CBS To Shoot Pilot Based On Apple's "Genius Bars"

• CBS inspired by “Genius” pilot

  LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - CBS has committed to shoot a comedy pilot called “Genius Bar,” written by two former producers of “That ’70s Show.”

  Based on an idea by consumer marketing expert Krishnan Menon, the project explores the interactions between people who work at a place similar to the Genius Bar at the Apple stores and the cool, hip and beautiful employees at a nearby Abercrombie & Fitch-type store.

Because if there’s two things that go together, it’s “genius” and “former producers of That ’70s Show”.

How To Defeat Internet Explorer

• Dreaming in Browser Swamp

  Why am I talking about them side-by-side with JavaScript? Because the standoff between Microsoft and the Forces of Neutrality (open standards and the like) is the main thing that’s holding JavaScript back. Nobody wants to build an amazingly cool website that only works in FireFox/Opera/(insert your favorite reasonably standards-compliant browser here). Because they’re focused on the short term, not the long term. It would only take one or two really killer apps for Mozilla to take back the market share from Microsoft. That, or a whole army of pretty good ones. People don’t like downloading new stuff (in general), and they also don’t like switching browsers. But they’ll do it if they know they have to in order to use their favorite app.

Nintendo Slaps The Left-Side Of My Face With Its Now Right Hand

In an unconscionable affront to the left-handed everywhere, in the Wii edition of Twilight Princess, Nintendo switched Link’s sword-hand from his traditional left-hand a more publicly palatable right:

When Nintendo decided to change the controls of Twilight Princess to allow controller movements to swing Link’s sword, it was decided that it would be too strange for gamers to be swinging their right hand in order to make Link swing his left. Thus, they decided to switch Link’s sword arm and make him right handed.

What would be the best way to implement such a change so late in the development process? The most obvious choice would be to flip Link’s character model, but with the rest of the game designed around Link attacking from a southpaw stance that would be sure to change the way at least some of the fights worked. No, the quickest and easiest solution was to simply mirror the entire game!

Famed game developer Shigeru Miyamoto had this to say about the decision: “Although Link is [traditionally] left-handed, at E3 we noticed people seemed to be using the right Wii controller to swing his sword. That’s why we decided to make Link right-handed. The interesting thing is, on the GameCube Link is still left-handed; because of the mirror mode the game map is reversed.”

I’m checking my indignant rage until I see more information (confirmation, more detail), but if it’s true, I’ll reconsider purchasing a Wii at launch. I might wait until the GameCube version comes out.

Nintendo Decides To Make All The Right Moves With The Wii

Because they seem to get off on leaking other people’s secrets, the New York times released details of Nintendo’s Wii launch before Nintendo’s press conference today:

In a move that may allow Nintendo of Japan to take advantage of stumbles by its main rival, the company plans to announce today that it will release its new Wii video game console in North America and South America on Nov. 19, just as the holiday shopping season begins, and that the machine will cost $250 in the United States.

Nintendo executives said this week that the company would also announce today that more than 25 new games would be available for its video game machine this year, a substantial portfolio from several genres that is intended to help the company broaden the appeal of its console. The company plans to ship four million of the Wii consoles worldwide this year.

Nintendo intends to announce today that every Wii will come with a game compilation called Wii Sports — including tennis, golf, baseball and bowling — meant to show off the machine’s intuitive controls.

Nintendo plans to announce today that about 30 classic games will be available for download when the Wii is released, including ones from the Zelda, Mario and Donkey Kong franchises. Downloadable games will cost about $5 to $10 each.

The PlayStation 3 launches on November 17, two days before the Wii. That’s perfect timing for maximizing sales to the “But Johnny really wanted a PlayStation 3 for Christmas, what do I get him now?” crowd.

UPDATE: A few more details from 1up’s coverage of the press conference:

• The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess launches with the Wii (GameCube version on December 11)

• The original Legend of Zelda, Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 are confirmed availabe through the virtual console at launch

• Virtual console games are bought using Wii points, 100 Wii points equals one dollar. NES games cost 500 points, SNES games 800 points, and N64 games 1,000 points.

• There’s no extra cost for the online connection; it uses ethernet or WiFi

• Most games will support widescreen

It’s almost as if Nintendo’s doing everything right: Low cost, high availability, bundled game, access to hugely popular games from old consoles, FULL compatibility with GameCube games, no extra charge for online service. They could’ve made this thing without the fancy controllers and I’d be all over it.

Apple Releases Movies And Teases Me About What I Really Want

Apple released of slew of stuff today.

The temporarily titled iTV excites me the most. Wireless connection from the computer, HDMI to my TV? Perfect.

It’s always been frustrating by not being able to transmit my video files as data to an adequate playback device.

It costs $299 and like I said a few days ago:

if it does hi-def, they can charge whatever the hell they want.

Images courtesy of Gizmodo

More photos at Engadget.

While Apple updated the entire iPod line, the one that stands out most id the shuffle:

It’s half the size of its predecessor and the clip is brilliant.

And most importantly, they’ve changed the color of the iTunes icon from purple to blue:

Daily Brief: 2006 Sept 06: Grab Bag

Facebook gets kind of gay:

Now, every time you do anything on Facebook, you issue a bulletin for all of your friends. Now no one will miss the fact that you think you look horrible in a picture, or that you didn’t accept an invitation to someone’s event, or that you wrote what you considered to be a funny item for your list of activities (“Trying not to incriminate myself on facebook to all my future employers”) and then thought better of it ten minutes later and took it down.

Facebook said the changes were aimed at advancing the core mission of the site, which is to keep people abreast of their friends’ lives. “What we wanted to create is a news ticker, if you will, of the activity of people’s friends in their network,” Facebook’s director of marketing, Melanie Deitch, told CampusProgress.org.

This is why I hate the social networking sites. I don’t care you’re recording every thing I do, but don’t tell everyone about it. And then call it a feature! Violate that veil of privacy and you’re the next Friendster.

More commentary from the ex-sportscaster:

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

Variety reports on the Apple/Amazon movie rumors:

Amazon.com will launch its movie download service later this week, numerous sources confirmed, while Apple will start selling films on Tuesday as part of iTunes.

Though they’re launching near simultaneously, the two movie stores will be different. Amazon.com is believed to have most, and possibly all, of the major studios on board, including Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., MGM and Lionsgate, according to sources close to the deals.

The only studio that will definitely be part of Apple’s movie store at launch is Disney. Other studios will likely join iTunes in the next year.

If you need something to watch those movies on, I’d get a new iMac with a 24-inch 1920x1200 widescreen LCD at the low cost of $1,999.00. True 1080p display with room left over!

And Most Importantly…

Suri exists!

Daily Brief: 2006 Sept 05: Penn State, Macs, & Wishing Stars

The Quotable Joe Paterno

The raindrops keep falling on Joe Pa’s head:

The 79-year-old coach refuses to wear a hat, insisting he would look ridiculous. Asked if he would wear one if members of the media chipped in to buy him a hat, Paterno said: “Considering what you guys would probably contribute, no.”

And he still likes coaching football:

More than seven decades after the University of Chicago’s retirement guidelines forced him to step down, the legendary coach is remembered as a football Methuselah, a wrinkled, white-haired man who seemingly patrolled the sidelines forever.

Stagg was 70 and had coached 41 seasons when he left after the 1932 season. Surely, sportswriters noted at the time, no one would ever coach so long at one institution again.

But when he runs onto the Beaver Stadium turf this afternoon for Penn State’s season opener against Akron, 79-year-old Joe Paterno will have caught up to the Grand Old Man of the Midway.

Paterno is in his 41st season as the Nittany Lions’ head coach. That’s the same number of years Stagg (1892-1932) served at Chicago.

…

“I just want to get on with this season,” Paterno said. “I wouldn’t know whether I tied Stagg’s record for longevity or not. I hadn’t thought about that. Now that you mentioned it is the first time that I knew about it.”

In Other Penn State News

Penn State hates tailgating:

Hoping to cut down on underage drinking and create a safer postgame environment, Penn State is banning alcohol at parking-lot tailgate parties during football games inside Beaver Stadium.

Imbibing before kickoff and after the final whistle, though? Still OK.

Curbing drinking at a football game is like Paterno wearing a hat: It ain’t happening people.

Macintosh!

Mac Rumors: Adobe To Preview Universal Apps Next Week

A “sneak preview” will be shown of some Universal Binary versions of Adobe’s applications according to our source, however it does not appear as though any formal release is imminent.

Maybe new feature previews? That’d be nice. Last statement on release time indicated springish 2007.

Geek Patrol: Mac Performance: From the G3 to the Xeon

Looks at benchmarks from the different processors. With charts!

Politics!

Glenn Greenwald’s in need of a falling star:

If I had one wish, it would be for journalists everywhere to ingest this one extremely simple, undeniable fact — FISA, as written, allows the President to “listen in when Osama bin Laden is calling.” Under the law as it has existed for 28 years, “if al Qaeda is calling into the United States [the President can] know why they’re calling.” The “Terrorist Surveillance Program” doesn’t give the President the power to listen in on those calls because he already has that power under FISA.

Horrible Flash Performance In Safari Is Deliberate

Watching Flash videos in Safari drives me nuts, because if the Safari window isn’t the frontmost, the frame rate drops, making the video unviewable.

Turns out it’s a feature, not a bug:

The Mozilla team also decided that plugins would get no time when they are on a hidden tab so it would not render the browser unresponsive or less responsive by adding new tabs. So do not be surprised if your SWFs and FLVs do no play on hidden tabs. Apple went even a step further in Safari: If the browser is not active, plugins will only get about 4 frames/sec, mainly to save battery and avoid the dreaded noise of the fans.

That’s all fine and wonderful, except that it makes me want to smash things. I’m a big boy. Let me pick where I want my CPU power to go.

For now, I’m using Firefox to watch videos.

Apple Doesn't Want To Make A Dirt Cheap Computer

Apple Matters conceptualizes a cheap Mac laptop, the MacBook Lame, and ends with:

There are a lot of reasons you won’t be seeing a MacBook Lame tomorrow, but no convincing reasons why you shouldn’t see one someday.

Sure there is: Apple doesn’t give a fuck about making cheap hardware to sell more computers. Market Share != Profit.

Besides, Apple’s current line of laptops are cheap.

Napster Unlimited

Napster To Go DRM cracked, already.

Sure, it's a pain in the ass workaround, it's not anything you can't do with tracks you purchased in iTunes or Napster or Rhapsody, but you're allowed to burn CDs with purchased tracks. You're not supposed to be able to do this with tracks you've rented. Hell, buy a huge drive, keep the files in WAV format, and you don't even need to worry about burning CDs.

This is for free, and after only seven days. Napster had better have expected to get, well, napstered eventually.

Nectarines

Good point about the Mac mini vs. budget PCs:

As I browsed these companies’ websites, something popped out at me: The different ways in which Apple and the Windows PC vendors (including Dell) “strip down” their low-end models. The Mac mini is stripped down externally—no mouse, keyboard, or display—while still being a full-featured machine internally. Windows PC makers generally take the opposite approach: You get a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but limited hardware features and little to no software. And speaking of software, why do so many Windows writers neglect to include the value of bundled software, monetary or otherwise, when they “compare” computers? I suppose it’s because the “free” software that comes with most Windows PCs stinks—in the budget PC world, if it comes with the computer it must not be very good. Tip to Windows writers: You’ve been led astray. The software that comes with a computer can be free and great.

Quality is often ignored in the name of price, a cheaper Mac does not mean a lesser Mac.

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.