IT Geek Blog

Apple Announces New Apple TV

Tony — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:49:45 +0000

Apple announced a new Apple TV during its event a few days ago. This isn’t a surprise to anyone that follows tech news, but it’s real now, and it’s….rather underwhelming. The price is fantastic at only $100, but it’s just missing a lot of stuff. First of all, there’s no hard drive, it’s entirely dependent on having other computers or a connection to the internet. Ok, I can deal with this, but it would be nice to dump a bunch of files on the Apple TV so I don’t have to clutter my computer. Second, it doesn’t output in 1080p, only 720p. What? Really? That’s kinda stupid. The only reason why it doesn’t output in 1080p is probably because of my 3rd gripe: no gigabit ethernet. You serious Apple? Making a device meant for media streaming and you only have wireless N? I’m sure it would be ok for 720p stuff, but couldn’t they have gone the extra mile and added an ethernet port to make it the ultimate dumb terminal for media content? Oh well, but what is there is pretty cool. They have HD streaming rentals (kinda overpriced) from various content providers, Netflix, Youtube, Flickr, and MobileMe. Nice, but it’s like, everything has Netflix and Youtube these days. I have a PS3 and a Wii which both do Netflix. So, why do I need another device? But still, I guess this Apple TV thing could be a great way for people to access Netflix instant watch on their TV without spending a lot of money.

Stealth Makes Crazy Super Keyboard

Tony — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:26:23 +0000

Do you need a new keyboard? How about a $700 super heavy duty keyboard? If so, you’re in luck, because Stealth has made just that. This keyboard is cased in stainless steel, and has an optical trackball included. Cool, but why is it $700, other than the stainless steel? Well, this keyboard is freaking tough! You can douse it in water and it will still work. And that steel case insures that it won’t be easily destroyed. It also has some neat backlighting too. I wonder how many of these they’ll sell? I can’t imagine too many. But you gotta give them credit for being original.

Source: Stealth

ViewSonic Announces ViewPad 7

Tony — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:29:26 +0000

ViewSonic has announced a new tablet called the ViewPad 7. The tablet is powered by the Android OS and will feature “full phone functionality” with front and rear cameras and 3G. Neat, but here’s where it gets bad. The unit only features a 600mhz processor and has a resolution of 800 x 480…Yikes. Not good. It’s nice that the Android hardware makers are starting to tap into the tablet market that is pretty much dominated by Apple right now, but the devices have all been substandard so far. Oh well, I’m sure that will change in the near future.

Source: Engadget

Google Launches Priority Inbox

Tony — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:01:11 +0000

This is pretty neat. Gmail, everyone’s favorite webmail service has launched a new feature dubbed priority inbox. What it does is sorts through your email and puts messages from people you read messages from and mail things to the most into a different folder than the rest of your stuff, allowing you to cut through all the other messages in your inbox and focus on who you contact most. Now, don’t go crazy and check your Gmail account hoping to use this feature quite yet, because it still hasn’t rolled out to all users. It will be pushed out to accounts over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, here’s a video from Google explaining the feature and how it works:

University of Michigan Develops Crazy Small Display

Tony — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:38:13 +0000

Retina display, eat your heart out. The University of Michigan has made a super tiny display. How small? 12×9 microns (1/6 the width of a human hair). We all know the Retina display is neat because it has smaller pixels, but this small display developed by UMich has pixels that are eight times smaller than that of Apple’s iPhone 4. Wow. Imagine a large display made of up a bunch of these small displays. The link below goes into much greater detail about the process of how this display works.

Source: University of Michigan

Netflix App Updated for iPhone and iPod Touch

Tony — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:48:46 +0000

Yup, it finally happened! You can now do what iPad users have been doing for months now and stream Netflix to your iPhone and iPod Touch! Just look in the App Store for Netflix and download it for free. You have to be a subscriber to the service though, but who isn’t these days? The quality is really good and sharp, but my only concern is that the iPhone screen is way too small for watching movies of any kind. But, it might be nice to watch a TV episode or something that doesn’t demand a huge screen on there. Or like if I’m out and about and have the sudden need to watch 30 Rock. But overall, I agree with David Lynch here (warning, one NSFW word in the video below)

Favicons of Most Popular Websites

Tony — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:27:05 +0000

Not really earth shattering news here, but it’s pretty neat. The Nmap security scanner team did a scan of the top million ranked sites on Alexa, grabbed their favicons, and put them on the map in proportion to the amount of traffic they get. The result is a neat mosiac type image. Since the image is far too big to be displayed in full resolution on the web, Namp has set up an interactive version on their site that allows you to search for your favorite site and zoom in extremely close. Check it out at nmap.org.

App Store Weirdness Continues

Tony — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00:43 +0000

Apple’s path towards the Orwellian overlord company it didn’t want to be in 1984 continues. As we all know, Apple recently rejected Camera+ for allowing people to use the volume buttons to take pictures. Now, Apple has rejected a small update to the Read It Now app. Why? Apple explains…

“Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content; such user registration must be optional and tied to account-based functionality.”

WTF mate? That doesn’t make any sense at all. So you can’t have an app that requires registration, unless it’s required for account related functionality. What is Apple smoking here? The app is back in the store, I know one thing, if this kind of stuff continues on the App Store, I might have to make the switch to Droid. Apple’s just getting way too nutty these days. I mean, we hear something on a weekly basis about an app that gets rejected for weird reasons. This needs to end.

McAffe Names the Most Dangerous Celebrity

Tony — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:19:24 +0000

I know I just mentioned them, but they released a pretty interesting study. They took a look at celebrities and found out who the most dangerous is. By most dangerous I mean the one that contains the most malware on google. Their most dangerous celebrity: Cameron Diaz. When you click on a site about her from Google, they found you have a 1 in 10 chance of going to a bad webstie. Julia Roberts came in 2nd place and Jessica Biel was in 3rd. Some other interesting results were that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin were near the bottom of the list. Surprising considering their popularity. Also shocking: Justin Bieber was really low too, probably because most of that is generated by kids tweeting about him and stuff. There’s other interesting results which you can view by clicking the source link.

Source: McAffe

Intel Buys McAffe

Tony — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:44:50 +0000

Intel has bought McAffe for 7.68 billion. My question is why? Does anyone use McAffe anymore? Other than people who are too lazy to uninstall the default antivirus package on their computer and put something better on there? Seems odd why Intel would be interested in them. But, they are, so they bought them. McAffe is better than nothing, but they’re stuck in the old business model of paid antivirus software. It seems like most companies are moving towards free solutions, just look at the success of AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials. Oh well, competition is a good thing.

Source: Engadget