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Samstag, 19. März 2005 |
Digital Play: Reloaded. Digital Play: Reloaded opens on March 18 at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. The exhibit will festure Pac-Mondrian , Katamari Damacy and eight other innovative digital games.
Other new installations include Arcadia, an arcade-style PC game from Gamelab, which challenges audiences to play four retro-inspired video games at one time.
Stepmania, an
independently created, open-source version of the arcade dance game
Dance Dance Revolution. Unlike its commercial counterpart, Stepmania
incorporates audiences[base '] music collections and dance patterns, which are
shared online.
Music-, dance-, and movement-oriented video games originating in
Japan constitute a shift from traditional, often violent game
scenarios. Classic arcade games from the 1980s are paired with current
home-based games to contrast their approaches to such action-related
topics as driving and waging battle on land and in space. Though the
graphics have changed significantly, patterns of play remain similar.
In the lobby of the museum, Paul Johnson's video game sculpture, Maiden Flight,
shows how the habits of a "snacking couch potato" determine the fate of
a far-away space station under construction. Each scenario plays out in
real time without the possibility of human intervention. The work uses
techniques of automation that reflect the latest innovations in
commercial computer-game and simulation software.
One of Johnson's other works, Trauma (was at the Museum last year,
picture above) displays the sophistication and automation of commercial
computer-game software, such as "persistent world" games, which
continue to evolve when nobody is playing them, and NPCs (non-player
characters), which are driven by artificial rather than human
intelligence.
Two screens show self-playing video games: military combat and
household simulation. Each is affected by the amount of "trauma"
generated by the other. In the military game, trauma is determined by a
mission[base ']s success or failure, or by a character[base ']s proximity to violent
events. In the household simulation, trauma is determined by the need
for maintenance and cleaning. The third screen is a composite of the
two games; it displays the aggregate amount of trauma [~]the trauma
index[~] as a red, gaseous cloud.
Via Rhizome. [we make money not art]
10:05:32 AM 
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Lifehacker. Lifehacker: I'm not real quick to add things to my aggregator. I only have about 20 feeds in Bloglines. But this new addition to the Gawker family of blogs is really top-notch. If you like Gadgetopia, you'll love Lifehacker.
Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker
recommends the downloads, web sites and shortcuts that actually save
time. Don't live to geek; geek to live
I knew that I had to post about it when I found five separate things
out there yesterday that I felt you all needed to know about:
I'll post further about some of these today, as they relate to stuff we've talked about here quite a bit. [Gadgetopia]
10:02:02 AM
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Ektron WebImageFX. Ektron.com :: Web Image Editor : Ektron WebImageFX:
I haven't seen an embedded, Web-based image editor before. Have I just
not been looking hard enough? Are there others I'm not aware of?
If not for the IE-only problem, this seems like a good one. There are some Flash demos here. There's an online demo here, but you'll need to install the whole client-side Ektron system (it rides on top of their flagship product: eWebEditPro).
Whenever I come across Ektron, I get a little nostalgic as I think
we were one of their very first customers. Seriously [~] we used it on
the a project in 2000, and whenever we called for tech support, I think
the guy's Mom answered the phone. We used to joke that we were calling
some 16-year-old in his parents' basement.
Speaking of that project, here's an old Internet Week article that talks about how Ektron was used:
But the Vikings still needed outside help, so the sports
team turned to BankFirst e-Business, the South Dakota Web development
and consulting division of BankFirst Corp. The firm integrated Ektron
Inc.'s eWebEditPro into a new Vikings.com administrative interface. The
new software lets the team update its content quickly, without any
intervention from a Web developer and without any knowledge of HTML.
Gosh, those developers must have been amazingly good. I bet
they're all rich now, living on some island in the Pacific. (Especially
the lead developer. I bet he was pretty good-looking too.) [Gadgetopia]
10:00:45 AM
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MSN AdCenter. MSN to offer search ads through AdCenter: Microsoft is going to add contextual pay-per-click ads to MSN Search. Who didn't see that coming?
Internet search giants Google and Yahoo no longer have the red-hot search advertising market all to themselves.
Microsoft's MSN on Wednesday will unveil its answer to Google and Yahoo's pay-per-click text ad programs, called MSN AdCenter.
[Gadgetopia]
10:00:06 AM
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User Agent Index. List of User-Agents (Spiders, Robots, Browser): I posted about this site two years ago,
and it's been actively maintained all this time. I've been checking it
for the last couple days, and there are new additions every day.
I assert that this is the largest and most accurate index of User
Agent strings on the Net right now (note that the front page is merely
letters A through F). Does anyone know of anything better? [Gadgetopia]
9:59:26 AM
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Google Rips Off OS X Dock. Those
guys in Google Labs have great taste, but they must have a bit too much
time on their hands. The latest of their brainchildren to be cut loose
is Google X, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Dock in Apple's Mac OS X.
"Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you."
Not nearly as smooth or as customizable as the Dock, but just give them time. [Gadgetopia]
9:56:49 AM
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Bloggies winners announced
Congratulations to all the winners of the
2005 Bloggies
! While I'm sure
BoingBoing
was nervous, they managed to pull it off and win the category popgadget
was nominated in, Best Group Blog. Just kidding, it was absolutely an
honor and quite surprising, frankly, to even be a finalist. BoingBoing
also won Best Blog of the year. Regine
was twice robbed, as best European blog and Best Technology Blog, but all the nominees are good and worth checking out.
Thank you so much, everyone, for reading and supporting popgadget. This was exciting!
- Mia [Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women]
9:55:34 AM
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Gotcha! Mobile Game Launches on Wmode Network. 
This is a cool sounding game, that really uses the functionality of
today's mobiles, rather than pretending it's a Gameboy or a small PC.
Gotcha! allows you to take a photo with your camera. Then you throw
your choice of objects at pic, which stick until the picture finally
gets blocked out.
So, you could bombard a pic of your squeeze with kisses. Or fire bullets at your sworn enemy.
Points are awarded the faster you block out the pic.
The game is available to 5 million subscribers on Canada's Wmode network.
[The Mobile Technology Weblog]
9:50:20 AM
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Flickr and the Ransom Notes. As
you know, I've put out a call for guest bloggers to help out during my
skiing holiday next week. One will be Dennis Hettema, from Sweden's OP3.
OP3 are particularly into bar code scanning, with camera phones,
which I believe will be incredibly important, as it's a way of joining
the real world with the digital. Check out this article I wrote for Net Imperative about this area.
Dennis' first post is really cool!
Most people are probably familiar with flickr. It's an awesome
service and a great testimony to the growth of digital photography.
Flickr has got a lot of hardcore/die-hard fans and they've started developing their own applications based on flickr. Meta Atem
allows you to spell words using images from the flickr database. It's
amazing to see the amount of different variations you can create. This
application, that only seems to be useful to professional ransom note
writers, is probably one of the best forms of free advertising the
flickr service could get. It shows of the enormity of their database,
the speed of their service and the love its users have for flickr.
Mobile phone photography will make services like flickr and
fun/useless/useful applications such as spelling with flickr more and
more commonplace. Yes MMS still isn't much of a success - I seriously
wonder if it ever will be a success - but that's food for another post.
Yet making pictures using mobile phones is rapidly becoming mainstream.
The other side to this is, just like webcam's, our most intimate
moments can be observed and recorded by others. Privacy is dead, get
over it.
Russell adds: and here's a message using the service - you can have hours of fun with this:
[The Mobile Technology Weblog]
9:49:18 AM
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MMS Launched Too Early?. 
Cellular News
carries a story about a recent mobile (un-named) event in which a panel
of experts concluded that perhaps (very tentatively) MMS was launched
too early and that's the reason it hasn't taken off. The panel
consisted of senior people in operators and analysts.
What they actually mean is that they launched it (backed by many
millions of wasted advertising dollars) before it worked. You couldn't
send MMS across networks and very often the settings on new phones
didn't work as they left the shops.
This is like a fizzy drinks manufacturer launching a new fizzy drink
which doesn't have any carbonation and where the cans can't be opened
without a tin opener and a sledge hammer.
So, yes, they may well admit sheepishly to launching too early.
There's also no mention that MMS is too highly priced, the end-user
benefit is unclear, the marketing is still poor (what are the benefits?
where are the trial offers?) and the usability is pretty poor too. It
should be template driven, with loads of content available for free.
But I've written all this before.
So let's focus on one point, which is making handsets work out of the
box. Mike Short, of O2, for whom I have the greatest respect from ZagMe
days, says:
"...but some of the settings on handsets are beyond the control
of carriers. We could do a great deal more if we could control all the
handsets, but that would limit handset supply."
In other words, handsets sold by outfits like Carphone Warehouse and
Phone4U (independent UK retailers) don't ensure that phones leave the
shop in basic working order.
These retailers have a vested interest in making sure phones work,
just on a pure customer service level alone - they don't want you
taking your phone back to bug their sales people when they could be
making new sales. And it's in their interest to get people to use MMS
financially too. So they're unlikely to stand in the way of a concerted
industry push.
So here's an idea. Perhaps organized by the Mobile Data Association,
the operators put a person in every shop in every town in the UK. That
person's job would be:
1. To ensure that every phone leaving the shop has the right settings. And that this is tested.
2. To show (only if they have time from 1.) a few people how to send an MMS and what it looks like.
This person doesn't have to be highly technically literate as almost
anyone could change the settings if they've been given just 1/2 hour's
training.
So, what effect might that have and would it have a Return on Investment?
Well, firstly every new customer would then be in real danger of
being able to use MMS, assuming the interoperability has been cracked,
as claimed.
So if that person cost £100 day to put into one Carphone Warehouse.
And that was shared (for the sake of argument) across the 4 networks.
Let's assume that the average showroom sells what? 4 handsets a day,
being conservative, across the board. This means that each handset has
to recover £25 in MMS data charges to breakeven.
Current charges are c. 25p an MMS, so each new customer would need
to send 100 MMS's to break even*. Let's say, 2 a week for a year.
This seems to be a pretty reasonable target. Naturally, some would
potentially send many more and some less, but as an average, this seems
achievable.
Clearly some showrooms will sell more that 4, so the ROI will vary
considerably and may want to cherry pick the outlets that get invested
in. And it's something you'd want to test and measure before launching
across the board.
I know this is a ridiculously simple solution. So why wouldn't it
work? Assuming there's real latent demand for MMS in the first place
(which the operators surely must believe) it seems that it must be
worth a punt.
It also doesn't address pricing and all the other problems this poor
thing called MMS has been landed with. But it could be a start.
* Assuming the variable cost of sending an MMS in negligible for the operator.
Image from Sigos, an MMS testing company. [The Mobile Technology Weblog]
9:48:23 AM
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Augmented Reality Breeds Animated Storybooks.  A
few folks in New Zealand have developed the next natural evolution of
an old children's staple: the bedtime story. The book reads like a
normal book, if desired, but when accompanied with a handheld (or
head-based) display and computer vision tracking technology, the story
comes to life in front of them. In another example of augmented reality
bringing us really cool stuff, the director of the lab working on the
project tells us "You can see animated virtual characters overlaid on
the real book pages and hear the voice of [the narrator] reading the
story." Technology Review's article explains what's keeping this
technology from coming to market, at least for now, and when we might
see it outside of the lab setting.
The Giant Who Walks Amongst Us [TechnologyReview]
Other HITLabNZ Projects [HITLabNZ]
[Gizmodo]
9:19:54 AM
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Web 2.0 Weekly Wrap-up, 7-13 Mar 2005. This week: Microsoft's RSS Aggregator, mobile web 2.0, open source web 2.0 (stats,
adverts, topics), Structured Blogging, ETech.
Well this week has been a blur of activity for me and my server. First off I launched
an RSS statistics project
with Jon Udell and Feedburner, then later in the week I had fun riffing on what
Microsoft was up to with start.com, their sandbox development of a web-based RSS
Aggregator.
Microsoft Makes A Start On RSS
When I read the short SiliconBeat
post about Microsoft's sandbox development of a
web-based RSS Aggregator, I immediately blogged it and
took screenshots (which became a popular attraction when Microsoft briefly pulled the site). I
thought it was big news, and still do, because of what the prototype revealed - Microsoft
intends to integrate an RSS Aggregator with its MSN Search product. That's important
because their main rivals, Google and Yahoo, are primarily search companies.
We
all knew Microsoft would eventually come out with an RSS Aggregator product, but most of
us thought it would be integrated into Outlook. Well it seems that search is instead
going to be the platform from which Microsoft will challenge its main rivals in the RSS
war.
I updated my post about
start.com 5 times during the week, so my other thoughts are there if you're
interested.
Mobile Web 2.0
Scott Gatz, senior director of personalization products for Yahoo, emailed me (and others)
during the week to break the news about Yahoo's new mobile RSS service. This is an
extension of the My Yahoo! re-design which was launched in November. Scott said:
"Basically we redesigned My Yahoo around RSS and now we brought it to the mobile world
(and we have a desktop ticker too). Really all about getting whatever you want wherever
you want." Interesting stuff and Russ Beattie has more details
about how to actually use the mobile service.
Who else is doing mobile RSS? I've been aware of Bloglines mobile service for a while now and I've
even tried to use it on my mobile phone. And I
read in Susan Mernit's blog today that Google has a new mobile service. Susan says: "the deal is that
Google's put up a new mobile start page with links to all their current mobile
services--SMS, web and image search, imode interface."
No mention of RSS, but it wouldn't
surprise me to see it introduced soon (ditto Google
News).
Open Source Web 2.0
Bit of talk about open source things in the Web 2.0 world this week. Most importantly
of course, there is my open
source RSS statistics effort :-) But also Jeff Jarvis has a great idea for an open source ad
network. And Marc Canter has been writing inspiring stuff about Open Topics. Plus for
the geekier amongst us, there are now a heap of resources for
Ajax web development (how GMail and other great web apps like it were developed). My
favourite resource, for its claim to handle 99% of the development work for you, is SAJAX - Simple Ajax Toolkit.
Structured Blogging
A couple of weeks ago I
wrote about Bob Wyman's (of PubSub) post on what he calls "structured
blogging". As he described it then: "The basic idea is to go beyond "mere" text in
blogs and include structured XML that describes job-openings, events, new prices, press
releases, updates to phone numbers and contact info, requests for proposals, etc."
Now PubSub has come up with a new weblog called structuredblogging.org. It currently offers a
WordPress plug-in to carry out structured blogging. It also has some XML schemas and
further technical
resources. Looks pretty interesting and I'll be following its progress. Would be
great to get a Movable Type plug-in for this.
Etech
Finally, the coming week promises to be a good one for Web 2.0. The O'Reilly Emerging Technology
Conference is being held March 14-17 and the sessions sound like Web 2.0 Geek Nirvana
to me :-) What a pity I can't be there... sob! However I look forward to lots of reports
from the bloggers who do attend and I sure hope Heath Row (or someone as thorough as him) will be
there to transcribe the sessions. Better yet, I hope IT Conversations records them and publishes
them soon after. C'mon, I'm relying on the blogosphere to be my ears and eyes for ETech -
don't let me down people! [Read/Write Web]
9:16:09 AM
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How not to crash a plane with your mobile phone.  Like Toby Ziegler of The West Wing, the ban on mobile phones on airplanes has never made sense to me:
Flight Attendant: You can't use your phone until we land, sir.
Toby: We're flying in a Lockheed eagle series
L-1011. It came off the line 20 months ago and carries a Sim-5
Transponder tracking system. Are you telling me I can still flummox
this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?
Shoe checks and bans on knitting needles don't make a lot of sense if a passenger can bring down a plane with 3G, so it's nice to know it's not the plane in the sky that's at risk; rather, it's mobile phones on the ground:
Contrary to popular belief, the main impediment to the use
of mobile phones on planes is not interference with the aircraft's
avionics systems. On a typical long-haul flight, 20 mobile phones are
left switched on. Instead, the problem is that airborne mobile phones
disrupt mobile networks on the ground. An airliner with 500 phones on
board, whizzing across a city, would befuddle the network as the phones
busily hopped from one base-station to the next.
Since one of those 20 mobiles left on is normally mine, it's good to
know my absent-mindedness hasn't brought me and my fellow passengers
perilously close to a disaster of which we were unaware.
In any case, new on-board base stations called picocells have now
been developed, and are expected to be approved in 2005 for a 2006
service launch. Which means that ET can phone home while on the way,
though the matter of in-flight telephone etiquette will still need to
be sorted out. [Wanda Lust: First Class UK Travel Blog]
9:02:20 AM
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Hotel QT opens on the QT. It seems every travel blog is talking about Hotel QT, the brand-spanking new New York City hotel with prices more like a Birmingham Travel Lodge. It's the spawn of Andre Balazs, who also fathered Miami's art deco paradise the Raleigh and the rebirth of LA's historic Chateau Marmont.
Back to New York and the QT: Gridskipper was under the impression the hotel wasn't yet open, while our friends at Hotel Chatter thought it was open, but no longer flogging rooms at $99 per night.
Hotel Chatter is right; as the nice people at QT PR told us on Monday:
Although the hotel is open (70 out of 140 rooms are
operational) we are still about 5-6 weeks off from the public spaces
being finished.
For some reason, they are not taking PR photos of the 70 availible
rooms yet, and are waiting for all rooms plus the public spaces to be
complete before sending in the paparazzi. Fair enough; with a room rate
of $165 per room per night, it could look exactly like a Travel Lodge
and still sell out in NYC. But, as soon as the PR kits are out, we'll
have photos. [Wanda Lust: First Class UK Travel Blog]
9:01:30 AM
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Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace wins "Best Hotel" Award.  Industry professionals at the IHIF handed the Best New Development award to an establishment very high on my Hotels To Do list, the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace
in Budapest. Because sometimes even I tire of the new, swanky and chic
and crave the grand, impressive and ornate that comes with very
traditionally hostelry. (Somewhat sadly, I'm a big fan of the DeVere
hotels for staid weekend getaways.)
Housed in one of the world's finest Art Nouveau buildings, the
179-room Gresham Palace is one of central Europe's most lovingly
restored and preserved architectural jewlels, complete with ornate
stained glass vaulted ceilings. Situated on the east bank's Danube
Promenade, its also the city's only centrally located historic hotel,
and offers stunning views of the hotel's inner courtyards, the old city
or the Danube.
Eastern Europe is such a bargain, and rates at this grand palace of
Four Seasons hospitality start at only £135 per night. Amazing
bargains for what promises to be an amazing hotel stay. [Wanda Lust: First Class UK Travel Blog]
8:59:53 AM
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Will Mobile VoIP Find An Audience?. Although smartphones that feature a combination of WiFi and VoIP capabilities sounds like an exciting possibility,
there are some in the industry who believe that this is all vendor-driven and feel there is little interest from end
users. However, wireless carriers are exploring all options and, of course, if this can add a positive number to their
bottom lines, they will go for it.
Unfortunately, there are those who do not expect the long-promised cost savings of VoIP to materialize in the
mobile enterprise world any time soon.
[per thou]VoIP on the wireline side is emerging, but I think it is way over-rated as a capability over the wireless
infrastructure,[per thou] said Gartner vice president of mobile computing Ken Dulaney. [base "]On the wireless side, people
already have a lot of minutes available, and the wireless switching there is very easy.[per thou]
There[base ']ll be a lot of handsets available with Wi-Fi capabilities, but I see almost no demand from the customer base
for voice over Wi-Fi,[per thou] Dulaney told NewsFactor. [base "]This is a vendor-driven phenomenon, and the big mistake would be to
say that this will be a major thing.[per thou]
VoIP technology suffers from both a lack of system interoperability standards and the absence of Wi-Fi certified
standards relating to quality-of-service needs, Dulaney pointed out. Handset sales will remain encumbered due to these
deficiencies, Dulaney believes, because each implementation is unique.
[per thou]The wireless carriers will promote the fact that they have Wi-Fi on their handsets so that their users can surf
the Net over the wireless LAN, which I think will prove to be the successful side,[per thou] Dulaney said. [base "]Most of the Wi-Fi
handsets sold will actually be used for data downloads,[per thou] he predicted.
[The VoIP Weblog]
8:57:06 AM
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Bravo Villa Rentals. 
Bravo Villa Rentals gives you a lovely collection of fun choices for your Italian holiday. Umbria, Capri,
Tuscany or maybe Sicily. Apartment in Florence, Tuscan villa or how about Il Castello an 11 suite home built in
the 16th century? A week at Il Castello costs upwards of $20,000 and comes with a complete staff and a boat to
ferry you over to Elba.
[Luxist]
8:52:58 AM
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Marquis Jets M Club. 
Marquis Jet has created a new private aviation club experience: the M Club. Membership in the M Club gives you
access to Marquis Jet[base ']s Boeing Business Jets. These $52 million dollar planes accomodate 18 passengers and
are configured with two full bedrooms, a conference/dining area, two bathrooms with showers and a lounge. The
plane has a range of 6,000 miles and has multiple monitors to keep your entire party entertained. The M Club is
limited to 100 club members at an introductory fee of $125,000.
[Luxist]
8:49:38 AM
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Hydrolift C-31. 
Usually boats that are fast aren[base ']t always long on creature comforts and often boats that are loaded with amenities
can sometimes not be built for speed. The C-31 by Hydrolift represents a bit of a compromise. Like other
Hydrolift boats, it[base ']s light and can handle a strong engine but it also has a bathroom, hot plate and refrigerator for
comfortable day cruising. It[base ']s been called the gentleman[base ']s speed boat but as a female boater, I can attest that
the access to a bathroom when you are out on a long cruise (especially when cocktails are involved) is something we can
all enjoy.
[Luxist]
8:48:53 AM
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Skiing Luxury--Rent The Whole Slope. 
Want the ultimate in luxury, why not rent the whole slope? Samsung boss Lee Kun-hee is treating himself
(and 80 friends) to the ultimate ski vacation. He is renting three runs at the French Alpine resort of Courchevel
for two hours each day for three weeks. Netting will separate his private runs from other areas of the resort. A
snow scooter will tote him around and there will be six ski instructors. Now[base ']s that[base ']s a nice spring break.
[Luxist]
8:48:00 AM
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Brando's Island To Become Resort. 
What was once Marlon Brando[base ']s private escape from the world will now become a luxury resort. The French
Polynesian atoll of Tetiaroa owned by the reclusive star will become an eco-hotel called The Brando. It will have
30 villas and will be the only hotel on the island. Because we are total travel wimps, the [base "]eco[per thou] part scares us
but it really means the hotel will [base "]rest lightly on it[base ']s environment.[per thou] We[base ']re thinking that means no wi-fi.
[Luxist]
8:47:28 AM
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Abercrombie Kent Private Jet Travel Tours.
 Luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent has relaunched their
Private Jet program. For the mere starting sum of
just under $40,000, tourists are whisked away via a reconfigured 757 to exotic destinations in Europe, the
Mediterranean and South America. Upon touchdown, they are given tours and lectures by top notch historians and
artists. Tours can last upwards of 20 days.
[Luxist]
8:42:48 AM
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Exclusive Resorts GrowsA Lot. 
Exclusive Resorts, the ultra posh luxury residence club
we[base ']ve blogged about before, is expanding quickly. The
company announced yesterday they had added 35 new homes in four
destinations, bringing the grand total to 175 homes in 32 destinations. The new locations added are Chamonix, France;
St. Tropez, France; Abaco, Bahamas; and Turks & Caicos. Members pay a one time fee of $375,000, plus annual dues
ranging from $15,000 to $25,000 for full membership (there is a lower priced affiliate option as well), to gain access
to up to 60 days per year at any of the properties.
[Luxist]
8:41:46 AM
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And the Winner for Most Luxurious Brand Goes to.
 When you are at the top of the luxury food chain, you must be doing something right. The
Luxury Institute (yes, something like this actually exists),
in their latest Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) , determined that Ritz Carlton ranked first among 52 luxury brands
by wealthy consumers across four categories. To get to this conclusion, more than 200 households, each with a minimum
of $200,000 in gross annual income and a net worth of at least $750,000, were surveyed. (Did anybody get a call[sigma]I
don[base ']t remember my phone ringing.)
Runner ups to the Ritz included Porsche, Mercedes, Armani and Four Seasons.
[Luxist]
8:40:42 AM
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Borgward Returns to the Market. 
From Inside Line, we found this news about the Borgward. The small German company produced cars from the 1930s
through the 1950s and the Brogward Isabella is highly sought among collectors. Now Borgward is ready for a
comeback. Christian Borgward is planning a small series luxury car to carry on the family name. We browsed
around and found this intriguing picture on the Borgward Automobile Club
Home Page. Looks sort of like a Bentley-Audi crossbreed to me but definitely a lure for those who want a car
that is German but isn[base ']t going to be confused with the other Mercedes in the country club parking lot.
[Luxist]
8:39:57 AM
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Home Chocolate Fountain. 
You[base ']ve probably seen a chocolate fountain at a wedding or party. Now you can bring the decadence home (and
without the possible hygenic issues) with the Sephra chocolate fountain. The 18-inch-high home model costs $249 and
comes with four pounds of Sephra melting chocolate. The fountain can also handle caramel, cheese and barbecue
sauce (yeah, that last one kind of threw us too). Definitely a little more user-friendly than getting an
old-fashioned fondue pot as a wedding present.
[Luxist]
8:37:22 AM
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CTIA highlights. 
After several long days and even longer nights, Ryan and I finally got back from the big CTIA wireless trade show in
New Orleans late yesterday evening. Maybe not as many huge announcements as we might have hoped, but we did discover
the hard way that stumbling around drunk and starting fights is perfectly acceptable activity on Bourbon Street, but is
not such a cool thing to do on the floor of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (new rule for all future Engadget
trade show coverage: always carry bail money). Anyway, here[base ']s a little summary of all of our CTIA-related posts for
ya:
LG
Kyocera
Motorola
Nokia
Samsung
Sony Ericsson
RIM
Sprint
Verizon
Cingular
Group Sense PDA
NTT DoCoMo
Misc.
[Engadget]
8:35:32 AM
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Dog LED tail light broadcasting. 
If elephants can send SMS, we may as well outfit our
dogs with some airtexting equipment, right? This ultra-bright LED that attaches to Fido[base ']s tail and uses that whole
persistence of vision thing to display programmed messages is still on the fanciful tip, but clearly some technophile
dog owner noticed the gaping void that remains in the growing
dog electronics market (there are already doggie
cellphones and
digital cameras).
[Via Protein Feed]
[Engadget]
8:32:32 AM
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Apple wants a 10% cut of all Made for iPod accessories. 
There was nothing too nefarious about Apple coming out with their new [base "]Made for iPod[per thou] seal of approval program a few
months ago[~]it was pitched as a convenient way for consumers to know for sure that the accessories they[base ']re buying will
work with their iPod[~]but according to CNET there is a dark side to the program: Apple is now demanding a tithe of 10%
of the wholesale price of any Made for iPod accessory. No one is forcing anyone to participate in the program (it[base ']s not
like you need Apple[base ']s permission to make an iPod accessory), and it[base ']s completely normal (and expected) for
manufacturers to drop a little coin for the licensing rights for a logo or to pay for the certification process, but a
10% cut? Sounds less like Apple is trying to look out for consumers (who may end up paying a little more for Made for
iPod accessories unless manufacturers decide to take a hit on their margins) and more like they[base ']re just looking for a
way to get a nice chunk of the rapidly-growing market for third-party accessories without actually having to sell
anything extra themselves.
[Thanks, Mazo]
[Engadget]
8:31:48 AM
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GM adds line-in jack to their cars. 
We[base ']ve specifically asked for this as a stock-feature before, and it[base ']s about freaking time car companies added it:
it[base ']s called a line-in jack, and it basically allows the end-user to jack in any kind of audio player they may have,
regardless of proprietary interfaces[~]sounds totally crazy,
right? Like, seriously, who would think to do such a crazy thing? Well GM[base ']s adding them to 2006 Chevy HHRs, Impalas,
Monte Carlos, Saturn Vues and Ions, Pontiac Solstices, Buick Lucernes, and Cadillac DTSs, so we guess they did. See
guys, that wasn[base ']t so hard, was it?
[Engadget]
8:31:00 AM
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New Line on Mobile Sex. Missing out on the thrill of mobile services? Maybe you just haven't met the right phone yet. Commentary by Regina Lynn. [Wired News]
8:28:33 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Joerg Rheinboldt.
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