Lee and Sachi are at it again…this time with ice cream!
Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.
Archive for May, 2008
I’ve had my AppleTV for awhile now and it’s great at doing a few things: playing back anything I have in my iTunes libraries on any Mac in my house (I have 4), renting and downloading movies from iTunes, viewing photos off Flickr and playing Youtube videos.
The only thing really missing from it, that I’m able to do with my Xbox 360 is play back divx video, ideally over my network as I have a large media server – I could even do this on my original Xbox using the Xbox Media Center. So close yet so far….until now.
There has been a number of ways to hack the AppleTV to make it more useful. Some are free and others cost money.
One friend tried the free way….but there is a lot of reading and gathering of files to do it. He was never able to get it working properly so he gave up and just restored the Apple TV to it’s factory state and went on his divx-less way.
Then one company got a lot of press because they were selling a usb thumb drive with all the files needed to just plug-in and go. While reading up on this company, I was directed to a site that had a members only forum ($15/year) where all the same software could be found as well as installation guides. Both of these for-pay options have been criticized for charging for work created by others and offered freely. I’ll let you decide what’s right or wrong in this case, after all you are hacking something. It was just easier for me to get a packaged download that was tested than to wade through endless forum/wiki posts trying to track down all that was needed.
Watching this video is what finally sold me (it’s long):
Needless to say if you watched the whole video, I am now able to easily watch nearly any format of video on my AppleTV while still being able to revert it back to factory should I need to. I’m able to stream anything over my local network and so far the playback has been pretty much flawless. I have run into a couple of bad videos but they are flaky on other machines as well so I’m not too concerned about it. The software is a little on the beta side but there are updates available from within the tools installed which will hopefully stabilize things even more.
There are a number of other plugins available for installation on the AppleTV once this hack is up and running and I’m just starting to explore them – like the Couch Surfer web browser (webkit) shown above. You have full ftp/ssh access to the AppleTV. It reminds me of the early days of hacking the iPhone and is just as fun.
I can’t help but think how many more AppleTV’s would be sold if Apple at least offered divx playback natively on it. After all, Microsoft and Sony both allow it on their game consoles (for free), but of course this would crash head-on into their digital media strategy with the iTunes store.
Today is the beginning of the “Auction of Spectrum Licences for Advanced Wireless Services and Other Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range“.
Huh?
What this means is that Industry Canada is basically paving the way for some fresh blood to enter the Canadian Wireless (cellular) space. This should translate into some competition for the ‘big 3′ (Rogers, Bell & Telus) in this country as 40% of the available spectrum is earmarked for new players to start offering wireless services possibly as soon as early next year.
It’s unclear how long the auction will last and who all the bidders are but it seems to be a number of communications companies across the country, including Shaw Communications. Hopefully there are rules preventing someone from Shaw winning the auction only to be bought up by Rogers or Bell in a few years time, effectively killing off the competition. This has happened in the past when Rogers bought Fido, Telus bought Clearnet, etc.
Possibly not so coincidentially, today Bell began offering ‘unlimited data’ for $30/month on all of their smartphones – previously it was only available on specific models or non-smartphones (wap only).
Could this be the beginning of the decline of high data prices in Canada? My money is still on June 9th as the main turning point when Apple is expected to outline the iPhone rollout in Canada among many other countries.
UPDATE: Wirelessnorth.ca has a lot more details about the auction with daily play by plays of the bids.
This morning I decided to head downtown to witness the opening of the Vancouver Apple Store at Pacific Centre. This was my second Apple opening as I was at the Bellvue Square one a few years ago.
I arrived around 8am expecting to either see a huge lineup of campers already there or not much of a line. Apparently the first guy in line got there at 5:45am so it wasn’t too bad….but Apple wasn’t having a sale or giving away anything other than a free T-Shirt to the first 1000 people through the door.
Buzz Bishop shot a video of the lineup and the opening of store (I say hi to Buzz at around the 16 second mark):
Towards the end of the video you can see some very enthusiastic Apple employees high-5′ing the people in line….I was surprised how many employees were on hand but it actually is a fairly big/deep store unlike many other Apple stores that are inside malls.
Overall I’m glad there is finally an Apple Store in the area but it would have been better if it was a larger store that had a theatre with classes like many other stores I’ve been too. The training seminars they offer are usually free and it would be great for me to point friends and family to them if they wanted to find out more about Apple products. But hopefully this store will do ridiculously well it will warrant additional stores in the area (like maybe Coquitlam Centre beside the other H&M store in the area). Toronto currently has 3 stores with a 4th one in the works.
Here’s a few more shots of the store and the opening day madness. This is probably the only day that Apple will allow photography in the store too…I’ve been asked to not take photos a few times in other stores. More in my flickr stream:
Yes, there were also a lot of iPhones in attendance. The store has a few accessories for the iPhone as well but not much (yet).
All the blue or orange t-shirts are Apple staff
The Genius Bar is open for business.
My next visit to the store will most likely be on June 9th which is also the day of the WWDC keynote and when the next version of the iPhone is expected to be unveiled….and possibly even available in Canada.
Thanks goes to Derek for tagging all my photos on Flickr for me while I was rushing to get them online using the free instore wifi!
Nintendo’s new fitness product/game, Wii Fit, came out today. This is a long anticipated product that has been touted since the early days of the Wii launch.
Unfortunately, I was involved in a car accident yesterday so I won’t be able to really try it out for a little while but I am supposed to stay active so I’ve tried some of the lower impact aspects of the Wii Fit.
This $90 bundle comes with the Wii Fit software, a manual, four batteries and a balance board that is not unlike a really big weigh scale with some sensors built in.
Initial impression of the package is that it’s solid. The box is actually quite heavy when you pick it up for the first time and the balance board is all to blame. It’s a combination of plastic and metal that supports up to 330 lbs or 150 kg.
The first thing you do after putting the batteries in is to sync it with the Wii like any new controller by pressing the red sync button on the Wii and the similar button the balance board inside the battery door. There is a familiar blue power light on the bottom of the balance board and it’s meant to be turned on with your foot. You can use it on carpet or hardwood flooring. It even comes with extra feet extensions in case you have extra deep (shag?) carpet….ew.
Once you’re all synced up you’re ready to begin.
You start off by choosing a Mii to use for your profile. Then it asks a number of questions related to you like your height and birthdate.
The program then takes you through a number of tests to gauge your center of balance and determine your BMI (body mass index) among other things. Since the balance board actually is a scale, you can’t cheat on your weight since it knows. Once your BMI has been determined by your height and weight, the program explains what this all means and allows you to set a goal if it determines you’re above or below your ideal BMI. Basically it tells you if you’re fat or not. While at first blush this could be construed as a bad thing, it does so in a nice way. Besides, who couldn’t afford to lose a few pounds – I know I do – and this is why there aren’t any screenshots of my personal progress.
Once you set your goal, you can see a chart that graphs it on a day by day basis with some slick animations when transitioning between different things. Then you can begin your training. You start off by choosing a male or female personal trainer who will guide you through the various exercises and mini-games.
So far I’ve only tried one of the balance games due to my accident (which is actually quite similar to one of the exercises I’m supposed to do) so I’ll wrap this up for now until I’ve had more time with it. I like what I’ve seen so far and hope that this device leads to more of these kinds of exercise games and I’ve heard that there may be other software titles that can utilize the balance board.
I had heard of May 24th being the opening day ages ago…can’t remember where I heard it. Then I read somewhere else that sometime in August it would open which didn’t make any sense since it’s been worked on for ages.
Perfect timing for the Canadian launch of the iPhone next month. See you in line!
There has been a lot of talk and speculation about the rumoured 3G iPhone as well as when it will launch in Canada since the ‘if’ part has been established (‘later this year’) and how much the data plan might cost to Canadians. I figured I’d throw my thoughts out there and see how close I get it later.
Prediction #1: Details about the iPhone release in Canada will be announced on June 9th
Steve Jobs himself will announce them during the WWDC Keynote as he reveals the next iteration of the iPhone (version 2.0/3G/whatever) and details the rollout of the iPhone to a number of other countries/carriers that also had similarly worded (brief) press releases regarding the iPhone coming out “later this year”.
It’s interesting to note that a number of ‘soon-to-be-carrying-iPhone’ countries have been mentioned previously in various places like Apple’s shareholder meetings well in advance of their official rollout – except for Canada.
Prediction #2: Rogers will offer the 3G iPhone to Canadians.
It makes sense that Rogers would want to negate the thousands of unlocked iPhones already in Canada by selling the latest version. This would mean that all current iPhones (mine included) would still work but would potentially be locked out of any sweet data deal (more on that in a second) since the 1st gen iPhone wasn’t offered by Rogers.
Prediction #3: there will be a decent iPhone data plan for Canadians.
There has been a lot of talk about IMEI tracking, user agent string logging and other forms of identifying users on the Rogers network in order to charge them for using data via 3rd party applications and non-sanctioned websites. I have a hard time believing Apple would allow Rogers to sell the iPhone without some kind of decent data plan….perhaps not quite as generous as the AT&T plan ($20/month all you can eat data) but even that could change down south with the release of the SDK built 3rd party apps via the iTunes App Store that will also be unveiled at WWDC. The bottomline is that Rogers will have to offer a compelling data plan, targeted at consumers, not businessmen, if they hope to sell a decent number of these phones. Canada is a relatively small market for high(er) end phones in the first place, so it has to be decent to get any kind of penetration with the Facebook generation. Just look at how many non-businessman currently have Blackberry Pearls – mostly for email and Facebook.
Prediction #4: the Canadian iPhone will sell for no more than $399 with a two year contract and be available before the end of the summer, if not immediately.
They will make the iPhone available very quickly in order to not slow down sales. Dragging out the release would only cause people to hold off on new activations or give competitors a chance to steal potentials away from Rogers with sweet deals. Despite it being Rogers modus operandi to do everything with a 3 year contract these days, because of the way Apple will require them to sell the iPhones, there won’t be a requirement for a 3 year deal, a 2 year deal will be required. There has been a lot of rumours that AT&T will be offering the iPhone for $199 with a 2 year contract once the 3G version comes out so I could see Rogers doing something similar but with a higher markup than AT&T. It just really depends on what the 3G version looks like from a specs standpoint and what it offers above and beyond the 1st gen model.
I’m still not convinced that 3G is all that great having used Edge in a lot of places, it’s not that bad for many things you’d want to do on the iPhone and would rather have slower internet speeds than a battery-killing 3G speed any day. I still don’t believe that videophone capabilities will really matter that much to most people. I personally don’t know anybody that either has a video capable phone or would even use that feature if they did. Streaming video is another story completely and could be a more compelling reason for 3G.
Prediction #5: I could be completely wrong about all of this.
One of the fun things about Apple announcements is that more often than not, they find a way to make people that predict what they are going to announce look foolish. They do it again and again.
So I’m not putting any money on my predictions. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on June 9th.
This is another amazing video I came across….”a wall-painted animation”.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
Fucking amazing…I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into this short film.
Here’s a really creative music video done on a Mac:
I love stuff like this.
Via the big noob.
ps. check out the PC version as well
Update: TUAW has an interview with the director that made this video
