Archive for August 29th, 2007
Filed under: Computers
You would think that after all the exploding batteries in laptops and their respective slews of recalls, we’d be done hearing about them going up in flames, but — unfortunately — that’s not the case. Another Dell has gone super-critical, resulting in a spectacle that was described by owner Douglas Brown as “fireworks, which would have been cool had it not been in my house.” Brown, a network administrator in Georgia, watched his Dell 9200 lappy go kablooey last week as he frantically dialed 911.
The 9200 model is included in Dell’s battery recall program and it remains to be seen whether the battery in this particular model had been recalled. It is possible that Brown was procrastinating about calling the company for his replacement, so it could be tough to completely blame Dell for this one. It also remains to be seen who will be the one responsible for the damages caused to his house. When Brown asked a Dell customer service rep whether the company would be covering the costs, he was asked if he has home insurance.
Ouch.
From Slashdot
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Olympus has just launched the µ820 digital camera in Korea, bringing 8 megapixels’ worth of goodness to the consumer along with 5x zoom for more detailed shots from afar. The ‘Perfect Show Preview’ function stands out since it enables users to preview and enable different effects on a multi-frame window on their LCD display. This lets users see the changes before a picture is snapped. The inclusion of digital image stabilization ensures you always get crystal clear images, with help from an integrated gyro sensor that tracks camera movement and shutter speed. No idea on how much it costs though. Using a digital camera seems to get easier and easier by the day.
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Filed under: Industry, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Time Warner (TWX), Marketing and advertising
It’s hard to make sense of what market analysts do sometimes. The stock prices of companies can swoon and sway based on analysts who can be 1) mostly incorrect about the prospects for covered companies, 2) dismal in their track records of earnings predictions and 3) falling into a pattern of some other weird alternative like market influence. I’m not saying all are that way, but some sure seem like it. When Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has a fantastic quarter but misses over-inflated earnings projections just a tiny amount, the stock price plummets (only to recover shortly thereafter). What is the point? To some, analysts run the market.
The same thing happened to AOL, a division of Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX). The company that owns this blog performed a fast and well-timed turnaround last year from a subscription-based model to an advertising-based model and the bet paid off from many perspectives. Of course, some analysts thought an immediate gratification of revenue from ad sources would befall AOL the first day this switch started happening. Unless things can be changed ‘on a dime,’ that generally never happens. Nevertheless, I consider AOL’s strategy to morph into an ad-based revenue model to have worked pretty darn well in such a short period of time.
Alas, the double-digit ad revenue growth predictions by AOL execs, which turned into a few quarters of 40% ad revenue growth, set the stage for later disappointment. Although AOL’s advertising revenue was less than expected for the second quarter that was reported on August 1st, it still went up a healthy 16%.
Time Warner executives said AOL’s advertising revenue would grow at a slower pace than the overall industry in the second half of the year. This reinforced the doubts that Wall Street already had about the AOL turnaround. Shares of Time Warner have dropped almost 13 percent since the start of the year.
Is this indicative of anything? Not really, besides the fact that Time Warner brass need to not became too beholdent to analysts and for Wall Street to have realistic expectations for AOL.
Give it time, folks. Changes are happening faster than ever before, and AOL, so far, is doing a superb job changing with the times. It just needs to keep it up.
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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots
Too much Gran Turismo? Maybe. But we can’t help but admire the potential that we see in Gran Turismo 5, Sony’s next-gen follow-up to the famous GT series. Beyond just the graphics, we’re excited by the gameplay, all of which can be seen on display, narrated by the team at Polyphony.
Enjoy the video — it might be the last you see of us before we start playing Warhawk.
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Posted by: in Hollywood news
Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, RumorMonger, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
 Since we’re all impatient buggers who can’t wait until The Dark Knight opens to see who is playing who and what the plot will be like, there’s some more scoop to chew on. Obviously, if you’re sensitive about spoilers, skip the post — this info talks about a specific scene and side-plot to the film. In May, Erik Davis posted that Anthony Michael Hall, currently being freaky on The Dead Zone, had signed on for a part in the movie. The actor said he wouldn’t say who he was playing: “I signed a confidentiality agreement, and I can’t say which part I’m playing because it affects the story. I can’t give away the suspense - it’s a $200 million surprise, and I don’t want to be the guy to ruin it.”
It seems like that expensive surprise is out of the bag, if some inside scoop shared with Hollywood Chicago is to be believed — but I don’t think it’s that expensive of a revelation. Hall will play a reporter for the GCN who is really jealous of the lovely Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale). The guy must be one heck of a reporter, or come from money too, because he has the same car as Wayne — a Lamborghini Murcielago. He finds out that Bruce is Batman and wants to use his work to out the secret (as an antagonist rather than a villain). The Joker (Heath Ledger*) isn’t happy about this and sets out to stop him. Really, the source could’ve said that Hall’s character challenges him to a sumo-suit duel and I would be happy — the film has got a great cast and should be one heck of a ride.
[via IGN]
*Name corrected thanks to mbstrlbstr.
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Filed under: Cellphones
Although frankly the benefits they’ll see are marginal — especially if they’ve already upgraded their handsets to AKU 3 — many Sprint PPC-6700 / Verizon XV6700 devotees will nevertheless be delighted to learn that xda-developers forum member helmi_c is promising an Apache-compatible build of Windows Mobile 6 to be released this Friday, and he’s got the screenshots that claim to prove it. As tipster Joey put it, “many of us [6700] owners have been kinda left out in the cold with no WM6 love for the 6700,” but where manufacturers and carriers fail to act, you can usually count on the tireless community over at xda-developers to provide a solution — and from the looks of things, helmi_c’s build even trumps the standard upgrade by cooking the HTC Touch interface right in. Good stuff if it does indeed pan out, so we’ll keep you posted.
Update: Helmi_c wrote in to let us know that he is actually based out of the ppcgeeks community, and the links in this post were quickly adjusted accordingly. Because seriously, would you want to step in between factions of highly motivated geeks and developers? No thanks.
[Thanks, Joey S.]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Filed under: Fish
 You’ve seen it laying about at the fish counter in the grocery store — don’t pretend you haven’t. But while you were busy averting your gaze, you’ve been missing one of the holy of holies of southern cooking: catfish.
August is National Catfish Month and if you’ve turned up your nose at this surprisingly healthy (and easy to get fresh) fish, you’re just being — as my sorta-Southern mama would say — uppity. Fried catfish is nearly as iconic as hush pups, sweet tea and pulled pork. Now the Catfish Institute is trying to dust off its second-class seafood image and go national. Fittingly enough, Iron Chef Cat Cora has signed on as its celebrity chef spokesperson. I haven’t made any of her recipes but coconut catfish can never be a bad thing.
Catfish has long been a secret weapon in my cooking arsenal. I stopped telling people which fish they were eating until after the initial “Really?!” This is usually followed by a request for the recipe. My version (cobbled together from various sources) starts by marinating it in beer (Dixie would be appropriate, don’t you think?) for 30 minutes, dredge in flour, cracker or cornmeal spiked with Zatarain’s or another seafood seasoning mix, lay fillets in a medium-hot greased pan top-down, flip about 3-4 minutes (depending on the size of your fillet). You end up with a lightly zingy crust that melts into a firm white fish that has just a little bit of tang from behind the bar. Dress it up with cheese grits and cucumber salad or down with corn sticks and fried okra. Guess which I suggest? For hardcore fans, this recipe from Soul Food and Southern Cooking is a good place to start.
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Posted by: in Celebrity news
 Ray Filmano/WENN
The High School Musical 2 star (and PEOPLE cover girl) is already proving herself to be the next young fashionista to watch. From her easy casual looks to her glam red carpet dresses, we can’t wait to see what she will put on next. While promoting her hit Disney film, Vanessa stopped by Fox’s “Mike and Juliet” show wearing this trendy cobalt blue Armani Exchange chiffon dress. The A/X dress even fits more easily into our budget than some of Vanessa’s other street wear. Get her Armani Exchange dress, $130, at armaniexchange.com, and for an even cheaper option go for this jersey babydoll dress in a similar color, $16, at forever21.com. Finish the look with these Steve Madden gold platform sandals, on sale $40 from $80, at stevemadden.com.
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Filed under: Cameras, Advice
At around 3:30am Tuesday morning (Western), a total eclipse of the moon will be visible in North America, South America, the Pacific Ocean, western Asia, and Australia. This time around, expect to see a reddish moon (as opposed to blue), which should make things visually interesting.
Space geeks are already calling this one of the best full-lunar eclipses in years. See the picture above (or click the link below) to find out when to watch, and prepare to either stay up late or get up early.
From AOL Research and Learn
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…may very well cost Spirit Airlines very dearly.
Basically, a couple lost a lot of money when their flight with Spirit Airline was delayed, so they, disgruntled, wanted compensation for this, and for the poor customer service.
To achieve this, they wrote an e-mail to the CEO, and several other Spirit employees, explaining what they wanted. The CEO, apparently not knowing much about this crazy email stuff, or how to do things like, not be a total idiot, hits “reply to all” and sends the following message:
“Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”
This reply was sent to his employees, and also to the customers.
“LET HIM TELL THE WORLD HOW BAD WE ARE.” …Done and done.
I don’t care whether or not the customers had a good argument or not, I don’t care whether the CEO was right and the airline owes them nothing…in this age of light-speed communication, a CEO cannot afford to be a callous jerk and e-mail impaired at the same time. Because when somebody says something like that, and allows it to become public…well…pretty soon the whole world does know how bad you are.
“he…will be back when we save him a penny.” No, Spirit. No, I don’t think he will be.
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