Apple continues to provide the least amount of Bluetooth support needed to trick you into buying their stuff. From the support article iPhone and iPod touch: Supported Bluetooth profiles:
iPhone and iPod touch (2nd generation) support pause, play, and stop for AVRCP
So with the nifty Kensington LiquidAUX Bluetooth that I just added to my car, I can play music with my new 3G S but I can’t skip a track without pulling it out of my pocket.
Lame.
Last night I was talking with my brother and eventually the conversation turned to the passing of the King of Pop. I thought it was interesting how our age difference — I was born in ‘77, him in ‘84 — affects our perception of Michael Jackson.
When I was young, MJ rose to become “the true king of pop, rock and soul.” He transformed music videos into an art form, broke through racial barriers, put MTV on the map, and gave millions of dollars to charities. Despite the fact that I haven’t owned any of his albums since 1993, catching one of his songs on the radio continues to produce an emotional response and Man in the Mirror still chokes me up a little.
When my brother was young, MJ was a walking freak show and suspected pedophile. My brother knows plenty about “Wacko Jacko” but doesn’t really comprehend the magnitude of MJ’s career or his influence on more contemporary artists.
Regardless of our differences in how we saw MJ, we can both recognize the significance and sadness of his passing.
I can’t help seeing something of a silver lining. Nearly two decades of crazy rumors, scandals, and oddball behavior had completely overshadowed his positive contributions to our society and culture. With time, perhaps the tabloid fodder will fade from our collective memories and we can go back to seeing Michael Jackson as the great American icon that he once was.
… cell phones began interfering with speakers. With the 3GS my computer speakers no longer hum or chatter. It used to be that every time I sat down at my desk I had to take my phone out and place it as far away from my speakers as possible.
Now it stays on my belt.
Awesome.
The Steven Frank Internet Technology Podcast with Steven Frank.
“iPhone’s actually very dangerous if you don’t use it correctly. Do not drop, disassemble, open, crush, bend, deform, puncture, shred, microwave, or insert foreign objects into iPhone. It doesn’t say anything about blending it so those YouTube guys should be ok.”
Joel on the failure of Clear:
At this point, and here’s the interesting part, at this point, a rational businessperson would say, “Well, does the Clear idea still make sense if we can’t actually let you skip the screening?”
OK, maybe it still makes sense to charge to skip to the front of the line. Maybe there’s a business model in that.
In that case, though, why did they still do background checks? It doesn’t make any sense.
The environment changed. It turns out that Clear’s business model of prescreening wasn’t going to be possible. But they kept doing it anyway. What kind of organizational dysfunction does it take to completely ignore the changed circumstances and keep at a money-losing business?
Except for the most frequent travelers, I don’t even think it made sense to pay just to be able to skip the line. Since the National Guard got out of the airport security business I’ve had exactly one long wait for screening and that was on a Friday evening — something perfectly predictable for the route I was flying. If you can avoid the worst travel times, and barring any airport SNAFUs, the wait for screening just isn’t that bad.
That said, with a purported 250,000+ members I don’t see how they couldn’t manage to turn a profit despite the money wasted on pointless background checks. My state requires fingerprinting, a state-level background check, and an FBI background check to issue a concealed weapons permit and those fees are much less than what Clear charged. And the issuing agency generates a surplus…
In 1991, CNN rocketed past the mainstream news networks with live coverage from Baghdad during the start of the Gulf War.
This week the Internet trounced CNN and other mainstream media in informing the world of the civil unrest following Iran’s elections. Many are talking about Twitter beating CNN but I believe that misses the point. If there were no Twitter the word would have spread via WordPress, LiveJournal, Blogger, TypePad, or any number of other venues for self-publication. It is the ability for anyone to get their message out to a large audience that ensures events like this do not go unnoticed by the world.
The revolution will be is being televised. On the Internet.
