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07 May 2009 09:16

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Culture, Tech: Wikipedia managed to hijack a dead guy’s obit with a fake quote

  • The quote When he died at the end of March, Maurice Jarre was quoted on his Wikipedia entry as saying: “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.” source
  • The quote When he died at the end of March, Maurice Jarre was quoted on his Wikipedia entry as saying: “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.”
  • The reason Jarre is an Oscar-winning composer who has the perfect combination of obscurity, cultural impact and newsworthiness to allow for a quote like this to be completely fabricated, a fact 22-year-old Irish student Shane Fitzgerald took advantage of to see how journalists will tend to use the Web as a primary source. Prick. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 May 2009 22:29

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Tech: A look back at the development history of “Duke Nukem Forever”

  • “Hey guys, we know you love Duke Nukem 3D; how about an awesome sequel? Woot!!” source
  • “Oh crap, nobody’s using the Quake II engine anymore; better switch to Unreal!” source
  • “We swear it’s coming soon, guys! Oh come on Take Two! Give us more money!!!!” source
  • “Ahhhh … another year topping Wired’s Vaporware Awards. Never gets old.” source
  • 3D Realms apparently shut its doors and no longer exists. Later, poor Duke. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 May 2009 11:52

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Tech: The new Kindle DX is everything we expected and … about that

It’s a bigger-screened Kindle, perfect for reading textbooks on. Newspapers, maybe. $489. Not cheap, but interesting. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2009 12:26

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Biz, Tech: Today’s juicy rumor: Apple to buy Twitter??! WTF!?!?

  • $700 million asking price for the uber-popular startup source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2009 10:13

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Tech, World: Why are text messages 160 characters or less? Blame this guy.

  • My friend said this was impossible for the mass market. I was more optimistic.
  • Friedhelm Hillebrand • The german man behind the technology used to create SMS, more commonly known by drunk teenagers at parties as texting. Hillebrand made the realization that 160 characters was, as he put it, “perfectly sufficient.” But early technology could only handle 128 characters. Fortunately, they kept working and got it up to 160. Did his technology make him rich? No, but everyone uses it, so isn’t that enough? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 May 2009 09:43

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Tech: Blackberry’s Curve > iPhone 3G? How did that happen?

  • Blame it on more carriers and better deals. RIM is glowing in the fact that its Curve, still a well-received phone even without the press of the iPhone, managed to beat the iPhone in 1st quarter sales. Part of it was Verizon, who offered help in the form of a buy-one-get-one-free sale for Blackberries. So, not only is the Curve at the top of the handheld market, but two other Blackberry phones grace the top five. Not a bad racket. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 May 2009 11:34

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Biz, Tech: Vista may leave store shelves as soon as Windows 7 arrives

  • It’s been a long time since we’ve had a version of Windows that will actually run better (than the previous version) on the hardware that most customers have.
  • Mike Nash • Microsoft’s vice president of the Windows product management group. MS appears to be ready to give up on the unpopular OS. Vista may stop shipping with new computers as soon as Windows 7 shows up, according to a company-wide memo. But … but … what would Lauren say? • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink
 

04 May 2009 10:11

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Offbeat, Tech: Oh, and related to URL-shortening, fun fact of the day

  • Did you know that TinyURL‘s founder is a unicyclist? His name’s Kevin Gilbertson and he started the service in 2002. He wanted to link the unicycling newsgroups easily. He had a problem, solved it via code and created a new business model. Genius. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 May 2009 10:04

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Tech: URL shorteners are becoming ultra-popular right now

  • 50 million bit.ly links are clicked each week (a number that’s rising) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 May 2009 08:21

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Politics, Tech: Dear newspapers: A widescreen Kindle sounds smart, but …

  • I implore newspapers not to put too much stock in these big screen Kindles. I know the options are awfully thin as to what can save you, and the Kindle is a potentially sexy savior; but it is not the answer.
  • MG Siegler • Techcrunch blogger, on the possibility of Amazon throwing a hail-mary pass to newspapers in the form of a wide-screen Kindle this week. It won’t work, he says, mainly because newspapers are a different kind of beast from books. He notes that it might cost a lot more and that the place a type of product like this could really help consumers is textbooks. We’re prone to agree. By the way, Hearst is working on something like this. By the way, super-smart newspaper consultant Steve Yelvington agrees. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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