Que es?
The Weblog of Brett Singer. Bringing the world what it needs most - a blog.

Note: Sorry about all of the 'hot deals' entries (someone referred to this blog as CorporateShill.com).
The deals and things are being fed into Multineedia.com. We will soon move the deals category over to Multineedia so you don't have to read it, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Hidden Handheld Treasures

Hidden treasures: handhelds with surprise features
These are no ordinary handhelds. Sure, they organize your
contacts, surf the Web, check e-mail, and make calls, but
they also have extra features. With the Audiovox SMT5600
cell phone, for example, you can watch TV, listen to music,
and download album art.

Um... how about make calls? Can I make calls?

[/tech] permanent link

Top 10 Technologies we miss

TOP 10 TECH WE MISS
By Rafe Needleman
THE POWER OF 10: Spacemen, a dot-com that delivered chewing gum, and
satisfyingly clacky keyboards--where have they gone? You'd be amazed at
the things Rafe Needleman pines for in this modern age. As part of our
10-year retrospective, Rafe ponders the top 10 things he misses most
from the last decade. Apparently, he was just too lazy to get his gum
from the vending machine like the rest of us. Read on.

Kozmo.com is the one that I really miss. If they hadn't been run so poorly (a familiar refrain, I know) it would have been a perfectly viable business. It was really nice getting ice cream and a movie delivered.

[/tech] permanent link

FireKarl.com?

Is this still going to the web site of a certain political party?

[/news] permanent link

CNET Best of 2005 (so far)

My pick for the coolest gadget
of the year so far? The Sling Media Slingbox. I don't know what I
need it for, I know only that I need it. Desperately.

[/tech] permanent link

2 stories from Variety

1. CD SALES DOWN, DOWNLOADS UP
Only seven '05 releases have become million sellers
Sales of recorded music are down almost 7% from last year as the
calendar hits the halfway mark. But if the music industry is looking
for a silver lining in that rain cloud, they'll find it in the
digital arena, where paid downloads are up by 104 million units.
Article link

2. MOUSE ORDERS PHONE SERVICE
Spirit venture targets families
Walt Disney is beefing up its mobile telephone business. In a
partnership with Sprint, the Mouse will launch the first national
wireless phone service specifically designed for families, called
Disney Mobile, next year. Company said Wednesday it is also creating
a new business unit, also called Disney Mobile.
Article link

Um... what's a family friendly phone service?

[/tech] permanent link

2 Annoying Companies Merge

This is a very bad thing. Plaxo, which is an online service that keeps track of your address book for you by emailing everyone in your address book, is basically a spammer in service-oriented clothing. They say they won't spam your address book, but that just doesn't sound right. What's the business model if not spam? (This explains is better than I am, you can also try this Google search.) AOL is responsible for keeping Internet users as dumb as possible (not to mention destroying Time Warner's stock price). Putting these two together is not exactly chocolate and peanut butter, if you get my drift.

An increasing number of people that I know (most of them AOL and Hotmail users - nothing personal, that's just what I've noticed) seem to be using Plaxo, which was already a bad sign. When I get these emails, I just ignore them. AOL has a lot of users. I realize I'm not giving enough of a reason here, but this just seems like a bad thing.

[/tech] permanent link