My Place to Vent When IRL People Don't Care

So Steve just unleashed another major revenue stream on the world: iAd.  They are coming for Google.  iAd is a mobile ad network that is giving apple some serious skin in the mobile ad game.  Some interesting questions abound and we may see the FTC show up and spoil Apple’s fun.

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Just overheard in the airport:
(Conversation among a single family)
Mom: Those iPad things look really cool.
Dad: Yea, but I want one of those tablet things.
Mom: I want to get an iPad, but can’t seem to find them.
Dad: Have you seen the tablet. It’s so much better.
…
Dad: Those tablets are so hot, I wonder if I can get one now or if they are sold out?

For those of you who have been living under a rock, or can’t tell from the sarcasm in the text, he didn’t know they were the same thing. Also, as widely reported in multiple media outlets, the pre-orders are sold out and all new pre-orders are to ship on the 12th. General availability isn’t expected until the 21st.

Engadget just announced that they found out the price for the iPad subscription for the Wall Street Journal.  The access gives you 7 days of archive of the WSJ and a few other non-innovative features like save for later.  This crazy technology will cost you $17.29 per month.  This should be compared to the PRINT & Online version subscription which will set you back about $11.50/Mo.   So for less (you don’t get the print) you pay a lot more.  50% more.

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Ignore for a minute the philosphical connotations that come to mind when discussing Google’s Search Engine and Microsoft’s Bing, ‘Decision Engine’ and just think of them in the sense of the utility of the search engine as a tool. Microsoft has admitted that they have lost the ability to crush Google because they simply lack the quality of search.
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Steve is unleashing his iPad to the world in the next few weeks. The ‘revolutionary’ ‘magical’ device that is supposed to reinvent the way the world sees tablets is being billed as the Kindle killer. I had an opportunity to visit with a major content publisher and consult with them in a development session on what they are trying to bring for the device. It was very interesting… Continue reading →

The US House of Representatives has approved a sweeping overhaul of the $2.5 trillion US healthcare system. Below is a summary of what to expect as Obama will sign the entire package into law.

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18.5 Quintillion combinations of ways to fill out the 65 teams in the NCAA march madness bracket.  If you don’t care about the ‘play-in game’ it drops to a 9.2 Quintillion.  Even if you assume that the 1 & 2 seeds are a lock to escape the first round, that still leaves 36 Quadrillion combinations.  A crazy amount.  There are several more reasons that no one  will be the crazy lucky winner and correctly pick the outcome. Continue reading →

AMD started out as an also ran chip manufacturer with Cirus back in the mid ’90s.  They made ‘intel compatible’ chips that were offered at a steep discount to Intel’s 486 and Pentium models and were never more than a cost conscious alternative to their premium brethren.   This all changed in ‘99 with the release of the Athlon processor a.k.a. the A7.  The Athlon flipped the processor world on its head and is largely responsible for debunking the ‘megahertz myth.’  Through the mid part of the ’00s Team Green was competitive in the enthusiast sector and even in the top end with processors that out performed clock for clock and dollar for dollar.  This hasn’t been true for about 5 years, and it just got worse.

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It seems as if every other month some camera magazine article has some hapless debate about the end all discussion of the full frame debate for Digital SLR cameras (DSLR).  It’s about as silly as the predictions newsweek made 15 years ago about how the internet would fail.  I am not here to tell you how sensor formats will shake out for the next 50 years, but only how things are now.  It could change in 3 months, likely in 3 years, definitely in 30 years.  I don’t want to have some a-hole coming back here in 2025 telling me that I was wrong.  If you think I’m wrong, it better be before 2012. Continue reading →

Just announced a new canon consumer SLR. Superceding the T1i and roughly $900MSRP it is not going to compete with Nikon’s D5000 or similar bodies. In traditional SLR camera fashion we will have to wait 2+ months to find out what the goods really deliver.
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