Google’s Mail Goggles
Beer goggles. The things you have on at the end of a long night where objects in the bar are hotter than they appear. That’s where your wing man comes in to steer you clear of the danger.
If you manage to avoid the beer goggles in the bar, and instead end up at home to check your email ..Google’s Gmail Labs is here to help. Mail Goggles has just been unveiled by the engineers and it’s designed to stop you from sending an email when you shouldn’t.
The Real Genius of the new iPod
 This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 15, 2008. |
When the newest generation of iPods was announced last month, it was once again a newsworthy event splashed across the web and newscasts continent wide.
But if you really look at the new iPods you’ll see there’s not much there that we already didn’t have. The next gen nanos were simply dipped in fresh colours and had the screen turned on its side, bringing the nano back to a familiar candy bar shape, instead of a squat sumo configuration.
The new iPods look different, but they really aren’t different. They’re music and video players. It’s the digital equivalent of what automotive manufacturers do every three years. To sell more products, you change the appearance, even after feature innovation has slowed.
The real new feature for the iPod came in an update to the iTunes software you run on your computer to manage your library. iTunes 8 has something called the iTunes Genius, and it’s receiving rave reviews as fans are using it to discover new music.
Simply select a song in your library, and the Genius will suggest songs your library may be missing from that artist, or ones that sound similar and it thinks you’ll enjoy.
Urban Rush co-host, Fiona Forbes, is quite adamant in her admiration.
“Love, love, love the new Genius!” she exclaims.
“I’m a music junkie and am always looking for my new favorite song. Have to say I am more confident in making my purchases with the Genius suggestions. Since the release, I’ve bought over a hundred new songs and like (almost) all of them!”
The iTunes Genius can also help to create playlists. Simply select a song in your library, and then select the Genius icon in your taskbar. A 20, 50, or 100 song playlist will be instantly generated from the music in your library based on the sound of that song. As you might guess, Fiona is excited about this feature too.
“I am a bit of a music nerd and have a 40 gig iPod that’s almost full, so it’s not always easy to remember what I have on there,” she explains. “The Genius got me listening to a bunch of great stuff I had forgotten about like Portishead, Bill Withers, Ella Fitzgerald… I could go on for 40 gigabytes!”
The Genius playlist feature is also available on iPods and iPhones so you can create playlists from your library on the go.
BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ
While the iTunes Genius is loved, it’s hardly revolutionary. Pandora has been pioneering something called the Music Genome Project for the past 8 years. A team of thirty musician-analysts have been listening to the history of music, one song at a time. They are collecting close to 400 musical details on every song - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals and more, all with the idea of helping people discover new music.
Duane Storey and Dale Mugford, better known as BraveNewCode, were pleasantly surprised to find themselves nominated for a BC Country Music Award for website design this week. The duo is no stranger to the music business, Dale was once responsible for MatthewGood.org and, when he’s not coding, Duane is often found in the photo pit at major concert events. “There are some really nice websites also up for the award, so the competition is definitely stiff,” says Storey. “Now all I have to do is find a date!”
The social media crew calls it “crowdsourcing” - taking a big task and breaking it down into little pieces that are easily managed by an individual. Dot Com mogul, John Chow, took it to the extreme this weekend when he asked his readers to make donations for the Union Gospel Mission Thanksgiving dinner. In just a few days John had more than $3000 in donations, which he matched, to feed more than 2 300 people on the Downtown Eastside.
Now that the Canadian election campaign is over, it will be interesting to see if the politicos stick with the strategies they were using throughout the election. From Twitter, to Facebook, to websites with blogging tools and widgets, the leaders reached out to Canadians to spread the message. Will the transparency continue now that the election is over and they don’t “need” our support? Hit them up on Twitter to keep them honest.
MacBook Breaks $1000 Barrier (But Not in Canada)
Today at the Apple Stevenote, there was much to smile about as a new line of MacBooks was announced, as well as a price drop.
“Apple has invented a whole new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminum. And, just as important, they are the industry’s greenest notebooks,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new MacBooks offer incredible features our users will love —like their stunning all-metal design, great 3D graphics and LED backlit displays—at prices up to $700 less than before.”
Some are heralding the price drop of a basic MacBook to US$999 as a significant milestone in marketing. With so many PC laptops shipping for just a few hundred, Apple needed to get it’s foot in the sub $1000 marketplace. So they did .. but not in Canada.
Here’s the price comparison for the big announcements today.
$1 149 (CAN) / $999 (US)
An updated 13-inch white MacBook featuring 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, a 120GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a slot-load 8X SuperDrive®$1 399 (CAN) / $1 299 (US)
2.0 GHz, 13-inch aluminum MacBook
$1 749 (CAN) / $1 599 (US)
2.4 GHz aluminum MacBook$2 149 (CAN) / $1 999 (US)
2.4 GHz, 15-inch aluminum MacBook Pro
$2 699 (CAN) / $2 499 (US)
2.53 GHz aluminum MacBook Pro$1 999 (CAN) / $1 799 (US)
1.6 GHz MacBook Air
$2 749 (CAN) / $2 499 (US)
1.86 GHz MacBook Air$2 999 (CAN) / $2 799 (US)
2.5GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro
Sure, a few months ago we had a $1.04 dollar, today it’s around .87, and we’re paying a premium for the products again.
HP SmartWeb
48% of printing at home is simply printing off web pages. Usually we only want a small piece of information from a web site, and since the pages aren’t always formatted for printers, we end up reeling off a dozen or more pages of banner ads and useless text along with the few sentences we actually wanted.
HP’s free SmartWeb program works as a simple plug-in for Internet Explorer. It lets you drag a box around items you’d like to save from a webpage, and then cuts and pastes them into a document that easily prints only the information you need.
HP Eco-Highlights Label
Checking labels is a part of any grocery shopping experience. Fat, calories, carbs, we know where to look to find them. HP is also now making checking the label a part of shopping for electronics.
The new Eco-Highlights label on HP products gives consumers details on energy consumption and the recyclability of the product.
The layout of the label will be familiar to shoppers as it looks very similar to the food labels we see in the grocery store except will detail the environmental footprint of the product, rather than nutritional information.
HP Goes Green with Eco Highlights and SmartWeb
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 8, 2008. |
Checking labels is a part of any grocery shopping experience. Fat, calories, carbs, we know where to look to find them. HP is also now making checking the label a part of shopping for electronics.
The new Eco-Highlights label on HP products gives consumers details on energy consumption and the recyclability of the product.
The layout of the label will be familiar to shoppers as it looks very similar to the food labels we see in the grocery store.
“When you compare 2 printers, you can look not only at what they do, but you’ll understand the environmental footprint as well,” says Vernon Coutinho of HP Canada.
The Eco-Highlights label is just one of 3 steps HP is taking to reduce the impact printing can have on the environment.
48% of printing at home is simply printing off web pages. Usually we only want a small piece of information from a web site, and since the pages aren’t always formatted for printers, we end up reeling off a dozen or more pages of banner ads and useless text along with the few sentences we actually wanted.
HP’s free SmartWeb program works as a simple plug-in for Internet Explorer. It lets you drag a box around items you’d like to save from a webpage, and then cuts and pastes them into a document that easily prints only the information you need.
SmartWeb works with any printer, not just those from HP, and can cut down nearly 2/3 of your printing from the web.
In a demo, Vernon took 8 pages of winter vacation research, and using SmartWeb, printed all the information on only one page, even though he was using different websites.
You can also save your SmartWeb data as a PDF for future reference, or to easily email to your vacation partner.
The final piece of the HP green platform is recycling.
It’s not something new, there have been internal recycling efforts ongoing for nearly 20 years and for more than 10 at the consumer level – HP is just adding things like the Eco-Highlights label to bring more awareness to environmental conscious consumers.
“Printer cartridges are 100% recyclable, by HP,” says Coutinho. “We don’t just take some of the parts, we take all of it. Right now we’re making 200 million cartridges a year from recycled parts.”
Getting the used cartridges back to HP couldn’t be easier.
Many new ones come with a prepaid envelope to mail back when it’s empty. If you lose the envelope, you can go to hp.ca/recycling to print off a label and send it back for free. You can also return the empty cartridges to participating retailers, like Staples, and HP picks them up from there.
24hrs Blogosphere Buzz 10.08.2008
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 8, 2008. |
If you’re a fan of a browser other than Internet Explorer, you can also look for the Eco-Safe as alternative to SmartWeb. Instead of printing off pages you find interesting, Eco-Safe will turn them into a PDF that you can download, or email to yourself to save for future reference.
Eco-Safe.com
Environmental issues are being pushed aside by economic concerns in the Canadian Election campaign, but Vancouver blogger Kevin Grandia is trying to keep them front and centre. His website, Vote For Environment, is helping Canadians vote strategically, according to the candidate with the best chance of forwarding environmental concerns. And it’s not always who you might think.
VoteForEnvironment.ca
Translink has launched a mobile version of their website for those with iPhones. Vancouver’s Handi Mobility developed the page for iPhones as an addition to the Next Bus texting service. Schedules and maps for all Translink services are available through the mobile website along with the ability to save routes for future reference.
m.Translink.ca
The launch of the Do Not Call list last week had thousands of Canadians scrambling to get their name off telemarketer’s call sheets. However there are a number of exceptions to the list that could still call you, unsolicited. That’s why Michael Geist created iOptOut, an online tool that will automatically send requests to remove you from an even deeper list of data bases.
IOptOut.ca
How to be a Laptop Bedouin
| This article originally appeared in 24hrs Vancouver on October 1, 2008. |
If you spend much of your day anchored to a keyboard and monitor in a dull cubicle with a crowded commute – you can change your life.
With easily accessible online tools, you literally can work from anywhere: Europe, the beach, even the middle of the ocean.
Julie Szabo and Darren Barefoot run Vancouver’s Capulet Communications. For most of the spring, the couple worked at a handcrafted pine desk in an open office that echoed with the squeals of seagulls mixed with the scuffle of children chasing a soccer ball through the back alleys of Essouira, Morocco.
And that’s just one stamp on their passports. They’ve also run their company during extended stays in Ireland and Malta.
When choosing a work-worthy destination, Julie says the deal maker is simple: “Broadband internet.”
The reliability and speed of a web connection is the first thing the couple investigates when looking for an overseas “office” and the exact opposite of what solo rower Roz Savage found herself with on her summer adventure rowing across the Pacific.
Roz rowed solo from San Francisco to Hawaii in the first leg of her voyage and posted a blog entry each day of the trip.
She sat cross legged on the cramped floor of her vessel and used a laptop charged by solar panels to write her posts. She then emailed them via a satellite phone to SailBlogs, a service which provides mapping and blogging solutions to the sailing community.
While it worked, it was a painfully slow 2.4kBps connection, much less than 1% of what broadband speed would be.
Roz also used the satellite phone to record a weekly podcast of her adventure to raise awareness of the state of the oceans and the environment.
“It was challenging, but hopefully it’s worthwhile,” she smiles.
When it came to communicating with the Capulet clients, Darren and Julie relied on email, but also maintained a Vancouver area number while they were out of the country and used a service called PhoneTag.
“Basically as soon as you get a voice mail, it immediately emails you [the text of the message,]” remarks Julie.
They could then return the call using Skype, a voice over internet protocol that’s cheaper than international calling rates.
“Half the time they had no idea we were out of the country.”
The time change between Europe and clients in North America allowed the couple to spend leisurely mornings exploring their surroundings before getting into serious work in the afternoon, something they long for now that they’re back in BC.
In addition to the exotic change of being overseas to work, there are also financial benefits.
“When you’re living abroad and you leave with a backpack with all your stuff and your office in it, and you intend to come back with just that backpack, you just don’t buy anything,” she says.
“When you stop buying things, it’s amazing how much money you save.”
From an ancient medina in Morocco, to a rowboat in the middle of the pacific, if you can find the internet you can get the job done. They do call it wireless for a reason.
BLOGOSPHERE BUZZ
The next portion of Roz’s Pacific rowing adventure will start in May from Hawaii. She will continue to blog the journey and take part in a regular podcast with Leo Laporte. She’s hoping to have more video of her journey, but her slow satellite modem takes 30 minutes to upload 30 seconds.
Raising awareness by using blogs and social media tools is becoming crucial for those trying to affect social change. Musician David Usher recently highlighted the need for charities to move this way on his blog. “It’s so important that ’causes’ get on board with social media right now. As messaging gets .. crowded it’s going to become harder for charities to .. gain awareness,” he writes.
Julie Szabo and Darren Barefoot recently wrote Getting to First Base, an eBook on social media marketing and are turning it into a print edition this fall. Another book tracing the stories of The Laptop Bedouins, people who work online and overseas, will follow.
Jack Layton’s New Democrats are getting seriously into social media. While the Liberals and Conservatives are tossing up parody sites of each other, the NDP are handing bloggers all the tools they need to spread the message. The recently launched Orange Room is a wealth of tools, images, videos and widgets.
The Canadian Internet Project recently released a report on the web habits of Canadians. We spent, on average, 17 hours a week online last year, up from 13 in 2004. 80% of internet users or 54% of Canadians access the web via broadband connections. 97% of teens are online regularly, while more than half of those over 60 mouse around.
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About cyberbuzz
buzz bishop is the host and writer of cyberbuzz, a one minute daily radio feature, and a weekly column in 24hrs, about the internet and wired culture.
buzz takes a quick and youthful look at the online world from the perspective of someone who understands new trends, but still speaks your language.
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