Of Cable and Computers

Oh, come on. We all know it's coming. With web sites like Hulu, televisions are practically becoming as obsolete as CDs and DVDs, and the cable box is soon to follow.

Most of us already spent plenty of time watching TV on our computers and laptops as it is. Soon, that is going to be even more of an option, thanks to the advancement of technologies which will allow you to ditch your cable box in full favor of your computer.

Is this good or bad? Pro or con? Heck if I know, I just got a plasma screen so I'm pretty well behind the curve on this one. However, if this option is going to be cheaper than my current AT&T cable, then I'm all for it. Eff DishNetwork and DirecTV too, while we're at it.

You know, my birthday was Sunday...

...and if any of you awesome readers that I don't really know would like to get this for me, I'll ... well. Write a post on your piece-o'-technology-o'-choice. Okay?

Seriously, I don't even really have anything to say. I just think this is beautiful. It's the diNovo Edge from Logitech. Mind you, up to this point, I've really only thought of Logitech as a good product that I looked for when I wanted to get something useful but basic for, you know. Cheap. Like, I've got 9856 of their optical mice, one wireless optical mouse, one wireless keyboard (they came in a set, don'cha know?), and two webcams. Why? Because I needed them at the time, they were moderately cool in the tech department, and more importantly, I could afford them.

I cannot afford this. Well, I can, and I'll probably by it eventually because my GF got one for frigging FREE, and I saw it up close and touched it and admired my reflection in its shiny, shiny surface ... and then I had to leave it. And my soul still weeps.

Also, typing is a dream, it is hot as hell, and it's got what they call "backlit stealth controls" and I'm sorry, but that just seeps of awesome like an infection and I want one.

Gamers, geeks, and Internet fr33ks: rejoice!

Experts in Australia have apparently created a new technology that is supposed to allow people to surf the Internet one hundred times faster than they do now. For that matter, a professor working with the product says that this probably won’t cost users anything.
The new technology evidently works to increase and improve the performance of optic fibers; the professor involved likened it to a scratch on a piece of glass, wherein the circuits will use the glass as a kind of path that the information will follow.
It’ll be a while before this technology reaches the market, but right now tests have conclusively shown that, in its current stages, this new technique has made surfing the web sixty times faster. Researchers on the product believe that with some more development, it can easily be one hundred times faster.

Go iGoogle yourself.

Google’s upping the ante and it looks like they’re seriously attempting to compete with social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook. They’re all about supporting OpenSocial now and they are finally – finally – reworking that bland homepage. I guess they’ve finally started listening to people’s complaints about it. These new improvements to iGoogle are an answer to public opinion as well. They plan to incorporate some of the elements and features already implemented in Gmail to spice things up a bit. iGoogle will have chat functions similar to Gmail and there will actually be real gadgets. The tabs are going to run up and down on the left side rather than on the top and you’ll soon be able to see what your friends are doing, via news feeds similar to what you can find on MySpace. Another social networking site ... I don’t know though. Google might be asking for trouble, throwing themselves into the ring with MySpace.

XP Becomes Extinct

It’s happening. It’s really happening. XP is going the way of the dinosaur and the Commodore 64, according to CNET. I’ve got a secret for all you cool cat techs, computer mavericks, and technology miscreants out there – I’m not superbly computer savvy. I know, big shock – but I’m not completely computer illiterate either; I know enough to like what I like and hate what I don’t. Windows XP works for me – and Vista makes my soul cry. Windows Vista makes a lot of people’s souls cry, but that doesn’t mean much to the bottom line. Dell’s already let go of Windows XP, setting it free like the proverbial true-love butterfly, but it’s pretty clear that XP was never meant to be for a lot of us. Folks who prefer Windows as an OS just got kind of screwed without either lube or the courtesy of a reach-around. Dell’s just a step of ahead of the game; other computer manufacturers are due to start phasing out their XP machines, and they should all be out of the way by 2009.
Windows in general and XP in particular have a lot of problems and get a lot of crap; I bitch about them myself often enough. But it’s still sort of disturbing that despite the majority’s rabid hatred for Vista, it’s getting the nod as Windows supreme. It happens, though. It’s quite akin to the way AOL is now basically AIM.