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Sunday, November 23, 2003
Posted by Roberto
7:01 PM 0 comments

BEAUTY AND PHILOSOPHICAL RICHNESS, NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE MATRIX

In the last few days I kept meeting people who haven't enjoyed the Matrix Revolutions, the concluding chapter of the Matrix trilogy. My reaction to that is to promote another movie:
HERO, directed by Zhang Yimou.

Every shot is a superb picture in vibrant colors. Color themes have been used to delineate the different sections of the story (The green, the red, the yellow, the blue, the white) since the story of HERO is told in flashbacks, which revisit and re-evaluate the same events. Love scenes are meaningful and battle scenes are elegant. HERO is a wonderful movie!

http://www.hero-movie.jp
(Trailer available in the multimedia section)

Monday, November 17, 2003
Posted by Roberto
8:29 AM 0 comments

USA: COOL MOBILE PHONES AND NEW M-SERVICES

Here is a short list of some of the cool mobile devices and services that are currently being offered in California:

T-mobile Sidekick [web]. The Sidekick is a full-featured mobile phone. It includes a web browser, AOL Instant Messenger service, an organizer and games. You can attach a camera (as accessory) and send the pictures you take via e-mail. There are 2 rate plan options, one as add-on to the existing calling plan (20 dollars per month for unlimited data services) and the other one that is comprehensive of voice and data services (29.99 dollars per month offering unlimited data services (e-mail, Instant messaging, web browsing and text messaging) and domestic voice services at 20 cents per minute).

AT&T Wireless offers a very nice Smartphone at 399 dollars. With activation and mail-in rebate you get it for 249 dollars. It has a beautiful color screen, pocket Internet explorer, Instant messaging (MSN limited probably), windows media player, SD memory card slot. The only problem for people traveling internationally is that it is not tri-band.

Sprint is offering the Sanyo SCP-8100 phone [web]. Built-in camera and Picture Mail from Sprint. Point, Click and Share...

Samsung [web] offers an array of great devices: the i500, i600 and i700. The Samsung i500 is a folding PDA phone, based on the Palm operating system with a 65000 color touch screen. The i600 is a folding Smartphone, based on Windows Mobile operating system. The i700 is a Pocket PC Phone.

USA Wireless Market Snapshot: 152 million cell phone users and six major U.S. wireless companies. Sprint (NYSE:FON) - Sprint PCS (NYSE:PCS) - AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE) - Cingular Wireless (NYSE:SBC) - Deutsche Telekom's (NYSE:DT) T-Mobile USA. Quotes

Saturday, November 08, 2003
Posted by Roberto
12:09 AM 0 comments

THINK DIFFERENT :: SHOP DIFFERENT

Yesterday I had the chance to visit Apple Computer headquarter. The first good thing is that both Apple buildings I've visited offered WLAN access. This is not very common in Silicon Valley. Last week, in Palo Alto, at the heart of Silicon Valley there was no WLAN and almost no GSM coverage. Downtown San Francisco you rely on Starbucks for wireless broadband access (big Hotels with 450 rooms still offer dialup connections). But let's go back to the Apple story. When entering one of the meeting rooms in the "Infinite Loop" building, you pass by a simple showroom (see picture above) with Apple's latest Hardware (G5) and Software (OSX Panther: Quartz, Expose, Pixlet codec, iChat). Painted on the wall you can read the following statement:

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they can change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create.Theyy inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and se a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Think different."

Thinking differently and Shopping differently. Apple has built 69 successful Apple stores in the USA and is ready to expand in Europe and Japan. OSX has got 8 million users, 6500 Native applications and Apple has an R&D budget of about 500 million dollars. The Apple shops are state of the art, beautiful, filled with nice people that will answer your questions for free (can't say the same for Sony Metreon downtown SF, where the store manager was scared of my questions regarding my Sony UX50... and was running away). Apple is bringing Innovation to the World. The only concern I have is that these hi-end Apple shops remind me of religious cathedrals dedicated to God Innovation (a God with an Apple T-shirt :)

Apple's management is energetic, modern, the products are good, software prices are great, and their brand will definately shine downtown major cities worldwide via the aesthetically astonishing Apple stores.

Monday, November 03, 2003
Posted by Roberto
3:40 AM 0 comments

STORING AND FORWARDING AUDIO/VISUAL MESSAGES

By clicking on this link you will see a short video (quicktime format) that I've taken when entering the Soundwave Studios in Oakland.

Sometimes, Video Messages are the best medium to describe quickly and efficiently a situation we are confronted with, and devices like the Sony UX-50 or the Nokia Smartphones enable us to store and forward audio/visual experiences whenever instant words (SMS), pictures (MMS) or phone calls (Voice) are not convenient!