Really Mr. Jobs? REALLY???

I'm sure you've heard the joke that goes something like this:

Patient: Doc, it really hurts when I do this. Can you help me?

Doctor: Don't do that!

Steve Jobs and the Apple minions seem to be taking that approach to customer complaints about the new iPhone 4 and it's signal reception issues. When the iPhone 4 was announced, Mr. Jobs described the integrated antenna as "really cool engineering", but it seems that customers are experiencing severe signal degradation when they hold the phone... yup, you read that right! It seems as though the phone works great if it's not in your hand but if you hold it, particularly in the lower left-hand corner the signal reception drops significantly. I find it really inexcusable to tell a customer who has just paid several hundreds of dollars for your product, and is likely to spend much more over the next several years through their contract and the purchase of apps, that their only option to remedy the issue is to "not hold your phone that way" or to drop more money on a case to insulate the phone from your hand. I also find it interesting that a company known for it's design and quality would not have noticed this through testing. Not a stellar start to the release of this one! Add to it the fact that pre-orders where a total mess and that white iPhone 4's are more difficult to manufacture?

See this BBC article or do a simple google search for more info.

Did Facebook Under Report Android And Twitter Stats?

TechCrunch has noticed that either there has been skyrocketing growth of android and Twitter clients hitting Facebook or some of the numbers previously reported were grossly under reported. FarmVille apparently has 63.9 million monthly active users (MAU) and Texas HoldEm Poker 28.5 million, but until recently android was reported at 67 MAU and Twitter just around 400,000. I guess that makes me an extremely early adopter... 1 of 67 isn't bad, even 1 of 400,000 is admirable. Right?

The numbers however, have suddenly taken a huge spike after what looks like a rather static baseline. Must be a mistake...

The number correction comes just ahead of  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sharing some thoughts with Inside Facebook about Twitter. In his discussion, he admitted he now views Twitter as a “very nice, simple service.”  

ThinkGeek Cease and Desist Drama Over Unicorn Meat

It should come as a surprise to nobody that my favorite online store is ThinkGeek, I've got a few geek points burning a hole in my pocket right now. The monkeys at ThinkGeek have a great sense of humor and an incredible line of products, there is something for everyone on your gift giving list. 

ThinkGeek has however managed to raise the ire of the National Pork Board (NPB) with it's promotion of Canned Unicorn Meat with the slogan "Unicorn - The New White Meat". It seems as though the NPB does not take kindly to the parody used in the slogan and has issued a cease and desist letter. 

In their usual good spirited nature, ThinkGeek has responded with the following:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist. From our press release [PDF]:

"It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet. "In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity."

We'd also like to extend a special discount to everyone we offended with our portrayal of Unicorn Meat as "the new white meat." For a limited time, take $10 off any order of $40 or more by using the code PORKBOARD at checkout, good until 6/30/2010 at 11:59PM ET.

Thanks, National Pork Board, for giving us yet another reason to keep the April Fool's Day tradition alive. We'll always wonder if our Canned Unicorn Meat played some small, magical part in your rethinking of your brand.

Good on ya ThinkGeek! While you've not offended me with your good humor, I might just drop by and pretend that you did :)

Scottish Hospital To Use Robotic Workers

The new £300m Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Stirlingshire will open in August with a small army of robots wandering dedicated hallways and looking after many of the non medical duties involved in running a hospital. According to hospital chairman Ian Mullen "Members of staff will use a hand-held PDA to call up the robot to move meal trays, or linen, or whatever. The robot will come up in the service lift by itself, pick up the item and go back into the lift." The robots will be able to detect obstructions and send signals to doors to open or close them once they've passed through the threshold.

"Traditionally clean and dirty tasks are carried out by the same person," infection control nurse Lesley Shepherd told the BBC. "Here, you'll have the robots that do dirty tasks, so they may take dirty linen or clinical waste away, and you'll have robots that do clean tasks, such as bringing meals and clean linen to patients. They have separate lifts so there's no way they can cross, which is great." 

More detail including video at BBC News.

Getty Images And Flickr Team Up - Amateur Photographers Rejoice!

Getty Images is one of the giants in the stock photography game and they are now working together with Flickr to increase their catalog of photos by tapping into the massive library. Flickr users will receive payment for photos that they agree to release to Getty. Neither Flickr nor Getty is commenting on how much money will change hands saying that prices vary from job to job but are industry standard. The BBC speculates the rate for an image at somewhere between $150-$240 (£100-£160). 

"This deal helped me get my foot in the door with Getty, something I had been trying to do for years. And while I am concerned about opening up the floodgates, I am going to take it as a challenge. But I am really not worried because I like to think I am good at what I do," said Hal Bergman a website developer turned freelance photographer.

In one of my earliest post I let you in on my brush with Flickr fame, I didn't receive any monetary compensation but was honored think that my photo would be in print! I did receive a copy of the book which is proudly tucked away in my son's room. Perhaps Flickr does equal fame and fortune? 

YouTube, Not Just For Hosting Anymore

The Official Google Blog is reporting that the YouTube engineers have been hard at work developing editing capabilities into the service that will enable you to quickly and easily preform some basic editing of your video works of art. The new feature is available through TestTube now, and will give you access to thousands of soundtrack audio clips, provide cropping abilities and also allow stitching of multiple clips into a timeline. Check out this video intro: 


Note: it is safe for work, and maybe it's just me, but it's a little disturbing, educational, and entertaining all at the same time. British humor... :)

Working In The Cloud

Google is bringing 16 new apps to the Google Apps Marketplace. Six months ago this would not have meant anything to me, today however my work largely happens in the cloud as my current employer has embraced the idea wholeheartedly. We are a Google apps shop, gmail handles our mail, calendar our schedules, sites and documents our files. At first it was a bit of a change for me having moved from a Microsoft Office environment, but day by day I'm learning the virtues of life in the cloud.

The Official Google blog provides a link to this video which explains how to add an app to your domain.

According to their post "We’ve added some great new apps since we launched in March and today we’re bringing you 16 new apps to the Marketplace." Three of the featured apps are:

* Jive: Jive Social Business Software combines collaboration, community and social networking software, allowing you to engage employees, customers and the social web.

* Harvest: Harvest is a simple time tracking application that makes it fast and easy for businesses to track billable hours and create invoices.

* Floorplanner Pro: Floorplanner Pro provides a quick and easy way for real estate agents and facilities professionals to create and share interactive floor plans in both 2D as 3D.

Life in the cloud is not as scary as we all thought it would be and Google is making the addition of new apps as easy as adding an app to your smartphone.

Border Crossing Wait Times Tweeted By Canadian Border Services Agency

The Canadian Border Services Agency is now trying to assist travelers to the US via Twitter, at least through this busy summer season. "The CBSA is committed to applying low-cost technologies like Twitter to keep service delivery standards high without increasing costs to the taxpayer," Stephen Rigby, the president of CBSA says in a news release on the agency's website. This page will take you to the agency's instructions for it's feed in this 3 month pilot project. It works like this:

You can simply follow @cbsa_bwt or use the hashtags below to select your desired crossing and search for tweets on the estimated wait times in effect.

St. Stephen, NB / Calais, ME #CBSA_STS
Belleville, NB / Houlton, ME #CBSA_WSR
Stanstead, QC / Derby Line, VT #CBSA_STD
St. Armand, QC / Highgate Springs, VT #CBSA_SAP
Lacolle, QC / Champlain, NY #CBSA_SBL
Cornwall, ON / Rooseveltown, NY #CBSA_CWL
Lansdowne, ON / Alexandria Bay, NY #CBSA_TIB
Queenston, ON / Lewiston, NY #CBSA_QLB
Niagara Falls, ON / Niagara Falls, NY #CBSA_RBB
Fort Erie, ON / Buffalo, NY #CBSA_PBR
Windsor, ON / Detroit, MI #CBSA_ABB
Windsor, ON / Detroit, MI #CBSA_DCT
Sarnia, ON / Port Huron, MI #CBSA_BWB
Sault Ste. Marie, ON / Sault Ste. Marie, MI #CBSA_SSM
Fort Frances, ON / International Falls, MN #CBSA_FFB
Emerson, MB / Pembina, ND #CBSA_EMR
North Portal, SK / Portal, ND #CBSA_NPL
Coutts, AB / Sweet Grass, MT #CBSA_CTS
Surrey, BC / Blaine, WA #CBSA_PCH
Surrey, BC / Blaine, WA #CBSA_DPA
Delta, BC / Point Roberts, WA #CBSA_BBY
Huntingdon, BC / Sumas, WA #CBSA_HTD

If you are travelling to Detroit this morning you'll be happy to know that:

#CBSA_ABB Commercial Flow: No delay, Travellers Flow: No delay

E3's Here, What Games Will We Be Playing Next?

E3 is upon us and if you want to know what you'll be playing come Christmas time, check out Wired's round up of the top 10 game trailers. Look's like a number of the great game franchise's are represented: Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock, Rock Band 3, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures (online), Transformers War for Cybertron, and the one I'm most interested in, Call of Duty Black Ops!

Taking Time For Mother Nature

Yesterday I woke up and smelled the roses...

We've had what seems like weeks of rain and temperatures that I'd guess are below seasonal for May and through the first week of June. Saturday, albeit cool, was a beautifully sunny day on Prince Edward Island and rather than the usual weekend running around we decided to take a little break to appreciated what we have here. Armed only with my trusty Canon PowerShot S5IS, a few years old but I love it and have no intentions on replacing it any time soon, we hopped in the car and headed towards Cavendish and Mother Nature smiled on us. 

Being a native Northern New Brunswicker, where wildlife grows large and plentiful, I've always loved my chance encounters with animals of all types. Moose, deer, black bear, coyote, porcupine, fox, skunk, rabbit, I've more than one story I could tell you about each. Since moving to Prince Edward Island in '99 I've never really appreciated the local wildlife scene, there are no large wild animals here, and except for the occasional fox, which are rather plentiful, I've not experienced much of the local variety. Yesterday, I slowed down, open my eyes and was rewarded for it. The trip from my house to Cavendish can be done in under a half hour but I'm sure it must have taken 2 to 3 times that yesterday, I wasn't counting. I didn't take the direct route choosing instead to slow down and meander along the coast looking at the great landscapes, some beautiful homes, and was rewarded with a new appreciation for the local inhabitants. While the pictures can't truly express the feeling of seeing these beautiful creatures up close, I hope you'll find some joy in them as well.