On Thursday Skype users experienced error messages when attempting to sign into their accounts. For many users it was initially thought that there must be a mishap with their password, and many of us were even double checking our screen names, but it was not long until many us took to Twitter and the Skype forums complaining that Skype was having issues. It’s been reported that users who were already logged in did not experience the problems, but those that attempted to sign on during the 3.5 hours it was down were being rejected.
The problems disrupted communications world wide, though it appears North America was the hardest hit. Users were forced to find alternative means to communicate, which was not so much the issue, but at the time Skype’s Twitter messages and website was offering up little more than what we already knew, that the service was experiencing problems.
If you go to both Skype’s blog and their Twitter page, there is never a definite answer as to what the issue was. There’s a lot of “standby” and “we’ll be up and running soon,” but no tangible explanation as to what happened. Kudos to Skype for keeping us informed and even redirecting people to follow their Twitter account due to the heavy load on their site, specifically in the forums, but what happened with sharing what caused down downtime in the beginning?
It’s something most of us don’t get enough of, sleep. Sleep is one of those things that when we do it we love it, when we don’t we miss it and crave the opportunity to sleep in, or relish a night when we actually get to crawl into bed early and get the rest we need. But are we really doing ourselves in service, or do we know if we are even getting exactly what we need? I’d like to say, “there’s an app for that,” but alas, it’s not an app, but an actual product.
The Zeo Personal Sleep Coach ($400) helps to track your sleeping habits to provide you statistics on just what you’re getting when you shut your eyes at night. The sleep coach comes with a headband for personal use that will track how long it took you to get to sleep, what hours you were in your deepest sleep, all the patterns of your sleep phase, and how long you were actually asleep. All interesting information for sure, and tracked through the head band and displayed on the sleep coach device for you to review.
If you’re looking at going more in depth, pop the SD card out, this is where all your information is stored. Plug it into your computer, enter Zeo’s site and get a full report with more explanation of how you can adjust your patterns and suggestions to make the next night your best night ever.
Zeo Personal Sleeping Coach tracks your sleep habits to help you get the best night ever.
Sweetpea MP3 Player for kids
Don’t want your little one grabbing your iPod? I don’t blame you. Not looking forward to seeing your state of the art MP3 players dunked in water? Well neither do we. But the kids just can’t help but be interested in what you plug into your ears all the time. If you’ve got an Apple device, maybe they like the games, so it’s easy to see why they would be attracted to it.
Sweetpea has just the device for you, Baby’s First MP3 Player, a combination for durability and ruggedness perfect for little hands. The MP3 player is a safe “non-toxic” device your kids can carry around with its oversized grip ring. The simple buttons make it easy for little fingers to press buttons and listen to the music they want. No longer do you need to worry about them banging it around, dropping it, or losing it. The design is purposely oversized and created with single-piece design of hard rubber that is FDA approved.
There is a menu for parents to adjust volume, so that the player will not drive you mad when it plays the same song over and over and over and over….well you get the picture. For $50 you can give your child the power to control their music while keeping your music player a very safe distance from curious hands. It’s also a great way to get your kids involved in technology, safe for kids 0-6 yrs of age.
We can’t get enough of wallpapers. Admit it, the look and feel of a great wallpaper is unmatched. You sit down in front of your laptop or desktop, get started, and see that amazing image that just gets you motivated to work on your system. The feeling lasts only as long as it takes to find an even better desktop image that you need to add, and add you do.
Wallbase is a great database of close to 400,000 wallpapers searchable by topic and keywords. The site offers a variety of sizes to fit your needs with the ability to search by Random or Global Toplist. I like the ability to see what others are putting on their backgrounds, giving me insight on the types of people out there. The random is a nice choice if you’re a gambler, I’m not, so I refrain.
Be careful what you search for because some NSFW images might pop up, but you have the option of turning that off so that images don’t come up in search. To prevent you from clicking on wallpaper that was not designed for your desktop you can simply role the cursor over the image to see what size the image was rendered for.
The Wii still has the oddest shaped controller out of the 3rd generation consoles. Some would say it’s more of a wand than it is a controller. Using the motion sensor, most games rely on your movement of the controller-wand to interact with the games. In theory there are great games out there that the controller-wand would be extremely functional. Aside from the sports games and games requiring shooting, games requiring sword-like fighting make this an excellent accessory.
But what happens when you just want to hold a solid controller in your hands?
The long Wii controller is awkward when playing games like Mario or any other platformer, so Nintendo finally decides to change the formula with their own controller design. No longer leaving controller design to third party developers, Nintendo introduces the Wii Classic Controller Pro. Updating itself from the original design, the new Pro controller offers double trigger button to offer more options to the left and right of the controller. Taking the model of the Playstation controller, this new design has rubberized bottom grips for a more sturdy grip.
This new accessory will retail for $20 and is expected to be released in April.
Wii Classic Controller Pro is an upgrade to the previous classic controller design.
There are few things out there that are beautiful enough to just look at for hours. What if a TV was so beautiful whether it was on or off you could just stare at the amazing design? The Sony Bravia builds the aesthetic appeal to an all-time high with their new NX800 HDTV. A design that looks like something Apple would create, is sleek, monolithic, and clean. With the barrage of TV’s shown at CES earlier this month, this is one of those TV’s that is just jam packed with technology that any tech geek or otherwise will drool at what it has to offer.
Naturally the TV, being HD, offers up a full 1080p display. It comes in varying sizes ranging from 46-, 52-, or 60-inches with an LED backlit LCD screen. The two big ones for me is the integrated WIFI which opens up a lot of opportunities and the inclusion of an ambient light sensor is always nice for quick adjustments. The TV is also internet ready with its own set of proprietary widgets. I’d like to see these in action in the real world to see if it’s something people will actually use.
The Sony Bravia NX800 HDTV will retail at $2300 to $3500 so save your nickels and dimes and see if this TV is what you’re looking for in a full entertainment experience.
Sony Bravia offers full online and offline entertainment options.
For those of us who are heavy Twitter users, we can remember the day when we signed up for an account and were offered suggestions of people to follow. Typically that list featured heavy hitter news agencies, a number of celebrities of varying backgrounds, and perhaps some large tech companies or sites. Chances are a few of these interested us, but for the vast majority it meant very little. Online networking has transcended more into a place for relevant conversation with people we feel we have common bonds with, rather than just a chat forum of open ended conversations. While others may comment in the public stream or friends us based on who we have friended, more of us are looking for real conversations as opposed to connecting with the likes of Ashton Kutcher who more than likely does not respond to his 1 million plus fans.
How do you follow people on Twitter?
So you can imagine it was interesting when I read an article on CNN from founder of Mashable, Pete Cashmore, on this very topic. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Pete at a variety of tech events, and a celebrity in his own right, is naturally a down to earth guy. Nevertheless, the article he wrote discusses how Twitter has altered the focus on specific celebrities and news agencies in their suggestion methods and now offers up categorized lists based on general interests.
Does this work any better?
Pete Cashmore seems to think it’s a step in the right direction. I’m inclined to agree, but I still feel like the suggestions are not people I would communicate with on a regular basis. More than likely I’m going to seek out local thought leaders and conversation instigators. Why should third party developers be the ones I turn to for niche suggestions, I think Twitter could be of great service if they did that from the start. Many new Twitter users are not typically well versed in the world of social networking, so third party developers are foreign to them. They make not seek out the latest Twi-(put your own ending, everyone else is) that can help them find specific people. Their only base of reference will be the suggestion lists.
So yes it’s a good first step, but perhaps more can be done. Pete Cashmore states that celebrities might see their follower numbers start to slow down due to this categorizing done by Twitter, and perhaps they will. Ultimately if people want to follow celebrities they will seek them out anyways. Personally, as much as I love celebrities, I’m looking to connect with real people that I can carry real conversations with.
What are your thoughts?
You read that correctly. Now you can share your weight with the world. Think that’s odd? Well so did I when I first read about it. It was brought to my attention on the podcast TWiT, where the host Leo Laporte was discussing how social the scale really is. His passion and love for it didn’t
Send your body's information to Google Health and Twitter.
persuade me to want it until I started seeing the implications of accountability, and now my interest is piqued.
The Withings WiFi Body Scale is the first of its kind, as far as I know, but allowing users to not just take their daily body measurements, but also have that data connect with their Google Health account as well as Tweet messages out to people. It does all in real time with the built in WiFi connection, relieving you of having to write down numbers and manually input them. Now you can avoid the settings all together and not have it post to Google Health or Twitter, but then again, why did you buy it?
If you’re willing to share it with the world, and be accountable for your efforts, then you’re looking at dropping about $159 bones for it. Seems expensive for a body scale, but for some it’s worth it. Many think the medical industry could help as doctors might appreciate having their patients document and track their own health numbers with the ability of their doctor to see the numbers and work with them to achieve their goals. Ultimately though, internet enabled appliances have not taken the world by storm, so only time will tell if this does any better.
As you continue to bathe in the glow and light of the announcement of Apple’s new iPad, perhaps you can divert your attention to a few other Apple related topics that we’ll surely not hear the end of. Apple is known to claim dominance not just in the world of products, but in intellectual property rights, and domain names that are even closely similar to any of their product lines. We’ve read stories of Apple’s tight fist making one owner cough up numerous domain names for the sake of brand protection.
But here’s a story that only a few sites have picked up on. I first noticed this when I saw the presentation via an iPhone recording, but confirmed when I saw the photos, Apple’s new ebook front was a total copy of Will Shipley‘s Delicious Monster. Now if you go to TechCrunch you can read an extensive article on their conversation with Shipley and his frustration on several points. First that Apple had strategically hired several of his former employees, and then secondly lift the look and feel of his design for their purpose. An imitation situation that was not flattering one bit.
So while I expect Will to take some action against Apple for the design, it begs the question…why? Why not hire Will directly if you’re hiring his employees? In Will’s words “they can’t afford me.” That might be so, but to so blatantly lift the look and feel without any attribution or agreement seems really heavy handed.
Do companies like Apple work outside the boundaries of standard practice? They seem so concerned when people encroach on their territory that it would seem appropriate that they would be wary of doing the same to others. While Shipley’s application does do more than just books, covering all types of media, I definitely think we’ll be hearing more on this in the days and weeks to come.
Photo Courtesy of TechCrunch
Animation fans around the world recognize that the Simpsons is the longest
Simpsons unauthorized history
running prime-time series in American history. The yellow harbingers of dysfunction are entering their 21st season and most of us feel like they are simply staples of American culture. Seen around the world, the Simpsons are iconic, and recently an unauthorized history book was published sharing the history of this amazing series.
The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History tells the story of more than just a dysfunctional family, but more on the story of growth, development, and how one concept has been the mirror for our society and culture. We’re walked through the show’s beginnings on the Tracy Ullman Show to today’s more modern take on the family. The book will interview the show’s creator Matt Groening, and various artists and writers.
Over the past 21 seasons we’ve seen the family take part in just about every possible situation imaginable. Something about the show has captivated audiences and while fan following may not be in a fervor any longer, the show is still relevant as it maintains watch on the pulse of our day to day. Reflected in the show, each of us can find someone to relate to, and while we may remain quiet on certain issue, the Simpsons have tackled a great many issues without holding back.
Retailing for $18, I highly recommend this purchase for the Simpsons fan that looks to delve deeper into the creator’s minds as they continue to create masterful episodes.
