When I heard there was going to be an iPod Photo I groaned with the weight of predictablness. What do you do when you have a product that is coming to the middle of its product-life-cycle…put a damn camera on it!
However, I read an article which looks at this in a slightly different way, which makes a lot of sense. Apple could never add Wi-Fi P2P built into the iPod, as the music industry would go nuts and fling lawsuits like pie at a circus. The possible way round this is under the guise of 'allowing' people to share their photos between iPods, and…oops…their music too.
Just imagine…sitting on the tube, connected to every iPod in a 10m radius, at 55Mb/s an album would transfer in a matter of seconds. Plenty of time to check out the collections of the people around you. This vision would make iPod sales go through the roof, I know I would buy one.
Link Here
The Economist has a fascinating exploration of the future of the music industry and music itself.
?DIRTY pop with wonky beats and sleazy melodies? is how the Sweet Chap, aka Mike Comber, a British musician from Brighton, describes his music. The Sweet Chap has no record deal yet, but he has been taken on by IE Music, a London music-management group that also represents megastar Robbie Williams. To get the Sweet Chap known, last year IE Music did a deal to put his songs on KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program. As a result, 70,000 people sampled the tracks and more than 500 paid for some of his music. IE Music's Ari Millar says that virally spreading music like this is the future.
Full Article Here
Found this interesting thread from TechRepublic where the question was posed, how do you revive an unbacked up drive?
Seems most of the answers revolve around three main areas:
Freeze It, Drop It, Hit It…
I havent tried any of these yet, as I do tend to hold onto broken hard-disks. But the people who write the solutions are very confident they work and explain why they should work too…
Read It Here
Seagate have recently announced the release of a 5Gb USB drive. It isnt long (imho) till you will be able to just load up an OS and tools onto a removable drive, and boot any computer into a familiar environment. At the moment, the problem is speed…im sure they are working on it.
Press Release Here
First Look Here
…that is, talking about blogging instead of actually doing it.
An interesting look into the different types of blog emerging around the world. By the writers definition, this blog would be an Advocacy blog, I guess…
Full Article Here
I recently purchased a new domain name (more on that later in the week). After setting up the email forwarding, my inbox was inundated with emails with crazy characters. On closer inspection I guessed they were spam lists which the previous owner of the domain name signed up for, the fun part being he/she was korean.
So now everyday, I get a cool selection of 10+ emails with crazy korean graphic design on them. It actually isnt too tough to figure out the un-list texts at the bottom of each, but I think I might keep them coming. Certianly beats the run-of-the-mill v1gr4 adverts…
It also raised the question that eventually when you buy a domain name, being signed up for all sorts of spam-lists may come along with the bargain…
Seems a guy who was making some jokey remarks in his blog about bush stepped on too many toes.
The secret service turned up at his house and questioned him as they believed what he had written was a potential violent threat to the president.
Link Here
A collection of humorous rejected ipod plans…
The Steve Balmer iPod:
Special docking system spins around in circles leaking sweat and repeatedly flashes "Developers!" on the LCD screen.
Page Here
Seems the georgewbush.com has been blocked to users outside of the united states.
Lots of different reasons are emerging for the block, some say it is because bush hates the rest of the world others don’t ascribe to malice what can be interpreted by muppettry.
Personally I wonder if it could be done to boost google rankings, just imagine how many thousand blogs will carry the link to georgewbush.com in the coming week (google rankings being based on referring links)…just to even the score I must also add that johnkerry.com works fine for the rest of the world. georgewbush.co.uk also works fine (although with a bit of typically british spin; it goes to michaelmoore.com 
BBC Article Here
Different Views Here
Spent a little time yesterday doing some basic case-mods (quite literally, had to saw into the frame of the case to get a big new psu in). Also added these spiffing white neon fans to the HDD array…
ooooh, pointless but pretty 
Interesting piece about the connection between design, usability and the emotional reaction of the user.
The notion that typical cognitive functions, such as thinking, rise above emotional processing, is a historic relic of the research practice of separating emotion from cognition. The current equivalent in usability research is the practice of separating aesthetics from interaction. For example, it is typical for usability practitioners to delay aesthetics until later and present ?wire-frame? user interface specifications to clients without graphical treatment and to use ?Latin? or ?Greek? as placeholder content for prototypes.
Full Article Here
I must admit I have long since advocated the fact that security is really the user's responsibility. If they have a computer connected to the internet, then it MUST have virus protection and a firewall. If not, and they get infected they should be disconnected till the problem is solved. Somewhat draconian I know…
Usability guru Jackob Nielsen has a very different view on the situation.
user education puts the burden on the wrong shoulders. It's like the old Wild West, where the answer to crime was that every man carried a gun. In civilized society, we've abandoned this approach in favor of a professional police force to deal with criminals. When there is a mismatch between technology and people, the answer should not be to change the humans. The answer should be to change the computers.
Read The Article
An interesting read about the iraqi blogger entering the US, the trails and tribulations of having an 'axis of evil' passport and the immigration question "Are you Religious?"
Even having a preferred British passport, it is stories like this that makes my want to go to the US again slimmer and slimmer.
I am the type of Muslim who would tell you that even if there was an Allah hovering up there, he should be punished by collective disobedience because he has been doing a miserable job.
So the answer to Mr Immigration Officer would be a hearty: "Oh, no. I dropped that potato a long time ago." But instead I keep looking at the little cross hanging from his neck and feel like telling him that this is none of his business.
The Full Story
A recent study done by the LSE about children and the internet highlights the fact that they do not just consume media, they create it too.
the study found that 17% of young people have sent pictures or stories to a website and "online creativity can be encouraged through the very experience of using the internet." That is, the more time kids spend online, the more likely they are to produce their own content.
Article Here
No, I am not posting links to porno sites (sorry…), this is a collection of creatively cropped images…and a good indicator of the sex obsessed imagination of the average internet user
See For Yourself