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.
No, this isn't The Onion.
But just look at that headline and wonder how it could possibly be true.
Well, according to Newsday, Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber was due to conduct an album signing at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, N.Y.
It seems that thousands of teenage girls turned up to mob the wondrous teen hope, a happening perhaps so frightening that Bieber did not turn up.
The Nassau County police became rather concerned that the crowd might break the glass in store windows with its shrieking. (The official word seems to have been "unruly," but teenage girls are never really that.)
So they asked a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records (Bieber's record label), James A. Roppo, to do what record label executives often do when solving a difficult situation: tweet.
However, he is alleged to have not complied with this endearing request and thus found himself arrested, pending charges that might, according to the police, comprise criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration.
Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police told the AP: "We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message. By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."
What is somewhat peculiar is that a tweet was sent from Justin Bieber's account around the time of the arrest, reading: "they are not allowing me to come into the mall. if you don't leave, I and my fans will be arrested, as the police just told us."
Bieber followed this message up with another tweet pleading for the high-pitched wailers to disperse, just three minutes later.
All this occurred Friday. And, thanks to Bieber himself, I have embedded YouTube footage of the melee at the mall.
Bieber posted a link to this footage Saturday and tweeted, "wow. this upsets me. the mall should of had proper security. They wouldnt let me in! Gotta make this right 4 the fans."
Well, yes, it should of. Just look at the worried faces of the parents. Just listen to the screams of the aficionadas. This is the kind of nightmare many will have experienced after a large tub of dulce de leche eaten well past midnight.
I cannot imagine what Roppo might have said to the police in order to incite their wrath. However, looking at this footage, I suspect that something like "Look at these people!!!! They're outta their minds!!! You really think a tweet is going to stop them from screaming?!!!" might have been part of the dialogue.
It is also pleasantly reassuring that the mall staff appears, near the end of the footage, to have resorted to analog crowd dispersal means. Yes, someone found a loudhailer.
However, I can find no record of any arrests from the scene other than Roppo's. And certainly, no one else appears to have been arrested for refusing to tweet.
Therefore, this truly seems to be a world first. One can only look forward to the day when someone's Facebook friends cause them to be arrested for not updating their status.
I was just sending a tweet about some excellent chicken livers I'd eaten when I espied some information that made my acid perform a refluctive motion.
According to eMarketer, three different digital actuaries declared that Twitter traffic has performed a slight plummet.
While comScore suggested a drop of 8.1 percent in October and Compete estimated 2.1 percent, while Nielsen, that apogee of accuracy, declared a 27.8 percent decline between September and October.
It seems that these figures, blessedly inconsistent as they are, are not taking account of all the third-party and mobile methods of keeping everyone up with your eating, drinking, reading, philosophizing and socializing.
But is it also possible that some people will simply never participate in the Twitter phenomenon, finding it either annoying, uncool, or even too much effort?
With Twitter intent on becoming more businesslike (why does the word 'more' seem slightly redundant here?), 2010 seems destined to be the year that the microblogging service becomes either de rigueur or dazed and confused.
Will Twitter become a permanent habit or a disappearing, perhaps even elitist, fad? I'll tweet Nostradamus and ask him.
You didn't know Nostradamus is on Twitter? Where have you been?
Perhaps space travel has become old. Perhaps people have come to take it for granted. It's been seen in so many movies. So many space shuttles have taken off and returned to Earth that we think little more of them than we do of jumbo jets.
NASA therefore has to use its imagination to persuade tomorrow's generations that space travel continues to be a large step for man.
One small step in this process is a new public service annoucnement featuring that fearsome space creature, "The Rock." Dwayne Johnson himself, a man who has appeared in so many scientifically concocted movies such as WWF SmackDown, WWE Backlash, and WWE Crush Hour, is now telling kids that NASA is cool.
Why Johnson? Well, he plays Captain Chuck Baker in the new movie "Planet 51." The voice of Chuck Baker, to be precise. And that seems to be a sufficient connection for him to tell us that all of the clever things NASA discovers in the dark and beyond are also put to use here on the mundane round lump called Earth.
I know Johnson is trying to inspire, but when he tells us that NASA technologies allow us to enjoy the freeze-dried fruit in our cereal, I wonder how many viewers will look at their Raisin Bran with a jaundiced eye and quivering lips.
The Rock is a professional. He convinced when he played Agent 23 in "Get Smart," just as he did when he when he played Rick Smith in "Reno 911."
But even he struggles with the last line of this PSA. For reasons best known to someone, somewhere, perhaps even out there, Johnson is required to end this PSA with the words" There's no space like home."
Oh, goodness. He's Dwayne Johnson. He's the Rock. Couldn't they have got him to deliver an NASA smackdown? Or are we all just trying to nice-ify our images to the point of blandness?
You know this is serious because they've already talked about it on SportsCenter.
Wednesday saw one of the most painful pieces of cheating that soccer has enjoyed since, oh, since pretty much any other World Cup qualifying game.
However, this occurred in the dying minutes, featured one of the most famous players in the world (yes, he's been on the front of an EA FIFA game box), affected the result of the game, and was so crudely obvious that the world has decided to fight back by socially networking.
In case you were only recently released after being abducted by recalcitrant performance artists, France was playing Ireland for the privilege of going to the World Cup finals in South Africa. Ireland was winning.
Thierry Henry, contemplating moral philosophy, when he played for London's Arsenal.
(Credit: Cc BobbyMond/Flickr)A ball was hopefully pumped into the Irish penalty area. The French captain, Thierry Henry, reached out his left hand to control the ball, enjoyed the feeling so much he actually handled it twice, then crossed the ball for an embarrassed teammate, Willam Gallas, to score and eliminate the plucky Irish. (It is compulsory to use the term "plucky" when referring to the Irish soccer team.)
Henry, perhaps sensing his precious image evaporating, admitted Friday that the game should be replayed.
Even though the sport's governing body, FIFA, has declared no replay will happen, it now has to deal with perhaps the fastest-growing Facebook group on earth.
Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!! already has secured more than 250,000 members since its inception, as well as an increasing amount of media coverage.
What is clear from the group is that people from all over the world are incensed that FIFA has haughtily dismissed the power of the people, the socially networking people. The group has organized a protest in Dublin, 2 p.m. local time Saturday.
If I were one of the fine-dining, bouncy-bellied officials at FIFA, I would pay a little more attention to this Facebook group. The last time someone so blatantly ignored the will of the socially-networking people--who, in the Facebook group's case, include many from France itself--it was a lady who guffawed: "Let them eat cake."
Yes, she was Queen of France and it did not end well for her. I feel sure Marie Antoinette would have wished for a little replay in her own life. And I feel equally sure that, were she alive today, she would be joining the Facebook group "Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!!" in demanding a rerun of this most important game.
Just like everyone who grew up on something of a "Star Trek" diet, I want to believe.
I want to believe that Spock will rise from the dead, get married, and have pointy-eared offspring, who, regressing to the mean, will become sports-loving couch potatoes. I want to believe that Captain Kirk will shack up with Uhura on Pluto and lead a fight to have the planet recognized as one of the greats.
And I want to believe that d'Armond Speers really did only speak to his son in Klingon for the first three years of the little boy's life.
You don't remember d'Armond? Well, he first entered the Trekkie firmament in a 1999 Wired article, in which he told of how difficult it had been to communicate solely in the limited language of Klingon with his then 30-month-old son, Alec.
He even presented a recording of little Alec singing the opening bars of the Klingon Imperial Anthem.
The story has this week been updated with some extraordinary news.... Read more
When you've lost the first round in your case against Verizon's persistent and persuasive mockery, who do you turn to?
Luke Wilson, that's who. After all, he starred in "Legally Blonde" and, well, "Jackass Number Two."
Actually, Wilson is lovable. Truly lovable. Perhaps if he'd dressed down a little and Justin Long had suffered an interminable hiatus hernia, Wilson might have got the part of Mac, the Microsoft Mocker.
Instead, he has the slightly more difficult task of persuading the folks who adored him in "Old School" that AT&T's 3G will serve them well on the 3.10 to Yuma.
The creators didn't give him much of a script, as I suspect they wrote it a couple of lattes and a shot of bourbon before this opus was filmed in what looks like the empty space above Victoria's Secret in Santa Monica, Calif.
Luke is forced to stand before a board and prove that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf at the same time, and offers you more apps that feature people making strange noises, half-clothed women, and animals that smile when you touch the screen. (Disclosure: slight exaggeration)
Sadly, it all looks a little analog. Luke looks as if he'd prefer to be surfing, as he really doesn't have the tools to make you believe what he's being paid to say.
His hair looks as if it's been hurriedly greased with Czech lard and his face offers a certain hemorrhoidal mien as it offers a little jape at the end of the spot. Yes, a jape about Verizon beginning with "V" and AT&T not beginning with "V." That rumbling you can hear is the collective guffaw from Verizon Central.
Verizon is hurting AT&T with its clinical, delighted unpleasantness. And I fear that before "Legally Blonde 2: AT&T's Revenge" can possibly be effective, the iPhone carrier needs to dramatize its argument rather better than the gospel according to Luke.
Sometimes, one's biases can balance out very nicely. So please let me lay mine out in all their militant glory.
Bias No. 1: I do not play many video games, and Call of Duty does not impact in any way upon my emotional or personal life.
Bias No. 2: Members of my family were arrested by Stalin's miserable cohorts and abused daily in Siberian labor camps, from which only some emerged and even they were permanently scarred.
So I truly do not have a heavily armed platoon in the feral battle currently waging between Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the fine nation of Russia.
According to the vaunted experts at Hellforge, the designers of this sickeningly successful Call of Duty game decided to push the creative boundaries. The chaps at Infinity Ward incorporated a "No Russian" mission in which people who seem to reek of rather pure vodka massacre lots of folks, leading to--disgust upon depravity--the erection of statues of supposed deceased terrorists in Washington, D.C.
The game, you see, imagines a world in which the Russian Federation is being ruled by extreme nationalists. Positing such a heinous concept clearly took a huge level of imagination and led to Russian gamers expressing their internal pain at such monstrous cultural insensitivity.
Russian politicians, perhaps the most independent-minded in all the world, huffed and puffed and threatened to the degree that the console version has been banned, according to the Mirror newspaper. The controversial scenes have also reportedly been removed from the PC and Steam editions.
I am not sure either side comes out of this looking, well, brave.
Somehow, I have a sense that the game designers at Infinity Ward might have known that a little controversy would be caused by scenes so clearly offensive to a nation of peace.
However, I am also concerned that the Russians might be overreacting. If Salman Rushdie had written such an imagined scenario in one of his books of so many words, would the Russian government have banned the book? Would it have sent some operative to stab him with an umbrella or poison his sushi? I think not.
So why get so worked up about something that will largely be played and pirated by youths of an already doleful spirit?
It is hard enough these days to select a country for villainy in works of art. I notice that in Bond movies, where once evil had its origins in Eastern Europe, now it emerges from some indeterminate or impotent nation in order to keep feathers muffled rather than ruffled.
By getting upset about a video game with an obviously false and fictional characterization, Russian politicians are surely giving it far more credence than its creation merits.
I mean, it's not as if Infinity Ward had shown scenes of Polish officers being murdered by Russian soldiers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, is it?
I want to be a force for good. Doesn't everyone?
Which is why I was delighted to be moved by the words of Microsoft's Bill Gates during a CNBC TV special in which he and Warren Buffett discussed the meaning of life. Or something similar.
Asked by an audience member what he thought of Steve Jobs and Apple, Gates began with an insouciant smile.
Then he tossed garlands of roses and pearls of praise at the Apple co-founder.
He said: "He's done a fantastic job."
Which was charming in itself. But he continued to describe how Jobs saved Apple: "He brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things."
So, from now on, everyone who happens to be a fanperson of either brand should seek out one of his or her supposed mortal enemies, hold hands with them and see if, together, they cannot try to be a force for good things too.
Vermont is an interesting place with some very interesting residents. Brigham Young and John Deere are both said to hail from this mountainous state.
But will either turn out to be quite as fascinating as Jacob Rehm?
According to WCAX News, Rehm stands accused of illegally borrowing a $500,000 tour bus and taking it for a little spin. Rehm is a former employee of the bus company and will make an appearance in the Vermont District Court on Tuesday.
However, something else will also be making a court appearance at the same time--a video entitled "The Fabulous Bus Ride," which was posted on YouTube on November 5.
It does not appear to have been made by a concerned and civic-minded passerby. No, it is alleged to have been made by Rehm.
In the notes accompanying the YouTube posting, someone whose handle is vudushuz, says: "Vermont to Connecticut in the Middle-O-the-Night :)Originally thought about heading to Pennsylvania but... anyways, stopped in Bradford for GREAT pizza at the Exit."
As you will see from the embedded piece, the video is quite a work of art, with music by Yes and some very interesting camera work.
I wonder what the judge will think of the alleged director.
