“Go-to device for local information”

Lost Remotes Corey Bergman predicts the iPhone (and the apps that will be written for it) will have huge impact on local news and information:

“…the location-aware phone (and similar phones that follow) will become the go-to devices for local information. In fact, I believe local information ultimately will be consumed more on mobile than PCs.”

Where have we been getting our local information? Oh yeah, radio.

Stephen King’s Webcam

Officecam062508No matter which direction I point my office webcam, or the time of day or season, it surprises (and delights) me with tiny, empty moments in time. I got all creepy last time I posted on this so I won’t do that this time.

This is what my webcam sees, hour after hour. This particular image brings to mind a hospital room in the wee hours. The patient can’t sleep and listens to the awful sounds of a hospital floor. Now and then a nurse or orderly passes by. But mostly it’s the empty corridor. (shudder)

Man, I gotta aim that thing out the window.

Crackberry cold turkey

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“A couple of weeks ago, ABC News writers were forced to surrender their BlackBerry hand-held devices when the network clashed with the guild over after-hours work. According to people familiar with the situation, ABC asked writers and producers to sign a waiver acknowledging that they may use their BlackBerrys to monitor and compose work-related e-mail after normal working hours. When the writers guild advised its members not to sign, the network took the BlackBerrys away.” [Broadcasting & Cable]

This is one of the reasons I’ve always owned my own laptops (and most other work-related) toys. Even though the company would have probably provided some of these. I take the “carpenter’s tools” view. I know that all hammers are not the same. I want the best.

HP Elite webcam demo

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Dave Morris shows off the HP Elite webcam. This little bugger ($60?) does face-tracking and auto-zoom/auto-focus. The audio on this demo is with a pro mic, however. Not sure what you get on the webcam

Update: I misunderstood. Dave says the audio was recorded with the webcam’s on board mic.

Side note: I’m surprised the Blogger video didn’t offer option of embedding. Perhaps Dave simply didn’t have that enabled.


Flip Mino

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I bought a Flip Ultra video camera last week, just to play with and show friends. Henry has it now and I can’t wait to see what he (an extremely talented professional digital artist) comes up with. Everybody that sees this little gadget seems to love it.

And now there’s a smaller/cuter/cooler version. The Flip Mino is 40% smaller than the Ultra and comes with 2GB of memory (records up to one hour of video). Pick one up at Amazon for $179. Shit. If I had waited a week…