Because excitement has now reached beyond the red area on the dial, it is important to emit every single possibility about the alleged Apple tablet for instant world examination.
So I am delighted to report that the diligent sleuths at MacRumors have discovered a possible new name for the Apple product that is about to sweep all before it, should it ever actually materialize.
Please now tuck your hands beneath your hamstrings, move slightly further from your screens, and remove all items of sharp jewelry. For the name that, like iSlate, has apparently also been trademarked by a mysterious Delaware company with links to Apple is iGuide.
iGuide.
Please just digest this for a moment. Do you want to clutch your iGuide? Do you want to stroke your iGuide like a fine, fresh painting? Will you quickly want to slip that word into a sentence? ("Hey! I got Playboy on my iGuide!") Will you even want to create little slogans for your own use? ("I nearly died when I got my iGuide!") Now, as MacRumors itself points out, it is also possible that iGuide will turn out to be the name of the service or software used by Apple's new device, not the name of the device itself.
I know that there has been some increasing of pulse rates at the idea of iSlate, a trademarked name that was also unearthed by MacRumors. However, I have a small feeling, a kind of friendly, slightly slobbery nibbling at my ear, that real people out there aren't all that instantly comfortable with the words "tablet" and "slate."
iGuide might remind some of, for example, TV Guide and it does feel just the slightest jot more human than "tablet" or "slate".
This doesn't mean that iGuide is any more likely than any other name that has been posited so far for this product that might not actually ever exist. But if there's one thing that Apple does so very, very well, it's being human.
"Sherlock Holmes" is not a wonderful movie. Despite the fact that so many ditheringly unstable people in the movie theater I wandered into on Christmas Day applauded when the final scene slithered away.
However, if you were to ask Robert Downey Jr.'s violently amusing Holmes to tell you discern the truth about the new Apple tablet, he would surely repeat his words from the movie: "Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay!"
So because there are many who are still groggy after the week's festivities, I thought I'd scour around for data that will separate the rumor from the definitive fact.
Apple's new tablet will be called the iTablet. And it will be launched last September. Yes, last September.
But wait, last September was a few months ago. So perhaps that information wasn't quite correct.
... Read more
It's an odd tradition. Well, it is Britain, where they have a talent for clutching traditions like Posh Spice clutches many things with a D&G logo.
The particular tradition that fascinates at this time of year consists of really caring about which song is the best seller at Christmas.
Once upon a time, some of the greatest music ever composed was Britain's Christmas No. 1. Yes, Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody," Mud's "Lonely This Christmas," and the slightly less melodic "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" by Pink Floyd.
In recent times, Simon Cowell, a man with more tentacles than T-shirts, has timed one of his reality talent shows to coincide with the Christmas period.
No sooner is the winner announced than he or she has a song that is then downloaded beyond distraction straight to the top of something that is still quaintly called the Singles Chart. (Recent examples include the stunning Leon Jackson and Alexandra Burke.)
This year, Londoners Jon and Tracy Morter decided that something must be done. So they created a Facebook group, Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No. 1.
Sentiment in the snowy English shires was clearly strong. Because around 1 million people declared their belief in the cause. And Sunday it was announced to huge acclaim that the Facebookers had got their way. The Rage Against the Machine song, so CNN tells us, "Killing in the Name," is the No. 1 Christmas single.
It is not easy to defeat the intentions of Cowell. He is the man who dominates "American Idol" rather beautifully and the man who brought Susan Boyle to the world's attention through yet another pulsating show called "Britain's Got Talent." He is also the man who created "The X-Factor," another talent show designed to create instant fodder for Christmas. (Oh, of course it's coming to the U.S., did you have to ask?)
The Morters claimed on the Facebook group's page that the campaign was not remotely personal. Some might think this not entirely true, as the Guardian tells us that when they launched the group they said: "Fed up of Simon Cowell's latest karaoke act being Christmas No. 1? Me too."
Cowell, for his part, told a press conference that the Facebook campaign was "stupid" and "cynical."
You might be wondering why the Morters chose Rage Against the Machine. Well, Jon Morter told NME.com: "It's been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell's 'music machine'. Some certainly do see it as a direct response to him personally."
So one machine has defeated another in the place where they always tell us the Industrial Revolution began. It's a touching Christmas story, isn't it?
When you work at a marketing agency and someone asks you to design a Christmas card, your insides become enveloped by a feeling not unlike the morning after anesthetic-free appendix surgery.
So, in this festive and slightly flummoxing season, let us celebrate James Theophane Jr.
Not only is he blessed with a name that sounds like a domineering, elusive figure from "Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil", but he also has a heavenly talent for introducing art to technology and getting them to make out under the mistletoe.
According to his own telling of the story on Vimeo, Theophane was inspired by a bunch of obsolete cell phones that were lying around the office like art directors coming down after a Christmas party.
So he used them to create, in the beautiful British vernacular, a "mobile mobile" that hangs in his marketing agency's lobby.
It plays the sort of Christmas music that makes you want to shout very loudly at your local Starbucks baristas. However, through this medium, the effect is somehow inspirational rather than perspirational.
One can even play it live through one's Web browser at Xmas.lbi.co.uk/mobiletree.
His marketing agency, LBi, seemingly cannot decide whether its initials stand for Lost Boys International or London Beer Inebriates.
However, with the amount of work (detailed here) that went into creating this cell phone tribute to the end of 2009, the Lost Boys deserve one or two London beers. At the very least.
(Updated at 1:56 p.m. PST, after I put down my own bottle of Lapin Kulta.)
If you've ever spent a long night drinking with Finns, you may have noted that after the 10th beer, they can become jolly, effusive, and positively inventive. Well, please hark the words of Martti Roth, an alleged employee of Intel Finland, who thought of something rather special while under the influence of alcohol.
I am not libeling him, truly. Because Roth says he really did come up with the notion, while at a bar, that he and his Intel friends should create the world's biggest Intel chime ever by firing themselves out of cannons.
On the special Intel Cannonbells site, Roth declared: "I thought about the biggest, most exciting way we could create those five notes. And the longer I stayed in the bar, the more sense it made."
Roth says he is a field applications engineer. And his family has a history with cannons. No, not in some 19th century war, but, well, it sounds like a tragic story.
"In 1906, my great grandfather tried to fire himself from a cannon over the widest part of the river Vantaa in Helsinki," Roth said on the site.
I cannot imagine why he might have made this interesting choice. In answer to the question "did he make it?" Roth replied: "Some of him did. Funny really, but on the day [of the Intel Cannonbells launch], I really felt as though he was looking down on me and guiding me through the air towards that big, metal pipe. It was very emotional."
I cannot possibly suggest that Roth did this interview when still under the influence of the finest Lapin Kulta (supposedly Finland's finest beer). Or that, as some (including the site's disclaimer writers) might suggest, he is merely an actor.
Oh, all right, here's the full, tucked-away disclaimer: "All copy and videos are part of a marketing campaign for Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. No Intel employees were harmed in the making of this film. All characters featured in the videos were played by actors specially trained in silly costumes and Finnish accents. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fire anyone out of a cannon."
Still, I trust that the video will inspire you to aim higher in the coming year to create technological feats that will truly make a noise in the commercial world. Even if it might make you mistrust Finns a little in the immediate future.
For gamers, Christmas can, indeed, come early.
Because here is every gamer's dream wrapped up in a Christmas paper so beautiful that you might never play Guitar Hero in a living room ever again.
Please hail Ric Turner, who realized the holiday season was upon him and it was time not to keep up with the Joneses, but with the Brian Jones Massacre's. So, according to Make, he created this astonishing Guitar Hero Christmas lights extravaganza, which he calls Christmas Light Hero.
If you are not utterly entranced by the skill and wonderment of this technological exercise, then your fingers are pork sausages and your emotions are boiled semolina.
I know you are going to ask me how he did it. Thankfully, he explained to Make in some detail.
Here is just the first part of his explanation: "Christmas Light Hero is using 7 light controllers from Light-O-Rama built from kits to control 21,268 lights and LEDs. Each controller has 16 outputs and 2-3 TTL level control inputs that are used by the game system to fire different programmed light sequences depending on what happens in the game."
He continued: "It relies on the fact that the game sequence is very consistent. If the game and the lighting sequences start together, they will stay in very good sync through the length of the song."
For the full explanation--it goes on for some paragraphs--please enjoy the Make link.
Turner is so wonderfully talented (Oh, did I mention that he used to be a special effects guy at Disney Imagineering?) that he even thought about not disturbing the neighbors with renditions of Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover".
He said: "When you play, you watch only the Christmas lights, but the audio you hear is from the Wii, so your flubs are broadcast for all to hear (people in cars can tune 99.1 and crank it up as loud as they want.)"
If you happen to be passing Turner's house (a commenter on Daily What says it's somewhere near Disney in Burbank, Calif.), please know that it isn't so easy to get on the high score list.
He said on his YouTube posting: "Optional TV screen is available if you get in trouble, but if you use the screen, you don't get your name in the high score list."
I know some of you will be wondering how many bulbs are being put to such good use here. The Daily What reveals that it is 21,268.
May your neighbors be even one tenth as imaginative this holiday season.
Many people I know are frightfully attached to their iPhones. They treat them as if they were a peculiar and exotic lover, one they can hardly believe they have managed to seduce.
The finely calibrated minds at Strand Consult have taken this analysis to a particularly simple conclusion: iPhone users are, the consultants say, really quite nuts.
The Strand thinkers released an opinion entitled "How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?." It focuses on the sorts of people who buy into Apple's great success.
Here's a flavor of the somewhat-skeptical nature of Strand's feelings: "Apple has launched a beautiful phone with a fantastic user interface that has had a number of technological shortcomings that many iPhone users have accepted and defended, despite those shortcomings resulting in limitations in iPhone users' daily lives."
The consultants' likening of iPhone buyers to kidnapped hostages may raise more than the eyebrows of many an Apple fanboy (fanperson?). Indeed, it already has the Mac world aflutter.
"When we examine the iPhone users' arguments defending the iPhone, it reminds us of the famous Stockholm Syndrome--a term invented by psychologists after a hostage drama in Stockholm. Here, hostages reacted to the psychological pressure they were experiencing by defending the people that had held them hostage for six days," Strand declared.
The implication is surely that Apple has mugged millions of people with its beauty, dragged them off to a very dark cellar in some barren land, turned them into slightly bonkers Barbarellas, and then recruited them as soldiers for the cause.
This is the sort of thing of which the Church of Scientology is normally accused. But for some strange reason, it's a rather chilling but pleasant shower to read something that isn't mere worship.
Strand claims that it closely analyzes the financials of mobile operators. And if you also happen to order its wonderfully free report "The Moment of Truth, a portrait of the iPhone," you will discover the 10 great myths about the iPhone. Here are just two: it doesn't attract new business for operators, and it is not a technologically advanced mobile phone.
I know you'll be rushing to read these fine tracts, and I feel sure that a couple of you might wish to drop Strand Consult a note. To encourage you a little, I'll warn you that Strand also seems to believe that some of you Apple customers are, well, liars.
The consultants put it quite sweetly: "In reality, the iPhone is surrounded by a multitude of people, media, and companies that are happy to bend the truth to defend the product they have purchased from Apple."
Apple customers are liars? The media too? Surely not.
(Updated 11.35AM PST Monday, with comment from Amazon)
There's a wonderful Borders bookstore in the middle of London's Oxford Street. Or at least there was. I went there in September and suddenly it was no more. Indeed, the U.K. arm of Borders recently reached for a form of bankruptcy protection.
So how interesting that one of the greatest successes in online book retail, Amazon, is rumored to be troubling real estate agents in its search for retail premises in the U.K. According to London's impeccable Times, Amazon is looking for very fine locations in order to, well, fulfill orders.
Perhaps some might find it a touch amusing that such a dot-com icon has decided to trouble the physical world. However, it appears that the British are suffering from frightful attacks of impatience while waiting for their erudite tomes, wickedly catchy tunes and other more substantial purchases to arrive by ponies that may be less than express.
The Times says that Argos, a U.K. catalog retailer of, oh, useful and useless stuff, has 18 percent of its online orders picked up in store. Indeed, the company believes that 50 percent of its holiday television sales will be transacted in this manner.
Amazon's customer service has become so progressive that its presence in American, as well as British, malls might serve as something of an inspiration to the more complacent establishments.
And now that Amazon seems to be able to sell you everything from woodworking equipment to vacuum cleaners, it surely puts extra pressure on postal services and that nice man in brown who comes to my house and always looks tired.
What a revolutionary concept it would be to go to a store and know that the thing you want is actually there. It just might catch on.
UPDATE: According to Reuters, Amazon denied Monday that it would open physical stores. However, the company would not comment on whether it might instead create partnerships with existing retailers, many of whom, Lord knows, could do with the business.
Some industry insiders told me that any potential steps towards physical retail by Amazon might be a reaction to the EU tinkering with distribution regulations.
Some, perhaps including Rupert Murdoch, might find this story uplifting.
While there has been much recent bellowing, whining, and general cat-on-heat griping about Google making money from the fine work of others, now I can report that some are finding ways to make money piggybacking on the broad spine of Google's engineering.
Two enterprising entities, different in their form but united in their purpose, have attempted to use Google's Street View as a medium for their own commercial messages.
First, there was car rental company AutoShare, the Canadian equivalent Zipcar in the U.S. You know, the folks who are always reserving spots in your favorite parking lot. Well, AutoShare thought it would be fun to ask its customers to look out for its cars on Street View and offer a limited number of them prizes for their vision.
(Credit:
AutoShare)
The prize wasn't much: 100 strong Canadian dollars. But with some astute ad targeting in locations such as Facebook and Google, their "In-The-Wild" promotion seems to have entertained the world-weary citizens of Toronto.
Indeed, the AutoShare Twitter page shows that people got rather excited about looking for AutoShare's 200 cars on Google's public-spirited cameras.
This enterprising thought process was, perhaps, topped by Editors. Editors is an indie band (don't most bands have to be indie these days?) from the British town of Birmingham, where the people who claim to be my parents say I was born.
To launch their latest album, Editors used a little Flash trickery to hack into Street View, London version, and create their own custom locations where people could enjoy some of their really very fine music and even see some of the band's fans. (Video embedded)
Editors were rather clever in choosing locations that were not normally accessible on Street View.
Recently, I wrote about IKEA's wonderful use of Facebook to launch a store in Malmo, Sweden. And I know some people thought one should point out that this use was not entirely in accordance with Facebook's promotional guidelines.
However, when companies decide that on occasion they'd prefer to use information you thought might be private for commercial gain, when companies ask you to opt out (if they ask you at all) rather than opt in, there are those who might feel that some enterprising uses of, say, Facebook and Google Street View, should be classified as pioneering.
Great commerce, just like great art, sometimes breaks a couple of rules, doesn't it? In fact, Murdoch has done it quite brilliantly on occasion.
It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.
The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.
AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.
Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.
Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.
'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.
