Gmail team adds Video Chat
So apparently, Gmail has added video chat to their lineup of in-mail features. I see this as a natural progression, but at the same time somewhat surprised that it snuck into the menu bar at the top with no major fanfare or announcement. I’m surprised, because while other Instant Messenging applications have included video chat for years, none have come into widespread use. I believe gmail’s implementation of video chatting, on the other hand, will significantly change the way the more common folks communicate online.
The typical IM app user is more in tune with modern communication methods.. more likely to have jumped on the text messaging bandwagon, etc. But, looking at the entire demographic of users who use email (a large chunk of which now use Gmail as their email provider), you’re looking at a crowd that doesn’t necessarily chat and text 24/7.
The video option will feel like more of a natural step, mimicking a face to face conversation more accurately than any text chatting does. Since the majority of new computers sold now are laptops (that trend is interesting enough for it’s own post), and webcams are becoming standard equipment, the average joe may just end up video chatting through gmail before ever touching a traditional IM client like msn/aim/yahoo.
The new feature requires a small program install, which was less than a megabyte in size. I have not yet tried the videochat with anyone, but am eager to see how seamless it works and how the performance is compared to other services I have tried.
Gobama Go
updated to fix links.
So we have a new president-elect, and epic it was. This really was the first presidential election to be directly wired in to the internet generation. Barack Obama did everything right, gathering the attention and support of millions of young voters who are Plugged In. Twitter, Facebook, Viral marketing videos and sites, iPhone apps, all the virtues of an “in touch” campaign have been talked about for months, and it wasn’t just hype.
So rich was the buzz surrounding this “internet election”, that even the scam artists and thieves saw the opportunity.
Now that he’s won the election, everyone is alight with renewed enthusiasm. The Yes We Can crowd has turned into the Yes We Did. Every other blog I visit seems to have inspirational speeches written with the Obama ideals in mind - making history, american pride, a brighter future. His existing army of facebook, myspace, youtube, twitter, iphone, and website followers can still be leveraged further, and Mashable has written a great article about the possibilities going forward.
In a way, all of this additional spotlight means that Obama has even more pressure on him than any other candidate in US history. He absolutely cannot screw this up. Here’s to hoping for 4, or 8 years of positive outcome. He’s got a nightmare of a country to take over, but I, like 65 million other voters, believe in him.
Voting will be epic
Found myself in a relatively short line of about 160 (outside the building anyway) at about 6:45 this morning. The silence among the crowd felt creepy, but then, voting is a very personal thing. Updates when I’m out.
Update: about 75minutes in line, 20 of which was to wait for the single electronic machine (!?) rather than take the immediately available paper ballots.
I’ve finally figured out…
Why the Japanese are so hilarious: Â They never grow up. Â All the funny, wacky “japanese game show” videos are hilarious because they are grown adults doing the things we did as 6 year olds on the playground or at friend’s houses. Â Case in point:
Â
Fine.
I will once again try to find time to write a personal blog, as well as develop my design/advertising blog which is really where my focus should be lately. Â Lets see how long this burst of inspiration lasts. Â I give it a week.
OSX Leopard 10.5.2 installed on Dell Studio 15 / 17
Using iAtkos 2.0 with standard kernel and no additional options selected, I was successful in loading OSX Leopard onto a coworker’s brand new Dell Studio 17 Core2Duo.
Working out of the box:
- Chipset
- CPU - detected both cores and reports processor correctly.
- Webcam - amazingly detected and working immediately.
- Fingerprinter reader - another one I was surprised it was immediately detected, although I have no program to test it.
Not working out of the box (this was JUST loaded, I have not yet looked into available kexts to resolve these issues:
- Partial Video - ATI Radeon 3450HD comes up in 1024×768 mode with no QE/CI (Quartz Extreme / Core Image for graphics acceleration). This will probably be the biggest hurdle.
- Sound - no sound device detected.
- WLAN Wifi - Dell Wireless N 1510 (seems to be a new version from Dell) — this can always be swapped out with a Truemobile 390 or similar known working mini pci.
- WPAN Bluetooth - Dell Bluetooth 370 - I believe drivers exist but have not tracked them down yet.
- Built-in LAN - Seems I might be out of luck on this one, known problems
So, the Dell Studio 15 / Studio 17 is not out of reach for OSX fans, but it will certainly take more work, the key being solid Radeon drivers, that will probably be the biggest issue. The beautiful 1920×1200 WLED screen had to be stuck at 1024×768 until this is resolved.
Wordpress for iPhone Review
This blog post was written from my iPhone using the new Wordpress app from the App Store.
It is free, and looks to have good basic funtionality and easy setup. After more testing I intend to expand this post into a full review.
iPhone and Pandora’s [music] box
After installing and playing with over 50 apps from the iPhone appstore, not only have I come away completely impressed, I’ve discovered a new service that I think will be the beginning of a whole new era of music for me.
I’m talking about Pandora for iPhone. The Music Genome Project was started back in 2000, and while I had heard of it, didn’t pay much attention at the time. Then more prominent, web 2.0 style music discovery sites were launched, like last.fm, which did get my attention. The problem was mobility — I listen to music in the car far more often than I listen at home or work.
Pandora’s app integrates well with the iPhone, and it’s unique id system meant no logging on at all (simply plug the id the phone shows into the signup page on Pandora’s site, and by the time you click next on the phone, you’re already logged in , looking at all your custom music channels.) After plugging in a few of my favorite bands, radio stations were instantly created.  Playing any of them from the iphone was instantaneous over wifi, and surprisingly worked over edge well also. It seems to always start with the artist you initially chose, following it up with songs from other bands that closely match the “genes” of the artist you you like.
So far, the three songs suggested after my Crystal Castles favorite played were ON POINT. I am going to be doing a whole lot of new music discovery through this service, as it’s essentially last.fm in my pocket.
