...more recent posts
Place your bets. New iPad to be announced at Apple event starting in half an hour. Signs point to incremental feature bump rather than a large leap forward. I think 512MB RAM (up from 256), and front facing camera for video chat. Plus probable second rear facing camera (this one doesn't make sense to me, but 3rd party iPad case design leaks all show a cut out, so I'm saying it's true solely on that evidence.) Maybe slightly larger screen (smaller bezel) but same resolution. No SD card slot. No USB. No Thunderbolt. Really new iPad with more major changes to come in September.
Also revamped Mobile Me may well be announced, finally providing some clarity to the purpose of their *massive* new data center in NC. I'm guessing this will provide "cloud" storage for iTunes Store purchased media so that you can access from any of your iDevices. But not, as some people are speculating, cloud storage for all your digital media (i.e., I think they won't allow you to upload and store non iTunes Store purchased media.) Also I think no streaming music or video services (i.e., no pay $x/month to stream whatever music you want a la Rhapsody) making Apple's LaLa purchase still a bit hard to understand. Some basic features of Mobile Me to become free (or maybe "basically" free, like $1.99 from App Store), but anything really useful will be an add on with a (probably too high) price.
Yes I have no life and find guessing these things sort of fun.
ars technica gropes the atrix
Engaget fondles Xoom -- Hits retail tomorrow. Wifi-only version coming later.
Interesting take on Apple's subscription kerfuffle. Apps aren't magazines and vice versa.
In 1926, Tesla predicted the portable TV
streaming video twofer:
Google’s YouTube in Talks to Stream NBA, NHL Games Live
CBS and Netflix Announce Two-Year Licensing Agreement For Library Content
So, these days I'm using (as a user) XP, OSX, Android, iOS, Windows 7, and Ubuntu. I've just successfully done an NFS mount in Ubuntu (which required finding and downloading some packages), so I'm well on my way to being a Linux fanboi.
More resistance to iOS subscription model. Their solution illustrates a path for some developers: fuck doing an app, just use http.
egyption baby named 'facebook.'
WP7 marketplace is a no GPL zone
Using handbrake (open source media encoder app which uses open source x264 encoder) to encode some HD. Turned the knobs up to 11 on the "advanced" settings page for max quality. It's been cranking on a two minute clip for 15 minutes, and it's about halfway through. My Core2 Duo laptop is going to burst into flames any moment now.
My favorite video player is 10 years old.
Music in the Cloud
Wifi-only Xoom = $600.
Chutzpah and hubris. Apple's new subscription policy. Rock on Android!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F02%2F15%2FBUUK1HNFR1.DTL
Starting today, there are more than 150 of our most important films online on the Hulu Plus* subscription service. Over the coming months, that number will swell to more than 800 films. For the true cinephile, this should be a dream come true. On Hulu Plus, you’ll find everything in our library, from Academy Award winners to many of the most famous films by art-house superstars like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini to films so rare that they have never been seen in the U.S. in any medium. Some of these lost gems have been so hard to see that even most of the Criterion staff will see them for the first time only when they go live on Hulu Plus! Each month, we’ll be highlighting a mix of programs, centered on themes, directors, actors, and other creative artists, as well as celebrity picks, and mixing them with deep cuts from the catalog that will be unknown to all but the most prominent cinephiles in the world.
*$8 a month or 1 week free trial
Obama has a new wireless broadband initiative. I don't know enough about it to know what to think. So I'll delay linking until I sort out what it means. Mainstream press coverage of technology usually sucks anyway.