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The speculation is over. Those of us expecting touch-screen iPods, PDAs, Apple phones or even an Apple TiVo were left a little disappointed.

Taking the stage at today's announcement, CEO Steve Jobs said, "We've got some fun things to introduce today. Sort of medium-scale things."

As soon as Jobs said "medium-scale things" I knew everyone with high hopes for today's announcement probably felt a pit in their stomach.

After all the hype around Apple's invitation to see some "fun new products," Apple only announced an Intel-based Mac ($799) and a high-end speaker, the iPod Hi-Fi ($349). Apple also announced some expensive leather iPod cases ($99).

Did today's "fun new products" announcement really require a special event? Usually Apple just adds minor new products to their website and issues a few press releases.

Anyone else feel underwhelmed?

Apple is announcing some "fun new products" today but what could they be? Howard Wolinsky from The Chicago Sun-Times asked his readers to send in their thoughts. Here's what they had to say:

Francois d'Anethan, dean of UBI, a business school in Brussels, Belgium, said, "The flip side of the iPod could be the face of a 'Mac' cell phone. That would be the ultimate piece of technology. Everybody I know who uses an iPod, would go for it without the slightest hesitation."

Daniel Schattnik, a lawyer in downstate East Alton, said, "If they paired an iPod with built-in XM or Sirius radio, I would buy it tomorrow." He said he would have no use for FM radio if he had satellite.

A half dozen iPod dreamers said they would like to see the MP3 player morph into a personal digital assistant to track appointments, list contacts, link to the Web and move images, music and files wirelessly. This would revive Apple's pioneering Newton PDA from a decade ago.

John Soles of Yorkville said Wi-Fi on an iPod PDA "opens up so many possibilities. It would be cool if two or more people in the same room . . . could share music so each could listen to the others' songs. The screen would be large enough to have a digital album with song lyrics and information similar to what is found in the jacket of CDs that one buys. Wi-Fi would be great for remote control and so many other things."

Vincent Verweij, chief executive of Makayama Interactive in Amsterdam, which developed iPod Media Studio software to copy DVDs for use on iPods, said iPods should have A/V inputs to capture video signals.

Although the Sun-Times readers tended to keep their speculation centered on the iPod, other people think Apple might announce an Apple touch sensitive tablet computer or a TiVo like Apple Media Center. You can read more about these announcement speculations here.

methodshop.com

Labels: apple, gadgets, ipod, tech news

For those of you living outside a major U.S. city, you may not be familiar with a little newspaper called The Onion. It's a topical satire newspaper only distributed free in big cities like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

Although you may not be able to hold a physical copy of The Onion newspaper in your hands, you can now hold a podcast version on your iPod's hard drive. Just launch iTunes and click on the Podcast section to get started.

If you are completely unfamiliar with The Onion, you should expect such hard-hitting headlines like "Sean Penn Demands To Know What Asshole Took SeanPenn@ gmail.com" or "Real-Life Stranger On A Train Less Interesting Than Hitchcock Version."

For more information about The Onion, checkout theonion.com.

According to theage.com.au, Australian Police are warning cyclists to never listen to an iPod while riding unless they have a death wish.

"If you're a cyclist and you want to stay alive, I wouldn't wear an iPod under any circumstances," said Assistant Traffic Commissioner Noel Ashby. Australian Police are seeing increasing numbers of people using iPods on bikes, while walking and even while driving a car.

This article in The Age comes after a 32 year-old Australian woman was recently knocked off her bicycle and killed in London. Apparently the woman was listening to her iPod at a high volume level and was unable to hear the sounds of traffic around her. Another friend of the woman said she may still be alive if she hadn't been listening to her iPod.

Digg.com user Rockintom99 found out first hand that bikes and music players don't mix. "I used to ride my bike to school, and i took my mp3 cd player one day. I was changing the song, and ended up in a ditch, and lost my bike key. Bad times." At least he was able to walk away.

The Age article doesn't mention the new trend of cyclists and runners using cell phones. Many organized triathlons ban all headphone devices and cell phones to protect other participants.

Cult of Mac blogger, Leander Kahney, found a suspicious looking photo on MacDailyNews.

This "suspicious" image might shed some light on the invitation Apple sent to journalists and analysts Tuesday morning for a Feb. 28 event. The following vague phrase was printed on the invitations: "Come see some fun new products from Apple."

Most of the speculation around what Apple might announce on Feb 28th include an Apple branded cell phone, a touch sensitive iPod with wider screen and a TiVo like Apple Media Center.

Leander says that this blurry picture was supposedly shot with a camera-phone and anonymously emailed to MacDailyNews. The text that was included with the photo is as follows:

"I was only able to snap one quick shot of this as I was only in there for about 30 seconds. I sort of stumbled upon it - can't say more about how or why. I only got about half a sec to look around back - there are a bunch of ports (and maybe a button or two) neatly arranged on the back (?) of the cube in a line along the bottom edge. It's about 8-inches square and 8-inches tall - a perfect cube. It seems to be made out of a similar material as a Power Mac - aluminum perforated with a round hole pattern, but they're smaller holes than found on a Power Mac. The top is the same material as the sides with the addition of the Apple logo, even though it doesn't look like it in the photo - I had to snap it quick, sorry.

I don't have any real detail on exactly what it's designed to do, but I know from other things I can't mention that it's media-related. Apple "Media Cube," maybe? Anyway, thought you guys would be interested.

Hummm. Real of fake, this photo is feeding the buzz around Apple's announcement on Feb. 28th. According to Ross Rubinan, an analyst at the market research firm NPD Group, trying to guess what Apple might announce is a "fruitless guessing game."

Guess we'll all just have to wait and see.

NBC is offering the pilot episode of its new legal drama Conviction for free on the iTunes Music Store nearly two weeks before the show makes its network series premiere.

Conviction, the latest drama from Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order, takes a provocative look at the lives of New York Assistant District Attorneys.

If you download the free pilot episode before it premieres on March 3, you get extras like a music video by The Gabe Dixon Band and a behind-the-scenes look at the new drama.

Why not, it's free. You can download Conviction here.

With the pornographic industry clamoring to tout their wares on your microscopic iPod screens, it was never going to be long before dear old Hugh and his Playboy empire got in on the act.

Our friends over at iPastudio.com sent us a link to the Playboy Bodcast, a downloadable podcast containing specific content from Playboy.com which is updated every weekday.

Easy to follow instructions for downloading the Bodcasts are available at the website and Playboy says they plan to introduce "sexier premium Playboy Bodcasts" in the near future.

What should you expect from a Playboy Bodcast? They currently offer the following 3 Video Bodcasts:

• Topless Joke of the Day:
  Nothing sells a joke like a great delivery, and no one delivers a joke better than a Playboy model.
  
  
• Ask Hef Anything:
  Wit and wisdom from Mr. Playboy himself
  
  
• From the Mouth of Babes:
  Video advice from Playboy.com's sexy Cyber Girls of the Month

Yup, just one more obstacle in the way of teenagers the world over doing their homework.

What private information of yours is on the Internet? You might not have uploaded the information yourself, it could have come from your school or employer. As McAfee's senior vice president for Risk Management George Kurtz demonstrated, a carefully worded search in Google will result in you finding all sorts of stuff you're not supposed to see.

These are photos of slides that were shown at the RSA Conference in San Jose this week:


A search for Payroll.xls turned up a nice overview of employees and their hourly wages.


Search for sites with "Remote desktop web connection" in the title, and you'll find... remote desktops that you can take over.


Want to assume a dead person's identity? You can easily find death records with a social security number. Just search for: ssn 111111111..999999999 death records.

[Source: Silicon Valley Sleuth]


methodshop

Labels: internet, tech news

Here's a few patent pictures Apple submitted to the US trademark website.

Is the touch sensitive iPod going to be a reality? You be the judge. After seeing these images, I must say it looks like an iPod to me. And with the increasing popularity of tablet PCs, a touch sensitive iPod would be something that would be very plausible.

However, it is still unclear if we are going to see an Apple tablet, full screen iPod or a combination of both. Nonetheless the multi point touch screen is a major revolution.

Check out the following video to see the possibilities:
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/multitouchreel.mpg

Also here's a link to Apple's Patent Application on the US trademark website:
Mode-based graphical user interfaces for touch sensitive input devices


digg story | methodshop

Labels: apple, gadgets, ipod

Apple previously announced that they would be selling iPods at 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan, and now we have the first photo.

The display includes the 1 GB Shuffle, 2 GB and 4 GB Nano, and a 30 GB Video iPod, along with some iTunes Music Store gift cards.

It is kind of funny to see a row of iPods on display right next to some candy. The bright colored Shuffle boxes almost look like condoms.

Based on current conversion rates, prices are two or three dollars less than here in the United States.

[Source ifoapplestore]

Many people only see the many problems associated with ADD, and many people, especially men avoid getting diagnosed for ADD. The delay in getting diagnosed is that some people portray it as an almost totally pathological condition, and they view it as just a weakness.

To put it into perspective, I thought I’d write a list of some advantages of having ADD in the wired world to help people in the industry recognize and develop their ADD related strengths as well as managing their ADD challenges.

Here are 10 reasons why ADD can be a competitive edge:
Top Ten ADD Advantages in a Hi Tech Career

The iPod nano is now shipping in a smaller, cheaper version. Available immediately is a 1 Gigabyte model for $150, Apple said in a release.

This is a great deal. The nano is a fully functional iPod and a gorgeous piece of electronic jewelery. With a fabulous little color screen, the 1 gigabyte iPod Nano holds up to 240 songs or 15,000 photographs.

Apple also cut the price of the screen-less iPod shuffle: the 512 megabyte version now costs $70 and the 1 gigabyte model costs $100.

[Via Cult of Mac]

VH1 has launched four original video podcasts tied to several of its most popular programs, including Best Week Ever and Flavor of Love.

The signature podcast is Best Night Ever, which consists of five minutes worth of clips from the previous night's prime time TV shows, along with commentary from VH1 personalities. Best Night Ever will be produced each weekday.

In addition, two other "best of" podcasts have launched: Best Week Ever Daily, a daily version of the network's weekly pop culture roundup, and the Best of VH1, which will include highlights from a variety of VH1 shows, such as All Access. Best of VH1 will be produced three times a week.

The fourth podcast, Flavor of Love, will compile highlights of the former Surreal Life contestant and Public Enemy frontman Flavor Flav's new The Bachelor-styled dating show.

The new podcasts, which currently do not carry advertising, are available on VH1.com, iTunes, and Podcasts.Yahoo.com.

To subscribe to a VH1 Video Podcast, just click on this link and select Podcasts from the menu on the left.


[Via MediaWeek]

German car company, BMW, was reportedly using doorway pages to artificially boost their search engine rank on Google. However, the big "G" found out and gave BMW the search rank of death, zero.

So what is a "doorway" page and why was Google upset about BMW using them?

A doorway, or gateway page, is a common technique used by web marketing firms to manipulate search results and lure people to a specific site. Here's an example of a doorway page for handbags. As you can see, the page is nothing more than blocks of text with repeated key search words. There is no real content on this page. But if you mix a link you want to promote with competitors links and keywords, this will boost your site's page rank on Google.

BMW created several of these doorway pages filled with words like "neuwagon", which means new car in German. Once a user landed on one of these doorway pages, they were automatically redirected to BMW's website which has less text and more pictures, which is more attractive but a page with less text will score lower in Google's PageRank system.

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start charging companies a penny per email to guarantee that they bypass spam filters and get delivered.

Think of it like VIP junk mail.

In exchange for paying, email senders will be guaranteed their messages will not be filtered and will bear a seal alerting recipients they are legitimate.

Too bad I'm still sticking it all in my Junk folder unless AOL and Yahoo disable that too.

Bastards!

Did you hear the one about stand-up comedians becoming a major hit on iTunes?

That's actually not a joke.

MTV Networks has been surprised to discover that low-profile stand-up specials from its Comedy Central channel are outperforming better-known franchises.

Armed with this knowledge, it doesn't take a crystal ball to predict the next get-rich-quick scheme in television production. Just stick a camera in the back of your local comedy club.

Record. Digitize. Count your money. Let the cost-cutting of original Internet TV shows begin.