TECHPopuli

The now 18 year old Ellen Feiss

Remember Ellen Feiss? The young girl who was the recipient of some notorious fame from her Apple Switcher ads five years ago?

Here's an interview with the now college-aged Ellen. Feiss comes off as a pleasantly lucid, intelligent and self-aware young woman.

So now I think she's even hotter than I did five years ago!

Interactive tour of the Boeing 777 cockpit

I've never been in one of these cockpits, so I can't say how accurate it is. But this is fun to play with and explore.

UK versions of Apple's TV ads

There are all sorts of parody versions of the Apple "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" TV ads floating around. But I hadn't realized that Apple itself has remade the spots for the UK market using Brit actors.

I like their "Mac" guy better.

UPDATE: I just went back and watched all the UK ads and realized that they are not all remakes. A couple are new.

Wii controlled robot

I found this YouTube video on Dvorak's blog.

OS X vs Vista

Robert Scoble invited some heavy-hitters over to his house the other night to talk about the diff between Mac and Vista. He recorded the whole thing and will be posting it soon.

Should be interesting.

Some notes on the EyeTV Hybrid from Naomi Sadun

Erica Sadun, of the O'Reilly Mac Blogs, also bought an EyeTV Hybrid at Macworld. She's posted some interesting comments now that she's used it for awhile.

More Apple Announcements on Feb 20

Apple Recon is reporting on a tip they got, that Apple will do another announcement event on Feb 20.

The buzz is that this will fill in some of the gaps, with more of the announcements we expected at the Macworld Keynote.

I'll be home soon

I'm still in California, completing my extended visit to Macworld Expo.

I have a lot of material to publish here about the Expo, and tech in general. The internet access where I've been staying has been spotty, so I'm queuing it up for posting when I get home.

In the meantime here are a couple of stories from the San Francisco Chronicle about AppleTV and the iPhone.

AppleTV: The TV race: Apple has a head start as its set-top box joins the fray, but it must beat a crowded field full of big players.

The iPhone debate: It's a stunning device, but critics wonder if people will pony up $500 for it. And what about battery life?

"Ink jet" waterfall

Apple ad During Superbowl

Rumors floating around that Apple will have an ad in the upcoming Superbowl. It may involve the expected deal to sell Beatles songs in the iTunes Store.

The "real" big-stories at Macworld

The press was filled with stories about the iPhone. But I think when we look back on this Expo we'll remember something else as being "the big story" of this show.

The real story of Macworld 2007 was that Apple has declared that it is now a consumer electronics company. That was the common thread of each of the three announceents they chose to make at the keynote.

There were a lot of reports floating around the show that Steve was in a really good mood, and that he seemed to genuinely feel that this was an extremely significant point for the company. I think that's a reflection of Steve's realization, and excitement, that it's a new company now.

There's no question that the iPhone and AppleTV are big products. All the geeks I know were wandering around mumbling about breaking open the glass case at the show to get a phone.

AppleTV was a bit overshadowed by the phone, and I think it deserved more attention.

I'm not totally comfortable with the fact that the first two items in the AppleTV menu are links to the Apple Store. But nevertheless, I think this will set a new baseline for personal TV systems. I also think that the fact that podcasts are right there in the list next to "TV" and "Movies" will be another big boost for our new medium.

But these individual products were not the real big story of Macworld SF2007. The big one was that Apple is now a consumer electronics company, it may be the "new Sony".

Jack's Picks Macworld SF2007

These are my product picks from Macworld. I'm not saying that they are necessarily the best products of the show. I haven't done any sort of intensive analysis of these products. I haven't compared them to their competitors, or even their own previous versions.

But these are the products which caught my attention as I spent four days wandering among the exhibitors.

• TeachMac -- online, user-created, training
• iClip lite -- multi-level copy/paste
• eyeTV Hybrid -- USB TV tuner with HD
• Tactilepro 2.0 -- Good feeling keyboard
• Google Sketchup -- 3D drawing software
• cordgo -- simple cord storage & management
• SpaceNavigator -- 6 degrees of motion joystick-like device
  

TeachMac -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

[ This is one item in my series of Picks from Macworld Expo 2007. See the whole list of picks here. ]

TeachMac publishes online interactive training modules. People looking to learn about a subject download the TeachMac software, which allows them to browse and access training modules on all sorts of subjects.

The most interesting thing about TeachMac's courses is that they are user-created. Anyone can download the tools to create interactive training, which is then uploaded to the TeachMac site. The author of each module can decide how much, if anything, to charge for it.

Here are some of the subjects covered by their training modules: AppleWorks for Teachers, AppleWorks Spreadsheet, AppleWorks Word Processing, File Sharing Basics, Getting the Most from your Mac Volumes 1-4, Google, Google Reader, Introduction to Pages, Intro to iTunes 7, Intro to Mail, Intro to the Mac, iTunes Basics, Moving DVDs to your iPod, OmniOutliner, Photoshop Elements, Tiger for Students, Tiger for Teachers.

I heard about these folks from Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab podcast. I plan to develop some modules for them. I'll report more about that process.

Various prices, from free on upward.

http://www.teachmac.com/

iClip lite 2 -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

iClip lite 2 is a dashboard widget which lets you keep more than one item in your clipboard for easy pasting. iClipLite is the free, widget version of the more full-featured tool called iClip.

There have been many multi-level clipboards over the years. But I think this one caught my attention 'cause of it's glitzy user interface.

I'll be installing the widget to see how useful it is.

Lite version is free.

http://inventive.us/iCliplite/

eyeTVHybrid -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

eyeTV Hybrid is a USB hardware attachment for your Mac which lets you tune, watch, and record TV on your Mac. You can plug your basic cable coax, or even a set of rabbit-ears, into the device. You can manually surf the channels, or if you sign up for the free TitanTV service, you can use its TV listings to schedule programs to record, kinda TiVo-like.

This is one of the two products I bought here at the show. The first thing I liked about this product is that I have some old home video tapes that I want to digitize, and I think this will let me do that. But the big thing that tipped me over the edge is that it can tune over-the-air HDTV programming. I wanna try that

I paid $99 at the show. Normally it is $149.

http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetvhybridna

Tactile pro 2.0 -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

Tactilepro 2.0 is a full-sized USB keyboard, with a number-pad, and all the usual extra keys. Its special niche is the great "feel" of the keys makes for a better typing experience. (IBM did a bunch of research years ago about the ideal feel for a typewriter keyboard, and the tactile pro keyboards provide that kind of thing.)

The last Apple keyboard that provided this kind of excellent key-press feel was the Apple Extended way back when. The earlier tactile pro keyboards were built with key-switches from an outside source. But it's gotten very difficult to buy these good switches anymore. So the new 2.0 keyboard now uses key-switches that tactile makes themselves.

The 2.0 also features a USB 2.0 pass-through port on the keyboard.

$149.95

http://matias.ca/tactilepro/index.php

Google Sketchup -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

Sketchup is the 3D editing and rendering software from internet search giant Google.

This is not a new product, and they didn't really announce anything new at Macworld. But every-time I wandered by their booth I felt like, "That's cool, I should play with it some more."

One big thing they were touting at MW was the ability to create 3D models of actual buildings which you can import into your copy of Google Earth. You can also upload your custom buildings to Google's "3D Warehouse" for other people to download. Plus, Google will periodically review the submissions, and the best of the actual buildings will be added to the public version of Earth.

Basic version: Free. "Pro" version: $495

http://sketchup.google.com/

cordgo -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

cordgo is a simple little product. It's a plastic case and belt-clip into which you can wind-up cords, like your iPod earbuds, for easy storage.

This is the other product which I bought at Expo. It only cost $5 so I took a flyer.

The device doesn't unwind as easily as I'd like, you have to help the spool turn with your thumb, but for $5 it's a handy way to reduce the tangle of wires in my bag.

$5 at the show.

http://www.cordgo.com/

SpaceNavigator -- Jack's Picks MWSF2007

SpaceNavigator is a scrollwheel/joystick device ideally suited for navigating through 3D worlds like Google Earth, or your 3D editing software.

Unlike a simple joystick, SpaceNavigator gives you six degrees of motion: left/right, forward/back, pan up/down, spin, roll, and zoom.

Its rubber coated handle is attached to a heavy base which keeps it from sliding around while you're using it. The demo sample I tried seemed a little over-sensitive at first, but I think with practice it would be fine. Also you can adjust the sensitivity in the preferences pane.

Personal Edition: $59.98

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a1d.php

More Macworld reports coming

I'm working on a couple of Macworld wrap-up posts, including the soon to be infamous "Jack's Picks from MWSF2007".

All should be posted in the next day or two. Stay tuned.

More Macworld pics

I just uploaded a bunch more Macworld Expo pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jgh/tags/mwsf2007/

Now I'm a David Pogue fan.

David Pogue is a big deal in the Mac world. In the computer world, for that matter. He's a columnist for the New York Times, a prolific book author, and even has his own publishing label through OReilly.

For some reason I've never really warmed up to him. I may have mistaken him for someone else many years ago. Or I may simply have been jealous of all his success. But I never "got" him.

Well I'm now a fan. He made a quick appearance on the Mac Break Weekly show that I attended the recording last night. But the real thing that flipped me was watching his "Talk Show" session this morning.

The session had a good mix of materials. Some clever videos he did about fake Mac Tips. Sit-down, live interviews with three interesting people. And a musical finale, which was musically not so much, but was terrific in terms of energy and humor.

I never realized that he is a former professional musician, and conductor. That explains his sense of pacing and timing which was apparent in listening to his session.

His interviews were friendly, informative, funny, and just the right length.

His parody songs: "I got YouTube" (think Sonny&Cher), and "RIAA" (to the tune of "YMCA") were just right.

Anyway, I'm a fan now.

I guess I have a lot of books to read.

More pics

Gotta run to the MacBreak Weekly recording session, but I just posted more pics to flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jgh/tags/mwsf2007/

Tomorrow I'll take and post a lot of show floor stuff.

Macworld 2007 Keynote highlights

I "attended" the Keynote this morning, sitting in one of the unused conference classrooms, with a half dozen others, while we all followed the announcements from observers who were lucky enough to get into the room.

Steve set the stage early on by saying that he would "only talk about Macs today" which really puzzled us all. There were certainly some other things to talk about too. Weren't there?

But the two big (and really the only) announcements were of Apple TV, and the iPhone/iPod.

Steve spent a little time at the beginning of the session talking about the AppleTV product which will ship sometime in February. It's a set-top box for organizing and playing your digital media content. It can record regular TV, downloaded content, and even podcasts.

A few tidbits about the TV product: it used to be called iTV, but now it's called Apple TV... its quality is 720p, which is less than what many consider the future: 1080p... it can play streaming video from the web.

AppleTV may turn out to be the more important of the announcements, but he really got the adrenaline pumping with his second item: the long anticipated iPhone.

I haven't had a chance to see one of these yet, but it seems to be a super iPod/cell phone/PDA running Mac OS X, and providing, in addition to the cell connection, USB, and wifi. It runs most of the iLife apps like Mail, Calendar, Widgets and web-browsing.

The device features a 3.5 inch "wide-screen" display which is a touch-screen for user interaction.

I won't go into all the details of this new product, but Steve spent a major portion of the keynote going over it all. We were all feeling pretty excited about the whole thing until Steve burst our bubble by announcing that it won't be shipping till June (!!!)

The roller-coaster really swooped into a low dark place next when it became apparent that that was all Steve was going to announce today. No Leopard details, no 8-core CPU, no spreadsheet, no Beatles' music in the store.

It was interesting that BOTH Schwartz of Google, and Yang of Yahoo came on stage (separately) to sing the praises of the iPhone.

Another notable, quick announcement, Apple is officially changing its name from Apple Computer, Inc. to just Apple, Inc. This may be a sign of Apple's move away from just selling computers. Or it may be a sign that the cold-war with the Beatles is over, and we can call ourselves anything we want now.

More later...

My first pics from MacWorld SF 2007

Bill Gates' keynote at that other tech show

Oh, and at that other show, Microsoft head guy Bill Gates gave the keynote.

Macworld.com:

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates kicked off the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Sunday by unveiling new products that support his company’s vision of a world full of connected devices that serve up real-time, personalized content to users.

...

It was Gates’ ninth keynote speech at CES, and he said he would participate as a keynoter in the show again next year. But that may be his final time speaking at the show, as he plans to go part-time at Microsoft in 2008 so he can focus most of his attention on his philanthropic work through The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“After [next year] I’m not sure they’re going to want to invite me,” Gates joked. “I may talk about infectious diseases rather than great software.”

It's just too easy: Some would say there's already little difference between Microsoft's "great software" and infectious diseases.

From the lobby

I'm sitting in the lower lobby of Moscone South. I came by here this morning to get my badge and see the sights.

The badge-getting was remarkably simple and fast. At 10am no lines. I just scanned the barcode on the confirmation email that I got back when I signed up. Then I went to a counter where my badge came up in like 20 seconds. Very impressive.

All the exhibit halls are still closed off. That starts tomorrow. There are a lot of people wandering around like me, and also the Conference sessions started today.

Gonna be fun.

MacWorld 2007 prep

I'm not sure what I'm really looking forward to at this MacWorld. It's the first one I've attended in many years. My last one was before I left California, which would make it at least 2000 as the last one I attended.

I did go to the one Boston MW that they had a few years back, but that was a disappointment. I guess I wasn't the only one let down, cause they cancelled the east coast version of the show after that.

I've not purchased the expensive conference badge, so there's only a small subset of the sessions which I can attend. I've made a list of all the sessions that my meager badge will get me into.

If there's anyone out there who wants to upgrade my badge cause I'm a born-again mac stud, and former legend*, email me.

Of course many people are very excited about Steve's keynote on Tuesday. I'm not gonna be able to get in the room for that. So I'm planning on "attending" the way I have for years now: by connecting to a couple of the websites and irc channels that have people in the room relaying the events.

Then I hope to be outside the room when it wraps up to feel the vibe when people come out.

I can't get a good handle on what we think will come out of the keynote. The current faves seem to be the "iphone", iTV, possibly an new monitor, maybe some improved CPUs, there's talk about an 8-core CPU, and a new ipod or two. Adding a spreadsheet to iWork. Some people are hoping that they'll ship Leopard, but I also hear reports that the recent dev version releases are not there yet. But that could be a red herring. Shipping Leopard would be a big story.

• that's a joke

I want a broadband pda/phone

There's a lot of talk about whether Apple will announce the infamous "apple phone" at this week's MacWorld. But before we find out what's real, let me go on the record to say what I want in a "phone".

I'm thinking more and more these days that point-to-point phones may be a thing of the past. Traditional-phone and cell-phone systems, which make a dedicated connection between two devices, use way to much network resources, and they are too inflexible.

I don't want a PDA which has a built in cell phone.

I want a PDA which has wifi and allows access to one or more of the VOIP systems like Skype, or sip.

If that was what Apple is about to announce, I'd buy one. But if it's just a really cool phone which uses the existing cell phone infrastructure, then I don't think so.

Maybe Steve will surprise me.

Good morning from Berkeley California

I'm blogging offline, 'cause there's no internet where I'm staying. I'll visit the local internet cafe later and upload this.

I'm in the SF Bay Area for this week's MacWorld Expo.

I'll put more of the lifestyle stuff about my trip over on the etcetera blog. Here I'll talk about the tech stuff.

The most notable, immediate, tech thing. Is that I'm cut off from the net. My host doesn't have broadband (how does anyone survive with dialup these days? I mean, YouTube must be excruciating!).

Anyway, I'm off the net.

It's simultaneously traumatic and refreshing. Traumatic, cause I want to check my mail, or look something up on the web. But I can't. On the other hand, I'm not reflexively checking my mail every 10 mins, or doing broken-chain-of-thought web searches. So it's good too.

I found a free wifi coffee place up on Shattuck (Tully's), I'm staying in Berkeley. Later today I'll head up there and get an online fix.

MWE Keynote Will be Longer Than Usual?

The net's abuzz with the fact that the Steve Jobs' keynote at next week's MacWorld Expo is scheduled to be TWO hours long, as opposed to the more common 1 1/2 hours.

I'm not convinced that it mean anything. But who knows.

Mac Fans, Start Your Engines

The excitement of next week's MacWorld Expo is really starting to build. I'll be headed west on Friday for my first SF Expo in years.

I used to go to every MacWorld Expo, every year, in every location. I went to MacWorld Dallas, I have the t-shirt.

Apple today posted a teaser on their front page:

A few years back they did daily teasers leading up to the Expo. We'll check again tomorrow.