Google Glass: One Year On

[caption id="attachment_13117203371" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Here I am at Google Glass Basecamp in NYC on June 26, 2013 having the Glass basics taught to me by a very patient Google Employee called Haley.[/caption]

Exactly a year ago, today, I visited the Google Explorer NYC Base Camp to pick up my Google Glass. It's been a wild ride since then. I've met lots of people who think Glass is really neat and I've seen plenty of hate for Glass users online and in the media. It's been great living in the future. I love taking photos with a wink, shooting hands-free video from my point-of-view and having a ton of information delivered directly to my eyeball whenever I want it. It is beyond awesome.

[caption class="attachment" align="aligncenter" width="474"]

http://youtu.be/EGnM5PsTMIA
This is what it looked like from my point-of-view last Friday when I took Glass on one of several ziplines near my mom's place in South Carolina!

[/caption]

However, it is also frustrating because I feel like this future is being made difficult by people clinging to old ideas and then there are a few odd choices made by Google.

As of today, Glass is better than ever in some ways and worse than ever in others. Last June, the OS was very rough but it was easy to hack and get it to do things that I and developers thought it should do. However, six months ago, Google stopped updating the OS monthly and, three months (I think) after that, they updated the Glass OS so dramatically a ton of my hacks stopped working. What was worse was that Glass started running slowly and even started locking up.

It was like Google had replaced the Glass OS with Windows XP. #arg!

On too many occasions I've found myself in the middle of an adventure, trying to take a photograph only to watch as Glass got stuck in the middle of taking the photo. All I could see on the display was the viewfinder frame and a blank image. Sometimes seconds later, other times almost a minute later, Glass would finish taking a picture but thanks to me having gotten bored and having moved my head, the shot came out blurry.

[caption id="attachment_13117203376" align="aligncenter" width="474"] So, when Glass got it's huge update, this is how a bunch of the photos ended up looking because it sometimes couldn't just take a photo.[/caption]

Several updates later, things have gotten better, but it's still rough around the edges and none of the updates since June have solved the problem that causes me to never wear Glass at home: the battery.

[caption class="attachment" align="aligncenter" width="474"]

http://youtu.be/lrubtbSkOMA
Captain America seemed pretty interested in Google Glass, but I didn't mention the battery problem to him.

[/caption]

The Worst Things About Glass: The Hate and the Battery I Hate

Tied for "Worst Thing about Google Glass" are the battery and the absurd backlash online and in the media against Glass.

The battery makes me scared to use it because I am worried the battery will die when I need it the most, say when capturing some unexpected event on video or in a photo. The battery dies really fast. Glass is going online to get my tweets and news updates and a bunch of other content and that kills the battery in a few hours. I have Dropbox installed on it and that probably makes it worse, but Dropbox uploading every photo and video I take is still no reason for the battery to drain almost completely. Especially when I am only taking a few photos and not doing anything else (not talking to it, not translating stuff, or watching videos or anything else, the vast majority of the time).

As a result, when I am home, I keep Glass plugged into the wall and not on my head. When I am out and about, I wear it, but often turn it off if I am in a supermarket or someplace else where I don't expect to need it. Of course, sometimes, I need it unexpectedly and thanks to slow boot times I end up just leaving Glass powered down and use my iPhone for what I need.

This is a problem Google needs to address, in my opinion. I didn't think the battery would be a problem, but it is. One thing Google also needs to deal with is the Glass-hate online and in the media. There are some seriously childish people out there who think that If you wear/use Glass, you're an asshole or that you look stupid.

They call us "Glassholes".

Haha! Get it? SO CLEVER.

[caption class="attachment" align="aligncenter" width="474"]

http://youtu.be/675EYDuG2ho
Peter Pan seemed to dig Glass just fine and Tinker Bell didn't even notice I was wearing it! What's wrong with all those Glasshaters out there on the intarwebs?

[/caption]

Last time I checked (right around grade school, I think it was) calling people names was what made you an asshole, not using a smart device with a totally new form factor. Sure, that may make me a nerd, but that's fine with me. You want to live in the past, that's your choice. I'd rather live in the future. I wish someone had said this to Daily Show corespondent, Jason Jones, when he did a piece a couple weeks ago on how dumb Glass is. He seemed perplexed as to why anyone would need or even want to wear a computer on their face. The Glass Explorers he had in the piece explained the most obvious benefit of Glass--that you don't have to reach in your pocket for your phone and then unlock it, and then find your app, etc. This is a good point, but doesn't cover what I think is the best reason for Glass.

Glass is for People with Brains that Adapt: in Other Words, People

Back in 2012, not long after Glass was first announced by Google, technologist Rod Furlan built his own version of Glass out of an HMD (Head Mounted Display) he found on eBay and an old iPod Touch. Writing about it on ieee.org in December of that year, he hit the "why" nail on the head:

When I wear my prototype, I am connected to the world in a way that is quintessentially different from how I’m connected with my smartphone and computer. Our brains are eager to incorporate new streams of information into our mental model of the world. Once the initial period of adaptation is over, those augmented streams of information slowly fade into the background of our minds as conscious effort is replaced with subconscious monitoring.

In short, it's a new way to be connected to the world. Furlan goes on to explore the idea of "augmented cognition" which is what these streams will allow us to do. That is to say that devices like Glass will augment our ability to know and understand things more quickly and more easily.

Think of it like that scene in "THE MATRIX" where Neo learns kung-fu by having it downloaded into his brain. While that's not possible yet (duh), right now you can call up video lessons on Glass to teach you kung-fu. In theory an app could be designed that could use Glass' sensors and camera to help you with practicing your various kung-fu moves.

In more practical terms, if you meet someone at a party you can quickly Google them to find out more about them. Or if you're a surgeon in the middle of an operation you could literally "phone a friend" and have a consulting surgeon watch from another city or country and consult on the operation. You could come across a person who needed CPR and within seconds have instructions on how to do CPR served directly to your eyeball, or even better, an EMT on the display walking you through the process live. Or if you get lost behind the wheel, ask Glass for directions.

I feel like the people who don't understand Glass are really unimaginative people who would rather not challenge themselves by examining new things that aren't easily understood. I can think of a couple names for people like this but I'll leave the name-calling to the schoolyard bullies.

[caption id="attachment_13117203379" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Daisy Duck found me on Deck 4 of the Disney Fantasy and asked for a photo--how could I refuse? And hey, she didn't seem to think I looked dorky wearing Glass![/caption]

Are those two things all there is to dislike about Glass? Sadly, no. There are the aforementioned bugs in the new OS, the fact that Glass heats up a lot when it's processor gets busy, and the (in my opinion) snail's pace at which new software is being developed for it. Oh and after taking Glass into humid climes, the foil on the prism is bubbling a bit, though that has yet to hinder it's functionality.

Should YOU Buy Google Glass Now that Anyone in the US Can?

I'd say yes, assuming you're a tech fanatic, like me, who can't wait for the future to get here alreadyyyyy!

However, if you're not like me, thanks to this iPod-style price-strategy Google seems to be employing here, you probably want to wait a few years to jump on the Glass bandwagon. Over a decade ago, when the iPod first came out, it was overpriced and underfeatured. It was a luxury item for early adopters who could see the direction the future was taking us in. I wasn't sure at first but finally jumped on the iBandwagon with a 20GB 3rd gen iPod--still priced at $400ish if memory serves. Slowly but surely, features got added with each new iPod model and the price came down, too. Now, 15 years on, iDevices are ubiquitous. I suspect that Google is planning on the same thing happening with Glass.

The future is here for some of us and it's damn cool.

Here are some fun Glass-related photos and videos I couldn't fit in anywhere above:

[caption id="attachment_13117195680" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Seriously, I have no idea why people think Glass makes you look stupid. This is actually a pretty slick-looking piece of tech.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_13117203377" align="aligncenter" width="474"] Captain America seemed very interested in Glass.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_13117203377" align="aligncenter" width="474"]Saluting with Captain America and Google Glass![/caption]

[caption class="attachment" align="aligncenter" width="474"]

http://youtu.be/EwG938HxT8Y
Having my photo taken with my wife and Daisy Duck aboard the Disney Fantasy back in April.

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[caption class="attachment" align="aligncenter" width="474"]

http://youtu.be/JuKqlijsywA
Here is what it looks like to sit in the front of a raft while riding the AquaDuck water ride on the Disney Fantasy cruise ship. Yes, I dared to take Google Glass with me on a water ride. Don't worry, it's not an excessively splashy water ride and Glass can take a bit of splashing just fine though I wouldn't recommend risking it more than a time or two. In fact, I enjoyed this footage so much, I went back at night! Have a look at that, here:
http://youtu.be/52P3FHng7a4

To follow my further adventures with Glass and all of my other gadgets, please follow my on Twitter, Instagram, or right here on thepete.com!

Please check out http://petesofficial.com if you're interested in checking out the stuff my hands and brain create!

The End and the Beginning of Google Glass

[caption id="attachment_13117201712" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Self-Portrait with v1 Glass[/caption]So, for me the lure of Google Glass was threefold. First, I loved the form-factor and have long believed it would be the future of computing. Second, getting picked as one of the first 10,000 people to be allowed to purchase Glass was a big deal to me as a tech fanatic. Third, it would be a blast living on the bleeding edge of a genuinely new technology.

And it was a blast--I'd put on my Glass and I felt like I was living in the future looking at everyone else still living in the past. In the beginning, almost seven months ago for me, the sky was the limit with Glass. Google had said we should experiment and do what we wanted. As tech fanatic and a purely amateur hacker, I started scouring the wilds of the Internet for instructions on how to sideload full Android apps onto Glass so I could do more than the paltry Glass OS would let me do.

Is Sony's New E-Reader Ushering in a World with No Copyright?

Sony recently announced their Kindle-Killer, the Sony Reader Daily
Edition. Why do I think this is the beginning of the end for copyright in the world? Well, honestly, I don't, but effectively, that's what the new RDE will do--whether industry will accept it or not is not up to me.

See, while Sony's new e-reader allows you to do everything the Kindle can do, book-wise anyway (there's no browser), it also allows you to take out library books. That's right. Library books--you "take them out" by downloading them wirelessly to your RDE. They expire after a given time, fulfilling the "returning your library book" part of the traditional equation without you having to do a thing--but right there is the part where copyright breaks down.

Unlike a real book, this is an an e-book--a digital copy of a book--there's no need for you to return it so someone else can check it out. This means that you can just take it out again and again. Effectively, you own the e-book without actually paying for it.

Sure, the library could apply rules that would determine how many times in a row you could check a book out, but since it's digital this is literally a creation of artificial scarcity. Sony's technology has jumped the capitalist shark and can provide unlimited copies of any book in any library that's part of it's network. So, why ever buy books again?

Now, I'm not really saying this is the end of copyright, but I am saying it might as well be. Once libraries start making their multimedia collections available for digital download (which they'll do eventually), that'll pretty much be it.

For me, this is just a replay of every argument against technology since the Church went after Galileo. Eventually science won out because it could prove that the Earth was not the center of the universe. The same loss hit the MPAA when VHS proved to be a technology Hollywood could actually work with.

Now it's just up to the Entertainment Industry to work out a new business model that will allow them to peacefully co-exist with this technology before they are out-evolved by it.

Adapt or die, folks...

Read more about Sony Reader Daily Edition on Mashable.com or in an article at CRN.com.

Online Artwork Takes on the Internet as an Accurate Information Aggregator

Click the pic to try it yourself!

The above image was created after entering my name into an online art piece called "Personas." After hitting "return" on my keyboard, a series of interesting things happen. It's hard to really express what happens--nothing mind blowing, but you watch as the above image is created based on data culled from the Internet. The piece was created by Aaron Zinman and the idea is to point out both how capable and how flawed the Internet is in determining who we are as people. Here's what I found on the official project page for Personas:

WHAT IS PERSONAS?
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person - to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

PHILOSOPHY
In a world where fortunes are sought through data-mining vast information repositories, the computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. Personas demonstrates the computer's uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mischaracterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name. It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.

Pretty neat idea considering just how much faith is put in this giant network we call the Web. Seems we humans are still necessary pieces of the information-gathering puzzle. Check it out for yourself and see what you learn about the Internet or about yourself (or folks with your name):

http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html

Why iMovie sucks pt 1: it handles video & other media differently.

I opened iMovie up to tweak a few things on a new Jay ThePal video I've been cutting over the weekend only to discover it's lost the audio tracks I've added to the title cards. This is because, while iMovie copies video files into a kind of project directory, it doesn't do anything with pictures or audio files. As a result, if you move the original audio file (as I did) it'll be missing the next time you open your project in iMovie (see attached screencap). Ironically, I had moved the two audio files into the project directory myself. Whoops. Nice one, iMovie!

Why does iMovie work this way? Beats me. It's just one of the many annoying things you get to deal with when using software designed by people who only think they are smarter than you. (This was one thing Windows software programmers never seemed to do, believe it or not.)

Incidentally, I use iMovie (for now) because it consumes less resources than Final Cut and has very handy preset titles. However, thanks to the amount of time I've wasted dealing with iMovie's little idiosyncrasies I'm contemplating going back to FCP or perhaps just cutting everything on my netbook's copy of Windows Movie Maker since (surprisingly enough) it seems to have much fewer quirks to deal with. The only drawback is that it's Windows and seems to export only WMV. Blech.

My Experience with Blippr.com: BLEH

OK, my buddy @Krownz recommended this site Blippr.com after I Tweeted to @Netflix about wishing I could easily Tweet a link to a movie I saw through Netflix. In theory, Blippr.com is a site that allows you to share your opinions on various types of media easily. Well, "easy" is subjective, apparently. Either that, or "easy" is defined by the folks behind Blippr.com as "without any control by you."

But rather than get too detailed, I'll just paste the text I entered into the "other comments" field on Blippr.com's "delete your account" page. Check it out:

I'm VERY upset that by connecting this account to my Netflix account, your site assumes I want to import everything on my queue, both present and past, and (I assume) share it with everyone. NOT COOL. All I wanted was a service that would allow me to share my feelings on certain media with friends on Twitter. I don't need to alert the world that I'm watching porn or pilates or anything else UNLESS I WANT TO.

What's extra nice is that even after I disconnect Netflix from my Blippr account, the content that was imported DOESN'T GO AWAY, which means, I must delete my Blippr.com profile. Good one, guys!

Plus your interface is confusing--I couldn't work out where the hell my "blips" are listed and don't know how I came to see "blips" from some dude called "JC" who apparently really liked "Funny People" which happens to be a film I NEVER WANT TO SEE EVER.

My experience on Blippr has been overwhelmingly negative and I will be honest if anyone ever asks me about your site.

Also: When I "blip" something, I think of Blip.FM. You guys should really come up with another made-up verb to describe the act of posting something on this site.

All right... I'm done.

Gah. I don't blame @krownz for this, since he's perfectly happy with the site. I'm a Twitter addict, though. I like simple, basic, easy, low-maintenance. Ideally, I'd love to see Netflix add a simple "Tweet this" link or a "share this" button that allows users to post a link to a DVD on Netflix in their Twitterstream, or Facebook profile or where ever else. I don't need a whole third-party site for managing my media recommendations since I really don't recommend stuff that much and when I do, I post on my old fashioned blog.

Ah well.

Jay ThePal in Jay TheUnboxer: Mountain Dew's DewLabs Kit Unboxing!

DOOD! This is awesome! I GOT MY DEWLABS KIT YESTERDAY, MAN!! YEAHHH!! And so here's me unboxing it--it's got my potential future Mountain Dew flavors, sample cups, instructions for how to do my tasting party and a LOT more!! OHYEAHMAN! It's also got my Flip Mino video camera!! It's so smoooooth.... yeah... Anyway, so CHECK IT OUT, MAN!! YEAH!!! THANKS MOUNTAIN DEW! YOU GUYS ROCK!

Download this 73MB mp4 of "Jay TheUnboxer: Mountain Dew's DewLabs Kit Unboxing!" hosted by Lisa Rein from OnLisaReinsRadar.com or like watch the YouTube embed below, man. Yeah!

#PanasonicEmailFAIL: Trying to Contact Panasonic About my Comatose HD Cam and Look What Happens...

#PanasonicEmailFAIL: Trying to Contact Panasonic About my Comatose
HD Cam and Look What Happens..., originally uploaded by thepetecom.

So, my HDC-SD9 HD camera started flashing the dreaded "PUSH THE RESET SWITCH" error that plagues so many Panasonic camcorders old and new. It happened as I tried to shoot footage of the 4th of July fireworks over the Hudson, too--gotta love that timing! Anyway, so couldn't get it to go away permanently, so today I emailed support as I've had my SD9 for all of six months.

The image attached to this post shows an annoying inconsistency on Panasonic's website.

Turns out, they trick you into thinking that email might get you a perfectly timely response to your question, by saying up front that you'll hear back in a day. Then, once you've submitted your email, they inform you that you should expect a reply in 2-3 days.

Well, crap, for that long I'll sit on the phone and wait on hold for a while.

Thanks Panny! Wasting my time with a gamey cam and now getting warranty support. Hooray!

The Story of @Megapixel or How Social Media Allows Us to Remember Those We Never Knew

The content of this post was first published on my TwitWall but under a different title.

So, I was just minding my own business today when I saw a Tweet from @bsimi explaining that today at the @RSHotel dirty martinis would cost $7 in memory of Megapixel. I didn't know her, and my instinct is to double check before I assume things I read online reflect reality.  Some people have dry, even invisible, senses of humor, so it pays to confirm stuff.  Sadly, it's true--Meg Porter, aka Megapixel on Twitter, died in a car accident a week ago yesterday.  Seems she may have been on a single-lane road when a big-rig was going the other way.  Regardless, it was sad--she was just 24 years-old. 

What makes her death even more poignant is that while she had over 3000 followers on Twitter, she let everyone follow her life via her vlog posts on MegPorter.com.  I haven't had a chance to look at many of them, but in the few I watched she seemed like a pretty normal 24 year-old woman--her whole life ahead of her.  Life is funny this way--some of us go away early, some of us stick around, while others can't decide what to do.

The thing is, thanks to social media, no one goes away fully.  We've all heard the phrase "they'll live on in our hearts" and it's true but now, those who have passed on can live on through their own words, their own voice, their own face through social media--in a tiny tiny, but significant way, it's like they're immortal. 

So, when I found Meg's blog I saw the YouTube video she recorded back on the 21st and immediately thought "Oh, @bsimi is just kidding or something."  If I hadn't Googled any further, I'd have never known the difference. 

I'm not sure what I'm getting at, really.  I think maybe I'm hoping stories like this one will encourage us all to blog/vlog/record/document/whatever our lives more. 

As scary as it is to contemplate, we may check out before we expect to.  Best to make sure there's something people can remember us by.

Just my ¥2, of course.

Totally forgot to add this link:

http://megan-porter.gonetoosoon.org/

Why Google is Actually Quite Evil

See those ads on my site? Yeah--the ones from Google. Those are pretty unfair and yet we're supposed to believe they are the key to surviving on the Internet as a content provider. The theory is that they're just like TV commercials or print ads--advertisers pay you to advertise their products. Simple, right?

Wrong.

Google Ads (at least the ones on my website) pay webmasters per click.

How many TV advertisers pay TV networks based on viewers "clicking through" their TV commercials?

How many magazine or newspaper advertisers are paid based on how many people actually go to an advertiser's website?

So, you get TV, newspapers and magazines getting paid big bucks just show ads.

But as a webmaster, I have to rely on the ability of a Google Ad to find it's market in my audience. The thing is, I don't want the ads to be obtrusive, so I go with text-only ads. Of course, it's against the Terms of Service (ToS) to ask my site visitors to click on ads (even politely), so my only choice is be obnoxious to my audience by going with graphical ads or trust Google to do their job and display the best ads.

Not very fair since Google regularly misinterprets the words on this site. Back during the 2008 presidential election, I was slamming Bush and conservatives who would vote for him and what ads pop up on my site? Republican dating sites.

Well done, Google.

Now, to be honest, I don't really pay attention to how many unique visitors I get per day. When I have checked I discovered it can range from a few hundred to a few thousand every day. Yet, do I get paid for every unique visitor who has a Google Ad downloaded to his or her browser? No.

Meanwhile, Google gets to traffic in my information, your information, and all the while they claim that their interest is in "not being evil."

Sorry, G, but displaying your ads is a service I provide to you. Yet you only pay me when people click. You benefit no matter what because your logo is displayed to every visitor I get. Your clients benefit no matter what because their ads are displayed to my audience whether my audience clicks or not.

Does this seem fair to anyone?

So, claiming to not be evil and getting a service from people without paying for it?--that seems pretty evil to me.

Am I going to take the ads down? No way. I make a couple hundred bucks a year off of them and that's a couple hundred bucks I wouldn't get otherwise. But imagine how much I'd be making if I were paid based on how often an ad was displayed to a visitor...

Why Steve Jobs is an Asshole (and Most Corporate Overlords)

I'm writing this because I love my iPhone. But I love it the way I love a woman who's no good for me or a food that is really unhealthy for me. See, the hardware of the iPhone is pretty damn amazing. It's capable of all sorts of stuff, but out of the box (and even after hacking) it's still falls far short of what it's capable of doing. Why is this? It's because of Steve Jobs wanting to fit in with the rest of the corporate overlords that like to tell us what to do with the stuff we buy from them.

Have you ever bought a DVD player in your home country but try to play a DVD from another country on it? Lots of times you can't. Why? Because the DVD companies and the DVD player companies are working together to control how we consume what they sell us. This kind of thing happens all the time with cell phones and the iPhone is a perfect example.

Wanna shoot video? NOPE, you can't. Why? Because a few hundred thousand iPhone users uploading videos will clog AT&T's very own series of tubez. Rather than just upgrade their services, Steve Jobs dumbs-down what the iPhone can do via the software that runs on it.

Think of it like buying a chicken from the supermarket and having the farmer that raised it and the supermarket owner telling you how to cook it.

But let me get specific.

Things the iPhone can't do but really should:

1) video recording/shooting/streaming. Yeah, that's right, I should be able to use it like a portable VCR, camcorder and Internet-broadcasting device. The hardware is perfectly capable of this but even after hacking it, I can only do two of these three things.

2) Enough with the fricken iTunes crap. I want to drag and drop, dammit. I can do it with my Jailbroken phone, but it's just not the same. Stop treating us like thieves and pandering to the media companies. Screw those guys, they only know how to make crap these days anyway.

3) Let me use my damn phone on the carrier I want. Stop telling me what businesses I can and can't give my money to. And cell phone carriers? Give me unlimited data already! This is idiotic, I've spent $20-$40 a month for unlimited broadband service to my home for EIGHT YEARS. Why can I not have unlimited data AT EDGE SPEEDS AT LEAST, DAMMIT??

4) Let apps run in the background, dickhead. WTF. My old Sidekick 3 can do this.

5) I don't care if you add cut & paste because I've hacked my phone and can do this two different ways. (Though you should do it so folks don't HAVE to hack their iPhones for this BASIC BLOODY FEATURE.)

6) Custom wallpaper/skins (see #5)

7) A browser that actually caches. Almost every time I pull up Safari, it tries to go online for the latest version of the web page you previously had up. Lame. Don't want it.

Now, mind you, I've written this before the big announcement(s) at WWDC on June 7, 2009, so I don't know what Jobs is going to pull, but I can bet it won't solve all of these problems or avoid creating new ones.

I could go on, but it's damn late and I want to post this a LITTLE before the WWDC announcement.

So, I'd just like to conclude by saying that I think it's pretty much anti-American to let us buy something and then try to control what we can do with it. So, just let go with the control issues. This is supposed to be a free country.

Google Voice Transcription Service Cool, but not quite there yet.

So, I was a GrandCentral.com member since way back. In case you weren't aware, GrandCentral was a service that gave you a free phone number that aim at all of your phones--work, home, mobile, Skype, etc. So, all of your contacts call one number and voila, which ever phone you're at will ring. Bestest service EVER!

Shortly after I signed up with them, they were bought by Google. After years of no improvements whatsoever, GrandCentral was finally folded into Google and were then reborn as "Google Voice." Very exciting! They even had new features and services. My favorite is that I can tell calls from some people to go straight through to my phones without me having to answer my phone and then approving the call. YES. Simple = good!

One feature I didn't ask for, but do think is pretty cool none the less, is voicemail transcription.

The idea is this: you can miss a phone call that then gets sent to voicemail, but maybe you're busy in a meeting or (like me) on a subway and can't call to get your messages. So, Google Voice will transcribe them and then email them to you. Pretty neat, huh? The only catch is, their voice recognition software, as you might expect, isn't quite there yet.

This afternoon after leaving her temp job, my wife left me this message. Well, according to Google Voice, my wife left me this message:

hey it's mike i am just now getting out of the library and i'm slightly calling the right but i will jump on the a from with united soon i love you and i hope to be home around six forty five seven operator love you bye bye

Yeah, I didn't know my wife's name was "Mike" either. Not sure why she'd be "calling the right slightly" unless she's curious about converting from the Democrats. "The a" is a reference to the A-Train, so that makes sense, but why she'd do it "with united" is not a question I can answer. Nor can I tell you why the operator might love me.

So, sadly, Google Voice's transcriptions end up reading a bit like a poorly translated VCR manual.

Ah well, Google knows they own my soul, and I know all my base belongs to them.

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

Email Spam Just Isn't Going to Last

Like it or not, every industry has a cycle--a series of stages it goes through before it does one of two things:

1) Starts over and performs the cycle again

2) Dies forever

I've been online since 1995. I've seen all manner of email spam. I won't even bore you with those deets since I know you know what I mean. One thing I have NOT seen is innovation from email spam. I mean, "evolve or die," right? Well, check out the email I got earlier today:

FINAL NOTIFICATION

from DELL PROMOTION
reply-to dell.headquarter@btinternet.com
to dell@winners.com
date Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 12:36 PM
subject FINAL NOTIFICATION
12:36 PM (3 hours ago)

You have just been awarded,the sum of £750,000GBP in the DELL Award 2009, Anniversary Bonanza. held on March. For Claims email your details to: dell.headquarter@btinternet.com

Names:............
Address:..............
Country:................
Age:..........
Sex:..............
Phone/cellphone........

regard
Mrs. Rose Wood

Now, I'm sure some people out there would still fall for this and I understand how cheap it is to send millions of emails in a heartbeat. But is this REALLY worth their time?

In order for this scam to work, the sucker would have to give all the personal data (but no SSN??), answer the phone when the spammer called back and THEN be dumb enough to give up their bank account number when the spammer says "the only way to get your money is if we wire it to you."

Uh-huh.

Now, don't get me wrong--I'm as cynical as the next guy--I'm sure a few people still fall for this stupidity, but, really spammers? Is this the BEST you can come up with after nearly fifteen years of scamming people via email?

What has happened to American innovation?!?!

And it's not like it takes any effort to suss you fools out. I Googled the first sentence from that email and found this:

http://candyinn.blogspot.com/

It's a blog featuring nothing but email spam that includes many similar emails in its content stream.

You spammers are so predictable there's someone blogging about you.

Pitiful.

Apple Jumps the Shark with New iPod Shuffle

OK, for years now, it's been easy to see why Apple does so well. The only time I've ever really wondered what drugs they were on was when they introduced the first iPod Shuffle. With no display screen I was puzzled as to just what I was supposed to do with the thing. Years later, a friend gave me his since he wasn't using it and I realized that, for me, it was perfect for listening podcasts. Who needs a display when you can listen to the podcast and know what you're listening to? Songs, however, are a different story--but now Apple wants to think it has that problem beaten--by having the iPod Shuffle talk to you. That's all fine and good, but wouldn't it have been cheaper to just throw a display on it? And how the hell do you hit play? And what's with the posing of the hand model in the pic on Apple's main page right now (see above)?? The way the hand is holding the super-smooth Shuffle with it's rounded edges suggests the form factor of a suppository.

Seriously, Apple has taken a cute little player with personality and made it a faceless, boring slab that could easily be mistaken for a tampon (ladies, back me up on this!).

So, sad. Please get better soon, Steve Jobs!

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

UPDATE: I just read the product page again and it turns out the play and skip buttons are on the earbud cable. Wow, so now I can't use my own headphones with the flippin' thing! That is even more lame now.

TheTechVlog: Kindle 2 Unboxing with ThePete and Jay (sort of)

Sorry--shot this last week when I got my Kindle 2, but got distracted with Big Night Out and then the midnight screening of Watchmen. Here it is, my Kindle 2 unboxing video:

thepete.com on My Kindle 2

thepete.com on My Kindle 2, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

Here's the very first screenshot taken on my Kindle 2. It's of my
website, thepete.com. You can take a screencap on the K2 by holding down the alt and shift keys while pressing "g". Then, the next time you connect your Kindle 2 to your computer, check it's "documents" directory. Inside will be a gif. That's your screengrab.

As you can see, web browsing on the Kindle is pretty rudimentary. However, it's almost on par (minus the color screen) to the Sidekick 3's browsing experience, so if you're in a pinch, it'll do. Now, I have an iPhone, too, but that damn touchscreen is sometimes hard to type on and since the Kindle 2 rides the Sprint network for wireless, I might find my iPhone uncovered by its network of choice (T-Mobile for me AT&T for most folks) and when that happens, I can check the old K2 to see if Sprint can let me Tweet.

So after a few hours of playing with the thing, the Kindle 2 seems just fine. There was a minor hickup while trying to buy a free copy of the Bible from the Kindle Store (it didn't like my credit card!)--after the second attempt it let me download it with no problem. I tried to open it (I assume) before it finished DLing. As a result it hung on opening. It was no big deal, I just pressed the "home" button and opened the Bible again and it worked. I also converted one PDF with meh results, but I'm learning, still. I'll post more about my experiences, soon.

Watch for the Kindle 2 unboxing video shortly at tv.thepete.com.

Obama Ditches YouTube After (not) Breaking the Law (Kind of)

OK, this is kind of a convoluted story here. According to two articles at ReadWriteWeb.com (here and here) President Barack Obama has had an interesting time using YouTube to deliver his weekly addresses.

As everyone knows, Prezzi Barry O'bama was posting his weekly vids on YouTube, but privacy advocates raised a big stink. The stink seems to be well founded since YouTube uses "long-term tracking cookies". My guess is that these cookies allow Google to know where you go after you leave YouTube? I don't know to be honest. Regardless, it seems that the White House using said cookies violates federal law. Yep. How many times did Bush violate federal law? Just a few times.

But worry not, Obamafans! The Obama Administration stopped violating federal law by, essentially, giving itself a pass. Which, you know, is pretty shitty. Talk about kingly behavior. I can hear Obama now:

"What's that? Using YouTube is uhhhhh violation of federal law? Well, uhhhh, let's just uhhhhh... changethelawforonlyus."

That's the very definition of being above the law. At least he had the decency to do it, uh, legally, by issuing himself an official exemption--just like Bush did with all of his signing statements.

Now, that was back in February--yesterday, ReadWriteWeb.com reported that the Obama Admin was ditching YouTube in favor of Vimeo (see cap above), and would no longer be using those pesky long-term cookies (we assume). Still, Obama and Pals broke the law.

Is this a concern of Abu Ghraib proportions?

Of course not.

But if this is how Obama treats the little laws, how is he going to treat the big ones when lives depend on it? Will principles, morals and/or the law win out? Or will the myth of security beat all?

The ObamaWatch continues...

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

Amazon.com Gives Me VERY Inaccurate Search Results

Not that there's anything wrong with the subject matter of the book it listed amongst the other results a couple weeks back while I was comparison shopping for "electric razors"--it's just DEFINITELY NOT what I was looking for. You would think Amazon MIGHT have a protection against this sort of thing.

Just another episode in the never-ending adventure show: "Perils in Online Keyword Usage!"

For the last episode, go here:

http://thepete.com/how-keyword-targeted-ads-are-far-from-perfect-why-does-facebook-think-im-christian

Catch a clue, oh, Masters of the Internet! Sometimes keywords aren't everything!

GASP... I know it's practically blaspheme but, sadly, it is the truth.

I really wasn't looking for a novel called "Razor Burn" from a company called "Romentics".

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

How Keyword Targeted Ads Are Far From Perfect (Why does Facebook think I'm Christian?!?!)

How Keyword Targeted Ads Are Far From Perfect (Why does Facebook think I'm Christian?!?!), originally uploaded by thepetecom.

I am such a vocal Atheist, I am baffled as to how Facebook thought I'd be interested in a band called "Lamb of God." This isn't the only Christian ad I've seen on Facebook.com, either. I suppose this kind of ad is better than ads for body hair removal or ads asking me to be thankful for George W. Bush.

Still, this whole keyword-targeting thing needs an overhaul. Like when I blog about how Republicans are lame, I get Google Ads for Republican dating services. Then there was that one time where I got two Google Ads that conflicted with each other on a topic that I never even wrote about to begin with!

No wonder there's no real money in Internet advertising--it doesn't work for crap.

Amazon's Kindle 2: ThePete's Take: Better, but Wait for Kindle 3

The new Kindle 2 has been announced by Amazon.com and while I like it better than I did the original Kindle, I still think it has a seriously limited feature set for the price.

The Good News

The thing that makes me salivate for the Kindle 2 is its new design. Holeee crap is the new Kindle 2 easy on the eyes. It looks like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took a third generation iPod, a Blackberry and a first generation iPhone, mushed them all together and made a paperback-book-sized device. The damn thing actually looks like it would feel comfortable in my hand now--unlike the original Kindle which looked much to angular and sharp-edged to be comfortable after an hour of reading.

Part of this new design is the form factor. It's skinny as HELL!! This is what really makes me want to pick up the Kindle 2: it's thinner than the iPhone. Yeah, that's some serious skinniness. A .4 inch width makes Kate Moss look like one of those fat people who can't get through doors.

The Kindle 2 will actually surf the web now. It won't look pretty, but it can do it. The old Kindle could surf too, but not officially (the browser was listed under "experimental," apparently). Officially you could hit up Wikipedia, but that was about it. Kindle 2's browser is limited, but at least you can get out onto the 'net. It'll display text-centric web pages just fine but, one assumes, layouts will be screwed (browsing like a Sidekick 3?) and graphics will go undisplayed. Ironic because apparently this baby has all the right hardware under the hood for much more than it is officially sanctioned to do (shades of TheRedFruit--Apple).

According to some reports (already) it's faster at turning pages and easier to refer to the dictionary.

You can still connect to the web wirelessly with no monthly service charges--which, I have to admit, is pretty awesome. I was going to complain about the Kindle 2 still running on Sprint, but if I never have to pay too much for their services, how can I complain?

Battery life is crazy long. With it's EVDO modem powered up and running, the Kindle 2 can go four days without recharging. With wireless off, it can go two weeks without recharging. Yeah, that's pretty damn impressive. Of course, if you go heavy on the mp3 playing and heavy on the wireless usage, you're going to drop that life down a bit, but still, it beats the iPhone. I was at the NY Comic Con the other day and my iPhone didn't last the six hours I was there. Which is sad since it was just sitting in my pocket with wifi and 3G turned off the whole time.

Since Amazon admits the browser works, other browser-based applications should be usable on it. Over on BlogKindle.com, last May, they posted about using Krypton. Sure, Flash wouldn't show up on the Kindle, but an awful lot of sites are making iPhone-formatted sites available to users--how would they do on the big K?

The Bad News

It lost it's SD card slot. Yeah--unbelievable. The Kindle 2 comes with a whopping 2GB of internal storage (only 1.4 gigs of which you can actually use) and still plays mp3s (like it's predecessor) so between e-books, comics (manga), audiobooks and music, you just might fill that puppy up pretty fast (I definitely would).

Still too damned expensive. The screen is gorgeous for black and white text, but so is the XO and it only cost OLPC $200 to make it AND it's a full laptop. (Well, hardware-wise it is, anyway.) Why does the Kindle 2 still cost $359 when it actually does less than something like the XO or your average netbook? I can get an eee pc for under $300 at Target. It's about the size of some larger paperbacks and it lets me surf the web with Flash and everything.

Then again, it does come with free wireless service forever, so that may make up for the price. I'm on the fence about this.

Why I Want a Kindle 2 and Why I'm Going to Wait for Kindle 3

There are three things that make me want a Kindle 2 and one reason I am going to hold out (or at least try to hold out) for a Kindle 3:

1) Everyone who uses a Kindle seems to love it. My mom got to mess with one at her dayjob at a university library and fell in love with it.

2) My iPhone. Using my iPhone for so very much, as I do, really brings out the limitations of the wonderful little device. The damn thing puts James Bond's Q Branch to shame. GPS, media playing, file reading and a LOT more. The thing is, I'm reading a friend's screenplay on it now and while it's fine, it's missing a lot of features that it really needs--like bookmarking. Also, the iPhone's backlight needing to stay on while I read uses battery life. Plus, the screen is kind of small for so much reading. Simultaneously, I've been reading Naomi Klein's brilliant book, The Shock Doctrine and while it is a great read, it's BIG--I own one coat with pockets big enough to hold it. I'm now so used to taking everything with me on my iPhone that I've found myself wishing I had bought an e-book version of Shock Doctrine just so I could read it where ever I took my phone. Of course, my iPhone was cheaper than a Kindle 2.

Then again, the screen is smaller, too.

SIGH.

3) Hackers. The iPhone has been wonderfully hacked to bits (and bytes--ha) since it was first released--my 3G iPhone, included. I am no longer with AT&T, I can drag and drop media files to the iPhone, can shoot video, etc. So, I'm hoping the hackers will go to town on the Kindle 2 and really let software take full advantage of its hardware. The catch? The Kindle 1 has barely been looked at sideways by the hacker community--I can only find one guy who has hacked it in all the time it's been out. Igor Skochinky reverse engineered it, unlocking cell-based GPS, minesweeper, the ability to take screenshots, and a few other cool things. Check out Igor's not-updated-lately blog on hacking e-book readers here: http://igorsk.blogspot.com Sadly, he's all I could find Kindle-Hacker-wise.

I'm thinking that the reason hackers aren't flocking to the Kindle is because of the price. Right now, the Kindle seems like the laserdisc player of the gadget world. Sure, everyone knows it's cool and everyone would like to own a Kindle, but they're just too expensive. However, like I said, if you think about wireless service fees for a year or even three, the thing kinda pays for itself. Or at least, it would, if it had VoIP capabilities. Ha!

The reason I will wait for the Kindle 3 (barring a Christmas gift, an extreme price drop or a lottery win), is the that hardware really can do a lot more than Amazon will let it do. I mean, come on, guys, I can watch videos on my phat Nintendo DS. You're telling me the Kindle 2 can't handle video? Sure, the screen is e-ink and is only black and white, but what about that? Why not license the XO's display from OLPC and give us a dual-mode B&W and full color display with the ability to turn off or on the backlight?

I'm not even asking for touchscreen, here--I love that the Kindle has a tactile keyboard. It's the one thing I miss about my iPhone (especially now that I have cut and pasted now--yay!).

If Jeff Bezos has any smarts in him, the Kindle 3 will have full multimedia capabilities--it'll play video, audio and that will be on top of it's ability to read e-books, and connect wirelessly to the 'net. OH and it'll list price at UNDER $300! Come on, Jeff! It's the economy, stupid! No one can afford this thing right now!

Just my ¥2, as always!

Posted via email from thepete's posterous