Google <3 Developers

I had the most Apple articles today, but I'm tired of talking about them so let's move on to Google instead. Forbes is running an article explaining why Eric Schmidt loves the little guy. And why is that? Because the little guys are who's keep him rich! It's unlikely that you've never encountered what's commonly referred to as a Google Mashup before. Maybe it was for gas prices, or to see your Facebook friends, or to view your StatCounter visitor locations, or a random poem generator, or one of many other things. When these things get big though, they share some of their profit with Google through advertising revenue, and Google has more great sites to crawl for. What I find funny about this situation is that the developers respect Google for releasing the APIs, and Google gets free labor in return. Who got the short end of the stick there? In any case, it's all in good fun, and the programmers who make these mashups just do it as a hobby (it's not like they're usually worth a whole lot of money anyway). While I'm talking about Google, someone claims to have seen an idea on one of their whiteboards to give free movie showing in exchange for audiences giving up their eyeballs for some ads. I don't think this idea would pan out all that well with the movie industry, but I'd definitely go for it. I don't mind even 10 minutes of ads for a free two hour movie, a value of like $9 by today's prices. Still, it could've also been a joke since those guys have crazy senses of humor.

I guess I'll get to the Apple stuff now. They've been doing pretty well in movie sales with 125,000 videos sold in the opening week of the movie store, which I'd say is pretty impressive given that people still can't easily watch them on their TVs unless they rig it up themselves. I'm sure they're hoping for a sales spike with the release of the iTV. Until then, they have to rely on newer iterations of their laptops to bring home the bacon with a likely 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo in the MacBook Pros and probably something just a little toned down for the MacBooks. I wouldn't be surprised by a slight price increase on the MacBook Pros, but it'd probably be worth it given the great performance you'll be seeing. We all know that the release of the new iMac was pretty well received and one blogger put up his impressions of the new 24 incher and all its glory. I'd say that it's a pretty fair review, so give it a look if you're interested in getting one. uTorrent (I'm not looking for the ascii representation of mu, screw that) has come out with a web interface to allow you to manage your torrents remotely in case you're at work but want to start up a new download at home or something. This is something that I'd personally use, but I'm having issues getting it working (doesn't show up under Preferences). Tips, anyone? Lastly, it's finally here: a car that parks itself for you, which would be great for people like me who have to back out of and repark in spots like twice where ever they go.

Quint over at AICN saw Pan's Labyrinth and it sounds like he genuinely loved it. I know I've said this a lot lately (that's a good thing), but I'm now even more excited to see this movie, and I wish I had an English trailer to watch. Will Ferell has pulled out of Elf 2, and so New Line has decided to not move forward with its production. Instead, he's turning his sights to Old School Dos, which he sounds interested in since Todd Phillips, the original's director, will be aboard. Sounds like a fair trade off to me. If you want to see a really bad trailer, you should see the one for Eragon. I actually feel embarassed for having sat through the whole thing. The promotional video we have for Shoot Em Up is much better despite the gratuitous usage of firearms, and Paul Giamatti being in an awkward role given his past roles. Monica Bellucci does look hot in it though. Lastly, Warner is trying to combine HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and DVD into a single disc, and I think they're crazy, but I like it. I can't decide whether this would hurt or help Toshiba or Sony, but it'd be great for consumers so I'm all for it (even if it cost more, the price would go down by the time these formats got big).

Now for the Tuesday Twosome:

List twoÂ…

1. Items in your purse/wallet:
My ID and my voter registration card.

2. Food items you crave the most:
Ice cream and chicken breast (I like the Tyson stuff you just stick in the oven).

3. Books you could read over and over again:
Catcher in the Rye and Plato's The Republic.

4. Events in the past 14 days that have made you laugh and/or cry:
I laughed at the Flaming Lips show on Sunday but cried (or nearly cried, rather) to learn of Ann Richards's death.

5. People you are missing a lot at this very moment:
My brother and this girl I used to be good friends with who always made me feel special. I do miss my parents, don't get me wrong, just not at this moment.