The new Youtube player.

A couple of things to notice:

• Larger play, stop, fast-forward, and volume buttons.
• Much faster response time in all browsers.  Seeking is instantaneous.
• Overall, much better performance at full screen.

You can see how well the player integrates with the beta page:

Courtesy of CrunchGear.com

I’ve been noticing around the web that many reviewers and bloggers have dubbed the iPad as a sort of Kindle killer. Fanboyism aside, I’d like to point out why this comparison is just inappropriate.

Here is a free copy of a classic collection of short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in two formats:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Mobi)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (PDF)

On the left is a PDF version and on the right is a MobiPocket version which is viewable on the Kindle.  I challenge any of you to see how many chapters you can read in either version before succumbing to eye-strain.  The PDF version must be read on an LCD screen, such as an iPad’s, and the MobiPocket version on a Kindle.  Report your results in the comments below.

Feel free to use a different book for the test.  There are many free ones online at http://manybooks.net/.

YouTube user cleaverb:

The first track from Airs’ Moon Safari album, accompanied by scenes from a video shot from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905. Before the earthquake/fire of 1906 destroyed the area. Remarkable footage of the turn of the century lifestyles in California.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NINOxRxze9k

It’s humbling that the world can change so much in one century, and even more so that, as one YouTube commenter put it:

Everyone in that video is dead!

Here are a couple of cool things you can do with a Wave that you can’t do using e-mail or chat.

1. Organize an event, dinner/lunch, or meet-up in less than an hour.

With the GWave Who Is Coming gadget you can quickly invite a large group of people to an event.  The invited can then RSVP in a moment’s notice and even change their RSVP whenever they want.  Not only will this gadget allow you get a live listing of who’s coming to your event, but anyone can also post comments below the wave and suggest revised times, places, or even post sub-event Who Is Coming gadgets.
Get it here.

2. Play chess/backgammon/sudoku live with a friend (or a couple of friends).

Google Wave has a variety of game gadgets including Chess, Sudoku, and Magnetic Poetry (?).

3. Edit and Share Maps

Need to show someone where you’re apartment is on a live map? How about you and your friend mark the spots on the map where you want to visit on a roadtrip?  There’s a gadget for that:
Maps

For more gadgets visit Wavety.com

V

Quothe V:

But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.

The mystery grew as I turned the card.

Well hello there.

Such intricate patterns.  There has to be more to this card.  No one in their right mind would print something so detailed for no reason at all.  Indeed, no one.  An anonymous no one.

Expensive

Hmm, I wonder where this is going: http://www.youfoundthecard.com/

Well so much for that.  Really guys?  You printed this expensive card and probably wasted many hours of your life just to advertise for an anti-scientology website?  Well, whatever, if that’s your ‘hobby’ than who am I to judge?

Boy was I wrong.

We had just found the most depressing, hilarious, dramatic, cozy, and crazy schmorgasborg of a film.  I’m not going to go into a review of the film but suffice it to say we were completely taken in by the story and two and a half hours later we became the most satisfied movie goers on the face of the planet.  I was so delighted with the experience I decided that I would never see such a beautifully well formed story for a long time.

And again—-I was just wrong.

Eggplant Parm (Bathenjan)

Two days later I was sitting in utter comfort with my family in California enjoying a warm homecooked meal (mmmmm….eggplant parm) and I started describing the film to them.  A few mouthfulls later we all shoved ourselves into our couches, turned on the tv, and saw Dan in Real Life for the first time.  And when I say ‘first time’ I mean that for everyone, including me;  With my family at my side every joke took on a different shape.  Suddenly the funny became more hilarious, the sad more depressing, and the cute adorable.  It was like every single emotion was intesified tenfold.  And two and a half hours later I was even more delighted than the ‘first time’ I had seen the movie.  There was no way this movie could get any better!

WRONG!

So I’m back in West Philadelphia born and raised on the playg—sorry, got derailed there.  Anyways, fast forward two years and there I am with a couple of friends who don’t know what to do with their Sunday night.  So I suggest we watch a movie.  How about Dan In Real Life?  “Dude that looks lame!” my friends implore.  But I press on and with few other options in their hands I convince them to come to my place to enjoy something I thought I had known all too well.  My friends were slow to come around but they eventually succumbed to the movie’s engrossing characters.  They began to snicker and lose their ‘I’m too cool for this’ attitude.  And then those snickers became laughs, which quickly become guffaws, and finally uncontrollable CONVULSIONS of hilarity.  I realized something interesting; Here I was seeing this movie for the third time and enjoying every joke, feeling every twist and turn, and fully immersed in the story more than ever before.  Once again my environment and the people surrounding me resonated with what I was seeing.  And the result was perfection.

(to be continued…)

Courtesy of Wired

So what old tech is next on the chopping block?  What will be the tried and tested technology that will be reduced to a novelty item or a backup for the new?  I’m going to go on a fairly flimsy limb here and propose that books are next.  Maybe I should be more specific.  Let me try that again:  I propose that paper, as means to store and display stories, thoughts, or ideas will become the less preferred in the (near?) future.

Let me first point out one crucial caveat before I start:  I am not claiming that paper books will become completely obsolete and that the new tech is going to eradicate them in a few years.  On the contrary!  I believe that paper books have special qualities which cannot be ignored.  Do you have a book collection?  If so, is it not satisfying to just grab your favorite book off from your special collection, grab a drink and a blanket, find a comfy chair and just simply enjoy a story for a while?  There is something intrinsically comforting about paper that makes it a perfect medium to present ideas and allows you to be lost in a story for hours.  It’s almost as if paper itself entices you into having an open mind.

Sooo haawwwt. The book, that is.

In fact we as readers have become accustomed to distrusting the fluid nature of electronic words.  We place a much higher trust in a physical paper version of a journal or article that we may see online.  Paper exudes trust, longevity, and most of all credibility.  Not to mention that it comes in a simple ready-to-use package (Note to the farsighted: glasses may be required).

“So who’s the contender?”, you ask.  What could possibly even come close to sheer awesomeness of books?

I present to you the amazing, fantastic, pluriawesomenessness of the AMAZON KINDLE!

Chuck Norris approved.

“Big whoop!  It looks just like a book with the added effect of making YOU look like a gigantic nerd.  Also, I would have to sell my kidney to buy one.” – Misguided fool

Chuck Norris’ review aside I think this should sum up my reply pretty succinctly:

Actually, with an SD card you could fit an entire library inside one of these magic rectangles.

That’s right, one Kindle can fit an entire library of short stories, novels, articles, and texts into its own internal memory.  With a 4GB SD card you can quadruple the capacity and fit even more of your favorite novels into your pocket.  Imagine taking your entire collection of romanc…err…science fiction novels with you on your vacation or cruise!  The possibilities become even more endless when you consider the fact that the Amazon Kindle has a wireless interface that allows you to buy and download a book from Amazon in seconds from a collection of 23,000 books!

The greatest feature of the kindle is the display it uses.  It is composed of an electronic ink, e-ink for short, that changes its form to match a charged circuit board below it.  This technology not only reduces the type of eye-strain from bright LCDs but also reduces glare dramatically.  So when you’re sitting on a bench in the park and want to do a little reading you can pop the Kindle out and quickly forget that you’re reading from a screen.  While you’re reading it will look and feel like an ordinary book.

Now we come to costs.  You mentioned you have to sell your kidney to get one?  Well kidneys these days can range anywhere form $3000 to $85,000 in value so I think you’re exaggerating a bit.  The Amazon Kindle only costs $250 (II gen) and is a perfect investment for those of us who enjoy reading newspapers, magazines, or articles daily.  I myself have a large collection of .txt books on my computer that I can easily transfer to the Kindle.  It will pay for itself very soon after you purchase it.

For more on the kindle visit the Amazon Page (watch the video) and this review by the machinist.