=703505&releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true
Audi demonstrated a gesture-based system for the car. 2 sensors at the base of the windshield detected left, right, up, down swipes to change the "channel" on one of the 3 headsup displays. The display for the passenger was recessed so that the driver couldn't see it. My arms (and those of many other women or short people) can't comfortably reach the dashboard area. I'm sure this is just a concept but I hope they'll take into account the ergonomics of more than just tall German males.
Ford also showed some new concepts but I didn't see them.
http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-galaxy-nexus-vs-white-galaxy-note-hands-on-video-20111027/
For me, the most exciting device of CES was the Samsung Galaxy Note.
This 5.3" bad boy was specifically designed to be a portable notebook. It has a built-in Wacom digitizer just like the Wacom tablets. The stylus action is smooth, precise, and high resolution, which blows away any capacitive display/stylus combo. In fact I read that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 's display simply does not work with capacitive styluses at all (it should but does not). One of the attached images is from the Galaxy Note. It shows how small you can write on the screen. Enlarge that picture to 5.3" diagonal to see the actual size. Amazing.
At the show in the main foyer Samsung had artists using the Note to do portrait sketches. Then they'd print the sketches on a tshirt for you. There was a long line to get your portrait done. Boy, Samsung sure knows how to market their stuff.
The one downside of this device is that there is no backend integration to Evernote or Dropbox or OneNote or the Cloud. You can only email your notes to yourself. In 2012, this is lame. I suppose the excuse is "a future app would be able to do this. " It would be perfect for the Note to sync notes to a folder in OneNote. Then at least I can cut and paste. Microsoft One Note can already handle mingled sketches and text.
Also, the handwriting recognition sucked. My HP touchscreen laptop runs rings around it. But, I don't know that I need realtime HR as long as the text is searchable.
The comparison: Galaxy Nexus Prime vs Galaxy Note
- 2x 1.2 Ghz vs 2x 1.4 GHz
- Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich vs 2.3 Gingerbread (the Note will be upgraded to ICS)
- 4.65" vs 5.3" display + Wacom digitizer + stylus
- both have Super AmoLED display at 1280 800 resolution
- both have 1000MB RAM and 32GB user storage
And most importantly:
- 5MP vs 8MP rear camera
- no uSD vs uSD
- 1850mAhr vs 2500mAhr battery
It's beautiful in white. Unfortunately, it's about $700 for an unlocked device, until it's released in the US.
http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/13/san-diego-firms-make-splash-ces/
VIASAT, Tagg, Mirasol...
Mirasol is a new color e-ink technology that produces limited color gamut but has fast refresh rate (for videos). Additionally uses very little power. The first applications are for Chinese e-readers.
You are looking at 3 TVs here, one edge-on. Rumor has it $20k for the set and yes it will be on the market in the fall.
Well, OK, I see Jodie's timeline. I think her claims of harassment seem genuine and there was no meaningful delay before she lodged a complaint. I think she just wanted an apology, and her lawyer wanted a bunch of money. From all of her comments to the press, and she seemed like a somewhat naive person. I think she genuinely didn't mean for him to lose his job. She probably wouldn't have done it if she knew what was going to happen. I feel sorry for her because I've seen ladies at work in high tech fight this kind of battle. What they are usually looking for is vindication, someone to say she is right and he is wrong. Unfortunately, the workplace outcome is not at all like that of a courtroom. HR will indeed render a verdict, but it won't be made public. And her manager and peers may not agree with her either (or be willing to take sides) about who was in the right. I've even seen jokes cracked at retirement gatherings *at work* about how frequently the guy had been called down to personnel, as if it were all just a big joke.
Then the two colleagues will be left to pick up the pieces. Sometimes the "perp" just dials down his behavior to avoid triggering future calls to HR. Sometimes - not always - one of the people leaves the company. Usually the woman, but not always. It's not satisfying. And always awkward.
So I feel sorry for Jodie. But at least she got some cash out of it.
Hurd? He got what he deserved. The reported behavior aligns perfectly with his public persona - arrogant condescending and entitled.
Then again she could just a fame whore, but if that was the case, she'd have her own reality show by now.
http://m.bgr.com/2012/01/06/web-traffic-patterns-suggest-apples-ipad-was-a-dud-this-holiday-season/
"Advertising network Chitika saw traffic across its network from the Kindle Fire grow roughly 20% each day leading up to Christmas, and traffic then exploded by more than 120% between December 24th and 25th. Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook saw the second biggest spike on Christmas Day, up just over 50% thanks to deep discounts during the holiday shopping season, and Samsung's Galaxy Tab line of tablets saw traffic jump about 15% on the 25th. Traffic from Apple's iPad didn't increase at all on Christmas Day, suggesting that rival tablets may have had an even bigger impact on holiday iPad sales than previously predicted.
"Though the iPad's lead over the other tablets is strong, it was not the tablet with the most impressive spike in traffic after the wrapping paper had all come off Christmas morning," Chitika's Haze Jayachandran wrote in a post on the company's blog. "The PlayBook's 50% jump in traffic Christmas day might just be the thing to help with RIM's recent struggles. The real victor in the season's tablet wars, though, has to be the Kindle Fire and its 122% traffic spike from the 24th to the 25th. If more than doubling your usage overnight doesn't say Christmas Spirit, we don't know what does." "
http://m.bgr.com/2012/01/03/kindle-fire-cost-apple-1-billion-or-more-in-holiday-ipad-sales/
" Amazon's new Kindle Fire was a hot item during the holiday shopping season, and one analyst believes the new Amazon tablet may have cost Apple well over $1 billion in holiday iPad sales. Morgan Keegan analyst Travis McCourt on Tuesday lowered his December-quarter iPad sales estimate from 16 million units to 13 million. Hot sales of the Kindle Fire ahead of the holidays are responsible for trimming sales of Apple's iPad by between 1 million and 2 million units, the analyst believes, making Amazon's new slate the main reason for McCourt's slashed forecast. Read on for more.
On the low end of McCourt's estimate, the Kindle Fire cost Apple at least $500 million considering the iPad 2′s $500 entry-level price point. If the Kindle Fire was indeed responsible for cutting iPad sales by 2 million units, Amazon tablet sales cost Apple a minimum of $1 billion. Considering the range of available iPad 2 models that sell for between $500 and $830 each, however, that figure would likely be significantly higher.
Amazon announced last week that it sold more than 4 million Kindles during the holiday shopping season, noting that the Kindle Fire was its most popular device. McCourt believes total Kindle Fire sales for the 2011 holiday shopping season were between 4 and 4.5 million"
http://www.briggsfreeman.com/search/property-details.asp?pn=13868
I just love me some high end real estate. Check out the 2 story wine cellar, separated from the dining room by a wall of glass. It's sheer poetry, i tell you.
And yes, that is the closet, so large it needs 2 flights of stairs and spectator seating.
And every carport needs a piece of art, don't you think?
The listing agent herself is at a loss for words; no single word can encompass its magnificence, she must use three; she describes the house as "perhaps... Italian or modern or Southwestern... "
Found via secondshelters.com
http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111228/COMMENTARY/111229973/
"Consumers are finding devices that easily play internet movies through TV sets. Netflix alone accounts for 30% of all internet traffic in the evening. That represents millions of moviegoers."
This is the best deal I've seen yet on the 10" Galaxy Tab. This Costco only had 3 of them left!
http://www.dailytech.com/HP+Slashes+webOS+Staff+Moves+Mobile+OS+Closer+to+the+Grave/article22783.htm
I always read article comments, some of them are gems. Check out the one below. Thanks buckwally.
" Leo Apotheker and the Kobayashi Maru Test By buckwally on 9/20/2011 1:00:45 PM , Rating: 2
The Kobayashi Maru is a famous test in the fictional universe of Star Trek. It is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy. The mission is to rescue the civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru, a disabled ship, on the wrong side of the Klingon Neutral Zone. The approaching cadet crew must decide whether or not to attempt rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew –endangering their own ship and lives, and possibly starting a war – or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. "there is no correct resolution, it is a test of character."
Stardate: Last October. Cadet Leo Apotheker, former exec from the lawsuit riddled SAP takes over the Starship HP, which has spent $2B on a phone and tablet bid to take on Apple with the avowed goal of becoming #2 in the i-market. You do a big show to launch the Touchpad and Pre, but fail to take the market in 2 months. The Klingons (Apple) have fallen in behind the Romulans (Droid) and have you surrounded, cut off, and are ready to eat your customers. His response? Separate the Saucer section (HP's PC Group), ram it into the Kobayashi Maru (the webOS/Touchpad), and run for the border with the main body of the ship. Oh yeah, and blow $10B (x4-16 its value) on Autonomy in a bid to become #2 behind SAP, as a smokescreen.
Character test: FAIL. and we the customer will not soon forget it. "
I have one more question. OK, two. How can the HP board have found that the below was NOT sexual Harassment? And talking about the EDS purchase was OK too? In other words, everything Hurd did was okie dokie except for falsifying expense reports ?
""She continually had to put you off,make excuses,scurry away or simply leave," the letter read. "Oftentimes,you would be irritated and angry and on a few occasions,you were so angry when she put you off,she expected to get fired."
Yet Hurd would always engage her again,the letter recounted. But,by 2009,the letter said,it was clear his patience was wearing thin.
He tried another tack,offering her money,asking if there was anything she needed. Hurd confessed that he felt he could spend the rest of his life with her,but would have to see "how the chemistry in bed was."
She told him,the letter said,that she wasn't interested in dating a married man. At this point in the letter,a lengthy passage was redacted. Sources familiar with the matter said the sections deal with the state of Hurd's marriage at that time.
Hurd,the letter read,persisted,offering Fisher more HP events and a $100,000 a year job. "With [Hurd's] obvious growing irritation with her put-offs,these opportunities never came to pass," the letter said.
Finally,at an October 2009 meeting in Boise,Hurd allegedly grabbed Fisher and kissed her. Fisher said she wasn't feeling well and wriggled free.
"You were angry," the letter said about Hurd. "It was becoming clear. She knew that if she did not have sex with you soon,her job was over,which is exactly what occurred. All your advances were unwelcome,awkward, and were never reciprocated in any way.""
Does nobody get it? It doesn't matter whether they consummated the relationship. Stating (implying) that continued employment is contingent on having sex with you is illegal. Sexual Harassment 101. Every HP employee has to take that online course.
" (after the settlement Ms. Fisher also stated that she and Mr. Hurd never had sexual relations)"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/29/bloomberg_articlesLWZUY00YHQ0X.DTL
Girlfriends in every city! Sheryl Crow at his beck and call! A Million bucks in the bank! I don't know, is this a more sophisticated approach than a picture of him in his underwear? Or dirty talk about a cigar? Does this kind of cretinous behavior really get these guys women? Or do they get the girl due to their position power, despite their poor behavior?
Tawdry and embarrassing... But it doesn't quite add up. According to earlier statements from Hurd, the two frequently met for dinner by themselves - one of the reasons he was fired was for lying about there being multiple dinner guests when it was just the two of them. I find it very hard to believe that a woman as brazenly pursued as she says she was, would have allowed this very uncomfortable environment to go on for several years. And let this lecherous old coot into her hotel room? More than once? She cannot possibly be that stupid, unless this was entrapment. And, why wait so long to press charges? This happened in 07/08. But she presses charges in 2010? As if she wasn't sure whether his behavior was unacceptable and/or illegal, and needed time to sort it out?
And she even says Allred's letter was full of inaccuracies? What was this all about then? Was she just golddigging, hoping some embarrassing details would force him to handover a few mil rather than see this go public? She has said before that she didn't intend to get him fired. Perhaps Allred talked her into a little blackmail action, to set her up for retirement. Perhaps she didn't count on him turning the letter over to HP Legal. Perhaps HE thought HP Legal would just quietly take care of this little blackmail attempt. Perhaps he didn't realize how many enemies he had inside HP that were just waiting for an excuse to take him down...
"According to Allred's letter,Hurd,who is married with two daughters,made sexual advances toward Fisher during dinners and other meetings. During an October 2007 visit to her hotel room at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta,Hurd twice touched Fisher's breast and asked her to stay in his room for the night,the letter said. Two months later in a hotel room in St. Louis,he embraced her and quickly kissed her on the lips.
At another meeting,Hurd told Fisher he had girlfriends in New York and San Francisco, according to the letter. He also told her that many women were "crazy about" him,including singer Sheryl Crow,the document said. Jay Cooper,a lawyer at Greenberg Traurig LLP who represents Crow,said he'd never heard her name in connection with Hurd.
During a meeting in Madrid in March 2008,Hurd walked Fisher to an ATM and showed her his checking account balance of more than $1 million to impress her,the document said."
Apple may launch 'iPad mini' in Q3
BGR: THE THREE BIGGEST LETTERS IN TECH | DECEMBER 16, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/44zFq
Apple is reportedly working on a smaller version of its popular iPad tablet that will launch in the third quarter next year. Citing sources in Apple's parts supply chain, DigiTimes on Friday claimed that a new iPad with a 7.85-inch display will enter production at the end of the second quarter. LG Display and AU Optronics will supply the panels, according to the site's report. DigiTimes suggests that Apple, which previously stated that a 7-inch display was too small for a tablet, will build the smaller slate to "cope with increasing market competition including the 7-inch Kindle Fire from Amazon and the launch of large-size smartphones from handset vendors."
This makes it sound like the Nook Tablet is superior to the Fire. Just got one for Nana last night!
" Hardware compromises: There is nothing we love about the Kindle Fire's design. The screen isn't quite as pretty as the Nook Tablet, there are no hardware controls for volume, the power button is awkwardly placed, and the whole thing looks like a chunky version of 2010's Samsung Galaxy Tab. Under the hood, you have half the RAM of the Nook Tablet,half the storage, no integrated microphone, and no memory expansion.
That said, at $199, we're just happy to see that the Kindle Fire doesn't fall apart in your hand. The $50 savings over the Nook Tablet may be worth it for some.
Needs persistent Web access: The cloud is great--if you've always got access to it. When you're out of range, you can still enjoy your locally stored content, but many of the Kindle Fire's best features are unavailable without a connection to the Internet."
Bhttp://m.gawker.com/5859949/jon-stewart-goes-off-on-jerry-sandusky
If there was any doubt in my mind about Jerry Sandusky, this eliminated it. Also, check out the comments.
"In an unbearable phone interview with Bob Costas on last night's Rock Center, accused Penn State child rapist Jerry Sandusky kinda-sorta denied being sexually attracted to young boys. On tonight's Daily Show, an indignant Jon Stewart unloaded on Sandusky: "You can't even bring yourself to lie emphatically!""
And
" 'Mary Amendola (the woman who bore Sandusky's lawyer's child at age 16) is apparently unconvinced. When Costas asked the lawyer if he would leave his children alone with Sandusky, Amendola said "yes, without hesitation."
"OMG," Mary Amendola wrote on her Facebook page, "did Joe just say that he would allow my kids to be alone with Jerry Sandusky?"'"
http://m.gizmodo.com/5861031/ever-wonder-where-that-plane-flying-over-your-head-is-going
I havent been able to get Wolfram Alpha to tell me anything useful yet, but this looks interesting :
" It's an awesome—and supremely nerdy—new feature that the computational search engine Wolfram Alpha has cooked up: it will poll your geoIP location and tell you what planes are overhead. And that the mobile apps take advantage of the feature actually makes it somewhat usable IRL.
If you run a search for "planes overhead," it will return a list of any and all planes your eyeballs can spot, the flight number, where they're positioned in the sky and how many miles up they are. In the browser version, the flight version is hyperlinked, showing you its flight path. Sadly, in the mobile version, you have to manually search the flight number. And it may take some of the fun out of your whimsical ruminations, but whatever. Knowledge is power."
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/18/tech/gaming-gadgets/kindle-fire-review/index.html
Based on the above review and others that ive read, the Fire is a great choice if reading is your primary interest.
Great for
- Kindle ebooks
- reading content of all kinds (magazines, news, blogs, websites) - anything accessible thru a web browser
- email, Facebook
- music (thru Amazon music service)
- movies (another Amazon service)
These Android services make the Fire superior to the Nook.
But, the downsides are (and the Nook shares these)
- small battery
- poky performance
- fewer apps
- no cut/paste (i use this extensively while blogging, also cut/pasting UPS shipping numbers from emails to UPS websites)
- no gps for google maps
- no accelerometer, gyro for fancy games
- no cameras
- no mic (no skype)
- no 3G service; Wifi only
" But the Kindle's battery loses a charger much faster than the iPad. I was able to surf the Web and play videos for several hours, but I found myself frequently searching for a charger after that.
That Amazon skimped on some of the components becomes evident when swiping through menus, switching the screen's orientation or playing games, which can all be jerky at times. The split-second delays are even present when turning pages on a Kindle e-book, which should be the pride of an Amazon device. The lack of a microphone means no Skype or other Internet telephony programs."
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/06/foxconn-chairman-signs-letter-of-intent-for-intelligent-robot-k/
Not only will Foxconn employ robots, they will build them. Video below is an introduction to the ABB robot.
http://www.abb.com/cawp/abbzh254/fcfbdad9a72cfe08c1257862006bcfbf.aspx
"Isaacson's book 'Steve Jobs' reveals that Jobs views Android as a 'stolen product' that amounted to 'grand theft.' Jobs engaged in a shouting match with Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 2008 over Google's release and push behind Android.
In the book, Jobs revealed, "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." "
http://gigaom.com/mobile/amazon-barnes-noble-tablet-strategy/
"Even from a strict hardware perspective, Barnes & Noble has out-maneuvered the traditional computer makers when it comes to tablets. If the leaked Nook Tablet specs are accurate, the $249 device has a dual-core processor, 16 GB of memory with an SD card expansion port, a 7-inch display with 1024 x 600 resolution and an expected battery life of 8 hours. Compared to Samsung's new Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, now available on Amazon for $399, it's nearly a mirror image of specifications, yet costs $150 less.
Another lesson learned for the traditional hardware makers: You can sell your hardware at cost, or a loss, if you can sell content to make up the difference."
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/display_special_product_versions.php?sid=SGX&pil=AFD
"WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. ON THIS DATE LAST YEAR...SAN DIEGO BROKE THE ALL TIME HIGH TEMPERATURE RECORD FOR NOVEMBER WITH A TEMPERATURE OF 100 DEGREES...THE ONLY TIME 100 HAS BEEN REACHED DURING ANY NOVEMBER. TODAY SAN DIEGO IS FLIRTING WITH THE LOWEST MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE RECORD FOR THIS Date. "
http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/11-most-startling-revelations-steve-jobs-185102154.html
"He Was Attracted to Brilliant Women and Drove Them Crazy
In the mid 80's, around the time he was ousted from Apple, he met a computer consultant named Tina Redse and later described her as "the first woman I truly loved."
They lived together for years, through swings of intense passion and severe emotional detachment. After one epic fight, she scrawled the words "neglect is a form of abuse" on the wall of their apartment. After rejecting his marriage proposal in 1989, Redse told Isaacson that she eventually decided he suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. "Expecting him to be nicer or less self-centered was like expecting a blind man to see," she said.
He met Laurene Powell during a lecture at Stanford, and on a whim, blew off a dinner with a team from Apple, took her out for vegan food and they were together--in one way or another--ever since. After proposing to her on the first day of 1990, Jobs didn't mention it again for months. Even after she'd gotten pregnant with their son, Reed, Jobs remained so detached that Powell moved out. He tried to reunite with Redse and asked a number of friends who was prettier, Tina or Laurene? Who should he marry?"
Seen at Disneyland. A 10" tablet is not a digital camera. It is too big and ungainly and much more likely to be dropped. I don't know who to slap first, the consumer or the manufacturer. I guess it is smaller than a VHS recorder...
We saw someone else in line today with an iPad... Playing solitaire. Because Disneyland is just a little too much like a sensory deprivation chamber, i guess. Dada just reminded me that that guy was only in line for ice cream!
Amazing video, but I think he got a little too close to the whale.
"Founded in 2009,Waze offers free apps for the iPhone,Android,Windows Phone 7,BlackBerry and other mobile platforms,that include turn-by-turn navigation for drivers,and at the same time,uses that user data to build out its own maps. If there are issues on the road,such as major traffic jams,all of that information comes in through the apps and can be sent to other drivers.
The apps rely on crowdsourced data,from driver-created maps,to citizen traffic reports, to community-curated points of interest. On average,Waze users are reporting a traffic jam every 4.2 second,and an accident every 44 seconds. With millions of users,that's a massive amount of data."
News junkies will like this Android App. Fast to load, and covers many local papers.
" The firm poured cold water on the prime challengers, saying Android tablets are selling slower than expected because of their shortcomings and Windows 8 tablets are too late to win over consumers.
Global tablet sales are on fire. Gartner predicted 63.6 million tablets will be sold this year, up 261 percent from the 17.6 million sold last year.
Apple's share of the Web tablet market will fall about 10 percent this year, to 73 percent, but it will continue to hold more than 50 percent of the market share until 2014, the firm said."
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/steve-jobs-in-four-easy-steps/
"Jobs denied what is perhaps the most closely held article of faith of the information age: that openness and the wisdom of crowds are essential for successful technological systems. Under his leadership, Apple produced "closed" systems—devices whose basic functions could not be altered—and consumers loved them. "It's not the consumer's job to know what they want," Jobs once famously said."
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/06/comscore-android-extends-lead-over-apple-holds-44-percent-of-s
"Android remains in firm control of the smartphone platform market,commanding 43.7 percent,followed by Apple (27.3 percent) and RIM (19.7 percent). In fact, Google extended its share by nearly two points over last month's figures,while Apple's iOS grew by just 0.3 points,but further distanced itself from RIM,which now sits 7.6 points behind."
Near Tragedy on Roller Coaster.. :)
http://i.imgur.com/mfwII.jpg
Shared using #RageReader for Android http://bit.ly/rreader
http://www.slashgear.com/kindle-fire-tablet-sales-hit-250000-over-five-days-04185487/
"According to some leaked sales data, the total number of Amazon Kindle Fire tablets sold since being launched 5 days ago is hovering just over 250,000 units. Sales may have slowed down a bit since it was last estimated to have reached almost 100,000 units on its very first day, but it's nonetheless impressive, considering how other tablet rivals have fared.
The Kindle Fire may not have turned out to be the ulimate iPad-killer given the great disparity in specs and price point, but analysts still consider it to be a lot more competitive than expected. In comparison, Apple's iPad 2 sold 2.5 million units in its first month, which is about 80,000 units a day. Amazon's Kindle Fire is looking at about 50,000 units a day right now and that's not too shabby, especially when you consider that the Motorola XOOM is rumored to have sold only 100,000 units after a month and a half, while the BlackBerry PlayBook, which the Kindle Fire is modeled after, only sold 500,000 units total in its first quarter. But again, pricing is surely a huge factor and Amazon's known to be aggressive with that. The $199 price tag for the Kindle Fire is believed to be about $10 below the actual cost of each unit.
Sales of Amazon's Kindle Touch e-reader, however, have not been as impressive. According to the same source that leaked the sales data for the Kindle Fire, the WiFi and 3G e-reader has only sold 32,000 units in the five days since it launched."
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/business/voting-to-hire-a-chief-without-meeting-him.xml
"However hasty the process, board members felt they had little choice. "I believe the search committee did a good job. They worked hard. There were very few choices," one participant said. " So many people they called said they weren't interested. People didn't want to follow in Mark's footsteps. But Mr. Apotheker was a mistake. We all made it. Sometimes you make a mistake."
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"Whitman defended her record at the helm of EBay.
"I have run a large company -- not obviously as large as HP, but I have run a very large company," she said. "While I don't have years of experience in an enterprise business, I bought a lot of software. I was one of the largest enterprise customers in Silicon Valley."
"That's like saying, 'I've bought an iPhone, so I can run Apple Inc. (AAPL)" said Whitmore at Deutsche Bank."
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"After the massive earthquake struck and killed tens of thousands of people in Sichaun and neighboring Shaanxi and Gansu on May 12, 2008, Zhu Jianqiang survived against all odds under the rubble by eating charcoal and drinking rain water. His harrowing tale was embraced as a natural coping mechanism for the devastated citizenry, and now his genetic superstuff will be kept alive for generations to come."
Parcels - tracks your incoming packages and days to delivery in one list. Just choose the carrier and paste in the tracking number. Let's you name your packages too.
Pocket Auctions - mobile ebay app, makes it easy to search items, and manage buying and selling. It reminded me yesterday that I had a win that apparently has not shipped yet. Much better than viewing the mobile site on my phone.
QuickPic - replacement for Gallery, which under Motorola Blur is a hot mess, only one directory for sdcard pix with no option to create more. Blur's Gallery doesn't allow changing the sort order so I always had to scroll, scroll, scroll to the other end of the Gallery.
QuickPic makes it easy to move files into new directories, AND sorts in descending time order so newest pix are in front. Apparently replicates Gallery functionality found on other phones.
Lol Sites - easy viewing of Lol Cats, Lol Dogs, People of Walmart, EpicWin, Failblog, etc. Cannot tell you how much time i have wasted on this.
RageReader - if you read Reddit you have run across these, cartoons using a standard set of cartoon faces representing happy, stupid, perplexed, smug, and of course rage emotions. Immature, profane, and an acquired taste. But it's amazing how many situations can be represented by about 5 emotions. Have wasted even more time here. Makes want to post these faces to Facebook as comments.
http://m.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/10/power-substation-seems-less-formidable-than-it/
"Officials with the state's largest public utility said that the worker was switching off a series capacitor, a piece of equipment the size of a small car, at the substation. The capacitor was having trouble earlier in the day."
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Trolling at the airport gone wrong... :)
http://i.imgur.com/hz4Co.png
Shared using #RageReader for Android http://bit.ly/rreader
" Together, the iPhone and iPad accounted for 60.98% of Apple's revenue in the last four quarters.
Numbers like these are why Apple is so hot to get the iPhone launched in a big way in China. Although the companyhas been selling the iPhone officially on China Unicom since 2009, Unicom is the smallest of the three major Chinese carriers.
Of course, when we saysmall, we're talking about 180 million subscribers, more thanAT&T or Verizon in the US. That's how big the potential market for the iPhone is in China.
The big fish is reallyChina Mobile, the 616 million-subscriber juggernaut that is China's largest mobile carrier. That's why it's not surprising that then-COO Tim Cook was seen visiting China Mobile in June. Apple wants to get this deal made.
Even more evidence came in the form of China Mobile's chairman Wang Jianzhou stating during an earnings call last month that then-CEO Steve Jobs had met with him several times already about the deal."
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/economy/news/article.php?c_id=34&objectid=10749289
"Ed Mumm started Dig This after renting and operating an excavator for two days while building a house in Colorado.
"I thought to myself: 'If I'm having this much fun, imagine the number of people who don't get to do this stuff who would love to do this'," he said."
http://www.businessinsider.com/hps-2000-webos-patents-and-how-they-could-reshape-everything-2011-8
" Now remember, Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobile, mostly to get their hands on the 17,000 patents that Motorla held. Now, if you just price HP's patents at the same price, you come out with $1.48 billion. HP paid $1.7 billion for Palm. So that gets you pretty close to even.
But this VP told me that these patents are almost ALL for modern smartphones, while the Motorola patents included a lot of old stuff that isn't relevant anymore. So, this patent portfolio could get a premium of, say, 2x what the Motorola patents did. That gets you up close to $3 billion."
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-is-the-carcass-of-palm-worth-2011-8
" right now!
Apple led a consortium to buy Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion. Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola, largely based on the strength of its patent portfolio. Interdigital's market cap has spiked on rumors that its selling itself for its patents. Kodak's stock is spiking now that it wants to sell its patents.
The big question is how good are Palm's patents?
It was in the smartphone game from day one, so we would assume it has a pretty strong portfolio. It's the only smartphone company Apple hasn't sued, which suggests to us it's a pretty strong portfolio. Alternatively, Apple might not care about Palm, so it didn't bother.
But, when Palm was up for sale a year and a half ago, it ultimately ended up selling for just $1.2 billion to HP. At the time, Apple was interested in buying it for its IP, probably offering $600 million.
With the little patent valuation bubble going on right now, you'd have to think it would be willing to pay a little more."
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/21/all-things-d-hp-kept-executives-in-the-dark-about-webos-decisio/
"All Things D reported yesterday that key executives -- specifically Todd Bradley of the currently-in-limbo Personal Systems Group and former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein --weren't informed of the move until Sunday night."
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/18/hp-will-discontinue-operations-for-webos-devices/
Timeline:
4.28.10 - HP buys Palm
4.28.10 - HP: 'We're doubling down on webOS,' Palm: 'That was the whole point'
7.1.10 - HP / Palm buyout officially complete -- get ready for webOS printers
2.9.11 - RIP,Palm: 1992 - 2011
2.9.11 - HP's 9.7-inch TouchPad: webOS 3.0 tablet with 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon, coming this summer
2.9.11 - HP Pre 3: 1.4GHz Qualcomm CPU, 3.6-inch WVGA,coming this summer (video)
3.9.11 - WebOS will be on 'every HP PC' shipping next year,says CEO 6.29.11 - HP confirms it's in talks about licensing webOS,Samsung tipped as a possibility
7.11.11 - HP's Stephen DeWitt to lead webOS global business unit,Jon Rubinstein stepping aside
8.18.11 - HP unveils 64GB TouchPad, spurns America (and freedom)
Before HP made its stunning announcement, new sales figures showed that HP had slipped behind Apple in sales of laptops and tablets. During the quarter, Apple shipped 13.6 million units, 10 million of them iPads. That meant that Apple sold more iPads than HP did laptops (the company shipped 9.7 million notebooks in the period)."
With the Nortel patents, competitors could levy patent licensing fees of as much as $15 per Android handset, Drummond said in his blog. Press reports suggested Microsoft stood to make more on the sale of Android handsets than on its one Windows Mobile 7 software.
Google is paying an estimated 63 percent premium for Motorola, making it the biggest proposed acquisition of it history to date. Google even agreed to pay a whopping $2.5 billion fee if it walks away from the deal, according to the New York Times.
The all-cash deal uses about a quarter of Google's cash reserves. "
I finally gave up on the Palm Pre for corporate email. I really tried hard to make it work but eventually I just stopped using the phone altogether.
The phone wouldn't autoconnect to known wifi networks. What's worse, Half the time I found WiFi had turned itself off.
And, The phone couldn't stay connected to the outlook server even with a good wifi connection . My inbox was never up to date. I'd have to re-login to outlook to force a sync. Messages would get stuck in the outbox for days and there was no option to resend. It was infuriating to find emails hadn't been sent when i thought they had been.
It all became a vicious cycle when my growing disuse of the phone meant it was more likely for the battery to be dead when i pulled it out.
So I was missing meetings and not responding to emails very fast. Not good.
So... In desperation I got a used Motorola Atrix off ebay. I wanted it for the fingerprint sensor, because y'all know how much I hate the 4 digit PIN.
The fingerprint sensor works pretty well, although half the time it takes more than one swipe. But it double-buzzes you when the swipe fails, so at least you can get into the phone without having to look at the screen.
And - since I'm using it without a sim card - it autoconnects to known wifi networks with no intervention, which is awesome because there's 4 different networks available to it between the home and work networks. So it's got connectivity as often as it possibly can. Thank you Motorola! The Pre could never do that.
Never loses contact with with exchange, never leaves mail in the outbox. Email just. plain. works.
Other advantages of the Atrix :
Better screen. The QHD screen, even tho its the much maligned pentile LED type , has higher contrast, more resolution, and less reflectivity outdoors than the HTC Inspire 's.
WWAN radio: speaker, mic, voice quality rock solid as I would expect from Motorola. Atrix calls were crap.
Music speaker: kicks ass. Great fidelity and loud. So loud I don't even need to plug into the cassette adapter in the car. As good as my old Blackberry 's, which was way ahead of its time.
Fast: opens apps and browser pages faster than any other device i've ever used.
Downsides :
4" screen seems really small after the Inspire 's humongous 4.3" display. Makes the keyboard smaller too.
Camera is just poor, and there's no excuse for this. Noisy sensor, terrible in low light, not sharp, low contrast, dull colors. Certainly the worst Android camera i've ever used (and I've used the Samsung Galaxy Tab, dell streak, htc inspire, htc incredible). Dudn't matter that it's 5MP. It's like going back to the Blackberry Bold's camera and that was only 2MP. 2009 called, they want their camera back.
Plus... After 6 months it just seemed like time for a new phone. :-)
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http://m.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/09/operation-shady-rat-201109
"The evolution of Shady rat's activity provides more circumstantial evidence of Chinese involvement in the hacks. The operation targeted a broad range of public-and private-sector organizations in almost every country in Southeast Asia—but none in China. And most of Shady rat's targets are known to be of interest to the People's Republic."
http://notesfromtokyo.com/2010/11/reasons-to-love-living-in-japan/
"61. The mind your own business mentality. If you're bleeding from the eyeballs in the middle of the road, this mentality can prove to be fatal. But if its 6:30 in the morning and you're obviously just coming home after a long night of partying dressed in sequins and spandex, stuck on a crowded train smelling of cigarettes and booze, the fact that everyone around ignores you because they don't want to embarrass you is actually kind of comforting. Japanese people are trained to strictly mind their own business, which is why in Tokyo there are so many weirdos that can get away with almost anything. In fact, it seems the stranger your behavior, the more people pretend you aren't there."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474373989319028.html
""When a country is corrupt to the point that a single lightning strike can cause a train crash, the passing of a truck can collapse a bridge, and drinking a few bags of milk powder can cause kidney stones, none of us are exempted," wrote one Chinese Internet user after Saturday's accident. "China today is a train traveling through a lightning storm. None of us are spectators; all of us are passengers." "
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/25/china.train.accident.outrage/
"By the time the railway ministry held its first press conference more than 24 hours after the collision, the public had seen not just reports of passengers trapped inside dark trains or images of a mangled car dangling off the bridge --but also bulldozers crushing mangled cars that had fallen to the ground and burying the wreckage on site. "How can we cover up an accident that the whole world already knew about?" said a defiant railway ministry spokesman Wang Yongping. "They told me they buried the car to facilitate the rescue effort --and I believe this explanation."
Wang was terse when reporters asked him to explain the fact that a toddler girl was being pulled out of the wreckage alive 20 hours after the accident --and long after authorities declared no more signs of life in the trains..
"That was a miracle," he said."
He used the Unabomber's manifesto and did a search and replace, replacing "black people" with "muslims".
Suspect's 'manifesto' plots 'civil war'
http://bit.ly/qO1niv
http://realestalker.blogspot.com/2011/07/goldie-hawn-bailing-on-broad-beach.html
Love this site.
"Just like an epic mansion appearing in the pages of Architectural Digest sometimes signals that it will soon hit the market, a Buddha statue in the entrance hall or by the pool is a strong signal that a home is owned by a celebrity or someone else involved in the entertainment and glamour-puss professions. Anyhoodles poodles, getting back to the matter at hand..."
Are you talking about me, princess teri? The one with a Buddha in the front yard? Why yes, I do work in a glamour-puss profession. How do I know? Well, I work with a bunch of guys and Just yesterday someone complimented me on the feather in my hair! And we had a conversation about shoes! And interior decorating! And we've been noting the colors of each other's shirts. I'm not lyin'! It's all just TOO much.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/12/the-engadget-interview-hps-stephen-dewitt
"I think that the future of computing is going to be about maintaining your state, about taking everything that matters to you, your content, your apps, and holding your state against any screen you look at. That's the future of computing. In order to get from where we are today, the devices, the technology, the platform, the developer community, all of the global ramifications to that, you're not going to do this in a federated model, you're going to have to do this with a well-orchestrated, global community that can drive this. I think that's as big an opportunity and forward pass as anywhere in the industry, and that's why I'm fired up to do it."
Fireworks, a comet, and lightning... Amazing digital composition.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1tYZHZ/apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070205.html
http://singularityhub.com/2011/07/06/google-is-awesome-facebook-maimed-twitter-mortally-wounded/
"Clearly Google+ has a long way to go to compete with the Facebook incumbent. And yet Google+ has quite a bit of mojo of its own that Facebook does not have. In the coming year we will see Facebook copy many of Google+´s innovations, while Google+ will likely roll out every single one of the missing components just mentioned. One year from now, we will likely have two social networks that are similar in many ways, and if Google+ proves compelling enough it might even close the user gap significantly.
Yet Google+ has a secret weapon that even the mighty Facebook will be hard pressed to combat over the long run. That secret weapon is everything that Google has that is not Google+. A formidable armada of Google products including Gmail, Picasa, Calendar, Docs, Maps, Search, News, Youtube, Chrome Web Browser, Blogger, Translation, Android, and more stands at the ready to assist and join Google+ in the battle for the future of social networking. These products are best in class, extremely difficult to replicate, and are used by more than a billion people across the planet. As these products are seamlessly integrated with Google+, we are about to witness an incredible two way explosion of value and utility. Google´s products will gain all of the powerful attributes that social networks deliver –virality, discovery, crowdsourcing, sharing, "liking", and so much more. Meanwhile, Google+ will be given a steroid boost of products that deliver content, tools, and capabilities to its hungry hordes of social minions."
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Ipad: 25million sold
Gtab: 2million
PlayBook : 500,000
Xoom: 250,000
But... 500,000 android device activations per day... Obviously not tablets...
http://m.bgr.com/2011/06/17/android-tablet-makers-shifting-focus-back-to-cell-phones-report-claims/
"Thus far only Samsung has been able to make a real dent in Apple's stronghold on this new market, capturing a 10% share with its Galaxy Tab Android-powered tablet. While 250,000 XOOM tablets shipped in two months and 500,000 PlayBooks shipped last quarter are respectable figures, it's hard to call those products a success when Apple has sold 25 million iPads in just 14 months. As a result, companies that planned to attack the tablet market aggressively may now be pulling back some of that investment to focus on another new market: supersized smartphones."
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Apple iPad apps: 100,000
Android tablet apps: 1350.
HP Palm touchpad apps: 300
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/30/apple-ipad-apps-100000-android-tablet-apps-1300/
"product placement of the highest order " - lol
How many cardinals does it take to teach a Pope to tweet?
FORTUNE TECH | JUNE 29, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI sits at an iPad to launch -- via Twitter -- a Vatican news portal Product placement of the highest order. ... read more
This looks like fun. Anything with party in the name sounds like fun. Signed up for the beta. Maybe they will give priority to famous bloggers.
Pool Party: Google Has Their Own Secret Photo-Sharing App Too — Built By Slide
TECHCRUNCH | JUNE 30, 2011
Back in March, we first exposed Disco, a group messaging app that the Slide team within Google had built. And that's not all ... read more
