Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Mac Air-The RAZR laptop


It appears that the big news at the MacWorld conference on Tuesday was the introduction of the new ultra-thin Mac Air laptop. This good looking laptop should lead several hippies to miss a payment or two on their VW or Volvo's next month, or else hurt a few of their hemp dealers. Heck, this may even prevent a few of them from making it to the Super Tuesday polls in order to vote for Obama or Ron Paul.


I do think it was interesting how Steve Jobs opened up a large manila envelope to introduce the laptop. Hope no one decides to follow Steve's approach and attempt to ship one of these $1800 laptops in a freaking manila envelope! The problem that I see with this laptop is that it is likely gonna break very easily. Geez, for a laptop that is .76 inches thick..I'm thinking that these things aren't gonna hold up too easily.


Here's the link to the article: http://tinyurl.com/3xazs8


Currently listening to:


Radiohead

In Rainbows

Released on: 10-10-07

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Amazon Push to Compete with iTunes

Interesting article from the Financial Times was posted today ( http://tinyurl.com/34gaao ). Apparently Amazon is planning to make a huge push during the Super Bowl to promote its music downloading service. Amazon plans to offer up to a 1 billion free downloads and hopes to use Justin Timberlake to promote this service. Amazon has been in the download business for a little while now, but it hasn't really been able to compete with the 80% market share that iTunes has occupied for the past upteenth number of years. Amazon hopes to promote their downloads at a lower price ($0.89 vs. $0.99 for iTunes) and promote that their mp3's are DRM (digital rights management) free. DRM is what prevents iTunes users from using their downloaded songs on other devices (such as the Zune). I am a big proponent of mp3's that are DRM free (as you can see from my previous posts). Though many of the major record labels are starting to come around to the idea of DRM free downloads, they don't want to offer them via iTunes. They are attempting to venture to other download services, but is that really good for the consumer? We could argue this til we're blue in the face, but ultimately, I don't see iTunes hurting anytime soon. As the article states, it doesn't really matter if people go to other sites to download their music, it can only help out Apple and Steve Jobs. The more music that is offered, the more likely people will be to buy an iPod.

Just Ignore My Childhood


Back in junior high and high school, I was the rabid fan that would be at the comic book store on Wednesdays to go through the droves of new comic book releases. I even had the comic book store owner put aside a select number of 'essential' releases each week. Once college came along and the money crunch began, I left the comic book universe and focused my sights on music, dating, and other grown up necessities. I do miss having time to read the stories and admire the art of various comic book artists (Romita Jr., Quesada, McFarlane, Platt, Bagley, etc).


I haven't really followed comic books since 1997, but was blown away by the news from the Spiderman universe that was just issued a few weeks ago. Supposedly Aunt May was shot by a sniper's bullet and in order to save her life, Peter Parker makes a deal with the devil (Mephisto..in the Marvel universe). Peter Parker and Mary Jane agree to give up any memory of their marriage in order to save Aunt May's life. Pretty much the entire marriage of Peter and Mary Jane is no longer even a blip in the Marvel universe. So to boil it down, the past 25 years of the Spiderman universe never occurred. There is no Venom, no clone saga, no MJ miscarriage, etc. Once Peter and MJ agree to this, we see Peter go back to the early years where he's living with Aunt May and he doesn't even know MJ.


This mind-blowing storyline seems to betray the Spiderman fans out there. Doesn't Marvel want to have at least one or two characters that are married? I guess the writers just have run out of ideas and wanted to start with a blank slate. This turn of events makes it easier for them, but kinda rapes the stories of my childhood. Makes me wonder whether this signficant storyline will continue to run its course or if falling sales will result in all of this being just a memory in the huge Marvel universe. Here is a good link to a story describing what occurred:




Currently listening to:


Redwalls

The Redwalls

Released: 10-23-07