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“Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up”   – Chinese Proverb

Back again after another enforced break. I’m not going to say who’s fault it was this time, but it wasn’t mine. Off we went into it again, but with a bit of a false start this time…

Google Voice – Hurrah, I’ve got Google Voice working in the UK. Well almost anyway, we tried to demonstrate it working live on the show. Unfortunately, as is the way with live demos, its good, but its not quite there. I’m unbowed by this set back and determined to get it working. What I’ll do with it then who knows Gareth’s the only person I know over there.

New MacBook Pros – The rumour mill is working overtime. The new MB Pros could drop as soon as the 24th of this month. And we can’t wait to see what Apple have done this time. Liquid Metal? New form factor? Optical drive? Sandy Bridge? The possibilities are endless, and its always good to have something to wish for, keeps me from telling the boss to shove his job.

Sicknote Steve – How is this going to affect Apple? Is there a succession plan in place? Will His Steveness be back at all? He’s still overseeing the big strategy decisions, but Tim Cook is doing the day to day stuff. And he’s been seen around Infinite Loop, as well as elsewhere. Yes that’s right he’s even been hanging out with the Prez.

The Daily what – Gareth, the iPad king, has been trying out the future of newspaper publishing. And… its not good. The old guard of old media are still not getting this new media thing. A slow and buggy app, little interactivity, and old news. There’s not really much more to say, but Gareth nails it.

Microkia - Nokia have thrown in the towel, towels if you count both MeeGo and Symbian. And have jumped off their ‘burning platform’ and onto Microsoft’s less then stellar Windows Phone 7. Can I just take a moment to state that ‘Windows Phone 7′ is the worst product name this century, there I’ve said it I can move on now. There, better now, where was I, oh yes. An admission by Espoo that they can’t do smartphones. Losing smartphone share in huge chunks every quarter they had to jump somewhere, but have they jumped in the direction, only time will tell.

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“I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.“  – Anonymous

So episode 48, even with the breaks we had last year that seems to have come around quick. We’ll soon be up to the magic ‘Five-Oh’, how cool will that be. So in that more informal conversational style that’s developed since we came back. We dived straight into the show again.

Homework complete, we started with….

Tron : Legacy, again – Hurray. I’ve seen it, and a cracking film it is too. We discussed it in great detail, no real spoilers if you haven’t seen it, more just how we felt about the film and where it might go next. Speaking of which I hope Disney won’t make us wait another 20 odd years for the next sequel.

Verizon iPhone, again – So interesting what was announced on Tuesday, we had another bash at the subject. WiFi hotspot, which turned into a discussion about tethering. Which lead into data plans. Which lead into a bit of a rant about phone companies. Which segued nicely into a more general discourse on us consumers generally getting shafted. All that and we didn’t even get on to the difference in design in the CDMA iPhone and where that might be taking things. Wow, I’m tired just thinking about it.

Google Chrome de-H264’d – In the name of openness Google is going to drop support for H264 video from the Chorme browser. Thereby guaranteeing that the HTML5 video tag will languish, unsupported and delayed, and by default handing web video back to Adobe’s Flash. Way to go Larry, Curly and Moe, more misery for web users so you can stick it to Apple.

Stuxnet worm – If you haven’t heard about this one Google it. It’s a fascinating story of state sponsored espionage, not that any state will admit involvement of course. Targeting the Iranian nuclear programme, with a startling degree of success. It apparently has put back Iran’s weapons program years, almost as long as if they’d let Israel bomb the crap out of it, like they wanted to.

There was a lot more then that. But we got hacked by the MCP and all discussion was terminated.

End of line

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“Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing.” – William Shakespeare

Winterval over. Back refreshed and ready to go. Well almost, a few germs lingering after new year are keeping me laid low. But I soldiered on, and another show was delivered. And a cracking show it was.

Straight into it again, starting with….

Tron : Legacy – Gareth was completely stoked after seeing this. So much so he wanted to get straight into it. Unfortunately I had to break the bad news. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. We did discuss it briefly, no spoilers. And I have homework to do before the next show, go and see it.

Christmas Goodies - We you a good little boy or girl last year, did Santa bring you the gadget your heart desired. Gareth had an unexpected bonus, an Apple TV 2. And very impressed with it he was, apart for having to mess with his WiFi network to get it in range, that is.

Nothing as exciting as that for me, my daughter got an LG Android phone though, and I must say I’m completely unimpressed with it. Ok it’s not the latest hardware or software, I understand it might be a bit slow, an not representative of the state of the Android art, but really. Its slow, unresponsive and cumbersome. The UX is hopeless, inconsistent and slow. Did I mention it was slow.  Thank God it was a gift for my Daughter and not me.

Verizon iPhone – And just like that, well on Tuesday anyway. The iPhone is coming to Verison. We’ve had carrier competition over here for the best part of a year now, and it has really made a huge difference to the iPhone TOC. I can only hope a bit of competition will do the same for our American cousins. So a mere 4 years after turning the original iPhone down, Big Red finally has it. I wonder if they’ll fill it with crapware, like they do if it’s an Android.

CES Over-load – Apart from a few standout (i.e. dual-core, super-thin) Android phones. CES this year was about two things Tablets and 3D, and I am so over 3D. There was 3D everything Blu-ray players, TV’s, Cameras (still and video) and everything else that had a screen or imaging chip. I get it, 3D is important to the studios and manufacturers. But not so much for us mere consumers, its expensive and generally, meh!  Everybody also announced a tablet, Windows 7 tablets or Android tablets, those are your choices. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these actually make it to a store, and how many will turn out to be vapourware.

All this and a bit of Daft Punk to play us out as well.  It’s just like an extra Christmas present really.