It's the new Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe, and we've got a sneak peek at the 2008 Geneva auto show. If you're the type of person who likes to ride in style, and with tiny LED lights embedded in the rooftop that resemble stars, then this is the car for you.
The Geneva auto show opened in style today with a host of luxury manufacturers taking the wraps off their cars, including new models from Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Lamborgini, and Rolls Royce. Check out our pick of the supercars from the first day of action.
Given the wild proliferation of stretch limos on the road today, we've always appreciated Rolls-Royce's restraint in preserving its traditional form. So it was with some trepidation that we learned of its newly extended version of the classic Phantom.
But thankfully, RR hasn't lost its senses in designing its stretched model, which has an extended-wheelbase that's 25 centimeters longer (just under 10 inches). The extension supposedly provides more leg room for the rear seats, though fellow Craver (and auto guru) Kevin Massy observes that the interior doesn't seem significantly more spacious than the original model, … Read more
It's one of those as you like it stories. We like the music that we like. Me, I hated the sound of Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" CD that came out last year, and Bob wasn't too crazy about it either. "You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like--static." That's what Dylan told Jonathan Lethem in Rolling Stone magazine, September 7, 2006.
I dissed Modern Times for its muddled sound. Dylan's vocal was … Read more
At its management board meeting powwow in Munich yesterday, BMW shed some light on its plans for future models, revealing that it plans to launch four new models by 2012. According to Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of the Board of Management at BMW, the new models include:
The BMW X1, a mini SUV, which will presumably be based on the same platform as the 1-Series coupe that is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. next year. A four-door Gran Turismo sedan, based on the BMW CS concept from this year's Shanghai auto show. A coupe version … Read moreI hate the whole experience of arena rock shows today: the security staff who assume you're a criminal, the overpriced food and drink, the "down in front" screamers who always seem to be seated behind me (it's a $100 rock concert, not your daughter's piano recital). Consequently, I don't go to many big shows--one or two a year.
So I was a little surprised when I first encountered the "fan club" charge when the Stones rolled through Seattle's Key Arena in October 2005. The ticket prices were painful enough--$200+ for … Read more
In 1953, Hugh Hefner published the first issue of Playboy. Fourteen years later, Jann Wenner published the first issue of Rolling Stone. Today, both magazines have published hundreds of issues and made an undeniable mark on American culture.
Now, instead of spending months and thousands of dollars on eBay, you can read those iconographic issues on your computer. The Bondi Digital Publishing Cover to Cover series collects back issues on DVD, which can be searched and read with the company's proprietary software. The first two "Cover to Cover" collections are Rolling Stone Cover to Cover: The First … Read more
Many bloggers put a "blogroll," a list of other blogs they like, on the sidebars of their pages. Blogrolls help the bloggers who create them feel like they're in a club with writers they like. Reciprocal blogrolling makes everyone feel all warm and fuzzy. But blogrolls aren't very functional, since static lists of links quickly become invisible to readers.
Lists of dynamic content are different. That's why Webware recently launched a news ticker (see the right-hand sidebar). It pulls related--even competitive--content from blogs we respect. We think it's useful, and we also think all site publishers, from retailers to highly focused bloggers, would do readers a service by offering something similar.
We use a Newsgator product, customized for CNET, to do this, but it's not the only solution. I also tried out two other services that anyone can plug into their sites: MineKey and RollSense. These services select content that's automatically custom-tailored to each site visitor. Google Reader and RSSMixer (review) are other options, without the fancy automatic story selection.
Both MineKey and RollSense let you feed in a list of blogs you like or respect, and then they create embeddable widgets that display items from those blogs that they think your readers will like. Based on what individuals click on, the list is further refined over time.
Of the two products, MineKey is simpler and easier to set up, and by default it makes more attractive widgets. If a user logs in, it will also give the person a history of what they've clicked on, which is useful. MineKey gives publishers detailed reports on what users are clicking on.
RollSense offers publishers more capabilities, including the option to turn off the personalization feature, which you may want to do if you your goal is just to keep readers up to date on the latest stories from your blogroll. You can then filter stories by keywords. RollSense also offers "packs," or pre-built blog collections, on specific topics. Like MineKey, it also creates reports, but they're not as useful.
How do they perform? Both need time to zero in on user preferences before they begin to deliver their best recommendations, but my quick testing shows that MineKey is better at automatically selecting content, although it doesn't seem to give enough weight to new items. But RollSense offers the control freak more influence over what is displayed. See for yourself. I've embedded both widgets in this blog (you may have to skip to the next page, depending on where you're seeing this), and fed them both three feeds: Webware, Crave, and News.com.
As I said, Google Reader and RSS Mixer are also options, although they don't have the automatic content selection of MineKey and RollSense. On Google, if you "share" posts from your feeds, you can display that list as a widget on any other site. Go to the "Your shared items" page to get the code. Google Reader doesn't automatically populate the widget; you have to manually select items to share them. But doing so is wicked fast, so if you want to maintain ultimate control over your news ticker, Google's the way to go. For just a river of items from feeds you select, see our writeup on RSSMixer.
This morning I saw a man with an iPhone run the San Francisco Marathon. I was using my trusty iPod Nano with the Nike+ feature instead. There was something about the iPhone that wouldn't allow me to even bring the iPhone to the race. I wouldn't check it in with my sweats, much less wear it on my arm as I run 13+ miles. I would fear losing it or breaking it. So, I went without phone - which caused me to miss one of my friends at the finish line.
This leads me to think that this … Read more
Pageflakes has just updated their service this morning with a handful of new features. The company is calling this latest release "Blizzard." Users now get their own profile page and can link up with other Pageflakes users as friends. They can also browse through users by interest, based on items they've put together on their customized Pagecasts. The goal is to make the service feel like less of a solitary experience and make it easier to share user-created Pagecasts.
Also new is the option to completely customize a page. There are themes and simple color arrangements for users to pick from, and a tool to create your own. In the same vein, there are now media pages from third-party content providers and sponsors, nearly identical to what competitor Netvibes rolled out with their Universes feature in mid-April. Pageflakes is launching this feature with themed content pages from CNN, AOL, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post, among others.
To help users find content to add to their pages, Pageflakes has also redone their widget gallery, which they call "flakes." There are about a quarter of a million widgets, which is about twice that of Netvibes.
The Blizzard release also opens up the door to users of Apple's Safari browser, who up until now have been unable to access the site. However, there's no news on whether an iPhone-friendly version of the start page service is in the works. To see more shots of the new features, click the read more link below.
Previous Pageflakes coverage: Pageflakes community gets traction Roundup: single page aggregators Pageflakes CEO wants to take on Yahoo Start here: Pageflakes meets the metagators
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