1984

I never expected to write "Santorum," "Apple," and "1984" together in the same blog post, but here you go.

Apple fans (and anybody else even vaguely familiar with the history of commercials) will recognize a whole lot of vintage Macintosh-inspired marketing coming from Santorum's latest anti-Mitt Romney ad.

The video is titled "Rebellion." There's no doubt the Santorum ad is quoting from the original Apple endeavor. It features marching people wearing gray while authority figures bark slogans in the background and Romney's talking head glitches out like Max Headroom.

Instead of a woman in short-shorts with a big hammer, you get a woman hauling a "Santorum for President" political sign that she flips over to display a video of Santorum sharing his conservative views.

Santorum does manage to squeeze in a quick clip of some baby-hugging near the end. This is a political ad, after all.… Read more

Company number two at Launch is the somewhat scary YouEye. It's a user testing service for Web publishers. But instead of watching what users click on, it uses the Webcam on the computer to track what test users are actually looking at. That's a neat trick to do with a Webcam. Accuracy is not the same as you'd get in a controlled lab, but the presenter said it's about "as accurate as the width of two Twitter profile photos" (or about 100 pixels, why didn't he just say so?).

Users of the general … Read more

Imagine you're an L.A. independent filmmaker watching the Super Bowl and your phone starts ringing. Simultaneously, people are sending you texts.

This would be annoying enough, if it wasn't for the fact that they're all wanting to talk about the same thing: that Motorola's anti-Apple "1984" ad bears some remarkable similarities to a movie that you funded yourself. Oh, and shot in 2009.

"I know, I know," you say, if you're Mike Sarrow. "But what can I do?"

The mere concept of plagiarism is a very difficult and … Read more

Is there a more painful and stupefying feeling than when a good guy turns out to be a bad guy? My girlfriends tell me they can always see it coming. The thing is, they only tell me that after the event, when the formerly good guy has revealed that he's married, in debt, or even worse, an insurance broker.

This past week, Google went out of its way at its I/O Conference to suggest that a company it once thought of as being just this side of Tom Hanks, Apple, represented a "Draconian future, a future where … Read more

I'm sure many of you observed or enjoyed the Easter holiday weekend with your families, and that those of you with kids may have been paid a visit to your home or local park by the Easter Bunny. While your young ones are probably big fans of this holiday creature, there are quite a few car geeks out there who are big fans of another kind of bunny--one that has four wheels and no fuzzy cottontail. In case you need me to spell it out, I'm talking about the little ol' Volkswagen Rabbit--a vehicle that has been rechristened … Read more

Justin is sick today, so Demetrius Wren and Christina Ghubril join the show to talk about their new film "Streetball." It's the story of a group of homeless South African kids who try to break out of the cycle of poverty by competing in the Homeless World Cup. After some calls about "1984" and convergence, we talk a bit about some unusual uses of bacon flavor.

The most amazing part of "Streetball" was that it was entirely written, shot, edited, directed, and produced by two people! It's a full-length transcontinental movie made possible with only a couple of laptops and some prosumer cameras that have really leaped toward professional film cameras. Demetrius points out that it would not have been possible to shoot their film with a huge camera crew and big pieces of equipment.

The movie is a really fascinating look at how South Africa has changed and not changed since the end of apartheid. The pair says the film is on track for a June-July 2010 release, so be sure to check it out. (Side note: "Streetball" is sponsored by the From Us with Love charity. Be sure to donate!)

After the break, we get to some voice mails about how George Orwell's dystopian future may already be here. That means it may be a normal thing this time next year for Big Brother to know exactly what you purchased at Wal-Mart and that you spend way too much time at the bar down the street.

Last story of the day is about bacon--oh, that delicious food of the gods! Jeff the Hypochondriac thinks bacon-flavored envelopes just might be enough to get him to lick his envelopes closed again. Meanwhile, an intrepid live listener of the show shows us some bacon-flavored chapstick along with some bacon-flavored...personal...lubricant. Yeah, the show ends on that note today.

Side note: We changed the way we're naming our shows in the blog. This is probably going to result in some confusion and backlash. It was done to please the Internet gods.

Teflon Don reveals that he is well, entirely coated in Teflon. But we still don't know if the iPhone 3GS is. So if you know, tell us. We also discuss how Twitter could improve its home page and why the AP just doesn't get it.

Palm Pre WebOS 1.1.0 available, fixes iTunes sync

Microsoft's code contribution due to GPL violation

Twitter to revamp home page for the masses

AP cracks down on unpaid use of articles on Web

ISP cuts off suspected pirates without warning

Bezos apologizes for Kindle 1984 redaction

LongBox aims to be iTunes for comic books

Microsoft changes "Laptop Hunters" ad after Apple complains

Wireless power system shown off

$2 million NASA power beaming challenge heating up

Cambrionix 49-port USB hub for professional nerds (thanks virgilio corrado)… Read more

Much is being made this Friday over Amazon's move to essentially forcibly recall two e-books that some customers had purchased.

According to multiple reports, Amazon removed the books from users' accounts after the publisher decided to pull its e-book. (My favorite headline, by the way, was Seattlest's "Amazon's Kindle: Now with new take-backsies feature".)

The publisher is certainly within its rights to stop selling the e-book and certainly Amazon needs to honor those wishes. But its hard to understand by what rights the retailer can remove the book from those who have already purchased one … Read more

The fact that the Los Angeles Raiders humiliated the Washington Redskins in a 38-to-9 victory is a mere afterthought. Super Bowl XVIII's lasting legacy has been a single advertisement sandwiched somewhere in the third quarter: Apple Computer's iconic "1984" commercial.

It began, in a clear nod to George Orwell's novel of the same name, with tense strains of music, the image of figures marching through a tube across a dank industrial complex, and the start of a bizarre monologue: "Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives."

Directed by … Read more