Warning: do not pinch without apple's permission

Steve Jobs, in his infinite wisdom, is working on patenting the iPhone's interactive "pinch" motion. As you may (or may not) know, the pinch is used to zoom in and out on photos and is just one part of a medley of flicks, taps, pulls, and double-taps that make up Apple's "multitouch" feature.

Even though I don't own an iPhone (I would rather pay my bills), I still know how to use it and - in the future, were I to purchase said interactive media device - I would fully expect to be able to pinch and pull any way I wanted to. But say...in the next three years or so....Apple wins this patent lawsuit. Nokia later comes out with its own version of the iPhone ("only better") for half the price! I buy it. But lo and behold - no pinching is allowed!! In order to zoom, I instead have to swirl my right pinky in a counterclockwise motion three times.

If Apple wins, this will be just the first in hundreds of similar patents that put a copyright on interactive media screen "gestures". What started with flicks and taps and pinches will degenerate into swirls and double-fingered drags and zig-zags, because all the simplest motions will be patented. If you own multiple interactive media devices, you would have to remember which motions go with which actions for each of them.

Obviously Steve Jobs has been plotting the demise of other companies' aspirations for years, because Apple has been filing patent lawsuits regarding the iPhone multitouch motions since 2004. According to Wired.com, Apple currently has 200 pending patents filed for the iPhone alone - including a patent on the term "multitouch". And if the patents are awarded...Apple will have virtually wiped out any competitor's ability to come up with a similar device that is even remotely user-friendly. No one will have a chance to develop a new and exciting add-on that builds on the same technology outside of Apple. The pinch patent is the first step, which will lead to an eventual stifling of most creativity outside of Apple concerning multitouch technology. Not to mention that the super-cool technology that already exists will double in price.


I really like Apple....but sometimes it makes me feel like the blowfish in this mass grave:



Sad.

Unlimited iTunes for Life?

Apple's currently discussing a plan involving music subscriptions for iTunes. Although no specific parameters have been set, the general idea is that the consumer pays more for a new iPod and in return gets unlimited streaming/downloading access to iTunes for a year. After that (here comes the catch) you either lose all that glorious music that you got for free OR pay a subscription fee to 1) keep all your current music and 2) get more.

Which would you choose?

....duh. The rumored price for the monthly subscription is something like $7, which is a waaaay better deal than that 99 cents-a-track bullshit that they have going on now. Supposedly consumers also have the option of a lifetime subscription...which would be something like $100 for unlimited music FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!! Well...your iPod's life anyway....which after further consideration actually caps out at around 3-4 years if you're lucky.



But still, this is a good move on Apple's part in a lot of ways. Illegal downloading, even with the recent RIAA prosecutions, is at an all-time high. More and more Gen Y-ers are staunchly unwilling to pay out the nose for their DRM-loaded iSongs when they can download anything they want for free elsewhere...and put it on any device they want. One of the ONLY ways to lure our fickle consumerist generation back would be to offer unlimited access for a reasonable price. The subscription fee would be just like another bill that we pay every month in order to still receive things we take for granted: a place to live, water, heat, music.

Some foreseeable problems:

iTunes still doesn't have a considerable amount of important music. No Tool, only a couple Beatles songs, etc.

Why pay $7 for unlimited iTunes songs (which you supposedly LOSE if your subscription lapses, forcing you into paying this monthly fee forever) when you can get unlimited (albeit illegal) access online for FREE and KEEP your music however long you want to?

This is a brave and valiant attempt, Steve Jobs, I'll give you that. But dealing with our generation sucks for people like you sometimes....and we'll just have to see how this pans out.

Twitter Me Kaybee

After months of working at this technology-focused bloggging group with a bunch of internet freaks, I was finally coerced into joining Twitter. For those of you as generally web-app retarded as I am, Twitter is a social networking site where you slap up a profile that consists of a miniscule blurb about who you are/what you do, and a picture. That's it. No fluff about your favorite movies or about how your hero is white paint or your favorite quote from Socrates. Pretty much the bare essentials.

Next, you start following people. No, really. Following. Which is kind of creepy in the sense that "Joe Nobody (Read: complete stranger) is following you" but not so paranoia-inducing in the sense that "you have 127 followers" (Yes!! I am a GOD!!).

The whole idea of Twitter is that you post updates of yourself - what you're doing, random epiphanies, etc. AND you get updates to your phone or email every time someone you're following says something new as well. It's like a giant social gathering where you get past how someone looks and their awkward social eccentricities and it's cut down exactly to how they communicate themselves in 140-character clips.

Now, I'll admit it...when I first started twittering, I would try to carefully compose clever little excerpts to demonstrate my formidable command of the English language. Then reality set in. I don't really speak English.

Just kidding. I actually demonstrated myself to be remarkably absent-minded with regard to text messages. I would be chatting with some friend over text message, someone would twitter at me, I would hit "reply" and text the entire twittering world whatever message I ACTUALLY meant to go to whomever I was talking to. Awkward and weird? Yes. Everyone got to know how I was guilt-tripped into actually GOING to my parents' house for my mom's birthday. Even scarier? The little box that pops up when you remove a twitter from your profile that tells you "There is NO undo". Once twittered, never undone. SHIT. Also, I would attempt to reply to some clever twitter at 6 am when I was still 96% asleep and text some completely nonsensical run-on fragment to reaffirm how illiterate I am when unconscious.

Thusly, I decided it was probably better for everyone if I just didn't twitter anymore. But I couldn't bring myself to completely burn the bridge. It's a little heartwarming when you wake up to six text messages describing what your friends are thinking/feeling/doing at the moment. I really like getting updates of the goings-on....it's the laziest way ever to still feel like you're "in touch" with someone while not actually speaking with them.

So if you're lazy, have unlimited text messaging or spend all your time in front of a computer screen, and would like to experience a false sense of popularity, maybe Twitter is for you.

No, really, it's cool.

http://twitter.com

International weapons trading turns to craigslist

You'd think the Best of Craigslist would be funny stuff, like the letter "to the guy doing my wife". Perhaps the weird and slightly disturbing "personal ads". Maybe other people's weird junk you definitely don't want chilling in your living room.

Personally, I think this one murders all of them: recently, undercover government officials decided to take a little cruise around Craigslist and eBay and discovered dozens of "sensitive military items" for sale.

* Night vision goggles? check
* Body armor? check
* U.S. military-issued Army combat uniform? check
* Authentic military MREs (Meals Ready To Eat)? check
* F-14 jet antennas? check
* F-14 Converter/Receiver Control? check

Oh and by the way, Iran is the only country that uses F-14s anymore. Comforting.

These items were sold to the highest bidder. Naturally, our government decided the best allocation of its citizens tax dollars would go towards buying back its own shit.

I wonder how much the F-14 parts went for...

Funnily enough, there are no laws against selling sensitive military equipment in such an anonymous online exchange. BUT, eBay DOES prevent the resale of previously used cosmetics. I'm glad we have our priorities straight here, people.

Of course, government officials are all in a tiff about the idea of former soldiers, forced to buy their uniforms with their own money (making them their property), reselling them indiscriminately to strangers. Really...what are they supposed to do with them? Have them hanging in your closet for a constant chilling reminder of your last tour in Iraq? Hey, if you can make a couple hundred bucks so some nobody can have a cool Halloween costume, I say go for it.

So now, the government's working on a law against selling any authentic military items less than 50 years old. Way to go, Congress.

On Life, Love, and really bad decisions

I rarely use this blog for personal reasons but tonight I feel the need. I just got home from work (yes, I'm aware it IS 3 a.m.) and I'll be right back there in five hours for another glorious ten-hour day.

Ever have those times where you sit back, look at your life, and question every big decision you've made? Two years ago I scorned the University of Colorado as somewhere that all the dumb and unmotivated people went to school. I decided I didn't want to be a doctor because I thought it was something my parents wanted for me more than I did. I went to Notre Dame a solid Catholic who was majoring in Psychology, Political Science, and Russian, with dreams of becoming a lawyer.

Now, I'm turning down a $30,000 a year academic scholarship to the University of Notre Dame in favor of CU. Which, by the way, is giving me no money. I'm rethinking my career choice AGAIN because I think I can do a little more good in the world through the medical profession. I've lost religion, for good this time I think. My life no longer has a certain direction, which is scary and frustrating. I feel like I've lost nearly as much emotional ground as I've gained.

An attractive and charismatic guy asked for my phone number today. I turned him down because I'm in a happy and committed relationship, but wondered - just for a second - what life would be like if I had decided differently. What if I had never met Ian? What if my parents had decided to let me return to Notre Dame after only one semester off? What if I had never TAKEN time off school? What would I be doing with my life? Would I be content?

I'm seeing my life as a choose-your-own adventure novel, except this time I don't get to cheat and see all the alternate endings. I don't get to pick which one would make me the happiest in the end. This moment is a photon in a light spectrum of alternate and parallel universes bouncing around a roomful of mirrors...intersecting and colliding and curving away.

I hope I've picked the right thing.

I've Had Enough

All right. I thought I could handle it. I thought that the pros outweighed the cons. But finally I have to say FUCK IT!!!!

Twitter blows. Just a little.

First of all, people, Twitter is supposed to be used in moderation. I had to turn my phone off for an hour today because it was on the verge of dying and kept chirping at me. When I turned it back on, I had fifteen tweets! All but two were from....the same person. All contained some semblance of "Hm. I'm feeling THIS way at the moment". C'mon now. Every thought that passes through your head needs to be mini-blogged?? I know, the easy answer is "Turn off phone updates from people that annoy you!" My easy response? "I'm too lazy, so I'm going to sit here and passive-aggressively blog about it".

Second, over half the tweets I receive contain links to other websites or online photos. I'm poor. My phone doesn't even have a camera much less the ability to follow links. So I can look longingly at your tiny URLs all I want...but I'm never going to know what it was you wanted so badly for the world en masse to see. And no, I'm not spending $150 a month to check them out.

Sometimes, everyone decides to Twitter all at once. OR, two people start a conversation and all you get is their "@" back-and-forths for an hour. This is when the phone updates get REALLY annoying. I could turn the phone updates off altogether, but then what would be the point of even being on Twitter? No one wants to look at a website to see that Lisa was running late three days ago. I get to my computer probably twice a day if I'm very very lucky, and that's generally only for 15 minutes at a time. I'm not going to spend those precious moments of wireless bliss looking through everyone's old-news tweets.

Twitter's got a real dilemna. The whole POINT is so that you can see updates in real-time....i.e., text messages. But what happens when the updates get too annoying/overwhelming? The site loses its whole appeal.

Also, their propaganda how-to video really bothers me. Thanks, Nabisco's Hideway, for giving me additional ammunition.

I