Ronald McSwagDonald

Here you McGo. You McWanted to know what the new Ronald Mcdonald looks like, here he McIs in all his McGlory. The McNews was announced via McTwitter, if you would like to read all about it and some of the McReactions and much more about than you could ever McWant, then you can follow this McLink.

In my opinion, he's dressed exactly how I always figured executives at McDonald's dressed anyway.

Simpsons fan?

Are you a Simpsons fan? Of course you are, everyone is. One thing you can always count on is that every single person you meet is a Simpsons fan. So let's put it to the test. This isn't some trivia quiz about the show, I could blaze through one of those no problem. No, this is a REAL test. If you visit the site www.riddlydiddly.com, you'll be put to the ultimate test of your fandom; yes, here you can find out how long you can watch Ned Flanders riddly diddly! To paraphrase Creepshow, I can watch Ned riddly diddly a loooong time!

Wearables

I'm still not entirely sure what fitness bands are or what their purpose is or who wears them, although some of you expressed your fondness in a past post. Yet as much as the market appears to be expanding (even Microsoft is getting involved, late as they tend to be), Nike, who manufactures one of the most well-known fitness bands out there, the Nike+ Fuelband, is pulling the plug.

I have to admit the thing looks nifty, but according to this post on Wired, Nike is halting production. The speculation is that they are going to instead throw their support and software development behind the rumored-to-be-upcoming iWatch, Apple's answer to whatever it's an answer to. I'll say it again, I didn't know people still wear watches, but with some commanding prices of well over $100,000 the market is clearly still there.

I find this strange as Nike is a gigantic company, and there is no reason they couldn't supply software to the iWatch while continuing to offer their own brand. They have long had a relationship with Apple, however, and the Fuelband itself was iOS only, so perhaps this is a natural way to cut costs yet still remain in the market.

The Polaroid Museum

You may recall back when we discussed disruptive versus sustaining technology, one of the things we talked about were digital cameras. Specifically, besides Kodak anyway, we talked about Polaroid and its inability to keep up in an ever crowded digital-photography marketplace.

And that was unusual, because Polaroid is a stalwart photography company that has been around for a long time, and made some iconic cameras. The most well known of those, of course, is the Polaroid One-Step line of cameras, in which you'd press the button and a picture would come out. Well, not a picture but a piece of film that you'd have to wave around in the air and the picture would slowly develop; it's sort of like the digital cameras we have now, inasmuch as you could see the picture shortly after you took it and decide if you liked it or needed to take another.

In fact, the design of that film became iconic in culture, as even digital prints are sometimes depicted as having the white border and larger chin of the Polaroid instamatic film. While the loss of the film didn't result in a song by Paul Simon like some other films, there was an outcry, its demise made the national news, and it eventually came back! Apparently people still use those cameras a lot. So it's only fitting that now, at long last, there is a museum dedicated to the Polaroid. And guess where it is? That's right, it's right here in Las Vegas.

I haven't yet been there, but as soon as I get the chance, I will go, take some pictures with my non-Polaroid Icon, and if I don't get thrown out because of it I'll post them here.

It just doesn't get any more Busey than this.

Yesterday I made a post about the Amazon Fire TV with a banner ad featuring Gary Busey. He was great in the Buddy Holly Story, and the World's Dumbest series, and nothing else.

Thanks to Shannon for her comment that opened my eyes to his advertisement for the Amazon Fire, another can now be added to the list. Apparently he also wants voice command, something that smartphone makers are banking on, and now other devices, including the Fire, are as well. The advertisement is a masterpiece of storytelling, character development, and plot arcs. Plus, it has Gary Busey. Bask in the glow of Shakespearean narrative as only Gary Busey can provide. To paraphrase A Charlie Brown Christmas, he's the Gary Busiest!

A couple of thoughts: I also like talking to things! Who doesn't? Sometimes, like Gary Busey, I talk to my pants. Why not? Remember the song Hello Walls? Why not Hello Pants? As strange as it may seem, embedded systems in clothing are already a reality, even leading to pseudo-invisibility. Additionally, voice recognition has become its own domain and of monumental importance to many devices, some of which make complete sense and others that don't. Amazon is putting a lot of importance on voice commands, and they've had great success with their previous devices, so we'll see how it goes.

Hello, pants!

Finally, technology I can use.

Do YOU want to rewind all these by hand?

Look what I found! Remember how it seems like yesterday that you would be renting a VHS from Blockbuster and it had the sticker with the ubiquitous slogan "Be kind, rewind?" Translated, that means "Don't be a jackass to the next yokel that rents this crappy movie." It was so well-known there was even a movie made with that title.

Then DVDs came along, and that slogan went right out the window. But that also means people stopped rewinding their DVDs! How are you supposed to watch that DVD or Blu-Ray you just RedBox'd if the jerk before you didn't rewind it? You'd have to rewind it by hand, and I can tell you that isn't easy.

Not anymore! I have discovered, at long last, the DVD Rewinder. Finally, an automated solution to the problem, much better than that online service that does it over the Internet. I'm just wondering what took them so long. Bask in the glow of the future, today!

(P.S. It's not real. Please don't buy this. There are no refunds of your money or your pride if you do)

Are you ready?

Are you ready for the Amazon Fire streaming console that will be a competitor to devices like AppleTV and Roku, as well as allowing third party software such as XBMC and games? Whether you are or not, Gary Busey is! How could you *not* buy it with that kind of endorsement?

The Time Warner/Comcast Merger

I was going to write a post discussing how the Comcast-TimeWarner deal that we all know is anticompetitive and monopolistic is likely to go through anyway, but there is so much to write about there's no way I could make it a succinct post.

For example, there are countless articles stating why Congress should reject the deal (I agree), but they're more idealistic than legal. Some are more pragmatic in explaining why it's likely to - and even should - happen no matter what.

And then there is article after article after article talking about the effect it will have on Netflix. The VAST majority of opinions are against the deal, but it appears there is no practical legal grounds on which to reject it. Netflix, for its part, is already planning on raising prices, in part because of their increase in subscribers and demand for original content, but also because they believe that *their* prices will rise as a result.

As you all know, I personally am very against this merger in every possible way. Did no one learn anything from the AOL-Time-Warner merger from yesteryear? Luckily we use Cox, but I just discovered that I have a data cap on my Internet service! So me and the cable company soon are going to have a talk. Be careful out there.

If you want to see something really scary, look at the infographic below. It shows the impact of media consolidation. It's a huge graphic, so you'll want to save it, open it in an image viewer, and zoom way in. But be prepared for what it says.

A beautiful use of the Oculus Rift

If you're not familiar with the Oculus Rift, let me provide some background. It's a virtual-reality headset that is expected to be released as a consumer device sometime in the near or far future, we're not sure which. Whenever it happens, though, it will be a big deal, because it considered the first time that legitimate, actually immersive virtual reality will be available to consumers. It received its initial funding of $2.4 million through a Kickstarter campaign back in 2012, and was recently purchased by Facebook for $2 BILLION, much to the chagrin of everyone, myself included, because we are now uncertain as to its future. What does Facebook want with it? They say they'll leave it alone, but many are unconvinced.

It has so much promise that it lured legendary programmer John Carmack away from id, the company he founded and where he developed groundbreaking, landmark games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, to work on the emerging technology.

Although I haven't had the chance to test it myself, everything I have read about it is beyond impressive. Every single description of it from people who have tried it has been that it is a revolution in immersiveness. It is a set of screens that fit over each eye in an enclosed visor, which presents a stereoscopic 180-degree image to immerse you in the environment, and has fully implemented head tracking; that means if you turn your head to the right, the view shifts to the right.

But it has application beyond games. Very serious, useful, and wonderful application beyond games. Consider this story about Roberta Firstenberg. Roberta was fighting a losing battle with cancer, and was lamenting to her granddaughter, a game developer, that she missed the simple things like going outside.

This seems to be a common reaction to the Oculus Rift

That gave her granddaughter an idea: she wrote to Oculus, and asked if she could get a kit for her grandmother who was ill. They lovingly obliged, rushing her a developer's kit with a demo of walking through Tuscany in Italy. It afforded her the closest thing to being there and walking around, just as it will give us the closest thing we'll experience to walking in a spaceship or haunted house (profanity, be careful) or dungeon - or even getting your head chopped off in a guillotine simulator! She got a lot out of it as you can tell in her descriptions, and although she eventually lost her battle everyone believes the virtual reality experience really helped her to cope during that difficult time. I've embedded the video below, but i encourage you to read the full story.

My phone might have a sense of humor

I had to take a picture of damage for the insurance company, and learned my phone is either terrible at facial recognition, or it doesn't have a very high opinion of my friends.