With the setting of the sun comes the dusk of 2007.  This year has been a memorable one for myself and for my trusty blog CutEdge, and hopefully for you too.  I wish you a happy new year, and a great 2008!  I know I’ve certainly got a ton of stuff planned for this blog (a GUI I’m going to stick with, for one thing).  Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around in 2008 to continue to watch the blog grow!

I had a blast during my stay in the states, visiting various places and seeing sights that are hardly available in Toronto. Plus, the Winter was much milder, making the trip that much better. Unfortunately, that meant having hardly anytime to use all those services that piqued my Canadian interests! Luckily, this evening I had a chance to take a quick look at Pandora – which I must admit, is very similar to Last.fm. Thank goodness that’s still available to us.

Pandora loads very quickly, and it guides you through the whole experience very closely. The only difference between Pandora and Last.fm so far as I can see is that Last.fm needs to be downloaded onto the computer to enjoy the total experience, whereas Pandora is fine just on the internet. Basically, all you need to do is input a beloved artist and out comes the results – some new music to explore, as well as probably some of your old favourites.

Pandora’s GUI is great! It’s very user-friendly and it’s a lot more flexible than Last.fm – no need to register, no need to download the client. I’m sure that if I registered, a lot more features would have been available to me; sadly, I don’t think it’d be very realistic to sign up for a service I’m going to lose access to by tomorrow.

Being the picky listener I am, I already found one thing to whine about – the skipping limit! It was a real pain in the behind to know that I wan’t allowed to skip as many songs as I wanted to, due to some “restrictions”. Last.fm actually didn’t have this problem last time I checked. I realized I had used my quota and I gave up Pandora that instant. Might’ve been a hasty decision, but I didn’t have much of a choice anyway – I’m leaving for Canada tomorrow.

It’s probably a bit overrated by Canadians, as Pandora isn’t really that much better to use than Last.fm – in fact, they’re arguably at around the same calibur I daresay. However, I must also emphasize that I haven’t used Pandora to it’s potential yet and this is just a very quick judgment – I can be proven wrong, but it’s just a bummer to realize how restricted it is to an unregistered user. I’m still glad I had this eye-opening experience though – looks like we still can survive without Pandora. And we might have to for a while, because the RIAA hasn’t invaded Canada yet.

At this day and age, I’m quite surprised that even just a concept of the Weave has been so widely accepted into the world. With viruses and hackers running rampant, I didn’t realize that our metadata was vulnerable enough to have to be stored on a server, as opposed to in our brains. It really does seem like our future is here now – doesn’t it?

Source: http://people.mozilla.com/~cbeard/weave/weave-logo.jpg

The Weave is a new project introduced by Mozilla, which promises to sync all your metadata (saved passwords, cookies, all that good stuff) with a server – preferably your own, yet possibly ones provided by Mozilla – with both being available. How considerate! This means that all your data will be available when you open a Firefox session, and will be automatically synced – wherever you are – including at a restaurant on in your dear grandmother’s house for a nice family gathering.

My main concern with this is how the metadata will be accessed in a secure method. I would assume since metadata consists of such important information, it will be a very sought-after target for hackers. Will the metadata be accessed via a username and password, or will there be a more creative, original method of access? The metadata will all be stored on a server, and you have a choice of either using your own or one provided by Mozilla. I’d like to see how Mozilla handles the situation of teaching an average user how to create their own server, or use part of their computer to store or stream the metadata elsewhere.

Source: http://people.mozilla.com/~cbeard/weave/services-overview-v1.png

The actual server should be very safe from intruders otherwise – if Gmail can keep such large volumes of data safe, I believe that Mozilla, a company so successful with their secure browser Firefox, then I think that they can do the same, if not better, with Weave – where they realize security will be an issue. I also think that this will grow to be a convenient service, but I don’t think it will be a revolutionary one. It’s a step in the right direction though.

Weave provides a promising look into the future, but I’m not sure whether it will be one for better or for worse. Such a tactic makes me wonder if humans are getting lazier – so lazy that they are unable to memorize a few passwords – but alas, that’s a total other social issue. I think it will be great for collaborative purposes as well, as partners will be able to use each other’s data to collect information twice as fast, essentially. What convenience, and what a conception.

Official Information:

http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/12/introducing-weave/

Day-to-day Applications/Use Cases:

https://labs.mozilla.com/forum/index.php/topic,392.0.html

For the past demi-year, Hulu has been officially open as a beta to consumers. But as part of the Canadian public, I’ve lacked the opportunity to try such a service as it was unfortunately unavailable in my region at this time. Either way, I’ve finally arrived south of the border, and I’m dying to try this service out. Luckily, I was able to access the service – if I weren’t, I might’ve died.

Hulu has a wide variety of shows, which all seem to appeal to me. They are all hits on TV, and they are all widely available on the internet – something that Hulu is trying to discourage by officially offering a medium to watch such shows. However, I must object – when you are trying to discourage piracy, please try to include the rest of the world – just something to take into consideration.

A spectrum of features are made available – in fact, something to the most minute detail like changing the background colour is available for the comfort of your eyes. The overall GUI is pretty and goes well with the whole glass look of the new Web, as well as Vista. They also go so far as to offer summaries and user opinions of the shows they offer.

The most important feature of a video site has to be the playback – which I must admit, disappointed me a bit. I must mention that I am using wi-fi, so I might not be getting as strong a signal as I could be, but I still think that streaming a video should be much smoother. I had to wait a while for the video to load, as it was quite choppy at first. Also, it’s resolution isn’t as nice as something like Veoh’s, so I think it wasn’t really worth the hype. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still above Youtube par, but I was certainly expecting more.

Hulu looks very promising at the moment, and if it progresses then it should be a feasible alternative to piracy. However, I’m begging Hulu creators to please make the service more widely available, and to make the videos load faster as well as in higher quality. If you’re still in Canada right now, then you’re really missing out.

It’s now the twenty-fifth of December in 2007, and undoubtedly you’re probably sitting at home or at a relatives house just enjoying Christmas. I myself just arrived in Connecticut today after flying in a pretty small plane, which in itself was a very interesting experience to say the least. I hope you have a great day and had fun unwrapping those presents.

Sincerely,

Herbert

Everyone’s heard of Wikipedia – the infamous encyclopedia that can be edited by pretty much anyone, yet remains accurate and quick enough to look up information on it, as long as cross-references are made.  The only thing Wikipedia has yet to improve on is its payments to contributors – something that Google seeks to remedy with Knol.  The world can never have too much information – can it?

Basically, Google is launching a new encyclopedia called Knol.  User-based, just like Wikipedia with a twist – contributors get paid.  Contributors are allowed to write “pages”, and are then given the option of implementing advertisements for the pages – they also get a cut of the profits made.  Not a bad idea – people get a cut of how well their articles are written, a great example of capitalism!  …right?

My main concern would be plagiarism.  Who’s to stop someone from copying articles from Wikipedia and pasting them directly into Knol?  On a small-scale that’d be a simple situation to quell, but if used on a large scale it might be a hard situation to stop (I’m sure it’d be in the Terms of Use somewhere).  However, Google being the giant it is might have already thought of such a situation and are just biding their time for someone to tempt them into being banned from anything Google for life.  Scary thought, isn’t it?

Another nice serving of food for thought – although the details haven’t been released, how would one user be able to contribute such a large article?  Wouldn’t there naturally be some bias – and thus require the intervention or assistance of a second user?  If so, would the profits be split in half?  If everyone does this, won’t the profits become so diluted that it wouldn’t make much of a difference anymore?

Knol looks like a great concept, but there are certainly a few kinks to be worked out.  I approve of the idea that there is never enough knowledge, but how Google pulls this together I will be anticipating.  Actually, I know they’ve got a way, I just can’t figure out what it is (I live by faith).

Christmas is coming and you’re looking to get a loved one Nintendo’s latest sensation, the Wii. Unfortunately, no matter how many crowds you swim through, no matter how many stores you drop into, it’s always out of stock – just out of reach. It’s alright, I sympathize with you, so I bring you news of joy. Don’t give up, because retailers are loading up Wii’s for a release soon. Just how soon?

Let me display the facts for you: a year ago, the Wii was released and it was thought to be at the peak of it’s demand. It was, and arguably still is, the world’s hottest present. If you had one, you (or the dear person who gave it to you) bore the scars of waiting in line or searching through various retailers in your town. And it stayed that way throughout 2007 – sure, occasionally Toys ‘R Us would advertise they had Wiis in stock on Saturday morning, but on that same afternoon they would be gone. The world was a dreary place. Then, for some particular reason, Wiis were available en masse: in early October, I was able to find one at my local Future Shop, and it definitely wasn’t the last one. So what the heck is with the shortages now?

Source: http://www.elblogsalmon.com/images/2006/12/nintendo_wii_1.jpg

Common sense reports several possible factors:

• Those factories simply aren’t cranking out enough.
  • Although it has been announced that they are shipping 1.8 million units monthly, there’s still a major shortage of Wiis.
• Retailers are keeping them hidden for the date that will be mentioned soon enough.
  • The main point of the article.
• It’s Christmas season!
  •  Every parent wants to get fit, every child wants to play Mario or Zelda (possibly even Metroid, or good ol’ Harry Potter. It’s definitely the family console, which makes for a great Christmas present.

So, the announced date you’ve all been waiting for: from Dailytech, it will be December 20 and 21.  However, I’m not sure whether I misheard the radio or not today, but I think there was a mention about December 18.  Either way, if you’re willing to try your luck, I’d check it out – as early as possible (around 9:00-10:00 in the morning for retailers).  I know it’s just off the rumour mill, but it’s better than nothing, right?

Alright so I might’ve (cruelly) built this article up a bit, all for a bit of gossip.  But, if I’m right and you do happen to get a Wii, you don’t need to thank me.  And if you don’t, reading this last sentence of the article means that you can’t get too upset, with yourself or me.  Sorry, I watched The Santa Clause (again) recently, and I’ve been meaning to use the Clause on somebody.

Paramount is about to make internet and movie history with a move that ordinary consumers like us would never have considered. I’m sure that the ability to stream movies on the internet is no news to you – either through legitimate means or shadier sites such as the notorious Peekvid. However, have you been able to watch a movie premier online, officially? I would think not – something like this has never actually been done. The movie to remedy this is Jackass, and you might think of me as one for bearing such bizarre news.

Jackass 2.5 is basically a collection of clips featuring arguably hilarious attempts at ridiculous (did I mention hilarious?) stunts – somewhat similar to an ordinary episode of Jackass. Thus, we can also safely assume that the budget would be somewhat similar to the production of an ordinary episode (make that three) of the show. A perfect candidate to test out how well this method of distribution works (due to its low budget, in case you didn’t get the hint).

To mark such an occasion, Paramount is offering – dig this – two weeks of free streaming of Jackass 2.5. After the two weeks, the movie will be available for download through Amazon and iTunes and made available in a variety of other formats, I would assume.  Um, as for how they will be able to stream such a volume of video at high quality, I’m left out of the loop.  And as for the funds, I’m guessing there will be a couple (hopefully just a couple) of advertising banners on the actual window where the video will be located.  And…commercials will be a definite turnoff.

After taking step back, I realized how huge a move this is for the entire industry – it could signify the coming of one of two sad realities: one – movies will never be successful if they are directly released to the internet, or two being cinemas and theatres will be made obsolete by the success of such a new medium.  I like the new convenience, but I’m hoping that cinemas will be able to survive such a migration (if one is made), as they’ve been taking hits over the few years with the increase in piracy, price increases, and whatnot.

The future of the world as we know it is at stake here – pretty literally.  The decision could change our lives forever.  Will movies be able to be released in high quality to the internet, or will the cinemas still be the way to go?  Discover the outcome after the premiere of Jackass 2.5.

So you’re on Facebook and you just wrote an urgent message on your buddy’s wall. Alright, it’s kind of confidential, so you had to send him a message. But that doesn’t change how urgent, and you need to get ahold of them fast! You can:

1. Panic.
2. Get out of your comfortable chair to find your cellular device and browse through your contacts.
3. Wait.
4. Use Truphone to call them via Facebook to their cell phone. Convenient.

It can’t be that simple, can it? Truphone says “Why not?” It can. And if you’re ready to listen to a young fool explain it imperfectly, then read on! In a nutshell, Truphone uses a piece of software that they put together themselves to connect your computer via the internet to landlines.  To be honest, the whole concept is actually pretty darn complicated, and I think that this diagram would help:

For more information on how it works, click here.

You might be wondering why such a complex piece of software just works on Facebook.  The brilliant thing about this is that it doesn’t – it works almost like Skype and Gizmo, using VoIP.  However, in order to use it with your phone, you’re going to have to have a Nokia N-series and E-series (I’m out, I’ve got a Sony Ericsson).

Back to the original reason why I made a post on this news, here’s the link to the Facebook widget:

http://www.truphone.com/truphonefacebook.tru

Have fun, and enjoy your Truphoning.  Special thanks to Nick at Truphone for contacting me about such an interesting piece of software.

Although the Creative Zen has only been around for about a month, Creative has not ceased it’s aggressive development.  As the Creative Zen’s storage was its main concern, Creative has doubled the limit from 16GB to a current-standard 32GB.   Don’t worry, the Creative Zen will still be the beautiful digital audio player that we’ve all grown to love.  But can such a subtle upgrade improve it’s sales against competitors like Sandisk’s Sansa and Apple’s new iPod Touch?

Source: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/6706_5794_large_lowres_zen.jpg

It’s marketing for $329.99USD, around $70 cheaper than the ever-so-popular iPod Touch, offering more storage per buck.  Does this blogger think that such a feature will give it the upper hand?  Nope.  Since when have the majority of consumers selected features, storage, and value over a nice little gimmick?  Alright, so the iPod Touch’s got a little more than a gimmick, but that’s no reason to give up on Creative Zen.

The Zen arrives just in time for the holiday season – a brilliant scheduled arrival on Creative’s part.  However, by no means do I think that this will shake the market in favour of Creative – in fact, I don’t think things will change much (not in Creative’s favour anyway – prove me wrong, consumers).