Another designer advert for the designer brand.  Anyone care to say otherwise?

Apple is just showing off the iPod’s ‘new’ fancy maneuvers, let me know when they get a bigger selection of memory.  Starting out with the 8 Gb and now the 32 Gb?  Yeah right, still too small for the amount of stuff you can put on it.

Any could easily fill that little gadget up, and not with just porn.. C’mon people that’s not what Apple intended, is it?  What perverts.

I do [in most cases] like Apple’s choice in music.

Sorry about all the videos here, just thought they were worth seeing if you haven’t already.

This particular one is David Lynch giving some iNsight on the Apple iPhone. He obviously is a writer, director, producer and many other things in the film industry, so you can see why he is not in favor of watching films on your “fucking telephone.”

I loved this video, it’s short and sweet. Plus his rude way of telling it how it is, just cracked me up.

Not to be overly zune focused on the commercial front, it’s only fair to post the new iPod commercial with Mary J. Blige - Work That

Here is another very creative spot for the zune, check out the previous post dreamscape 1.

I don’t have a zune so I can’t say it cool or crap but these latest commercials are very artistic and totally out of character for a Microsoft product.

I have another one lined up that is just a trip, I will post it later today.

American cars are hard to buy, I wish I didn’t feel that way but I do. The exterior design of the cars are usually average but it’s the interior and cheap looking materials that turns me off before I even start thinking about the technical quality and longevity.

This new 2008 Ford Focus has sparked my interest. The design seems solid (inside and out) and the gas mileage is good.

I just got back from a business trip and was given a Chrysler Sebring. The car itself was okay but the interior was total crap. In fact the interior was damn right plastic and hurtful. The armrest between the front seats had a hard plastic top that followed the angular design of the car style which ended with a point (made of the same plastic material of the rest of the car) that was positioned directly behind the automatic gear shift.

Every time I shifted, my elbow hit the point of the hard plastic point of the armrest, jabbing into my elbow. I even asked a business partner to sit in the car and see if it was me, it was not. It just reaffirmed my opinion of American auto making.

This view might be too judgmental. I shouldn’t base my opinion on one car, I have not been in the new 2006 Ford Focus but from the interactive elements I have seen online tonight, it looks far better than other American cars I have driven or sat in. They have also added the Microsoft SYNC technology which is damn cool.

So, I will give Ford and American cars a chance based on what I have seen in commercials and these interactive promotional spots pulled from Yahoo.

The design inside and out seems to be better than most American designs. The 2008 Ford Focus web site does a very good job of showing off the car and its new design (inside and out).

Here are a couple interesting stories from .

They are both from “The Gadget Hound”. The first one is  and the second story is .

They are not the end-all-be-all about iPods/iPhones but good reading and the comments do make me laugh.

Since iPod is the undisputed leader (market share) in MP3/personal video players this obviously going to happen.

I don’t own one and will not (mostly because of the iTunes and file type issues) but that doesn’t stop me from admiring the design and marketing power of Apple. Even if Steve Jobs hasn’t changed his outfit since 1980, his marketing delivery and power of design surpasses his mock turtle necks (I’m just trying to get the Apple zealots fired up).

Here is how I see it, the products are innovative for the US ( about touch and UI in Japan - again Apple Fanboys unite) but problems happen in all tech product launches.

Get over it and lets hope that Apple takes care of its users. Like Apple or not, they are pushing the industry like they always have and it makes the slower moving companies try and keep up. Size of company and profit directly change focus, I hope this doesn’t happen with Apple.

If we can learn something specific from Apple: design, usability and functionally are king over everything else. Marketing those 3 things are an easy sell. Achieving those 3 things is not, if you loose focus.

I’m getting way off track but the posts on Yahoo Tech are interesting and worth reading.

This is a very cool invention. I know it’s not a new idea and the story is a few weeks old but it’s still worth posting about.

From the Inflight Power site:

Simply by plugging in the cable to the passenger seat headset jack, the cable converts the audio output into regulated USB power. 

Our new version adds an optional battery BOOST to increase the power supplied and offer continuous power. InFlight is designed to work on ALL first class seats AND business/coach class. 

With the new battery BOOST feature you can charge anywhere, even while not traveling. 

This is a great story that 60 Minutes picked up on. Some really innovative thinking, exceptional design and for a very good cause.

Please take the time to read all the details on the site www.laptop.org.

Here are some highlights for you:

“It’s an education project, not a laptop project.” — Nicholas Negroponte

Hardware

The XO is a potent learning tool created expressly for the world’s poorest children, living in its most remote environments. The laptop was designed collaboratively by experts from both academia and industry, bringing to bear both extraordinary talent and many decades of collective field experience for every aspect of this nonprofit humanitarian project. The result is a unique harmony of form and function; a flexible, ultra-low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine with which nations of the emerging world can leapfrog decades of development—immediately transforming the content and quality of their children’s learning.

Our goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.

Software

XO is built from free and open-source software. Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptop computers on their own terms. While we do not expect every child to become a programmer, we do not want any ceiling imposed on those children who choose to modify their machines. We are using open-document formats for much the same reason: transparency is empowering. The children—and their teachers—will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content.

Video from Yahoo/60 Minutes, worth watching.

This is a pretty cool feature from vCast.

I’m not sure how well it works since I’m on T-Mobile but I like the added feature Verizon is bringing to the table.

Unfortunately, the site doesn’t tell you much about how it works.