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  • 1 min read

Tivo will be able to transfer videos to Ipods… But…

Hot news for Tivo and iPod Fans. Coming soon to a computer near you!

"TiVo Inc. today is expected to announce a service that allows its digital video recorders to save programs to iPods and PlayStation Portables, further untethering television from time and place." (from LA Times)

Also covering the same story: Associated Press, New York Times, Geek News Central, and lots-o-other people. So what do I have to add? Not a whole lot, except this question : currently, Tivo doesn't provide "Tivo ToGo" connectivity to Apple Macintosh OS X, only to Windows XP. I hope that Apple is working with Tivo to address this! Technorati Tags: iPod, tivo

  • 1 min read

Dilbert Torture

According to Dilbert (or is it Scott Adams) we are approaching the whole question of torture in the wrong way:

"The objective is to think up a form of torture that's effective but doesn't sound so bad when the rest of the world finds out you did it. " (from Dilbert.Blog)

So here's what he's thought up:

"It occurred to me recently after having surgery for my deviated septum that lots of Al Qaeda members must need that same procedure. When Amnesty International finds out that we gave free medical care to prisoners, that won't sound so bad." (from Dilbert.Blog)

and…

"…we could give them spa packages that involve waxing the hair off of most of their bodies. I realize this is an overgeneralization, but terrorists seem extra hairy to me. So it would probably hurt extra much." (from Dilbert.Blog)

Technorati Tags: funny

  • 1 min read

Web 2.0 — mash ups — Kayak — and nude beaches ?!

Did you know that Curacao is the 7th favorite place that travelers from Boston consider when they are looking for nude beaches in the Caribean? Miami is the first, Aruba the second. This important bulletin brought to you by Kayak Buzz, a neat web-2.0-kayak-mashup-with-google that I just came across. You can look at the URL above to see how it's formed. The funny thing is that the nude beach search isn't available unless you include the magic , secret "&ac=nude" clause. You should check out Kayak, it's a really good travel search site that automates what you know you are already doing - which is to visit all the other travel sites with the same itinerary to see who has the best deal at this moment. Technorati Tags: travel

  • 1 min read

Ray Ozzie’s Blog V3

Glad to see that Ray is blogging again. Now that he is at Microsoft running the big new initiative this should be a really interesting one to follow!

"A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I brought life to a new initiative that, over the course of the months and years ahead, will catalyze and deliver a number of things that I'm very excited about. At that event, I said that unlike many other stealth projects I've/we've done, in this case many of our plans and offerings will evolve progressively and in the open, shaped in good measure by a dialog with you." (from Ray Ozzie's Blog)

Looks like it will be really interesting to follow! Ray Ozzie of course is one of the original guys who built Lotus Notes, and launched Groove, and is now CTO at Microsoft, right in the middle of a lot of cool new stuff. Technorati Tags: blog, microsoft

  • 1 min read

Interesting Wired article about War Blogs

I came across this a little while ago in Wired about War Blogs. Pretty amazing stuff:

"Strong opinions throughout the military ranks in and out of wartime are nothing new. But online technology in the combat zone has suddenly given those opinions a mass audience and an instantaneous forum for the first time in the history of warfare. On the 21st-century battlefield, the campfire glow comes from a laptop computer, and it's visible around the world." (from Wired)

Read the whole thing - it's interesting. Technorati Tags: corantessa

  • 1 min read

Did MSFT leak on purpose, or did they know they could easily be leaked?

I've read several accounts relating to Microsoft's recently 'leaked' documents about the new strategy, for example, Cringely says:

"While ostensibly written solely for internal discussion, the documents from Bill Gates and new Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie were clearly supposed to be leaked." … and … "These are external marketing documents -- the equivalent of those ubiquitous white papers …" (via Scripting News)

I have a couple of thoughts on this:

  1. "On Purpose" is relative: Any email that is sent to tens of thousands of people is essentially certain to be leaked.

  2. Any experienced emailer knows that just about any message might get leaked, and writes many if not most messages with that in mind.

  3. When you write anything that will be read by tens of thousands of people, of course you copy edit it, of course you review it, of course you write it carefully. That's not evidence of any kind of evil intent, it's just rational

Oh, and do I have any substantial thoughts about the content itself? Sure, why not:

  1. Microsoft and the press like comparing these recent memos to the famous Halloween memos from years ago when Microsoft 'turned on a dime' and embraced the Internet. I don't buy it. That was a long time ago, a much different Microsoft, a different Bill Gates.

  2. I will wait to see it before I believe it. This is classic repackaging of old stuff, making many beautiful architectural drawings to distract the world. Color me skeptical.

Technorati Tags: microsoft