such dramatic photographs. I want one so bad.

we have a lawsuit for that

I haven’t posted in a while, so I felt I should write something. Recently Verizon has started airing “anti-apple” ads, whether that be directly or indirectly; they’ve done both. First, Verizon started airing a commercial titled “theres a map for that,” where verizon criticizes at&t for their pathetic 3G network, and of course, this was an indirect shot at apple because of its affiliation with AT&T. Verizon is an interesting company, becuase they were offered exclusivity to the iPhone at first but they refused it. Apparently, they didn’t like the terms that Apple was proposing and so they let their pride take the best of them. They are obviously regretting it now, since the past two quarters they have been losing subscribers to AT&T (and we all know people are going to AT&T because of the iPhone. its definately not because of their superior service, because its nonexistant). Apparently AT&T wants to sue because it thinks that advertisement is misleading.

Verizon is posed to launch its “iPhone-killer,” the motorola droid this friday. this should be interesting. its always nice to see competition. without competition, apple will have no incentive to improve and that isn’t good for any of us. as great as the iphone is, we can’t let Apple get too comfortable. Verizon aired the following commercial in order to help people gain awareness of the upcoming phone: link.

I think the droid is a cool phone, but Apple isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. the droid lacks the aesthetics that make the iphone an instant classic, though it does make up for it with the physical keyboard (i don’t understand what so bad about virtual keyboards). we’ll see how this goes, i’m not very impressed though. android 2.0 is impressive though, its the new google operating system that the droid runs. the only part that people are probably not aware of is that the droid, at least in america, won’t have multitouch capabilities - and thats because Apple currently owns patents on pinching and other kinds of multitouch gestures for the iphone.

i might update this later. there is much more to write about but i dont want to make this too long.

Science, Technology and the Fine Arts

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Maybe you’re looking at the title of this post thinking, “which one doesn’t belong?” - circle the term above that is different. In this case, there is no right answer. Technology is just as different from art as it is from science, and that’s something we tend to confuse. If asked to define technology, many would probably say that technology is simply the application of science - wrong! The steam engine did more for science than science did for it. We learned more about thermodynamics from the actual technology itself, not vice versa as many are inclined to believe. Science and technology have a history, a relationship that has changed over time, one that is increasingly intertwined and occurs in context.

So what does art have to do with all of this? Everything.

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i couldn’t have asked for a better game…

quick.. where’s my credit card?

facebook’s quest for world peace

so it seems facebook has started a new philanthropic initiative: peace.facebook.com. apparently, they are marketing facebook as a tool that helps people understand each other by enabling people from diverse backgrounds to quickly and easily share ideas. this sounds great, but unfortunately my pessimistic side takes over. recently, i’ve been doing a lot of research into why companies do the things they do. some of the answers are simpler than others. facebook’s reasons for marketing this as a “peace” effort aren’t so clear, but I think its just a way of making themselves look like nice people - its totally a public relations thing. we’ll see how this goes.

in other news, google social search is now active (link). it allows you to search your friends’ blogs, twitter, and other social networking media through google search. it seems pretty cool, and just in time for my blog woot woot.

cheers for using technology in new ways.

also, new apple store opening in nyc. exciting!

microsoft has also fixed the student version of windows 7 bug. its supposed to work now. i tried windows 7 in beta form, but i can’t wait to actually install it. i probably won’t do it until winter break, because i don’t want to f up my computer in the middle of the quarter.