One of my favorite videos of 2008: Ninja cat

In case you haven’t seen this one:

30GB Zunes Failing Everywhere, All At Once

Right, so this is a weird one: we’re getting tons of reports—tons—about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.

The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users ‘Z2K9′, due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country. According to tipster Michael, the Zune users experienced something like this:

Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar (as pictured above). I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune. Then I checked out the forums and it seems everyone with a 30GB HDD model has had this happen to them

What hasn’t emerged yet, largely due to the fact that MS’s support lines aren’t yet open for the day, is why these devices are failing. The evidence seems to point to a software glitch, but simple resets aren’t providing any relief. Some reports indicate that only Zunes with the latest firmware are affected, but this hasn’t yet been confirmed.

The proximity of the events to the New Year, which inspired the Y2K9 moniker, provides little more than a colorful backdrop; it’s unlikely that the switching of years in the Zune’s internal calendar has anything to do with the failures (besides, it hasn’t even happened yet).

Read the full article at Gizmodo

Large Form iPod Touch in Fall '09?

We’ve got this from three independent sources close to Apple: expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen. Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production.

Read the full article at TechCrunch

'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner

Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark on Time Warner Cable Inc. at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by then.

The impasse over carriage fee hikes would mean “SpongeBob” and other shows like “The Daily Show” will be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest cable operator.

Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 percent and 36 percent per channel, an amount that could increase customers’ cable bills, Dudley said. Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said the requested increase was in the very low double-digit percentage range.

Viacom said the increases would cost an extra 23 cents a month per subscriber — which works out to $35.9 million more in total. It said that Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5 percent of the Time Warner cable bill.

Read the full article at Yahoo News

Uncle Pop pays a visit with his peanutty goodness

I’m happy to welcome a new family member, even if it may be temporary. Yes, Uncle Pop has paid a visit and is now part of the clan. My parents found him in an Asian market in Florida and sent him up north to visit me.

Actually, Uncle Pop makes the peanut flavor Fruit Stick Rice Pop that you see here. What does it taste like? Imagine the taste of peanut brittle, but instead of a tooth-splitting hardness there is instead a melt-in-your-mouth light crunch of a rice cake. Yeah, it’s pretty good.

It’s almost time for the uncle to return home, but I’m happy to have experienced his canola oil and melamine enriched goodness!

My Tivo hates me

I loved my Series 2 Tivo. It was rock solid. It was so faithful that I even bought it a twin brother to play with while out of the house.

My Series 3 Tivo is like the gremlin that eats after midnight. It’s slow at times, it doesn’t like to multi-task and it’s temperamental. And it crashes — a lot. I’ve learned that if the Tivo is recording two shows at the same time then don’t, no matter how badly you want to, don’t ask it to do anything else. Stop recording one of the shows if you don’t want the screen you see here. What is this screen? Well, it’s the startup screen you see after the Tivo very quietly crashes. No error messages, no clues as to what happened, not even an acknowledgement that something has gone seriously wrong. Just 7 or 8 minutes of time that the Tivo refuses to stay awake for.

I just wanted to watch a rerun of Family Guy. Now I’m writing a blog post. Oh well…

Dog-Powered Vehicles Force Man's Best Friend Into Manual Labor

Your dog is lazy and shiftless, not paying his way through life at all. It’s time to make your dog work for his food by attaching him to a scooter, bike or skateboard.

Yes, now you can get your lazy ass carted around by your poor dog, attaching him and up to three other dogs to one of these crazy contraptions. The big selling point, apparently, is that by placing the dog behind the steering apparatus, you’re able to have much more control over where you’re headed. Because if the dog was placed in front of the steering apparatus, you’d always just head right to the butcher shop or milk bone factory.

Read the full article at Gizmodo

Text Messages Are an Even Bigger Ripoff Than You Thought

We all know that text messaging is overpriced, but the NYT has pulled back the technological shroud to find out that the prices aren’t just bad, they’re practically extortionate.

The article goes into depth about how text messages are transmitted. In short, texts are unsurprisingly transmitted between towers over the main, wired network in the same way as cellular data, a portion of the journey that, considering the tiny amount of information in a 160-character text, costs very close to nothing.

Surely then, the carrier incurs costs to transmit the messages from towers to handsets. After all, this is the wireless part of the journey, and wireless costs lotsa $$$, right? No:

Text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

You read that right: for carriers, sending a text message from an extant wireless tower to your handset is more or less free. If it’s any consolation, the article also mentions that the Senate Antitrust Committee is kind of looking into the matter, so we may see relief (or even retribution) within the next 10-40 years.

Read the full article at Gizmodo

LG Touchscreen Watch Phone Will Support 3G, Speech Recognition

Details of a new LG watch phone, likely to be announced at CES, have trickled out through the company’s Korean site. And surprise! It looks hard to use. But not—and this is important—unusable.

The first thing to notice is the specs: unlike last time around, they’re actually pretty solid. The GD910, as it’s called, will support 3G, HSDPA, Bluetooth, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and finally, videoconferencing via a front-mounted camera.

Read the full article at Gizmodo

Merry Chrismoose!

Droopy red hats are sure to be the new fashion statement for the animal kingdom!

Merry wishes for the holiday season!