Surfing in the rain

The Umbrella - It's over 4,000 years old and just like most transport networks around the world, they have changed very little, until now. Boffins at Tokyo's Keio University are developing an umbrella that connects to the web via a wireless connection and projects images from the net on the underside of the umbrella.

My take - supercool..... Get one of these and everyone will want to stand under your umbrella, ella, ella, ella.....alright, I'll stop now.

And the winner is....

It's the bedrock of the gaming industry and it seems still the most popular - long live the FPS. In recently released figures from GFK, the most popular game of 2007 was Activision's Call of Duty 4. Accroding to figures from Activision, it has sold more than seven million copies since its launch. A special nod to the remarkable Halo 3, a fantastic end to one of the most successful gaming franchises, which earned more than £84m ($170m) in sales in its first 24 hours on release, according to Microsoft.

My take - I have played the COD series since the beginning and it's a great concept. The real trick here is cross platform - the more consoles you get it on, the more you sell. But that's not to take away from the achievement - keeping the concept so fresh after so long is amazing.

At Last.FM, some sense

Last.fm, the Social music network has agreed deals with both major and indie record labels to let fans listen to the music they want, when they want - without payment. The Deals Will allow fans in the US, Britain and German to stream music for free or pay to download MP3s via Amazon.com.

The new steaming scheme is entirely funded by ad revenue and fans get to listen to each song on the website up to three times before being urged to purchase a copy.

It's been six years since Lat.fm started trying to broker deal with music companies, Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel remarked "They wouldn't even take our calls back then"

My take - another win for the consumer, it appears that the music industry is waking up and modernising. MC Lars had a point.

Ring ring, Ca-ching, ca-ching

The apple still tastes sweet - at least, that's what budget sheet says. Steve and co saw record profits up 57% in the three months to the end of December manly lifted by demand for Mac computers and iPhones. That's right, for everyone that wrote it off as a Newton, there's a van round the back giving away large portions of humble pie.

the BBC reports "Sales of its iPhone, released in June last year, reached 2.3 million and lifted its earnings to $1.58bn (£806m), up from $1bn a year ago."

My take - Steve, you deserve a knighthood - as does Mr Wasniack and the rest of the Apple boffins. It ain't easy being that cool, but hey, someone has to do it.

Tune in next time, just not on this TV

A number of UK consumer electronic chains are set to stop selling analogue TV sets, focsuing entirly on integrated sets with built-in digital tuners. Currys, Dixons and PC World will all stop selling the old analogue sets in a move greeted with open arms by Digital UK, the body managing the analogue switch-off, which will finish in 2012.

Although certain areas of the UK have already had their analogue signals switched off (Whitehaven in Cumbria became the first) the rest of the UK still have the choose between analogue and digital. The move is aimed at helping customers buy "future-proofed" products

My take - it was always going to happen, but what about the waste - all those TVs that no longer work? Something for the entrepreneurs to think about - there could be a lot of money to be made!

No Wikipedia love for Corey

Corey's at it again - and he didn't actually do anything! This time he's managed to upset the good folk at Wikipedia , where there has been heated debate as to whether or not he deserves his own entry.

An entry for the most notorious MySpacer to date was created by a user called Fosnez and was online for a whopping 35 minutes before being deleted by other users. The deletion sparked a huge debate that Corey supporters eventually lost.

Run for PM, then you might get an entry....

The mother of all space games

Want to work at NASA - better get gaming then. The agency that put man on the moon is considering having a massively multiplayer online game developed to inspire the next generation of NASA employees. The game would be aimed at students and would include "real NASA engineering and science missions".

NASA has put out a Request For Information, giving interested developers the Chance to get involved with the project that NASA believes will help find the next generation of scientists and engineers needed to fulfil its "vision for space exploration".

Wii have the skills

Gamers have been saying it for years and now the rest of the world will have to pay attention - Gaming is good for you. A US case study has revealed that playing games on consoles such as Nintendo Wii can actually improve a surgeon's performance in the operating theatre. The case study by the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Team shows that the fine hand control required to play certain games acts as a warm up and hones scalpel skills. Those that played showed nearly 50% higher on tool control and overall performance than other trainees.

Not so Scrabulous

Lawyers representing the toy makers Hasbro and Mattel have asked Facebook to remove the Scrabulous game the site. The add-on has proved highly popular with users with more than 500,000 user per day and the move to pull it from the site has angered some users and resulted in protests

In true facebook activist style - a "save scrablous" group has already been started and already has 600 members. A member of the group was interviewed by BBC radio - "A lot of people are saying shame on Hasbro, shame on Mattel, if you wouldn't be so short-sighted about this then you have an opportunity to actually make some money from this rather than alienate your existing customers.

"I'd say find some common ground. Look at licensing," added Mr Savage. "Perhaps sit down together and say look, these guys have created this fantastic piece of software that lots of people use why not employ them or have a similar product on there that is licensed but use that to advertise your other products?"

Facebook member, see it here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scrabulous/5520804123

If I were a Myspacer, i'd be....

A new report commissioned by MySpace called “MySpace 08: People. Content. Culture.” has identified some emerging trends and groups using the network. The most interesting part of the report is the different types of people that they say are using the network - which one are you ;-)


Netrepreneurs:People who accessed the sites for the sole purpose of making money (4%)

Connectors:People who revel in passing on information and links whenever they come across something they find interesting (10%)

Transumers:People who follow the lead of others and join groups connected to their hobbies (28%)

Collaborators:People who use social networking sites to create events (5%)

Essentialists:People who use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends and family (38%)

Scene Breaking:People who hunt down new bands and talent online and share that through the site (5%)

Mac grabs some air and takes us to the movies

The Apple innovation show marches on with Steve Jobs yesterday unveiling the world's thinnest laptop, which is just 1.93cm at it's thickest point. The laptop, called the MacBook Air, wasn't the most interesting part of the keynote - Apple also announced an online film rental service for iTunes giving users access to almost ever major studio film.

Although it's just in the US at the moment, Steve said "We're dying to get this international as well," hinting that it would roll-out worldwide later in the year.

See BBC's article on Apple's biggest launches to date: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7189218.stm

My(Parents)Space

A Melbourne teen by the name of Corey who has an unhealthy obsession with his sunglasses (and a pink doona with fairies on it!) held a party at his parents place, using the open invite function on MySpace. The invite saw more than 500 teenagers descend on the quiet street to attend the party which resulted in the police being called.

"It was just an open house party and a lot of people came and it overflowed on to the street," Corey said. "The cops came and told all the people to quiet down and get inside. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. There were people bottling cars and the whole streets were flooded with people. We knew we'd get about 200 but there was probably about 300, 400 easily."

Corey's parents, who were on holiday, have cut short their trip to head home and deal with situation. But Corey doesn't care - he can't quite see what all the fuss is about and when interviewed on Channel 9's A Current Affair, he refused to say sorry and refused to take off his colourful glasses. When asked what his advice would be for other would-be party organises using MySpace, he said he'd be happy to organise a party for others.

Outtake - kids have been doing this for years, it's nothing new. What it does show is the power of Social Networks and their validity among this age group - not that I am condoning what he did...I never did anything stupid when I was a kid....never......

Gaming the new music classroom

Just read this from the IG CES report:

Gamers were well represented from the start of the show, with Slash rocking out live on Guitar Hero during the CES Pre-Show. Mixing the fun of that wildly successful game with a little education, Guitar Wizard promises to make your skills proper. Combining Guitar Hero maneuvers with real guitar strings, it will help you progress to true rock star status.

In my opinion, games like these are the way to mass market appeal. Being able to get involved with something "real" is hugely appealing and helps to dispel the image that gaming is for geeks in dark rooms

Check out the Slash video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljiiy5BCQKA

Social networking hits snooze...

This does seem a bit crazy to me, but a new social networking site has started up which is "The first sleep and wake up social networking site, where your friends' alarm messages wake you up! check it out http://sleep.fm/beta

Crazy or just the way of the future? I for one am starting to have memories of the madness of the 90's where everything had to have a dot.com. Interestingly enough this article posted in November last year shows that we probably still not learning form all those mistakes http://www.insidecrm.com/features/20-worst-vc-investments-111907/

My take - jump on the band wagon if you want, but bring an idea to there party!