February 6th, 2006
By GadgetManiac
Ferrari and alarm clocks in the same sentence? … apparently so … Ferrari has licensed it’s famous prancing horse logo to Oregon Scientific in order to paste it onto some more of their clocks and weather stations.
The clock now joins other Ferrari-branded products such as the Acer Ferrari 4000 notebook computer, the Acer F20 monitor, still other Oregon Scientific products, the Thrustmaster Force Feedback Racing Wheel, some Planet Sports sporting merchandise, Hot Wheels Ferrari toy cars, Mattel’s Scuderia Ferrari Barbie doll, dozens of Ferrari-themed knapsacks, bags, towels, pens, calendars and hats, etc.
Giulio Zambeletti, Ferrari brand development director, and Ferrari’s marketing department have a lot to answer for … er, view all this as brand enhancement. Others regard it as a watering down of the well regarded emblem.
Less uncool than backpacks and beach towels, however, is the recent agreement between Ferrari and Aldar Properties to develop a Ferrari theme park in Abu Dhabi by 2008. Although, guests will not be able to race Ferraris at the theme park, there will be a racing track, some shops, hotels and residences, as well as sporting and driving activities, according to Ahmed Ali Al Sayegh, Aldar’s chairman.
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February 5th, 2006
By GadgetManiac
Petroglyph has a new real-time 8-player 730MB game due out Feb 16: Star Wars: Empire at War. Nice looking graphics – no word yet on playability.
Previews and commentary available at a number of sites, including Gamespot.
Petroglyph website
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February 4th, 2006
By GadgetManiac
Steve over at gamingsteve.com has a new article that poses the question Why Do American Games Fail in Japan?
By way of preamble, Steve documents the abysmal state of Xbox sales in Japan, with only about 1% of total game platform sales in the country. That figure of one percent includes all sales of the previous generation Xbox since it’s launch in 2002, as well as Xbox360 sales to date. He goes on to list the top 100 game titles in Japan, and points out that there are no Xbox-related games in that list and that the only US-made title to be found there appears at 70th position, and that game is for the Sony PS2 platform.
Nintendo is number one in the Japanese game market, both in hardware and software. In 2005, the Nintendo DS portable gaming system, with it’s 2 screens, outsold the Sony PlayStation Portable (the 2nd best selling platform) by a factor of 2 to 1. The best selling game in Japan for 2005 was Nintendo’s Oideyo Doubutsu no Mori (aka Animal Crossing Wild World), just edging out Sony’s well-received Gran Turismo 4. The best selling game and platform are shown together in the top graphic.
Why is the most difficult of the five W’s. The article suggest that U.S. games do not sell well in Japan because they are American-centric and geared to U.S. tastes. Examples being games based on U.S. sports and first-person-shooter games.
Others suggest that the reason may be cultural, because FPS games seem to do well elsewhere, such as in China. Additional reasons that are offered include brand loyalty, cultural bias, dislike of American marketing techniques, the placement of the controller’s buttons or the lack of Xbox game titles.
Or it may simply be a Japanese dislike for the bulk and girth of the previous-gen Xbox, as depicted in the above chart. Or some reverse-synergistic combination of all of the above may be implicated.
Why Do American Games Fail in Japan? – gamingsteve.com, Feb 1, 2006
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February 3rd, 2006
By GadgetManiac
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) program of the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reports that there were a record 134073 PCT patent applications received in 2005, an increase of 9.4% compared to the previous year.
Philips N.V. was the most productive organization, with 2492 PCT applications, followed by Matsushita, Siemens, Nokia, Bosch and Intel in 6th spot.
Ranked by country, the U.S. came out on top with 45111 patent applications, ahead of Japan, Germany, France, the U.K. and Korea in sixth place.
The big news was the surge of applications from China (up 43.7% compared to the previous year), Korea and Japan.
It’s interesting to compare WIPO’s list to that just published by the USPTO. While the act of comparing international patents applied-for to U.S. patents issued is problematic, it would appear that many companies, such as IBM and Canon are much less active internationally. From the published numbers, one might infer that IBM considers a U.S. patent to be about 10 times more valuable than an international one.
Record Year for International Patent Filings – WIPO Press Release, 03-02-2006
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February 3rd, 2006
By GadgetManiac
Here’s a pointer to a podcast by Mark Prince who runs the CoffeeGeek website. The podcast consists of an interview with Phuong Tran who won the 2005 U.S. barista championship.
They discuss the art & science of espresso preparation, Phuong’s café in Ridgefield Washington, the United States Barista Championship (USBC) event in general, and provide some thoughts & observations on café culture.
CoffeeGeek Podcast 030 – Phuong Tran, USBC Champ
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February 3rd, 2006
By GadgetManiac
The Joy of Tech presents an Apple-Keynote-themed comic bagatelle that attempts to skewer Steve Jobs’ legendary attention to detail.
Geek Culture – Jan 9th, 2006
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February 2nd, 2006
By GadgetManiac
If Albert Einstein had had an MP3 player, it might not have been as difficult to deconstruct the playlists and deduce the favorites, as one might imagine.
A recent article in the New York Times offers some hints as to what might have been found in the great man’s hypothetical digital music player. The report makes note of Einstein’s affinity for Mozart’s music. The former genius is quoted as describing the latter’s work as “… so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master”. The article only makes note of 1 specific piece of music by Mozart, namely K516, but goes to some lengths to establish Mozart’s primacy in the pantheon of E’s musical preferences.
Appearing at a distant number 2 seems to be Bach, and the author goes on to name drop Beethoven and Bartok.
As so, based on the NYT article and on information from other websites, we offer a partial reconstruction of what an Einsteinian playlist might have looked like:
Track Length Artist
Quintet in G minor K.516 Allegro 8:01 W.A.Mozart
Quintet in G minor K.516 Menuetto 5:34 W.A.Mozart
Quintet in G minor K.516 Adagio ma non troppo 9:51 W.A.Mozart
Quintet in G minor K.516 Adagio – Allegro 10:15 W.A.Mozart
String Quartet K.465 Adagio allegro 7:38 W.A.Mozart
String Quartet K.465 Andante cantabile 6:54 W.A.Mozart
String Quartet K.465 Menuetto allegro 5:20 W.A.Mozart
String Quartet K.465 Allegro molto 7:21 W.A.Mozart
2 Piano Sonata In D Major K.448 Allegro con spirito 7:29 W.A.Mozart
2 Piano Sonata In D Major K.448 Andante 8:32 W.A.Mozart
2 Piano Sonata In D Major K.448 Allegro molto 5:40 W.A.Mozart
A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another – New York Times, January 31, 2006
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February 2nd, 2006
By GadgetManiac
IFPI, that international assocation of 1500 or so record companies, has just issued it’s Digital Music Report for 2006. The report is a kind of State of the Union Address for the music industry – it documents some achievements, disappointments and challenges and ties it all together with a positive spin.
The good news is that digital online and phone sales of music are up nicely and now constitute about 6% of the $10B total industry sales. IFPI has high hopes for digital downloads to make up for eroding physical media sales, where the CD medium still accounts for 90% of sales. There are now about 335 legitimate online music services, with iTunes being the best known and most successful.
The bad news can be summed up in one word: piracy. IFPI is ticked off with P2P networks as well as Internet piracy, which they deem to be a ‘huge problem’. They estimate their piracy-related losses at about 10% of sales, so they figure they’re out by about a billion or so.
IFPI:06 Digital Music Report – International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
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