later nerdz; it’s about techgnarlogy

It must be easy to rebrand snack food.

The two companies that own or guarantee half of the nations $12 TRILLION dollars worth of Mortgage debt are likely going to be effectively nationalized.

What does this mean? 1) Any shares or bonds with FNM or FRE are going to be next to worthless. 2) The American tax payer is going to eat this. 3) your money market funds are secure.

I don’t really know what should have been done. Americans are having a mega-exodus from credit mentality yet our entire economy relies on credit. Our economy relies on it’s growth, it borrows on our growth, yet the growth can’t happen without credit. If we completely get out of debt, we’re screwed. Yet we cannot contain our debt without inflation. In the long run, individuals get screwed.

Basic advice: Get out of debt and learn a trade skill.

Yep

The price is lowered but the increase in monthly fees equals more!

Sticking with Helio and waiting for a GPhone!

Also: Mobile.me is nothing new. BORING.

I just got a new Chase amazon.com visa and had to activate it. After the automatic activation I was connected to a woman with a great british accent. As she was giving me spiel after spiel on balance transfers to identity theft, I lost track of what she was saying and wondered who was this person I was talking to.

I figured she worked in India because I called at 7:40 pm PST and she had a very clear proper english accent. She spoke very clearly and quickly, as well as any professional sales person. Here I was, pacing my apartment and not listening to her but wondering what the hell is someone who is such an eloquent speaker selling me balance transfers so that I can buy a new digital camera or whatever. That person is probably much more driven, and frankly smarter than me, and she’s using some of the oldest tricks in the book without skipping a beat. As I mention being familiar with the points system and identity theft, she responds starting with “I’m glad to hear we have such learned customers at Chase.” She used embedded commands and was pacing me. She also properly used the word ‘well’ in place of ‘good’ and just generally gave a great impression. So why is she in India answering phones?

It gave me a strange feeling of things being out of balance.

I’m waiting. I hope you can understand, it’s nothing against you. I think you’re great! Every time I see you, I want to touch you as if you were my own, but I have to wait.

You’re a really great device, but, you’re missing some things. I’m willing to work around that. We can work around that when the time is right. It’s just, your parents are asking for too much, I can’t afford what they want for you. I can’t give that to you yet. Right now I can’t give you what you need. But I’m confident in one more year I’ll be ready and things will be great. I mean, things are moving in a great direction and soon, everything will be ready.

In one more year my divorce with the Helio Ocean will be legal and I won’t have to pay any fines. Then we can be joined in contract and things can be right. I won’t have to go behind your parent’s backs and hack you on to another network. Hell, your parent’s can even give us cable television and internet! Eventually, I want it all.

All good things come to those who wait.

I just read that Palm has closed the idea of Palm Foleo. I don’t know the entire story around this device but it seemed to be filling a particularly empty void in the mobile market. I guess I just couldn’t see myself using this with my phone instead of wi-fi. Why not just release an ultra-slim sub-$200 device with a full qwerty that connects to wifi and can do the basics? Why not a OLPC laptop for business that doesn’t look like kermit the frogs laptop?

t’s high noon, Apple and AT&T — we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It’s all over, guys.

read more | digg story

Appears to be an ad for some kind of device. Probably either a phone or a media player. Stop the animation on the 4 frames to unlock a countdown. Ooooo.

The only thing I hope for this is that it’s a Google Phone. But, I seriously doubt google would market something like this.
http://www.070829.com/

Not sure why, but newton.com now points towards Apple.com

Is Apple in the process of producing an Apple Newton? Will it be a suped-up iPhone? Who knows! I’ll report more as I find out.

According to an open letter to the 360 community by Peter Moore:

You’ve spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we’ve not been doing a good enough job.

Microsoft is extending the warranty of all Xbox 360 units to 3 years. This is in response to the recent reports of Xbox 360s breaking down and requiring service.

The full open letter is below the break.
(more…)

This list of iPhone disappointments continues to be posted to forums. One such forum post grabbed front page on digg. Here are some key points. Click “read more” for a link to the full list.

1. Bluetooth is ONLY good for connecting a headset. That’s it.

2. There is no file browser on the device at all. Data must be organized (if at all) in the appropriate application.

3. The camera is a simple application that has ONE button: the shutter. Pictures come out okay on the device, but nothing too fancy on a monitor, especially if it was an attempt at a macro shot.

5. Web browser is slow, even over WLAN. Even the simple OneList web app that was created takes around 20 seconds to load over WLAN. You can not highlight, cut, copy, or paste and text from a website, and you can not save any images you find from a website either. The only nice thing about it is the tabbed browsing, which crashed on me when I went to Engadget and YouTube on two tabs. This is the only application that allows you to use the keyboard in landscape mode.

6. The keyboard sucks. It gets slightly better after the iPhone “learns” you, as the employees said, but even then, it’s not a device you can use with one hand comfortably, much less without looking.

10. The only form of customization outside of a lame default ringtone is the wallpaper, which you’ll only see when you need to unlock the device or when you get a phone call.

11. “Picture pinching” or using two fingers to zoom on any content is certainly fun to play with, but not practical whatsoever. This operation depends solely on using the device with two hands.

12. No document editor or native viewer. You can not store documents on the device to be viewed, they can only be viewed as attachments when they’re sent to your in an email.

13. Visual voicemail is laggy and reacts about the same way as pushing the fast forward and rewind buttons on traditional voicemail systems. The only advantage is for those that get that many voicemail messages a day that they need to sort them according to priority.

14. No games.
15. No voice dialing.
16. No speed dialing (which can be made up by the “quick list”, but getting to that quick list isn’t as fast as holding a single key on a real keypad).
17. No video.
18. No MMS.


read more | digg story

The Apple iPhone went on sale today in America and equal amounts of apple fanboys and for-profit ebay users are clamoring to nab one up. However, for the rest of us in the market for a “media phone” what options do we have? The US market for more advanced phones is extremely polarized; Phones are either billed as business or “just a regular phone”. Data plans for most providers are marketed mostly to professionals. You can now get a blackjack (icky business phone) for around $100 after contract. Not much in the middle exists focusing on a more human use of the phone.

Recently, however, Apple announced it’s iPhone which has been designed for more human, social uses. It’s key features include it’s media (iPod) uses and it’s internet connectivity. It does not include any instant messaging service. Very little of it’s marketing mentions business applications outright. The Helio Ocean, similarly, has it’s main featured aligned around media but with a slant towards social uses such as messaging, email, and surfing. The Helio Ocean also includes the ability to use AIM.

So how do these two phones stack up next to each other?

Price
The Apple iPhone’s cost is considerably larger than the Helio Ocean. So if you are not looking to drop over 500 dollars on a phone, the Helio Ocean may be for you. Network plan-wise, you get less with the Apple iPhone too. The cheapest iPhone plan is $59.99/Month and has 450 Weekday minutes compared to the $64.99/Month Helio Ocean’s least expensive plan which includes 500 Weekday minutes. The major difference is the Apple iPhones limited on SMS text messages. You only get 200 where the Helio Ocean plans all allow unlimited SMS.

Without the ability to chat on AIM, Apple iPhone users are going to use SMS. this may point towards the Apple iPhone being less of a social communications device and being more a mobile browser, since it has Wi-Fi which the Ocean lacks.

The Apple iPhone comes out costing more than the Helio Ocean, but there are a few other features you get with the iPhone that the Helio Ocean does not include. Plus there is a chance the iPhone price will drop dramatically in 6-12 months or as a new version is released.
Winner: Helio Ocean

Media
The iPhone is much more of a media playing device. The Helio Ocean ships with something like 512Mb of onboard memory. The Mini-SD card slot is upgradeable to around 2GiB. This just doesn’t compete with the iPhone. Plus the iPhone has a larger screen than the Helio Ocean. 2.4″ for the Ocean vs. 3.5″ for the iPhone. You just are going to have a much better experience with media on the iPhone.
Winner: iPhone

Surfing
As far as surfing is concerned, the Apple iPhone comes out on top. Helio Ocean also has GPS built in, which combines with Google Maps to make searching a snap. However, the browser is not as robust as Apple iPhones. So if you’re looking for a full-fledged browser in your phone for undirected browsing (surfing), the iPhone might be for you. I just don’t know when you’d be in a situation without a computer but with your phone where you would want to leisurely browse the internet. The Helio Ocean has more mobile-specific task-oriented surfing available.
Winner: iPhone by a hair

Network
Helio runs on Sprint’s EV-DO network. The iPhone does not use 3G, it uses EDGE. Apple says this speed issue is made up by the Wi-Fi which the Helio Ocean lacks, but wi-fi is just not pervasive enough to rely on. There are also reports of the EDGE network getting a major upgrade.
Winner: Helio Ocean for now

Size
The iPhone is 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches and 4.8 oz. while the Helio Ocean is 4.33 x 2.20 x .86 inches and 5.61 oz. The Helio Ocean is a little larger and heavier. However, some people would rather have something with more girth and weight than the iPhone. So if you’re looking for something that doesn’t feel like it’s going to break, you may want to checkout a Helio Ocean. However, for most of us, the smaller and lighter the better.
Winner: iPhone

GPS
This one is easy. The iPhone lacks GPS. Helio Ocean has built in GPS which is used by google maps which comes free with the service. Google maps on your phone, combined with GPS, makes it incredibly easy to quickly search for locations and businesses around you and know how to get there.
Winner: Helio Ocean

Bottom Line
The Helio Ocean is a viable alternative to the iPhone if you can cut out the media part of the iPhone and replace it with social functionality. The network also is a large difference but that could change soon as well (I hear it is happening now). The price difference is substantial right now and I don’t see it going away. The base price of an iPhone is going to stay high for a while and AT&T will probably never offer a plan like Helio’s.

Netflix has started an experimental new server called Watch Now. The server includes on-demand streaming video directly to a subscribers computer. Currently the service is only for Windows PC’s using a downloadable viewing application. The service unit is hours viewed, and subscribers have more or less hours to watch streaming video depending on their subscription. The $18/month service plan allots you 18 hours of streaming Watch Now.

Currently the new Watch Now service is available to around 6 million Netflix subscribers and is free.

As the IPTV/on-demand arena heats up, others are moving in step. Blockbuster recently announced major convenient service additions to their on-demand service, allowing users to return videos to their local Blockbuster instead of mailing them back. In addition you get free move rentals for use at store locations. Despite this, Blockbuster is shutting down their game rentals.

Also, The Venice Project has a new name, Joost, and a disgusting new website. I like the whole “color spectrum” theme, but man, that new website is ass. Hopefully it sucks so badly because they’re busting their ass to get real content into the beta. (Yeah you beta testers know what I’m talking about!)

Thanks: TechCrunch