The Year of Cell Phones

I think that this will be the year of cell phones. First of all, they're getting some exclusive television shows. It's called V-Cast and for $15 a month you can watch 24: Conspiracy (a spinoff of 24), Love and Hate, and Sunset Hotel. They will also provide some other content, but each episode is only a minute long! The seasons range from 24 to 26 episodes long. Is it worth it? Probably not right now, but it's cool because it's the start of what could be a media revolution for us. In other cellular news, Motorola is coming out with iRadio to allow people to pick up internet radio stations on their cell phone. The service will be $10 a month and while it offers many things in real-time (traffic, weather, etc), much of the audio will just be stored on the SD card. Still, it's progress, and Ericsson will be developing Walkman phones themselves. I mentioned Nokia's audio deal yesterday, but it's along the same lines.

I'll keep the steam going with some more techie news. Supporters of open source software should read this article that compared the code of OSS projects to closed source software. It almost sounds like OSS isn't much more advantageous than CSS, but it's definitely not worse. The new version of Firefox will not support international domain names to prevent domain spoofing. The technique exploits how browsers interpret such URLs to gain sensitive information from users when they submit it to certain sites. They'll actually allow users to enable it if they want to, but it sounds more dangerous than it's worth. On the other side of the internet browsing spectrum, Bill Gates announced that Internet Explorer 7 will be included in the next version of Windows (aka Longhorn) and will be available for Windows XP SP2 with stronger security, and that the beta will be released this summer. It sounds like they had pressure from the industry, which isn't surprising considering the market share they've been losing to the Mozilla project.

I think I should start a new paragraph because that one was getting too long. Some corporation named Macrovision unveiled a new technology called RipGuard that will supposedly deter DVD ripping. I'm not sure how effective their solution will be, but it sounds like all they're doing is making it more difficult to extract the data and causing the rips to take much longer. They claim it will take down 97% of ripping, but I feel that it's likely to be thwarted. It's a worthwhile attempt though I suppose, but until they unleash a more secure movie media storage item they'll have a huge monetary leak to pirates. I have to mention this failure of the NMD (National Missile Defense) in recent tests. I studied this system back when I was a debator and it was just horrible. It will require years and years of research to become effective, and we just don't have that kind of money to throw at it right now. It's like trying to shoot a bullet with a bullet, but against ICBMs instead.

The ever gorgeous Kristin Kreuk has landed a leading role on the movie Partition. It's a romance movie set in India, which is strange because she's half Dutch and half Chinese. Oh well, she'll get a lot of horny asian guys to see the movie and it'll be a good stepping stone for her (Katie Holmes had some meh movies also on her road to fame). Since I'm talking about smoking chicks, I might as well mention that Uma Thurman has confirmed what Tarantino geeeks like me have known for a while: there won't be a Kill Bill 3 for a long time (if it even is made) and it likely won't include her. She also revealed that there will be a special edition for Kill Bill released at some point with a possible re-cut of the movie, but no date as of yet. I hope Tarantino doesn't do what he did with Jackie Brown and make fans wait for years. The sequel to Saw now has a director: Darren Bousman, who is an unknown currently. So no predictions can be made yet, but maybe he'll become a master of horror films; who knows. There are some new Batman Begins pics up on the official site, and here is my fave:



They're doing a great job of steadily leaking information on the movie. While I'm on comic book movies, FilmForce gave a glowing review of Constantine. I've been posting so much about the movie because they're doing such a great job with publicity that it's hard to avoid it. IGN actually called it "the reference for all future CGI", and it sounds like a movie that slaps previous naysayers in the face. The only reviews I've seen for this film so far either have said that it's good or that it's really awesome, so it's bound to be better than average. Star Wars fans can bask in some new pictures from the Episode III film. I'm not excited about this film yet, but hopefully Lucasfilm will prove me wrong. And extreme fans of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will want to keep their eyes glued on Amazon and IMDB for a new trailer of the movie, which sounds pretty cool.

I have a couple of pieces of real news of interest. The defrocked, child-mollesting priest I mentioned a little while ago has been sentenced to 12-15 years in prison. He got off easy considering he could've faced life in prison, but something is better than nothing I suppose. Money-grubbing politicians in California are considering charging their resident a driving tax based on the number of miles driven. This is pretty crazy and I hope it doesn't spread to Texas. I think that's a rather extreme tax for areas where a car is a necessity.

I even have some notable game news today. Atari has lost its mind and decided to make a Matrix game that trails Neo's finest moments in the movies. Any game strictly based off a movie like this one appears to be is typically a bad idea and I can't believe they're still trying to bank off of the trilogy. I really think it has already run its lifetime as a franchise. Fans of the Splinter Cell series should really check out this hands-on of the first three levels from Chaos Theory, which sounds too cool to be true so far. Hopefully it's not more trial and error gameplay though.

You have finally reached the Tuesday Twosome, congratulations!

Do you...
1. Feel safe in your community? Why?
Not exactly, but it's not that dangerous. Since I live in West Campus there's a lot of room for break-ins and stuff, but there are a lot of cars on the road so I don't feel too endangered myself, and I look forward to moving into Far West next school year.

2. Tend to be a follower or a leader?
I'd have to say a leader. I like to take responsibility for what I do, so that usually means taking charge of situations and getting organized. I try to not be bossy though, and I like the feeling of getting stuff done thanks to my organizational skills. It's not really hunger for power, because I'm happy with less problems to deal with!

3. Like where you are in your life? Why?
I'm really happy to be in my major and in the clubs that I'm in and to be at UT. It's even pretty fun living with my room mates. However, I feel strange to not have had a girl friend so I'm not really happy about that but I tend not to dwell on it. I'd rather settle for a girl who's really worth it than just a trophy girl for the sake of having a girlfriend.

4. Confront problems or try to ignore them?
I learned the hard way that ignoring them is real bad so I typically confront them.

5. Stand up for your beliefs or keep it all to your self?
I definitely like to stand up for my beliefs and make sure that my voice is heard. I don't like to force my views on others, but I don't like to be concilliatory in opposing views either.