(Credit:
Caroline McCarthy/CNET)
This year for Christmas, I finally decided to give my family something that they've been asking me about for more or less the past five years: I told them that I would clean my room.
No, really. I moved out of my childhood home years ago, but more or less shut the door to my room and didn't change a thing. It's sort of a late '90s-early '00s teenage time capsule. There was stuff in there that had not been touched since the Clinton administration. There were magazines with Justin Timberlake on the cover from an era when nobody expected he'd be cast as a Silicon Valley hotshot in a movie directed by the "Fight Club" guy. There were varsity letters and prom photos and model rockets and Warped Tour '01 memorabilia and pretty much whatever else you'd expect to find in the living space of a kid who came of age in the era of "Can't Hardly Wait" and "Dawson's Creek."
That inventory included one almost perfectly preserved AOL 7.0 installer disc, a CD-ROM that boasts "Faster Than Ever!" and offers 1,025 free hours of access or 45 days, whichever comes first, with no credit card required. (1,025 hours is slightly under 42 days.) On the red-and-gold packaging is the face of a Japanese anime-style character, the edges of the drawing blurred to make the marketing message absolutely clear: This is fast. This is the future.
... Read more
The woefully incomplete Louvre app for iPhone offers little to smile about.
J'adore France and the French people. But I'm pretty disappointed with Musee du Louvre, a free but painfully brief virtual tour of the famous museum.
The app consists of four main sections. In Louvre: The Visit, you get a video tour of seven well-known areas of the museum, including The Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa.
However, each "tour" lasts less than 20 seconds, and the default language is French. If you tap the screen to bring up the controls and then tap the language icon, you can select English (or German or Japanese), but there's no way to make it the default. You have to perform this step for each video, each time you watch it.
In Artworks, you get a Cover Flow-style selection of famous paintings--but only 20 of them. Tap one to get information about the work, a zoom-and-pan-able full-screen view, and a map showing its location within the museum.
The Palace follows the same format, but focuses on areas of the Louvre itself rather than individual artworks.
Finally, there's the prerequisite visitor information, including hours and admission fees--but no maps to or of the museum (save for the aforementioned few).
Musee du Louvre does let you bookmark any item for easy reference, but with so little content, this seems rather pointless. Hopefully the curators developers will turn this incomplete tease of an app into the rich, arts-friendly resource it should be.
In the meantime, anyone planning a visit to the actual museum would be much better served by Rick Steves' Louvre Tour ($4.99).
Jasper, my tour guide du jour, and a tracking device from his company, Skeye.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending several weeks in his homeland of Vietnam and will file occasional dispatches chronicling his adventures. To read stories from Dong's last visit, in December, click here.
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam--Last December, I visited Ho Chi Minh City and discovered that while Wi-Fi was ubiquitous and the Internet was fast, it was incredibly hard to get across town.
Seven months later, the traffic here is still terrible. This time, however, I found that if you are in the right place, dealing with traffic isn't necessary at all.
The right place is District 1. Other than being the center of tourism with lots of hotels, famous landmarks, restaurants, and bars, D1 is also the site where you can get pretty much anything you need, especially when it comes to technology and digital entertainment. And it's all within a short walking distance.
I actually heard about this area during my last trip here. Jasper Waale, owner of Skeye, a GPS- and GSM-based tracking company operating in Vietnam and Laos--and an avid listener of the Inside CNET Labs podcast--insisted I check it out. I took a rain check till now.
Hung checks out my D80. (Just another example of how good I am with the iPhone camera.)
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)We met at Cafe Centro, a trendy yet casual coffeehouse located in the middle of D1's most bustling section. According to Jasper, this is a popular place for ex-pats to hang out for both fun and business. It offers reasonably priced refreshments and, of course, free Wi-Fi.
(By the way, there are lots of cafes in Ho Chi Minh City, and pretty much all of them offer free Wi-Fi. My other favorite is Cafe Da on Alexandre De Rhodes Street. Also in D1: the best ice milk coffee and smoothies I've ever had. If you go there, make sure you try the "Dong Tim" fruit shake. It's so good, it has my name on it!)
"You'll find me at Centro at least a couple of times a week," Jasper said. Then, in a slightly show-offy manner, he pulled out his brand-new-looking Nikon D300 camera.
"I just got a good deal on this one. I traded in my D80 and got about 80 percent of new value to put toward this new one. You'll have to come see this place," he said.
I was intrigued, partially because next to his D300, my 4-year-old D80 looked somewhat pathetic. I've considered upgrading my camera for a while, but anticipating the whole hassle of selling my D80 on eBay or Craigslist has stopped me.
He then took me to Thuong Xa Tax, a mini shopping mall that's just a five-minute walk from the cafe. "Mini" here, by the way, is according to American standards; this is actually one of the bigger trading centers here in Vietnam, and it is indeed very large.
As in most shopping malls here, you can find pretty much everything, but we walked straight to the Vinh Hung Camera shop. The owner, Hung, a friendly 40-something man, greeted Jasper like an old friend. He then took a quick look at my D80 and said, "I'll give you $600 for this one, body and lens." ... Read more
Ngaycuame.com's Web site offers suggestions for digitally celebrating Mother's Day, such as getting and sending e-cards.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)Editor's note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending several weeks in his homeland of Vietnam and will file occasional dispatches chronicling his adventures. To read stories from Dong's last visit, in December, click here.
HANOI, Vietnam--I'm not a big fan of holidays. I don't mean the time off, of course, but the mass consumption that generally accompanies them.
For this reason, I've been sort of secretly happy that my parents live in Vietnam. This means that for years I haven't had to pay attention to Mother's Day or Father's Day. The Vietnamese, one would think, have no reason to even be aware of these American days. And for a long time, they weren't.
Thus, it was a revelation to me the other day, during a casual conversation at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport, when a trendy-looking and friendly Vietnamese girl asked me if I had done anything for Father's Day.
Learning where I stand on the issue, the girl, Lan, expressed surprise. "I bought my dad a Gillette shaving set," she shared, "and he was very happy. You should have done something! I bought my mom a nice bouquet for Mother's Day a month ago, too."
Original American movies and TV programming with subtitles are popular in Vietnam.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)I was speechless. I live in America and my American friends have hardly ever asked me the same question. As it turned out, over the years I was away in America, American pop culture, via TV and the Internet, has sneaked into my home country in a big way.
Apparently, a month ago, for the first time, Mother's Day was a big event in Vietnam. Newspapers talked about it, TV talked about it, teenagers blogged and made YouTube videos about it, and people went out to buy flowers and presents for moms.
The day was hyped so much some people even felt guilty because they hadn't known about it in previous years. Yet at the same time, most didn't know the origin of it. "I had never heard of it and all of a sudden everywhere people started talking about it," Lan told me honestly. "But I think it's meaningful to honor your parents. Don't you think?"
Though it might have seemed "all of a sudden," the introduction of Mother's Day marked a very deliberate attempt by businesses here to sell products. ... Read more
Country crooner Keith Urban tackles the slalom in EA's Celebrity Sports Showdown.
(Credit: Electronic Arts )If you've ever dreamed of watching a Mia Hamm/Sugar Ray Leonard beach volleyball smackdown (and who hasn't, really?), Electronic Arts' upcoming Celebrity Sports Showdown (PDF) could bring a new level of fulfillment to your life. The title lets you play as (a sometimes odd-looking version of) select celebrities battling their way through outdoor games including smash badminton, rapid-fire archery, wild-water canoeing, inner-tubing, and hurdle derby.
Fergie jousting with Keith Urban? Reggie Bush locked in an arena dodgeball deathmatch with Kristi Yamaguchi? Don't even get Perez Hilton started on the possibilities here.
The game, which will be the first Wii title to launch under the new EA Sports Freestyle brand, "explores the lighter side of sports and pulls inspiration from the entertainment spectacles that are so prevalent in pop culture today," said Dave McCarthy, the title's executive producer.
Celebrity Sports Showdown ships to retailers this holiday season with a suggested retail price of $39.99. In addition to the aforementioned stars, other celebs who've (presumably) agreed to virtual combat include LeAnn Rimes, Nelly Furtado, and Paul Pierce. Maybe the screenshots in this blog will help open your imagination to the world of possibilities about to be at your fingertips.
Who ever said rocker Avril Lavigne couldn't play a mean game of smash badminton?
(Credit: Electronic Arts)
Google executive Marissa Mayer shows off one of the iGoogle Artist Themes designs by fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg. Ironically, von Furstenberg is married to Barry Diller, whose InterActiveCorp runs would-be Google rival Ask.com.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)
NEW YORK--There were massive video animations projected on the sides of post-industrial buildings, trippy progressive songs blasted into the streets, and famed artists and designers hobnobbing with software developers over an open bar. A white tent emblazoned with Google's iconic logo sprawled across the cobble-stoned Gansevoort Square, and Thursday night's bubbly partygoers surveyed the scene in awe.
Even for New York's Meatpacking District, the grit-meets-glamour setting of innumerable Sex and the City episodes, it was an odd display.
Earlier this week, Google had announced iGoogle Artist Themes, a new set of designs for its personalized-home page product, with contributions by more than 70 artists, designers, and pop-culture figures.
On Thursday night, Google executive Marissa Mayer welcomed many of the artists, as well as a bevy of journalists both local and international, photographers, and art enthusiasts, to the candle-lit One nightclub for a celebration. And that celebration entailed enormous animated projections of the Artist Themes onto several surrounding buildings.
It was a step shy of the bungee-hopping interpretive dancers that Microsoft brought to the neighborhood last year, but still, quite it was a spectacle.
In between rounds of an open bar, Mayer hosted a panel with four of the iGoogle artists--architect Michael Graves, photographer Anne Geddes, artist Jeff Koons, designer Marc Ecko, and New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff--to discuss their participation in the project and views on how the Internet is changing their industry.
iGoogle Artist Themes, Mayer asserted, "represent one of the first times that artists have had to interact with a person's daily routine." The fashionable Mayer, in addition to being Google's first female engineer, and vice president of search and user experience, seems to have taken on the additional (and unofficial) role of the company's patroness of the arts.
Early last year, Mayer keynoted a daylong event at the historic New York Public Library, extolling Google's book-archiving project as the company's contribution to the literary world. (The publishing industry, fearing lost profits, still isn't sold.) Later in 2007, she was one of the executives present at a mixer at the company's Gotham offices so that employees of the Valley mainstay could get to know New York's media elite.
But on Thursday night, Mayer was playing hostess to a crowd that heretofore had not had much to do with the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech company. Architect Graves, who jokingly said he only signed on to the program because he thought he'd get Google stock in exchange, admitted that the world of googling is new to him. And Mankoff said "there are still librarians who remember things that no search algorithm can find."
But for the most part, the artists welcomed the iGoogle partnership as a way to reach new audiences and adapt to the inevitable new climate of the Digital Age.
"There's the printing press, there's the moving image, and there's Google," Marc Ecko exalted. The colorful streetwear designer, who said his iGoogle theme was "a love letter to graffiti," described the anyone-can-be-famous nature of the Internet as "the American dream...God bless America."
Geddes interjected facetiously. "Excuse me, but I'm Australian."
Ecko responded, "Google's from America!"
Krushevo
(Credit: MA Recordings)MA Recordings is a one-man show. Todd Garfinkle is MA Recordings' sole producer, recording and editing engineer. He also handles the label's art direction, which is spectacular. MA is a trans-cultural jazz and classical label, and Garfinkle has been crisscrossing the globe recording music since 1988.
Garfinkle always tries to record in large, acoustically interesting classical concert halls, churches and galleries. "MA" is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character which means "space" or "interval," and Garfinkle believes these acoustic spaces are an intrinsic part of the not only the sound, but also the music. Capturing that sense of being there, in the same acoustic space as the musicians, is what makes MA Recordings so special (most conventional recordings add digital reverberation to simulate acoustic space). To achieve that goal Garfinkle's uses a pair very high quality omnidirectional microphones and customized recording equipment, some of which was designed specifically for MA.
Ghatam
(Credit: MA Recordings)Vlatko Stefanovski & Miroslav Tadic's "Krushevo" is one of my favorite MA CDs. These two guitarists' speed and virtuosity has been compared to John McLaughlin/Paco De Lucia's duets, and the MA's exquisite recording techniques put you inside the Macedonium Monument, in Krushevo, Macedonia (that's an interior view of the Monument on the CD cover). The sound is utterly natural with a terrific sense of presence.
"Ghatam," by the Antenna Repairmen is a rather unique percussion record. The trio uses handmade ceramic percussion instruments designed by sculptor Stephen Freedman. The range of styles runs from frenetic to atmospheric. A Ghatam is literally a clay water jug used as a hand drum in South Indian music, and the tactile quality of the ceramic instruments, their varied textures and resonances makes for a unique and thoroughly mesmerizing sound experience.
Departe De Casa
(Credit: MA Recordings)Garfinkle discovered Formatia Valea Mare playing in the Paris subway, and immediately made plans to record what would become "Departe De Casa." The band members all come from the same town in Moldava, which is called, of course, Valea Mare. While in Romania, they played weddings, births and funerals. The Formatia Valea Mare project was recorded in one of France's oldest and most beautiful Gothic Cathedrals, built in the 15th century. To me the large band's music lives somewhere between gypsy and oddly enough, klezmer; most of the tunes are played at breakneck speed. It's truly awesome music.
Miro's search bar now lets you search all its engines at once.
(Credit: Participatory Culture Foundation)The open-source, DRM-free video platform called Miro (download for Windows and Mac) has just released an upgrade with two small but useful improvements. A new search feature lets you search all available sites simultaneously, and torrent support has been greatly improved.
... Read more
MTV Networks announced Tuesday that it will distribute its video content across the Web through deals with a number of social-media sites and video portals: GoFish, Veoh, MeeVee, and Imeem. Through this initiative, users of the video sites will be able to view both short- and long-form content provided by MTV Network as well as embed them on blogs and social-networking sites.
The partnerships will start to go live over the next few weeks; representatives from Imeem, for example, said that MTV Networks video content will appear on the social network, which focuses on ad-supported streaming media, in February.
Jon Stewart: He's back from the writers' strike and invading the series of tubes.
(Credit: MTV Networks)MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, operates a total of 145 television channels and 300 Web sites across the world, but is best known for pop culture-oriented brands like MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and Spike TV.
Tuesday's partnership announcements add to existing Web syndication deals with AOL, Bebo, Fancast, Joost, and MSN. Additionally, some MTV Networks programs already have extensive content available on their own sites; last year, the Comedy Central programs The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and later South Park became fully available on the Web in a library of ad-supported clips.
The company's decision to syndicate its content to select partner sites across the Web comes at a time when many other big media players are choosing to do the same thing. NBC and News Corp. joined forces to create Hulu, which has both a central portal as well as syndication partners. Rival CBS, meanwhile, has amassed its own set of video syndication outlets.
For all these content creators, it's a way to make sure that their video can circulate online with advertising support. MTV Networks' parent company, Viacom, still has a $1 billion lawsuit standing against the Google-owned YouTube for allegedly facilitating the distribution of pirated video. And two of MTV Networks' new syndication outlets, Veoh and Dailymotion, are partners in the antipiracy coalition announced in October designed to combat infringing content--a coalition from which Google is notably absent.
No, it's not Daft Punk, but the robot-suit-clad techno heroes' influence is evident in the choices of artists for MySpace.com's second concert tour.
The tour, produced by concert powerhouse Live Nation, is slated to take place in March in a number of U.S. and Canadian cities. Headlining the tour will be French electronic duo Justice. Joining that act on select nights will be a combination of the electronic and hip-hop acts Diplo, DJ Medhi, Chromeo, Busy P, and Fancy.
The first show will kick off on March 3 in Austin, Texas, and will hit a total of 18 cities, winding up in Los Angeles on March 31. Interested fans will be able to buy tickets from January 9 to 12 through the MySpace Music Tour site, as well as through the venues and local ticket outlets.
MySpace's first concert tour, which featured a number of 'emo' and pop-punk artists, took place in October and November. Additionally, the News Corp.-owned site throws a series of "Secret Shows" concerts in cities worldwide, as well as a number of other live music events.
Music is true to MySpace's roots--the social-networking site gained initial buzz as a hub for indie music, where fans could discover and listen to new bands. It now counts more than 6 million bands among its user profiles--but the concerts are also a strategic move.
As the social-networking field grows increasingly crowded, MySpace has the advantage of big-media muscle and a reputation for pop-culture influence as a tool to keep it above the fray. This has meant not only high-profile music projects, but also original video programming and youth activism campaigns.
Justice, the French duo headlining MySpace's concert tour
(Credit: Justice's MySpace page)The dates for the March concert tour are as follows:
March 3: Austin (Stubbs)
March 4: Dallas (Palladium Ballroom)
March 6: Orlando, Fla. (The Club at Firestone)
March 9: Baltimore (Sonar)
March 10: Philadelphia (The Electric Factory)
March 11: New York (Madison Square Garden)
March 12: Washington, D.C. (9:30 Club)
March 15: Boston (Paradise)
March 16: Montreal, Quebec (Cepsum)
March 17: Toronto, Ontario (The Docks)
March 19: Detroit (Royal Oak Music Hall)
March 20: Chicago (Riviera Theater)
March 22: Denver (Ogden Theater)
March 24: Seattle (Showbox SoDo)
March 25: Vancouver, British Columbia (Commodore)
March 26: Portland, Ore. (Roseland Theater)
March 27: San Francisco (Concourse Design Center)
March 31: Los Angeles (Mayan Theatre)
