The Victorious Opposition

Since we’ve had no income, as part of our controlling discretionary spending, all of our annual renewals for various charitable/political/whatever organizations had been stacking up on my desk. Now that mrs. dwex has a job (well, will in 2 weeks), I went through the stack to send in my annual donations. After doing five of them, on the sixth one, my credit card was declined. After verifying that I’d entered my credit card info correctly, I guessed that all of these identically-priced transactions in very rapid sequence had set off an alarm at the credit card company. So I called them up and went through their voice prompt system (credit card number, social security number, password, etc). They immediately launched into an inquiry requiring me to indicate whether I recognized a handful of transactions. I indicated that I did, they removed the hold, and then back to submitting contributions.

All without having to interact with a human being for any of it.

God, I love technology

BTW - most credit card companies allow you to choose a password to use in place of “mother’s maiden name”. If you haven’t done so, I suggest that you do it. I did this five years ago or so after someone social-engineered the credit card company into changing the billing and email address associated with my account (which I found after having my credit card declined for some purchase or another and called them to complain).

Unless you were living in a cave, you know about the incredibly important speech that happened yesterday - Steve Jobs launching the new Apple iPad tablet device. It’s pretty clear that no females work on Apple’s branding team, as MadTV explains:

It appears that at least part of the reason for the uptick in bombings in Baghdad may be due to the Iraqis having been sold a completely bogus explosive-detection device at $40,000 each - more than $80MM worth. Basically a dowsing rod for explosives. Watch this BBC video and be really, really angry.

If you ever doubt whether there are people sufficiently evil to warrant the death penalty, this should answer the question.

He’s been arrested for fraud, but is out on bail. I want to know why he wasn’t arrested for giving aid to terrorists, murder, conspiracy, etc.

H/T: TechCrunch

The latest from the Law of Unintended Consequences:

Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.

To be honest, this is one of those things that’s obvious after someone points it out to you, but I don’t think I would have predicted this. Given the other maintenance advantages of LED bulbs, I would certainly have thought replacing bulbs with LEDs was a good idea, if the price is right (which I expect it probably is in bulk). The solution?

Short of some kind of technological fix, “as far as I’m aware, all that can be done is to have crews clean off the snow by hand,” said Green Bay, Wis., police Lt. Jim Runge. “It’s a bit labor-intensive.”

In St. Paul, Minn., for example, city crews use air compressors to blow snow and ice off blocked lights.

There go all your maintenance cost savings.

The ultimate solution is probably a combination bulb/lens with some sort of reflectivity sensor that turns on a heater in the lens under the right conditions. LEDs are so much sturdier and long-lasting that incandescent bulbs that going back isn’t really the right solution.

Anyhow, I thought this was interesting.

AT&T tried to sue Verizon for using their maps in these ads, but then backed off that (knowing they would lose), and came up with completely lame ads in response.

Then there’s the whole Droid vs. iPhone war going on.

As an Apple-hater, I love to see this stuff

I’ve written before about Google’s cavalier attitude towards data retention, and usages of your data, which often conflicts with their “Don’t Be Evil” semi-official corporate motto. There’s other stuff I’m aware of that I can’t write about because it was part of contract terms between Google and a former employer that add strength to my concerns about how much they believe their own message. Last week Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, in an interview with CNBC. said:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

That’s a rather telling statement from someone whose company controls so much data and has policies on ownership and retention thereof that border on the egregious. In context, he’s making the point that data you put out there on the Internet can be subpoenaed, so you have to be aware of that:

If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

But to phrase it the way he did is, at best, inept.

Especially since he doesn’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot:

The generous explanation for Schmidt’s statement is that he’s revolutionized his thinking since 2005, when he blacklisted CNET for publishing info about him gleaned from Google searches, including salary, neighborhood, hobbies and political donations.

Everyone loves Google for their anti-Microsoft stance, but people really need to understand more about how Google thinks and operates, because Google is becoming Microsoft 2.0.

N.B. The video of this part of the interview is at the linked site; I didn’t see a way to re-embed it.

“Manning up” has a recurring theme around here in the last couple of months. It’s now spilled over into the smartphone wars:

At least one techie blogger is annoyed:

What in the world can one make of the new ad for the Droid, the Motorola (MOT) smartphone with Google (GOOG) Android software on the Verizon Wireless (VZ) network, which apparently put out this commercial?

Here’s what: It aggressively calls the Apple (AAPL) iPhone a dumb blonde and then a prissy dude in need of a beatdown.

Let’s put it this way: The 30-second clip makes Glenn Beck look like Gloria Steinem and Ellen Degeneres combined!

Aw, lighten up, Francis…

The Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable:

Denon’s 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast.  Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature connected to a Denon Link enabled Denon A/V receiver.

The asking price?  $500 on Amazon.com.  Oh, and check out Amazon’s reviews section—it’s a comedic gold mine.  Some of my favorites will be posted after the break, and feel free to add the ones you like.

So before I get to the comedy, I want to ask the obvious question—who the hell would ever buy this?  I mean seriously, what kind of person would spend $500 on a 1.5-meter ethernet cable?  Look, I know better than most the importance of having components that work, and DJs are often willing to pay a premium for reliability.  After all, the whole show—and often your paycheck—relies on those signals working without fail.  But sometimes you can go too far, and I think they did in this case.  Anyhoo, on to the funny:

Yesterday, TechCrunch posted an article titled Facebook Now Lets You Fax Your Photos. I Have No Idea Why Anyone Would Want To Do This:

Wow, talk about a big day for Facebook. Hours after launching Facebook Lite, open-sourcing part of FriendFeed’s code, and launching @ tagging, the site has one more release in store for today: Fax This Photo, powered by efax.com. Now when you’re looking through photo albums, you’ll have the opportunity to send a photo you like to a friend’s fax machine. For price of $1.50 per photo. That’s one pricey fax.

They even tested it out - it really worked.

Except it turns out that the good folk at TechCrunch were completely and utterly punk’d by Facebook:

So we’ve had our fun with Facebook over the years (Why We’re Suing Facebook For $25 Million In Statutory Damages, Republican PR Director Calls Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg “totally full of sh*t”, Randi Threatens a Bar Bouncer). But in general these things are supposed to flow one way – we mess with them, they take it gracefully.

Today that changed. They punk’d us, and we fell for it. Hard.

Read the article. It’s hilarious. The fact that Facebook actually implemented the fax send (i.e. it wasn’t just some web stuff) shows the lengths they went to. TechCrunch can sometimes be rather controversial as “journalists” (e.g. they published a range of highly sensitive documents that had been stolen from Twitter). That Facebook went this far is both disturbing and funny.

Many of you who know me, know I love me some cell phones. I have somewhat of a fascination with wireless technologies, in general, in part due to my formal product design education. However, aside from appreciating aesthetics, I have learned the the marriage of engineering is as important to design as is in the automobile industry. In the automobile industry, when you see something new and unique, it’s because the proportions underneath the car have been modified and reoriented underneath the beautiful skin designers work hard on outside of it. It really doesn’t work any other way (case in point, the Porsche Cayman). Once the engineers re-create and reorient the relationships of the inner workings of the car, suddenly, something new and unique visually can happen.

The same holds true for cell phones. Could this be the spark?

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today completed its first successful Long Term Evolution (LTE) fourth generation (4G) data call in Boston based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard; the company also announced today that it had earlier completed the first LTE 4G data call based on the 3GPP Release 8 standard in Seattle. The successful data calls involved streaming video, file uploads and downloads, and Web browsing. Significantly, Verizon Wireless has successfully made data calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to enable voice transmissions over the LTE 4G network.

In collaboration with its network infrastructure providers, the wireless leader’s successful completion of the data calls over its 700 MHz spectrum in Boston and Seattle marks the next step in its deployment for building its LTE 4G wireless network, which is being built on the 3GPP Release 8 standard. In both locations, the data calls were executed on commercial infrastructure platforms.

This puts a new spin on what Verizon can offer me in the future. I have said that I wanted an Iphone on Verizon (and still do), but I am now thinking I might be missing the boat on what 4G has to offer. Speaking to Verizon about this technology, it appears that VZW will switch the platform of this back to a GSM platform (which seems to be winning in the GSM-CDMA battle). This opens up wide opportunities for both phones and content. For example, I would really like to get a phone from Japan, or Korea that offers OLEM screen display. Apple has really taken a backseat on technology, and if VZW fills the gap with this platform and phones, I am actually encouraged to stay.

It would be pretty rad to have a phone that is OLEM, and one that I can pretty much stream data to, on demand. I guess we’ll get our expert opinions on what this development means from dwex (our resident techie), but I, for one, see a little glimmer of hope for VZW taking a step toward new technology. What do you guys think?

Would it be premature to jump to At&T, if this is what the future holds?

This is vaguely disturbing:

Noonien Soong must be so proud.

From a report at CNet:

Organizers were billing the event as the first of its kind in the world, and I can’t recall another example of a humanoid robot showing off wedding apparel in a fashion show.

It also demonstrated how the Japanese continue to nurture a playful spirit in their approach to robotics. While other countries are building Terminator-style killing machines, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) created 4C to work in the “entertainment industry.” Perhaps a dubious use of funds by a deeply indebted state, the project was announced with the admission that “(1) robots walking on two feet only have little commercial value, (2) the unit price is very high, and (3) if it falls, it may be seriously damaged.”

AIST acknowledges the annual market for humanoid machines is small, to the tune of $21 million. So why build this expensive toy bride? I think the best answer is that 4C, which communicates, looks and moves like a Japanese woman and overcomes the dreaded Uncanny Valley effect, is a worthwhile exploration of future human-robot relationships. Pundits including Daniel Levy have written about our future love affairs with robots, and 4C in her floral gown is a provocative harbinger of human-machine integration.

It’s pretty astonishing. I could never bring myself to spend the money on a Sony AIBO, but one of my coworkers got one, and it was one of the coolest things ever.

H/T: Silicon Alley Insider

The JFK Presidential Museum has a pretty cool web site up called We Choose The Moon. They’re basically doing a virtual recreation of the entire mission. The pre-launch countdown is currently in progress. They have a widget, but I can’t embed it here

NASA also has a nice page up. Between the two of them, there’s a ton of info.

H/T: CNet

Wanna get your very own Kim Jong Il mousepad? Or maybe a T-shirt. Or a coffee mug. The “Korea Friendship Association” has set up its own shop at CafePress, and apparently the good folks that run the site weren’t aware of the connection:

The North Korean government starves their own people, imprisons American journalists, and has recently stepped up production of nuclear weapons. The North Korean regime also appears to be involved in selling souvenirs through the California-based personalized gift seller CafePress.com.

The Korean Friendship Association, a state-run organization dedicated to “defend[ing] the independence and socialist construction” of North Korea has a CafePress shop where they sell mousepads, t-shirts, hoodies, trucker hats, pins, and other items emblazoned with propaganda posters and insignias glorifying the government.

...

When we asked CafePress about the store, the company’s PR Director Marc Cowlin wrote us an email saying “I can confirm that checks are not sent to North Korea or any government agency.” If the KFA has been transacting with CafePress via a middleman with an address outside of North Korea it is conceivable the company may have been unaware they were working with a representative of the North Korean government. Cowlin also told WebNewser that he forwarded our questions “directly to the owner of the shop,” thanked us for bringing the matter to his attention, and added that “we’ve sent the information on to our content usage team for review — they will determine if it is in violation of our policies or law.”

As of this writing, the Treasury Department has not responded to our request for a comment on this story.

One of the “interesting” problems of virtual business is not really knowing who you’re doing business with. This appears to be the current version of our trade embargo with North Korea (PDF file), and it doesn’t look like there’s anything here that CafePress could remotely be in violation of, as it appears we’re only restricting imports from North Korea, and everything you get from CafePress is handled by their supply chain directly.

Anyhow, I thought this was interesting.

The web is all atwitter (pun intended) about Senator Chuck Grassley dissing Obama on Twitter over the weekend:

Sen. Chuck Grassley says that President Barack Obama has “got nerve” to go sightseeing in Paris while telling lawmakers it’s time to deliver on a health-care overhaul.

Sen. Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, is key to any bipartisan health care deal. Using Twitter—the Internet-based social connection service allows users to send mass text messages called “tweets”—the Iowa senator issued two angry “tweets” Sunday morning as the president wrapped up an overseas tour.

For months Mr. Obama had left the details of health-care legislation to Congress, then inserted himself firmly into the debate in recent days, including using his weekly radio address Saturday to declare “it’s time to deliver” on health reform.

Now, it’s all well and good to get up in arms about this. And it’s great that old-school, old-time GOP folk are waking up to the Interwebs. But look at these:

Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us"time to deliver” on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND
4:34 AM Jun 7th from txt

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a “hammer” u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL
4:41 AM Jun 7th from txt

OK, who’s kidding whom?

Do we really think he does his own tweets? I’m guessing he has someone do this for him (it’s a new and rising industry to manage peoples’ “online presence”). And that person should be fired.

If he is writing this stuff himself, he should be fired. Because either he thinks this crap is going to appeal to people, or he’s borderline illiterate, neither of which is a strong attribute of a senator.

This goes well beyond 160-character-limit abbreviation. It’s borderline illiterate. I’m thinking someone (he or his staffer) got left behind by “no child left behind”, reading that nonsense.

TBH, I’m really worried about this health care stuff, from the “fast track” problem to the lack of details on what’s being proposed. But I sure home this isn’t an indication of the tenor of debate we’re going to have on this crucial issue.

Take a look, and give it a test drive.

Nipping at the heels of Google seems like an exercise in futility, but M$FT does not like to be second (or third in this instance) in anything and what probably jacks up Balmer’s blood pressure more than anything is the thought of those goo-goo elitists over there eating his lunch.

One complaint I’ve heard right out of the box is that, unlike Google, it does not check for misspells (Did you mean such and such?), but this is small potatoes, after the first few letters typed the software automatically recognizes the desired entry for you and plugs in the topic.

The WSJ has been playing with Bing in Beta the last few weeks and gives it a thumbs up.

Old habits die hard. I gave up IE years ago and Firefox everything now. Although it was easy to add bing to my list of search engines at the top right (drop down menu has “manage search engines” where you can add bing). Google still occupies the default or top position on the list.

Having been a shareholder for almost two decades now, I always root for Microsoft in regards to my shareholder value, and am looking forward to Windows 7, debuting on Oct 22nd for those curious. The press releases from Redmond indicate a confidence (not exhibited for Vista) that 7 will ship on time. For those techy’er than me (probably everyone here) you guys probably know that Windows 7 is suppose to kick Vista’s ass in regards to speed, security, stability, and in playing nice with your other devices.

One of the summer projects I had scheduled with my kid was a little father/son time building a new kick ass gaming computer from scratch, his is about 4 years old, but now I’m thinking of waiting until Windows 7.

So, has anyone test driven bing or Windows 7 in beta yet?