Ever watch a movie and say, "hey I recognize that intersection?" Or wonder where a scene was done? Here is a totally cool mix of the famous chase scene from Bullitt combined with Google maps to show you where they are.

Nokia debuted its 5800 touch screen phone - but don't call it an iPhone killer. Or wanna be. Or whatever. They can say what they want, but it sure looks like an iPhone rip off to me. What is interesting is the fact that seminal devices and interfaces often spawn imitators...and most think, "oh, that's the only way to do it, of course it looks like that." Well then how does the *first* one get made? Oh yeah...someone has some creativity.

LG has a more interesting entry. Renoir is more camera than phone and it has some very cool tricks wrt focusing, etc. The collision of camera and phone needs a few kicks in the rear, this might be one of them.

Finally, a book (non-digital) that I contributed to comes out. It is an outgrowth of the work done by the Networked Publics cohort during the '05-'06 academic year at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication (now defunct). It is available from MIT Press. No, no royalties for me, but it is interesting stuff. And maybe provides the necessary kick in the rear to finish writing my book on the analog to digital conversion. Always more to do...

The Digital Entertainment and Content Ecosystem (wow, what a name) has announced a consortium that will put the customer at the center of the content universe. Well, isn't that nice of them? It is headed by Sony (uh oh), which as everyone knows has been at the forefront of open technologies and interoperability. Not.

If Apple and Amazon aren't on board (and they aren't), this will go nowhere...

There are that many examples of a single person pretty much defining a genre or talent or expertise. You've got Tiger Woods...and well, I'm blanking on anyone else who just dominates and defines.

Don LaFontaine, the king of voiceover work, passed today. God speed.

They say that arguing on the interwebs is like...well, pick your joke. And of course the topic really doesn't matter - though having something that doesn't really have any metrics (like politics or religion) is usually the most incendiary. That being said, those topics that have technogeeks around them (in this case motorcycles in general, fork design in particular) can generated heated "discussion." The rub is that logic often isn't. That's why I loved this post in response to someone claiming that BMW R1200GS forks are "wimpy" (with accompanying inane analysis):

"a bag of apples is better at becoming pie than a GS. so im gonna sell my GS and buy some pickles, so i can shave my dog."

I love it when google hiccups. Here are a couple of deep messages from news.google.com:

So, did you watch the opening ceremonies? I didn't watch them "live" (whatever that means in a time-shifted, multiple time zone media broadcast environment), but after a minor tivo disaster, did manage to record and watch them. I purposely avoided any news stories on the ceremonies as I wanted to be surprised. Not sure why...not like I don't see spoilers for the F1 races more times than not.

I expected spectacle. And got that in spades. Or in humans in boxes. And everywhere else. As usual, the Chinese solve a problem (this time creative) by throwing bodies at it. 15K or so in all. Zhang Yimou was essentially told, "ok, here's a blank check, make us proud." Interesting to see what a brilliant mind can do with an unlimited budget.

If you haven't seen it, find someone who has a recording and watch it. Try to ignore the inane commentary (especially the China "expert") and focus on the sensory experience. And the sheer numbers. It is one of the most beautiful public performances I've ever seen. Highlights for me would be the drums and the type machine. But the whole thing was just stunning. Now to figure out what aspects I can crib for my next project. Might as well stand on the shoulders of giants...

Well, in the technology world, what happens when software (or more to the point these days, an online service) doesn't work? Why you shuffle the org chart, of course. Following on the morass that has been "mobileMe", Apple has reshuffled the deck and taken the could computer service away from one group and dealt it to the iTunes team. Ahh, the joys of having stuff not work. One reason that I am happy to be more on the academic side of things - our stuff often doesn't work. That's why they call it research. Then again, my production projects have no excuses like that. Hmm...