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about 12 years ago
SGP has no shortage of cases for iPhone or iPad, and their Linear Mini series, while being their budget line, is far from being comparable to a generic means of protection ...
about 13 years ago
This week we talk some pretty important stuff like Anime Expo 2011, Captain America (is it good, bad, ugly?), MacBook Battery hacking, 3DS price cuts (now just $169), Battlefield 3 Alpha ...
about 13 years ago
This week, we have a special show because we’re giving away a copy of the new Annihilation DLC for Call of Duty Black Ops (Steam, PC). We’ve done Giveaways before, but ...
about 13 years ago
On this week’s show, Connor and Brandon talk Facebook Video chat, cereal and milk, Bioshock Infinite, Quadrotors, the new Youtube, Spotify coming to the US, Connor gets his iPhone hacked and ...
about 13 years ago
Special thanks — to Connor for filling in this episode!!! On this installment of the Okay Geek Show, Ricardo is away at the 2011 Anime Expo spreading the joy of Okay Geek with ...
about 13 years ago
  We have been underground bashing our keyboards and inhaling coffee for the past two weeks covering E3 2011 which has been a blast, but a lot of hard work. ...
about 13 years ago
  This week on the show, Ricardo and Brandon sit down and talk about the widest veryity of topics ever discussed before… we start with Basketball and end up talking ...
about 13 years ago
  This is our first video podcast, and we’re so proud we managed to do it live on Friday, all in one take. This episode, Ricardo and Brandon start the ...
about 13 years ago
  This week, we are talking about a veryity of topics that are strange, just as they are awesome. We’re talkin’ Bear Grylls, Piss, Thor, vocaloid raves, and a bunch ...
about 13 years ago
  You remember the our old podcast right? Well that was somewhat of a test. A test to see if our readers would enjoy hearing us and listening to what ...
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Entries by Ricardo Trejo

Tuesday
Aug182009

Power Saving, WiFi, LED bus stops making their way into San Fran

San Fran, the home of the treat, Rice-a-roni, is planning on making 360 "Muni" bus stops - haha, get it? Each stop is going to cost $30,00 each to construct, so, uhhh, hence the name. Well, actually just kidding. The Municipal Transportation Agency has a contract with the company, Clear Channel Outdoorwho are going to fund the entire installation of maintenance of all 360 stops as long as they get the rights to sell ad space on them. After doing the math it'll cost them somewhere around $10.8 Million. That's a lot of money for a couple hundred bus stops.

So what makes these bad boys so special? Well, how about LED lighting that'll be 4 and a half times more efficient than the fluorescent lights now, Wi-Fi routing to help sustain a city wide online network, and not to mention it will channel somewhere in the ballpark of 43,000 kilowatts-hours per year into the city's power grid. 

When can you expect to see these futuristic stops on a street in San Fran? 2013. That's not TOO far off.

[Via Popular Mechanics]

Monday
Aug172009

Google's Chrome OS means what exactly?

I frequent ZenHabits.net often and model my life on a lot of the concepts that Leo Babuata writes about; minimilism, how to be happier with less mess, and how to view technology as a tool rather than your life. ZenHabits is very practical, as it teaches how to use technology, our bodies, and physical materials to make our lives easier and happier.

Leo, recently did a blog post about what he feels Googe's Chrome OS will mean to a company rival, like Microsoft, as well as what it can do for computing of the future. I thoroughly enjoyed his perspective and it made me rethink the way I see a desktop computer.

The Old Model
For years, the OS has used the desktop analogy, with folders and files, all stored in a big file cabinet (your hard drive). And applications such as Word have run from the hard drive.

What this has meant is that, in order to insure against computer crashes (which are eventually inevitable), you’ve had to back up your files to a remote disk (another drive, a CD-ROM, etc.). It also has meant a headache when it comes to accessing your files and programs from multiple computers — you have to save and sync files all the time, and buy and install multiple copies of applications.

It’s also meant a lot of headaches when it comes to filing and finding your files, and sharing them with other people (this had to be done using floppy disks/CDs, or more recently, email attachments).

Finally, operating systems, trying to do everything, have become bloated and slow, taking up a lot of your computer’s processing power, memory and storage.
 
The New Model
Google’s model is based on connectivity to the Internet, a model that was unthinkable a decade ago and has only been really viable in the last few years as almost everyone has high-speed connections and wi-fi or mobile access.

Google has moved applications, and increasingly, our files, to the web (or cloud). It started with Gmail’s success — a fast, powerful online email app that beats desktop email apps hands down. It expanded with a suite of simple web apps: Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Reader, Picasa for photos, eventually YouTube for video, Blogger for writing for the web, and more.

These apps are lightweight but powerful. They aren’t as feature rich as desktop apps, but here’s what many critics don’t understand: in today’s (and tomorrow’s) computing world, they don’t have to be.

                                        -Leo Babuata

I believe that cloud computing IS the NEXT big step, as what we enjoy in the internet becomes fully immersed into our everyday offline lives; being always connecting with one another, rather than having to "log on", so to speak, to get to the information, or entertainment we want and need.

The question is, what can we expect from our operating systems? More hardware and more hard drive space? Or are we looking forward to a much more streamlined experience, with less digital doodad's, and more centralized information? And will Google be the new standard for the common internet user, with more work oriented computing: information production, programming, and video/picture editing be more for Windows/Apple owners?

Also, be sure to read the comments as well. A lot of interesting questions were thrown around: such as how many people have the access necessary to fully enjoy information on the cloud? And what about the effects of privacy and country restrictions put on sites like Youtube, Blogspot, and Twitter being partially, or fully, blocked?

[Via ZenHabits]

Monday
Aug172009

iPhone overtakes Japanese cell phone Market

Flickr by William HookThe Japanese have always loved their own country's cell phone manufacturers. And I mean, why wouldn't they? Their cells get the ability to watch tv over a built in tuner, as well as pay for goods with a swipe of their phone using the Mobile FeliCa service. So it's not shocking to hear that outside phones haven't had much luck because of not offering these same, popular, features. That is, until today.

Electronista reports that the iPhone currently is the top selling phone in Japan. Even though it misses some of the key features mentioned above, it hasn't stopped consumers from nabbing up the 32GB version. It's 16GB placed 9 on the top 10 best selling phones. There isn't anything substational that changed within the past month or so that has given the iPhone any merited popularity. But Apple isn't complaining or over analyzing. They're just happy to see the money signs hanging over the land of the rising sun.

Apple's step toward global domination. Japan - check.

[Via Electronista]

Monday
Aug172009

Spotify worse than the Pirate Bay?

Flickr by grendelkhan

“I would rather be raped by Pirate Bay than by... Sony Music," said Magnus Uggla. A Swedish nobleman, songwriter, and composer, Uggla is a bit more than angry with Sony for offering his music through the all heiled music application, Spotify. You see, he's not angry with Spotify itself. On his own blog he posted how great of a service it is, but believes it isn't what people think it is. As some might have thought, because it's a legal service somehow the artists are compensated for their work. I mean people were all up in arms about Pirate Bay and how bad illegal downloads were because the artists weren't getting paid. Well, you'll be a little surprised to hear that Uggla, as he put it, “earned as much in six months as a BUSKER could earn in a day,” while having his music run through Spotify.

Strong words! But it goes to show that even doing it the legal way doesn't mean that musical artists will be seeing any dough. No matter how you slice it, it's better if artists cut out the middleman and offer their music directly to these music services and reap in the benefits.

[Via TorrentFreak]

Sunday
Aug162009

Links to Click: PicTreat

One of the best photo touch up sites I've ever seen. Take a picture, upload, and treat. You'll see flat images come to life after getting them "PicTreated". Lighting and contrast issues will be remedied with a single click, even unsightly blemishes.

Right now the site is free, but after snooping around I get the impression that it's looking for ways to monetize this great idea. You can sign up for a free account, or use myspace or facebook connect to automatically be ready to go.

Here's a photo I uploaded and treated.

[Via PicTreat]

Sunday
Aug162009

Pspgo.co.uk promotes DSi

In possibly the ballsiest move I've ever seen Nintendo do, besides release the Wii 2 days after the PS3, they decided to nab up the domain name: www.pspgo.co.uk

Or did they? There isn't really any proof if it was a crazed fan or Nintendo themselves. I CAN easily see someone trying to cause chaos for both sides with this act, but then again if Nintendo did it then you have to give them credit for truly taking it to the streets. It's on like Donkey Kong now.

[Via Destructoid]

Friday
Aug142009

Anti-Netflix plan makes you want to pirate

The other day I wrote an article about Greg Kot and his thoughts on the digital revolution in the music industry. Today we're going to talk about how stupid the movie industry is when trying to combat the exact same problems music faced in the past, and still faces, today: piracy.

First, let me ask you... when was the last time you visited a video rental store? I went last year to Blockbuster to rent Wall-E for my mom. The store is just down the street from my parent's house and at the time I figured I'd spend somewhere around $3 dollars. In the end I spent somewhere close to $6 bucks for a single movie rental on the day of its release. Were there other alternatives? I could've tried Netflix and gotten a much cheaper price but I would've received the movie maybe two days later at the max (I wasn't a subscriber at the time.) Or I could've illegally downloaded the movie from someone who ripped the dvd online and paid nothing. Thinking back on it $6 isn't a lot, or is it?

With Netflix, those same $6 can get me about half of the subscription price to rent as many movies as I want  for an entire month, (renting one movie at a time), and that includes newly released movies for the same price as older titles. So why would I ever go to Blockbuster ever again? Well, if the movie studios 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. get their way, then they're going to make sure that services like Netflix and Redbox won't be able to have newly released movies available on day of their hitting store shelves. In fact, they want Netflix subscribers and other services to have 30 day wait periods before they can offer newly released films. What's the purpose of this? Well, they want to give Blockbuster a shot at this new "kiosk" idea thing - a bit late to the party aren't they? You see, Block' will have the new releases available when their street date rolls around, but they're going to be charging more than Redbox's $1 a day rentals. They are confident that people will pay extra to see movies as soon as they're released with them for the higher price.

Blockbuster is hurrily adding dvd rental kiosks all over the country as we speak, and they're hoping you're going to turn to them for your movie needs, y'know, when you don't have any other choice but to rent from those kiosks, or illegally download that same movie online if you want to see them when they come out on dvd. But what does this mean to someone who is a bit knowledge in the arts of tech, which is the more viable option? Wouldn't such a person buy a dvd, rip it, and offer it online so others wouldn't have to wait the 30 day wait? Hell, for the exception of the person who originally bought the movie, everyone else would've have gotten it for free - and not a rental either, but rather a copy to keep.

Hmmm, drive down to the kiosk, waste gas, pay for the movie, watch it, and waste gas again to return the movie. Or, I could use Google, search up the movie, wait about an hour or two as the newly released movie downloads via a bit torrent client, pay nothing, watch the movie, delete it, and then go to sleep. Which sounds more likely and appealing?

What movie studios need to realize is the same hard truth that the music industry had to learn: you are NOT going to outsmart the pirates. Although these actions don't seem to be any means to take on piracy, it just seems to indirectly encourage it. In a time of instant gratification you're asking people to pay top dollar for new releases, and if not then wait 30 days. Sounds like bad business in this generation when one person can make you thouands of dollars in a single day due to bad business decisions. Rather than fixing the problem the movie industry is only going to lose more money and give pirates more incentive to do it, and with much more force than ever. 

The future is all about speed, cost, and convenience. By choosing Blockbuster, whom I might add is supporting this idea 100% to boost their heavily declining bottom line, as the location where you'll get your newly released movie you're taking away those three main components:

  • Speed. The time it takes to go to a physical locale to get the movie, the gas spent, the time to watch, the time to return it.
  • Cost:

 "...if consumers figure it's only worth one dollar to see a movie at home instead of $4.50 or so charged by rental chains and video on demand, then it could cripple the economics of today's movie business."

           - Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes

  • Convenience. We live in a digital world of instant gratification, and if you are still living in a world of physical goods when each and every day we are moving toward digital, it only shows you're more concerned about immediate profits than the well being of your company and the industry. Why not just buy a gas guzzler from the 1960's and see if a new Prius isn't a more practical and better deal.

We all knew we would get to the breaking point when it came to piracy eventually. One day someone was going to put a stop to it; a stop to the way we know it now, in this golden age of transferring GB's with torrents in a matter of hours. However, with this new Blockbuster plan to boost up revenue for the studios, I feel that we are far from that day, and that we may be looking into another 2 - 5 years of piracy and millions lost in profits for the movie business because they refuse to truly work with their customers.

 [Via TechCrunch]

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