Tag: Geek

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Mostly Everything

Are Mac users really smug and arrogant?

We love our machines. I’ve found that Mac users can’t wait to use their machines (when they get home from work for example) whereas Windows users can’t wait to get away from their computers because they associate them with work. Obvious generalities here I know, but I think that many would agree that it’s true. [Read]

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I mean, who can blame us? 🙂 With icons like these in Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign …

Seriously now, though Mac users insist on having their Kool Aid and drinking it, the smug mentality of these users are slowly becoming saturated by the way Apple had introduced Windows compatibility and made Macs cheaper.

Hypothesis: Linux is the new Mac. 🙂

Lately though I’ve been playing a mental game whenever I watch an Apple keynote or attend an Apple press release. The game is really simple. I try to keep level headed through the presentation and figure out what Apple isn’t telling us. Aaron Brazell writes about how the Apple store is the place where intelligent people die:

However, Apple products incite a certain stupidity in people that encourages them… no, forces them… no, not even that – compels them to go to the Apple Store and buy the newest product on the day of launch or soon thereafter. [Read]

Apple knows how to feed on the ego. And now their market share is inflating, who’s to stop their heads from doing the same?

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Mostly Everything

Which local telco will Apple partner with for the iPhone?

Apple iPhone

Slowly, but surely, the (legitimate) iPhone launch is making its way to Asia. Apple has recently partnered with O2 in the UK to be exclusive telco to distribute the iPhone. The added perk with this partnership is that the iPhone will have unlimited access to the Cloud partner hotspots around the UK.

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Survey says: Women don’t like pink gadgets!!!!

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I wonder what Pink SEO and Geek Girl Manila have to say about this article:

Hardware Widow Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has put down in black and white what plenty of women around here have been thinking for ages: we want technology but we don’t want it coloured pink or encrusted with fake gemstones.

[…] Only nine per cent of the women S&S talked to think it’s important that their gadgets look feminine. Rather a lot of ladies are completely turned off by the abundance of pink products. [The Register]

I’m not a lady, so I honestly cannot give an insight on this claim. I do think that the mindset is taboo, and that consumers are a lot smarter than this. What do the lady geeks think?

Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter? Oh no.

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Swinging from his role as Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire is set to play one of the main characters in the upcoming live action version of Robotech. Now hold it right there. Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter (Ichijyo Hikaru in the Japanese Macross version)? I make this assumption as Maguire can’t possibly portray Roy Fokker or Admiral Gloval.

I don’t know. The movie reeks too much of Hollywood to me. The fact that they’re using Robotech as the title and not The Super Dimensional Fortress: Macross (the original Japanese title from 1983) is already … err … never mind.

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (超時空要塞マクロス, ChōjikÅ« Yōsai Makurosu) is among the many 80s ‘space opera’ anime series produced in Japan. It was broadcast between October 3, 1982 and June 26, 1983 on the Mainichi Broadcast System, and produced by Big West, Studio Nue, and Tatsunoko Production Company, Ltd. North Americans may have already come to know the thirty-six episode saga as the first part of Carl Macek’s Robotech (1985). Driven by music from Haneda Kentarou and Iijima Mari, populated by mecha designs from the famous Kawamori Shoji, and developed by Studio Nue, Macross has become one of the most recognizable brands to this day. It was most certainly one of the leading series of the transformable-robot genre, thanks in no small part to Kawamori’s excellent Valkyrie designs.

But really, I don’t know. If I were them, I’d actually consider remaking Do You Remember Love? which was the title of the 2 hour movie finale which was actually a compression of the entire 36 episodes that aired in 1984.

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Mostly Everything

Talking points on the issue of DRM

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The Nokia N81 … not to be confused with the “Nokia iPhone” … at least not yet 🙂

Very interesting points were raised during the talk on Nokia digital music forum today. A lot of DRM issues were shed to light as well as new developments in the music industry. Most of these insights come from Sandy Monteiro who is the SVP for Digital Music, Universal Music.

  • Apple did a good job of marketing their “DRM free” music when in reality this isn’t truly the case. Having an artist’s name and title is DRM. The fact that Apple only made the download available in AAC format isn’t truly “DRM free” either. Making it available only in the iTunes Store is also a sign that this is not also truly “DRM free.”
  • A new technology is being explored to allow music sharing via Bluetooth or through other means. It involves having the fourth or fifth person paying only a fraction of the cost via wireless sharing (IrDA or Bluetooth) of what the original person had to pay when he or she downloaded the music. This is sort of like a “human Bit torrent” effect. Or the new pyramid scheme for DRM 🙂
  • In the future, music tracks can be remixed by anyone. Let’s say you have a Frank Sinatra song – you can rearrange the instruments (instead of wind instruments you can use strings) and then upload your version of the song to the Internet. The user community can then download the song and you get a royalty fee. The music tracks that participate in this program have the prior approval of the artists and the record label. Interesting?

These were some of the more interesting points raised for the future of digital music. What do you think?