The Comcast Corporation has offered more than $50 billion for the Walt Disney Company. If Comcast is successful, it would become the world’s biggest media company. Tom Wolzien, a media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, talked last week about the offer. Following are excerpts from the conversation: [New York Times]
Excellent favelets list
Sean Willson provides a great list of browser favelets that’s worth taking a look at. [Antipixel]
NNW to iPod
Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes: “This script will copy the news items of the selected Subscription in NetNewsWire in vCard format to the Contacts folder of iPod for portable reading.” [Ranchero]
In case you were wondering…
Adobe Could Do for Imaging What iTunes Did for Music
So other industries are now taking cue form what Apple has done fo the music industry: Adobe CEO is pondering an iTunes-like store: Adobe believes it might be able to bring a similar service to its army of creative professionals, offering the ability to download stock photography, design templates and the like from a trusted source – and of course for a fee.[nthoctave]
Interesting and possibly amazing addition to design studios and ad agencies everywhere. I think this could go a long way towards simplifying the use of stock books and CD Collections…
Jay-Z v. the Beatles — “Grey Album” food fight
I’d been looking for this this week and had only secured a few tracks… the whole album is now mine. Highly recommended listening.
DJ Danger Mouse remixed Jay-Z’s “Black Album” with the Beatles “White Album” to create… The “Grey Album,” of course.
The New Yorker had a little Talk of the Town piece on this, Apparently, Jay-Z created a vocals-only version of his album *explicitly* so DJs could remix it. And many have. This week, the Beatles issued a cease and desist to stop the Grey Album… which of course makes the Grey Album even more desirable as a collector’s item, so now the whole album is available for download. Here’s the commentary above the download links:
“Special interests, including the major labels, have turned copyright law into a weapon,” said Downhill Battle co-founder Holmes Wilson. “If Danger Mouse had requested permission and offered to pay royalties, EMI still would have said no and the public would never have been able to enjoy this critically acclaimed work. Artists are being forced to break the law to innovate.”
So is the Grey Album any good? Hell yes! I’ve been listening to it for a few days, and it grows on me more and more with each listen.
Link. [Boing Boing]
In the market for a new gear bag?
Practical Networking: Make Your Own Luck
Networking is about serendipity: making your own luck. We’ve all heard of some guy who just happened to have a friend starting a business and brought them in — only to make a million dollars later. The reason the story is not uncommon is because that’s how most positions are filled. I once saw a statistic that over 92% of positions are filled through extended networks rather than traditional means (classifieds, resume sites, recruiters). [VentureBlog]
An excellent post on the values of networking… read on for more.
Belkin Bluetooth GPS for $150
It certainly is tempting, though without a car it’s hard to justify a portable GPS for my Palm or Laptop… I know where I am when I am in NYC – though now that I think of it, this would work with Vindigo as well for pure location based info… mmmmm
I thought the 50% off sale ended 1/30 but, according to dealmac.com, you can snap up a Bluetooth’d Belkin GPS unit for $150. [MobileWhack]
First look at Flickr
Stewart Butterfield is giving me a demo of flickr. Real-time media sharing. Collaborative drawing. Real-time Photoshop contests. Uploading samples. Playing with the media we all generate.
Free, ad-based. Expected to see “pro” accounts. Stewart wrote the user interaction/UI for it. This is impressive.
It was turned on on Tuesday. Already a couple thousand users. Real launch is next week.
I signed in last night and the UI it seems pretty slick. I just need some online buddies to share with… ;(
Sizing Up the Rumored Windows Code Leak
This afternoon, news sites are abuzz with rumors that some or all the source code for Windows NT and 2000 leaked out onto the Internet.
I find it hard to believe that source code would leak. After all, companies put source code under lock and key, typically with no outside access available. Microsoft apparently is treating the leak as a rumor based on someone having seen unidentified code suspected to be Windows.
That said, any leak–whether minor or substantial–would be devastating for Microsoft. [Microsoft Monitor]
MyDoom is the Uncle Leo virus
How many emails has your spam filter picked with with ‘hello’ as the subject in the past few weeks… I can’t even count that high, it’s so many. As I clear things up, I can’t help but think of the episode in Seinfeld when Uncle Leo gets arrested shoplifting. It’s the same one where Uncle Leo tells Jerry he could at least say hello, regardless of how inconvenient the situation might seem. As Uncle Leo is getting taken out of the store he sees Jerry (who actually reported him) for the first time and Jerry says… “Uncle Leo, Hello!” Maybe it’s just one of those had to have been there /seen it bits…
Car Chase!
We just saw an amazing car chase on the news…
The story broke through live and we watched the chase for about 15 minutes (the whole chase was about 25 minutes). The driver who turned out to be an older looking man, was wanted for aggravated assault and decided to run. The guy ran all through Jersey City and finally ended up in Bayonne. The news is estimating that he ran for about 30-40 miles…
If you’ve seen Cops or America’s Scariest Car Chases (you know you love it) it was just like that, only live! This guy blew through traffic — constantly challenging people coming in the opposite direction, pedestrians (unfortunately hitting at least one person), yards and the police over and over and over. We watched him evade the cops and at one point he was almost boxed in… the Cops had guns drawn and he still kept on running!!
In the end, the police were finally able to hit his car hard enough to get it disabled in someone’s driveway where is casually stepped out and started walking away. At least 20 Cops swarmed him at that point ending the adventure. Whoa!
Brighthand’s First Impressions of Palm OS Cobalt
Ed Hardy has had an intensive education on the next version of the Palm OS at the PalmSource Conference and he now brings us his first impressions. [Brighthand]
PMA: 19-inch wireless digital picture frame debuts
Seems like a very nice frame… though as you might expect it’s also pretty expensive.
PhotoVu LLC on Thursday introduced the PhotoVu PV1900, a custom-made 19-inch wireless digital picture frame. The device is used to display digital photography in homes or businesses, mounted on a wall like a regular picture frame and capable of retrieving imagery over a wireless network. [MacCentral]
Exclusive: AT&T Wireless buyout summary
By this Friday, all offers for AT&T Wireless must be made. There have been a ton of reports on who’s doing what, so we’ve compiled the best from the last few weeks to get you up to speed: [MobileTracker]
Disney’s own digital divide
The company’s failure to capitalize on the digital revolution in entertainment is a key factor in the company’s vulnerability to the hostile takeover bid by cable giant Comcast. [CNET News.com – Entertainment & Media]
Nokia CTO Speech: etcon
Nokia certainly seems to get it…have to see what future developments lie in Symbian now that they really control it.
A few notes on keynote by Pertti Korhonen “Life Goes Mobile” CTO Nokia Corporation
Three themes: Differences between PC and Mobile, moving to a p2p medium, importance of open standards and user creativity.
Differences between PC and mobile platforms
Ross Mayfield explains how Disney is…
This is very cool stuff from the Mouse.
Ross Mayfield explains how Disney is using RSS enclosures. [Scripting News]
That Idea’s All Wet!
I was literally thinking about this today in the shower… so weird to be on the same page!
Is the shower or bathroom one of your most productive places in terms of idea generation? Never sure how to best capture new concepts? Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools recommends using a dive slate… [Fast Company Now]