Showing posts with label tablet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tablet. Show all posts

Monday, April 05, 2010

I got an iPad!


I got my new iPad today!

Thing is, I don't understand what all the fuss is. And why did people have to wait until Saturday to get one when it would have been easy enough for them to make an iPad anytime they wanted?

That said, I'm glad people are so excited over the iPad. I'm fond of mine, and I find that it's infinitely customizable.

But could someone explain to me why all these tech heads and yuppies are paying $499 and up for something you can get at the grocery store for under a buck?

Sometimes, I just don't understand this country at all.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

In the year 2025 . . . will K-Yuck
and the Daily Blab still be alive?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


The past 10 years has been the decade of "disruptive technology."

And the easier the tech is for your average clod to use, the more disruptive it has been, is and will be in the decade to come. See "search engine, Google" and "iPod, Apple."

FROM A series that began Sunday in the Omaha World-Herald:

“In the year two thousaaaaaaand!”

That cry heralded one of Conan O'Brien's recurring late-night gags in the '90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.

In the year 2000, O'Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.

Who could've guessed he wasn't being absurd enough?

Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn't recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.

It's not just the simple stuff that's changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.

But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?


(snip)

1. Google

You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet's oxygen.

Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it's always around, it's absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you're not paying attention.

Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it's not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.

Face it, it's Google's Earth. We just live on it.

2. iPod

It's a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple's iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.

As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.

MAYBE I should revise my lede on this post. What if we only think the "noughts" have been the decade of disruptive tech? What if the first tenth of the 21st century only has set the table for the real disruption to come?

What if 2000-2009 has been high-tech's figurative working over of traditional media's midsection, with the odd jab here and there to newspaper's snout and broadcasting's swollen right eye?

And what if the next 10 years delivers the uppercut that finishes the job that started with the last 10 years of "softening up"?

Muhammad Ali, meet Steve Jobs.

Jobs, the brain behind Apple, bloodied and staggered radio and the record industry with the iPod and iTunes. And now, it looks like he's about to either save or kill off newspapers and magazines with Apple's long-rumored "tablet" computer.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider that Apple's tablet will save newspapers, but I mention the possibility because the analyst in the MSNBC video above did. He apparently has much more faith in traditional media's ability to embrace and adapt than I do.

DID I mention the age of tablet computing probably will be the death of radio, too? Just ask former radio man Jerry Del Colliano:

In my opinion when this device is debuted -- not if -- it will be the most successful consolidation of media ever -- far more successful than radio consolidation.

Apple will likely allow music, movies, email and web browsing. Some call it a potential Kindle killer because it is likely to compete in the book reader category that Amazon's Kindle has started.

This is purely out of the Apple playbook.

Let someone else test the market and they come in with a cooler, more intuitive device with a back structure that includes Apple's massive and growing iTunes store.

I've heard that the new device may also include a PDF reader making it a phenomenal choice for professional people (doctors, lawyers, disc jockeys -- sorry, I'm partial to radio djs) as well as an ideal replacement for student textbooks.

How popular do you think Apple will be if municipalities everywhere could stop ordering textbooks and have students access digital books through the iTunes store?


(snip)

Let me be blunt.

If radio is not actively engaged in iPad content, it is over even sooner than the ten year life radio has left.

Why?

Older consumers will also migrate to the iPad. They showed a willingness to embrace the next generation's new tools when they adopted email, texting, Facebook and iPods to name a few. This will be no different.

The new iPad will be their own personal media device. Their bookstore. Their TV.

And radio's answer to simply stream terrestrial audio won't work here. In fact, radio needs to get video. And I'm not talking about a studio cam aimed at the morning dj (if they still have one).

The iPad is something very exciting and the only industry that has talent in place to occupy that space is the one industry that is firing all its talent.

You know who.

The iPad will be bigger than the iPod and iPhone but for radio and the music business it will be the iPlop if they don't get into the future right.

AMEN.

What we have today -- and what already is wreaking havoc on traditional media -- are version 1.2 devices, essentially. An Apple tablet will be cheaper than a good laptop, as capable as a netbook (and far more capable than a Kindle), easier to carry around than a newspaper and will offer a far more compelling multimedia experience than an iPhone or other "smart phone."

It will be like jumping directly to a version 3.0 device.

Unfortunately, broadcasting and newspapers -- at least those still working in broadcasting and newspapers -- by and large are partying like it's 1999.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Holy crap! I can't believe in Jesus anymore!

Oh my unLord! Christianity has fallen!

A first-century BNC (Before Not Christ) Hebrew tablet has been found that's shaken my now ex-faith to its now ex-core. Apparently, ancient Jews had an idea the Messiah would be raised from the dead after three days!

THE NOTION is not a Christian exclusive, and I'm headed out in a few to go a drinkin' and a whorin', because it don't matter now.

Really,
it's all in The New York Times:
A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.


(snip)

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”
OH, INSERT Anglo-Saxon expletive here. Jesus and his followers didn't even bother to make this s*** up. They ripped it off from Shlomo the Stone Scribbler. And, come to think of it, the stuff J.C. and the Dubious Dozen were going around preaching sounded an awful lot like some stuff that was in Isaiah, in the Old Testament.

You know, all that
"suffering servant" crapola. House of David, my eye!

The Big Guy was even ripping off
Psalm 22 when he was dying on the cross -- all that "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" stuff.

And . . . and . . . the former deity known as "Jesus" -- with all this rising after three days stuff --
was ripping off the Book of Jonah, which the stone scribbler also apparently bastardized into some sort of literary "prefigurement" of the Resurrection. I mean . . . really:
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

"Either declare the tree good and its fruit is good, or declare the tree rotten and its fruit is rotten, for a tree is known by its fruit.

You brood of vipers, how can you say good things when you are evil? For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness, but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil.

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak.

By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you."

He said to them in reply, "An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here.

At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.
JOHAH. ISAIAH. PSALMS. STONE TABLET. You'd think that what would happen to the "Messiah" was no secret, that ancient Jews had lots of clues in literature and tradition. That all this stuff was of a piece.

That it was prefigurement . . . allegory . . . prophecy. That it all somehow makes sense from a Christian perspective.

Oh, wait . . . it does.

And, while I'm thinking of it, there hasn't been anyone who's come up with a bag of bones six feet under a tombstone reading "Jesus H. Christ, Alleged Son of God."

(Sound of crickets.)

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . perhaps I was a little hasty, Lord.

I can call you "Lord" . . . right?

Sir? Your Almightyness?