This gentleman has been making waves all over the world with his custom software that helps turn a Wii Remote in an affordable white board display and head tracking device. The TED talks people invited him to showcase his work:
The really cool thing about Johnny Lee’s story is what he touches on at the end of the talk. The fact that he’s just a humble researcher but thanks to the internet and sites like YouTube, everyone around the world know about his work. There is no doubt in my mind that without the internet, no one would have ever heard of Mr. Lee and the fact that we are hearing about him is a remarkable thing.
On March 31st, 2007 the people of Sydney, Australia turned off their lights for one hour and dubbed it Earth Hour . So today marked the first time this event was acknowledged or carried out globally. Toronto took part of course along with other cities from around the globe. Google drew attention to the cause as well and even made their normally white homepage all black for the day. They of course covered their butts by saying that they are aware that a black homepage wouldn’t actually reduce world wide power usage like some people surmised as this was later proven false and it instead just a gesture to raise awareness of the cause. Anyway, I turned the lights out here. Anyone that knows me knows that try to be energy conscious in all of my actions. Sadly everyone takes a “my little contribution doesn’t really count for anything” attitude when it really does. It’s not just when it comes to climate change, which can be debated backwards and forwards, but more when it comes to any kind of change.
So I checked out the Foo Fighters yesterday with my brother Peppe and it ended up being probably one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I had never seen the Foo Fighters before but based on how Dave Grohl carries himself in interviews and the like, I was totally expecting him to talk to and engage the crowd and put on a great show.
The first surprise was the appearance of Pat Smear, an original member of the band. He helped out with the opening song. The second surprise was the appear of Geddy Lee and another dude from Rush who preformed YYZ with Taylor Hawkins. There was the whole acoustic bit that had the stage with the acoustic instruments drop down from the arena ceiling. Here I also got the chance to get up close to the absolutely beautiful Jessie Greene (I cheated and looked that up just now) on cello and violin. You also can’t forget the triangle solo. Yes, you read that correctly. Don’t you wish you never gave that up when you were 9? Dave swore a little too much for my general liking but he is a rock star after all so he’s forgiven. Hopefully there weren’t too many kids in the audience, which is totally possible at a Foo Fighters show considering I got in to them when I was pretty young and Peppe was even younger at the time. I’m still trying to determine if his Iggy Pop story is true or not. The gist of it being he was years old and in Toronto for a 1987 gig with his pre-Nirvana punk band Scream and asked at the last minute to play drums for Iggy Pop at a record release party. Too bad people didn’t post tour dates, set lists and schedules on the internet back then…
A little late but Blu-ray has officially become the de facto standard medium for the sale and distribution of high definition content. Circuit City in the US is letting customers trade in any HD-DVD players they bought within the last 90 days (which includes late Christmas shoppers as well) for credit towards a Blu-ray player. Microsoft is basically giving away their HD-DVD add-on drive now. The movie studios, which sealed HD-DVDs fate, are all releasing their content on Blu-ray only now as well. The PS3 gets an obvious boost from this as well since it’s the best Blu-ray player out there thanks to it’s upgradability via firmware updates. The original Blu-ray 1.0 format has already been superseded by 1.1 which the PS3 can properly play. First generation Blu-ray players are unable to play all the content on a 1.1 disc and probably never will be able to.
Anyway, the entire HD-DVD and Blu-ray debacle is all Sony’s fault. HD-DVD is the successor to DVD standard from the makers of the DVD standard. Sony just crashed the party with their Blu-ray format and threw they weight around to get it widely accepted. The consortium of companies behind HD-DVD (mainly Toshiba and NEC) just don’t have the financial backing that Sony has. Personally, I think the PS3 played a big part it in too. The PS2 remains my only DVD player and a PS3 will probably my only player for HD content.
For 30 seconds during yesterday night’s Oscar award ceremony, the World saw the Wii:
[EDIT: Aw, YouTube took down the video and broke my page . ]
No one is commenting if any money was exchanged between the parties involved or if the writers for the show were just highlighting tidbits of popular culture since earlier in the show Jon Stewart was fiddling with an iPod of some sorts as well. Funnily enough, Phil Harrison announced his resignation from his position at SCEA just after making remarks about him being upset with SCEJ (I’m honestly sure if that abbreviation is correct but he was mad at the execs in Japan) with regards to their stance against family gaming which the Wii has clearly shown is being accepted by gamers and non-gamers alike.
So Toronto has been getting pummeled with snow lately and supposedly even more snow freezing rain is hitting the city tomorrow. I haven’t seen snow like this since I was a child. The mounds of snow decorating the street come up to my shoulders and take up about half of the parking spaces on the street. The most annoying thing about the snow is driving around though, which luckily I don’t do that much of. Nothing is quite as frustrating as telling your car to move forward and have it just squeal at you, unable to to comply. One of the guys at work blew out his tires out because he burned so much tread trying to get out of the spot behind the office the other day. We need some more of that Global Warming…
So it seems that AOL is discontinuing all development and support for all Netscape browser products February 1st 2007. You could say that the Netscape browser is still around, it’s just called Firefox now. Even the latest versions of Netscape are just versions of Firefox made to look more Netscapish. I’ve been using the Internet for a very long time and always felt that Netscape was supperior to Internet Explorer and way back in the day it clearly was. Way back then, you actually went to a store and bought Netscape in a retail box. Microsoft decided to give Internet Explorer 3 for free to anyone that wanted it. Not limited to just free downloads but free CDs were available all over the place too. I probably have one of the CDs I picked up way back then lying around somewhere. Those CDs always used to come with other Microsoft applications as well. Like trail versions of Word and Publisher… easily used in other nefarious schemes. Sadly, Netscape couldn’t compete against a product bundled with Windows (much like ICQ and it’s battle against MSN) so we arrive at where we’re at today. This is making me feel old… rest in peace Netscape.
So I was on my way home yesterday and was thinking about how I never replied to an email from my good friend Maria that she sent wishing me a happy birthday. I even thought that a get together at Milestones would be a good chance to use the free crab dip coupon that we all received the last time we got together. Then lo and behold, I gazed outside the subway at Bay Station from my seat and there she was! I quickly scooted outside and got on the adjacent subway car and told her my tale, including the part about the crab dip coupon which she also mentioned, to which she laughed as she always does at my silliness.
So I checked out Cloverfield on the weekend and I have to admit that I kind of liked it. I can easily see how some people didn’t like it thought as it’s not your typical movie. It ended up being exactly what I expected it to be so it was $8 well spent. Cloverfield is the kind of movie that generates buzz which is clear from all the information that keeps coming out. Did you know that HUD’s height was changed on his MySpace page the day of the movie’s release? Or that “Cloverfield” was the codename of the military operation dispatched to battle the monster? The information is out there. A good place to start is IMDb’s FAQ page for Cloverfield.
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