Will iPhone go to the prom with Verizon, even though they fight on the playground?

I looked for something on AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity deal expiring, but all I found were rumors and even stories about the rumors.

If a 2010 Apple deal with Verison is in the works, I don’t think Verison would have used the Droid as a direct attack on the iPhone and I don’t think Apple’s latest iPhone campaign would be aimed at Verizon’s network (not just a handset.)

Sure I could see AT&T vs. Verizon, or Apple vs. Google & Motorola, but when Apple and Verison are directly going at it, will seven months be enough time for them to kiss and make up?

Hollywood’s Recycle Bin (or Box)

In Se7en Brad Pitt asked “What’s in the box?” Now The Box is headed to theaters and this one is not filled with Gwyneth Paltrow’s head. This one has a button, and a past.

The Box is based on the short story Button, Button, written by Richard Matheson. So if you don’t have 1 hours and 55 minutes to burn at the theater, here’s a 20 minute version from The Twilight Zone.

Part 1 of Button, Button

Duck Research

At work, I keep a few crackers at my desk.

The reason for this is defence against duck attacks, of course. If a flock of ducks attack the station, who will be safe? Me, that’s who. I just toss the crackers in the floor, the ducks get distracted, and I walk out, no problem.

Then I started to worry. Are these enough crackers? How many ducks could I really distract? How safe Am I really? I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I knew. So I packed up my crackers to do a little real world research.

iPhone Netbook

Here’s my crazy idea.

A small Netbook that work off the iPhone.

I have an iPhone (1st gen for now, but just imagine) and I have a netbook (Dell Vostro A90 running Ubuntu,) If I could combine them, now that would be great.

I love the auto correct system on the iPhone, it knows what I’m typing better than I do. But for full screen text editing, video and picture viewing, it’s nice to have a full (mini) keyboard, at least a 9″ screen, and stereo speakers.

A shell of a notebook, 9″ screen, a small keyboard and touch pad (or if you want fancy, touchscreen,) no processor, no hard drive, nothing but a plug for a power cord, and a giant slot for an iPhone.  You just slide in your phone and hit on and you have a netbook with a 32gig SSD running the iPhone OS. It could be wifi or 3G tethered through the iPhone. Any app’s could be installed through the Apples App Store.

The main menu screen would need to be reconfigured for landscape mode when docked and some of the app’s would need a tweak for this, but everything else is there. OS, hard-drive, wifi, 3G, even a headphone jack and sleep wake button.

The iBook would need an internal battery to support the extra screen size (and like the Mophie Juice Pack, could feed the iPhone, too.) When you plug it in you could charge both.

Tie a simple web camera at the top of the screen to the iPhone 3GS’s camera and you have your front facing iChat camera.

I’m sure there’s other issues like screen resolution but c’mon, Apple could totally make it happen.

I paid $250 for my Vosttro and $600 for my iPhone (yeah, I was in line the first day,) but if Apple could come up with an iBook (not netbook,) I would pay $300 for the new iPhone 3GS 32gig and another $300 for the enhanced (shell of a computer) dock. (But this time I’ll order online and skip the wait in line.)

After writing this, I went online and found this. http://olo-computer.com/
I think the day will come.

Trash TV

You’ve heard, a casualty of the Dtv transition is old TVs. People are buying new flat screens and their old TVs have nowhere to go. Pawn shops don’t want them. Charities won’t accept them. Even friends and family say “no thanks.” So they end up in the free-please-take-me bin or as it’s better known, next to the dumpster.

I saw these on a Saturday morning run. The one in the shopping cart is a Dora the Explorer set. Sunday both TVs were still there, but the shopping cart was gone.

Wanna free TV? No thanks, but I will take this broken down shopping cart.

Where to Edit Video Online for FREE!

Video editing without software or any hard drive space?  Sounds impossible, but it’s not.  You could even do it with a simple netbook.

Yahoo’s JumpCut is shutting down in June and YouTube killed their Remixer, so I checkout a few alternatives.

I used a Flip Ultra to shoot 23 clips of my drive to work.  The video totaled six and a half minutes and around 170 mb’s.  Uploading to each site took a little over 45 minutes (that’s 7 minutes upload for every 1 minute of video.)  I think the long upload time has more to do with my cable connection than the sites’ limits.  From ok to awesome, here’s what I found.   Read the rest of this entry here…

STOP THE TOURNAMENT!

Quick before anymore games.

I’m leading at work…

I’m leading at home…

And if you look at my bracket…

You’ll probably say, “That won’t last long.”

See Spot Die

How many times have you seen this one come around?
High quality generic tv commercials customized for your business, at a price.
And how many times have you seen them stick around.
SpotRunner does this, but with a twist.  They use the internet, that makes it all better!
Nope. Here’s a story from TechCruch about their latest layoffs.  “Throw in natural attrition, and the company, which at one point numbered more than 500 employees, could soon be down to less than 120 people.”

I don’t care how high the quality is, with a small business, in a small market, in tough economic times, if you can still afford the airtime, free production always wins.

Why pay $500 for this…
http://www.spotrunner.com/ads/detail.aspx?adcode=EHV

When you can get this for free…

Brewster’s Millions II, The Deficit

In part one Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) has just 30 days to blow 30 million dollars. If he does he wins 300 million.

This time he’s in for a real challenge. Brewster has to spend 1.75 Trillion dollars! But to asking him to do this in just 30 days would be unfair.

So let’s do some math. If he spends one million dollars every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, he’ll need almost 200 year to meet the goal.

$1,000,000 x 24 (hours) = $24,000,000
That’s per day.
$24,000,000 x 365 (days) = $8,760,000,000
That’s per year.
$8,760,000,000 x 200 (years) = $1,752,000,000,000
That’s 1.7 Trillion dollars (give or take a Billion.)
And that’s a long movie.

You don’t even want to think about seeing Brewster’s Millions III, The Payback.

The REAL Conspiracy of the Dtv Converter Box

If you haven’t seen the “Camera in Digital Convert Boxes! BEWARE!!!!” here it is.

Don’t get too excited.  The whole thing is bunk.  The guy even admitted he just used hot glue and a cellphone camera lens.  The real conspiracy is a bit dull.  Less spy cams and big brother, more money and big idiots.

Back in December of 2008 I saw my first Dtv converter box.