Apple plans to change TV next

Steve Jobs described the iTV as Apple's entry into the living room, as if it were a strategic move in a larger game plan. But with several wireless TV extenders already on the market, why will Apple's be any different?

Many asked the same question of the iPod in 2001, when there was a similar variety of music players already available. Early reviews suggested Apple's product was simply nothing new, that it just had a bigger price tag. Why did the iPod clean up the market? For starters, it leveraged some key Apple assets - well designed hardware specifically tailored for its intended use and an uncluttered, simple and easy to use interfac.

However, the most interesting element of this article is Apple's strategy to make iTV successful. It seems to follow the "Chasm approach" laid out by Geoffrey Moore.....
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/C408570C-520A-4433-B92D-B2B8219636E3.html

Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

Academics are split, and feuding, about how to handle the popular collaborative project. Due to the ease of editing correct information into nonsense, many professors are ignoring it. Others want to start contributing. This article makes interesting reading on the subject: Wikipedia - will it ever 'make the grade'?

From the article: "As the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries."

Web Site Offers To 'Fix' Elections - For A Price

There are many conspiracy theories out there about how any particular campaign might go about "fixing" an election. Well, as with so many good ideas these days, it appears someone has set up a nice website to make it that much easier. A web site called fixavote.com, which appears to be satire, claims to "guarantee" e-voting results.

That's the mantra of Election Partners, whose slick Fixavote.com Web site offers such services as "real-time voter correction," and "enhanced retrospective tallying." The site features attractive stock-photography models and inspirational New Age music. "Using state of the art technology, we overcome the challenges of competition and ensure election results for our clients," the Web site states.

One journalist from PC World has tried the process and in the article the guy does say that about 30 political campaigns have contacted the site. This could be entirely made up as well, but it would definitely be amusing to find out that this is actually a honeypot to try to draw out campaigns that are actually looking to hack the vote.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127684-pg,1-RSS,RSS/article.html

If PS3, XBox 360, and Wii were people you know?

Interesting little article about the new generation game consoles and comparing them to people .....
http://earthcode.com/blog/2006/10/if_ps3_xbox_360_and_wii_were_p.html

Social Networking for Bank Loans

A company called Zopa is using the Web to allow personal lending on a massive scale. This peer to peer money lender must be a disruptor to the traditional banks.

The idea is simple. People join Zopa online as either borrowers or lenders. The lenders proffer money not to individuals but to a pool of people grouped together because of similar creditworthiness. Zopa assesses the credit risk of the borrowers, pools the capital, and matches consumers who need money with consumers who want to lend it. Since Zopa is not technically a bank and doesn't lend money itself, the capital requirements to run the business are relatively small.

http://www.zopa.com/zopaweb/public/about-zopa/about-zopa-home.html

Free Music!

AllofMP3.com (russian music download site) have introduced a custom made desktop music player, called 'music for the masses', to play tracks downloaded free of charge from Allofmp3.com. You must be connected to the internet and have a valid allofmp3 login name and password to play these tracks. The tracks are 128kbps... pretty good for FREE!
http://music.allofmp3.com/info/musicformasses.shtml

What Was That About How Much Downloads are Hurting Music Sales?

For all the whining from record labels about how unauthorized downloads and songs on YouTube are somehow "stealing" from them (even though it isn't), plenty of folks have recognized the promotional value of such content. The latest is that after nearly three decades in the music business, Weird Al Yankovic is happily crediting the internet for his latest album hitting the top ten on the Billboard charts (his first ever top 10 hit). He says that having his song on YouTube, having a profile on MySpace and everyone downloading his songs (including his song about downloading songs called "Don't Download This Song") helped him get the attention needed to zoom up the charts.

Even Bush uses Google!

When George Bush is not leading the US into war he checks out his own Texas ranch on google earth:

On a CNBC interview, when the host asked Bush whether he ever googles anyone, Bush replied, "Occasionally. One of the things I ’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see -- I’ve forgot the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch.". Check out the video clip on this link..

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bush-says-he-uses-the-google/

RSS Feeds? Make your own Headlines

RSS feeds are an unknown quantity to me (highlighted by last weeks lecture), however, I found this interesting article on the subject. It also includes a ranking of the best providers for RSS Feeds. Bloglines seems to be a highly rated service.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10088_7-6651890.html?tag=cnetfd.mt

Full-Screen iPod and iPhone Confirmed

Rumors about a full-screen video iPod and uber-multimedia iPhone have been floating around for quite some time without confirmation, an anonymous source from Apple says that both products will be released around the new year.

According to an anonymous, yet extremely well-informed exec at Apple, a 6th-generation full-screen video iPod will be released some time in December of 2006. As speculated over the past year, the device will include an touch-sensitive LCD screen that will cover one entire side of the device. The touch-screen will include a virtual scroll wheel, and will be able to display videos at resolutions as high as 480p.

http://techfreep.com/full-screen-ipod-iphone-confirmed-by-extremely-well-informed-apple-exec.htm

Putting blogs to work on Wall Street

Collective Intellect has a goal and can make money. Following on from our lecture and the discussion surrounding how collective intellect could make money - the following article shows how Wall Street is using it to its advantage.

A Wallstreet firm has created a service that combs through thousands of blogs, news sites, chat rooms and other Web sites every day and then surfaces rumors and news reports that might be of interest to traders or corporate public-relations executives. This seems similar to the Digg website.

http://news.com.com/Putting+blogs+to+work+for+Wall+Street/2100-1008_3-6128340.html?tag=nefd.lede

MySpace is getting old!

MySpace is Over the Hill .....

A new report by comScore puts more than half of MySpace users at over 35.