Early (1995) AOL Commercial Touts Users Ability To Send ‘Email On The Internet’

11.15.12 Written by The Cajun Boy

I don’t recall how exactly I ran across this commercial yesterday, but I did, and it was around the same time Robo reminded us all that the mid-90s was the stone age of the internet. This early AOL commercial — they still referred to it as “America Online” back then — is yet another reminder. It strikes me as something that would have aired late at night, almost like a mini-infomercial at two minutes in length.

This brought back memories for me because I got my first computer around this time with leftover student loan money — I think it was in 1995 or 1996 when I first got online and began playing with the web. I’m kind of proud to say that I never used AOL — I was a Compuserve and Prodigy guy — even back then. I did not, however, ever spend any time chatting with “kayaking buddies.”

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6 Comments TAGS: 1995, AOL, the stone age

Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs Movie Will Consist Of Only Three Scenes, All Of Which Will Play In Real Time

11.15.12 Written by The Cajun Boy

Speaking today at The Hero Summit, an event sponsored by Newsweek/The Daily Beast, Aaron Sorkin revealed a few tidbits about the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic he’s penning — not the probably awful one starring Ashton Kutcher, btw. Most interestingly, the film will be presented in three scenes pegged to significant moments in Jobs’ life: the development of the Macintosh computer, the iPod and the debut of NeXT.

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7 Comments TAGS: aaron sorkin, APPLE, STEVE JOBS

Straight Outta ‘Goodfellas’: $1.5 Million In iPads Stolen In JFK Heist

11.15.12 Written by The Cajun Boy

True story: I bought my first Mac from a guy selling them out of the back of a truck in Brooklyn. I always imagined that guy’s inventory was obtained through something similar to the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas (JIMMY!). I imagine some other struggling young buck will soon be purchasing his first iPad in a similar manner real soon.

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4 Comments TAGS: APPLE, GOODFELLAS, iPad, ipad heist, Robert DeNiro

Google Fiber’s Real World Speed: 700 Mbps

11.15.12 Written by Dan Seitz

When we previously reported on Google Fiber, one of our commenters summed it up with the above quote. The promised speeds were up to 1GB, but, of course, promises don’t necessary get fulfilled in tech. So it’s just 700Mbps for far less than the $300 a month for 300Mbps cable companies want. Shoot. Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments TAGS: Cable, fiber wars, google fiber, speeds

Pandora Vs. The Music Industry Part 8,341

11.15.12 Written by Dan Seitz

Imagine this: You complain to your landlord that you pay him full rent, and yet, he refuses to fix the minor problem of your missing a toilet. It’s especially galling because the apartment above you has a toilet and doesn’t pay as much in rent. So your landlord replies “I can’t lower your rent. But I can raise your neighbor’s rent, and take his toilet. Sound good?”

This is pretty much how the music industry and Pandora are fighting over music royalties. Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments TAGS: greed, Music, PANDORA, RADIO

The Nexus 4 Sells Out Worldwide

11.14.12 Written by Dan Seitz

The Nexus 4 is, on paper, a fairly standard cutting-edge smartphone. 1.5 Ghz Snapdragon quad-core processor, 2 GB RAM, 8GB storage, 4.7″ screen, and wireless charging is the spec list, with only that last being somewhat unique. Don’t get us wrong, in the history of computing, it’s awesome this thing fits in your pocket, but it’s fairly similar to other phones already on the market. The one major, and baffling, drawback is that there’s no 4G.

So why the worldwide enthusiasm? Have people become just as rabid about Google as they have about Apple? Is there some secret attachment we don’t know about? Nope! The answer is simple: People are cheap, and this is one ridiculously cheap phone. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment TAGS: GOOGLE, nexus 4, smartphones

Text Messaging Apparently On The Decline

11.13.12 Written by Dan Seitz

The text message is a wonderful thing, for many of us. It allows the socially awkward among us to get in touch without having to chat awkwardly on the phone. It lets us annoy each other with stupid memes. And of course it’s the primary method of teenagers for communicating.

But unfortunately for cell carriers, who have been milking you for years making you pay for something it literally costs them nothing to send, text messaging may officially be on the decline.

That said, it’s not exactly a crashing nosedive into irrelevance, either. Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments TAGS: more good news for mobile carriers, text messages, TEXTING

Acer Debuts Cheapest Chromebook Yet, And It Might Actually Be Worth A Look

11.13.12 Written by Dan Seitz

Chrome OS is largely an interesting experiment. For those unfamiliar, it’s basically Google’s desktop OS. The design is built entirely around the Internet: Online storage used as much as possible, apps stored and used on the web instead of the hard drive, and so on.

This does have the virtue of being very snappy on the front end: A Chromebook will boot and be ready to go in seconds. The downside is that if you take it literally anywhere with no WiFi connection, you’re screwed. Many try to make up for this by building in a 3G modem, but who wants a second cellular contract? Also, buy a Chromebook and you are committed to using Google for everything.

Chromebooks have done OK, mostly as oddities, but Acer is rolling out a new one, the C7 Chromebook, that actually addresses a lot of concerns and might actually be worth picking up. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments TAGS: ACER, chromebook, deals

Early (1995) AOL Commercial Touts Users Ability To Send ‘Email On The Internet’

Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs Movie Will Consist Of Only Three Scenes, All Of Which Will Play In Real Time

Straight Outta ‘Goodfellas’: $1.5 Million In iPads Stolen In JFK Heist

Google Fiber’s Real World Speed: 700 Mbps

Pandora Vs. The Music Industry Part 8,341

Cable Deterring Cord-Cutters With Deals, Lots Of Deals

The Nexus 4 Sells Out Worldwide

Text Messaging Apparently On The Decline

Acer Debuts Cheapest Chromebook Yet, And It Might Actually Be Worth A Look

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