REAL SILLY The following op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is worth some attention involving an initiative called RealDVD* by Real Networks.  Titled the "Movie industry's shortsighted fight", it explains: "Thomas Edison, probably America's best-known and most prominent inventor of all time...

DEEP BLUE As someone who's long been a fan of relief globes of the Earth depicting the depths of the oceans, I was glad to see this announcement by Google today.  As the New York Times explains: "Two and a half years ago, the software engineers behind Google Earth, the searchable online replica of ...

COMING SOON Regular readers have long known my enthusiasm for solid state drives and their potential.  While the costs of these drives today vs. mechanical hard drives is still substantial and the relative benefits still incremental, there are some big improvements on the horizon.  This ComputerWo...

ABOUT TIME As a fan of Ted Nelson for decades, I'm glad to see he's self-publishing a book that claims some credit where a lot is due.  The New York Times explains: "BEFORE the personal computer, and before the Web, there was Theodor Holm Nelson, who almost half a century ago understood how compute...

TOTAL HIT Like so many iPhone geeks, I'd been waiting for this long-anticipated game to be released and it doesn't disappoint.  IGN has a review that puts it in context and explains: "A few years ago, an oft-asked question at mobile games conferences was, "Where is mobile's Mario?" It was essential...

FOR KINGS IN ALL COUNTRIES I'm a sucker for well-written car reviews, and this one by Lawrence Ulrich doesn't disappoint, especially in his sensitivity for the current economic climate as he reviews one of the world's most expensive cars: "STARTING in 1965 with the DB5 in “Goldfinger,� Aston Mar...

NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS Well, I've had a couple of days now to play with the new iPhone 3G and the flood of third-party applications now available for it in the Apple App Store, both free and for a fee.  And the good news is that there are some pretty cool applications, especially games that take ...

GOOFILY GREAT I hadn't heard of  Matt Harding or his viral internet video of dancing goofily around the world, until this New York Times piece yesterday, so I'm the five or ten millionth or so person to come across it thus far.  As the piece explains: "“Dancingâ€� shows a guy dancin...

ALMOST THERE Taking video games mainstream has been the holy grail of console the game industry for the last couple of decades.  Now that we may finally be getting there with innovative console platforms like Nintendo's Wii, the industry may have to re-learn how to market to this mainstream aud...

TORTOISE  vs. HARE Most PC performance tests and reviews by the computer magazines and tech blogs, tend to focus on the bleeding edge computers by vendors, and then measure which one can go the fastest on the most bleeding edge, highest cost configurations.  Kind of like how car magazines ...