iGoogle

If you're a regular reader - *insert disbelief here* - you might have noticed the changes to the site.  Among these changes is the new subheading: A (hopefully) daily tech news blog.

Yeah.  I haven't been keeping up well on that, have I?

So, I thought that I would try out iGoogle last week.  For those of you who don't know what iGoogle is, it's Google's alternate homepage.  Of course, you all know about the clean-cut homepage that Google usually sports, designed to load really fast.  iGoogle is an optional build-up of that.

What?  I'm not gonna let you look at my Facebook.  Creeper.

The Twitter and Facebook gadget alone is reason enough to go to the site.  In my opinion, it's much better than those sites that make their whole business off of putting Twitter and Facebook together.  The only downside is that you don't get FB chat on iGoogle.  Another really nice feature is the weather centre.  As you can see, it's matching the extension I have next to the address bar (although I don't know why I have two weather centers now.)  It also has news feeds in there, which you can customize. Other features that I don't have on my page include comics, games, and a TV guide.

The best feature, though, would have to be the Google Calendar feature.  I started my own calendar up recently so that I can keep track of what I'm doing next year when I'm attending university.  Having the gadget there really helps.  I can get my Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as my schedule, on one site.  I highly recommend iGoogle for anyone who doesn't already have something like this.

Is there anything Dan Brown won't do?

Wow.  Dan Brown.  What a guy.


For those of you who don't know Dan Brown, he's another YouTuber.  One that I haven't been following so much, but respected nonetheless.  From his early days as a Rubik's Cube expert, Dan has come to the forefront of the YouTube community, currently either forming giant collaboration projects or discussing user-generated questions in his basement, which looks like it could be a war room in WWII-era Britain.

Dan Brown in one of his better moments

Just now, Dan officially announced his new project, Dan 3.0, at VidCon.  Earlier this week, he posted a video leading up to the announcement.

Today, he announced the content of this project.  Starting August 1st, Dan is going to give control of his live into the hands of his viewers.  Wow.  I have to admire Dan's ambition here.  There are, of course, going to have to be limits on what people can do here.  In a world that can have 4chan, there are bound to be people that are going to try their best to make him buy a house or something equally lucrative.  Although I have yet to hear the full details on Dan's project, I really hope he can pull this off.  I'm going to be sure to pay more attention to his videos in the future.  To anybody reading this, what are your thoughts on Dan 3.0?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Twitter

YouTube makes jobs!

YouTube made a couple of big announcements at VidCon today that I wanted to address. First of all, there was the announcement that YouTube will soon offer 4k-resolution videos, which is actually better than Imax.

Holy shit.

YouTube kind of jumped the gun on this one, didn't they? Never mind that the necessary network speed to quickly download this is not available outside of South Korea, one big factor is that pretty much 99% of all monitors don't go above 1080p. You would need to get a projector that is "typically the size of a small refrigerator" (YouTube's words, not mine) just to watch the video to its full capacity. Although it's nice to see that we can take it that far, it just isn't really worth it to add on to the site, in my opinion.

The second announcement is the announcement of the YouTube Partner Grant Program. I've long been a fan of Internet commerce, and I really approve of the YouTube Partner program. I've seen many people who make their living off of YouTube (a person I mentioned in this blog before, Wheezy Waiter, just started vlogging full-time), and I personally have wanted to get into the business. Although I likely wouldn't qualify for this grant (I don't really have that many views), it's really nice to know that many young videographers are getting what they need to start making videos, especially in this economic downturn. I have to give YouTube a thumbs-up for that grant.

----------------------------------------------------------

Twitter

The National Administration of Self-Esteem and Assimilation

E3 was boring.

Well, that's a bit harsh, but it was pretty forgetful, in any case. The main show was the Nintendo 3DS, the 3D portable console. It was really funny to see both Sony and Microsoft so obviously upstaged by Nintendo, when both of them are pretty much trying to emulate the Wii in the next year.

But enough about that.

I read an article about NASA last week. It would appear that Obama is trying to change NASA's goals. Instead of "going where no man has gone before", NASA now has goals that are a bit closer to Earth: To inspire children and young adults to pursue scientific careers, and to reach out to the Muslim community.

Now, like many people, I scoffed. I scoffed hard. I scoffed like Steve Jobs at a Microsoft convention. 40 years ago, NASA was the only agency to land on the Moon. Today, NASA is still the only agency to land on the Moon. The difference between this is that now, nobody is landing on the moon. Nobody has gone beyond low earth orbit since 1972, when Gene Cernan stepped on the moon for the last time (and yes, I do believe the Moon landings were real. I might do a post later on why I think that). Now Obama's trying to get them out of even going into LEO. It's a bit crazy.

But then I thought on it. Last summer, I was big on space. Of course, last summer was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. I really wanted to go into space. In fact, I'm sure everyone has really wanted to go into space at some time. So, NASA actually can inspire people to pursue scientific careers. But it was able to do that before. It was able to inspire by undertaking grand projects, like the moon landings and the ISS. So why take the US out of orbit?

I took a good look at the second of NASA's new goals. Obama wants the American scientific community to partner with the Muslim scientific community, to get space programs in the Middle East. This is instead of partnering with Russia, the EU, and Japan, with whom the US could achieve more great projects. This has more of a political goal. One of the main reasons that the Middle East is so violent, no matter what anyone tells you, is jealousy. One way to get the Middle East to co-exist peacefully is to get them on an even footing with the rest of the world, and with each other. One way to do that is to get them their own space program. Or so Obama hopes. It's still up in the air if the Middle East will accept this help. It certainly would be nice to see more independent space programs out there, and it is also nice to see Obama trying to win back the American reputation of multilateral leadership. It could turn out that

In conclusion, this could turn out to be an important part of Obama's presidency. But only time will tell if this would make him one of the "great negotiators", or if his presidency was a waste of time.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Twitter

Light-speed High School

Well, I'm starting to figure out why tabloids make so much money. Let me recap my last story for you.

On Sunday, at around 9:30 PM EST, a post was made on the "infamous" /b/ thread on 4chan, telling people to search up "Justin Bieber syphilis". With the popularity of the /b/ board, and the extreme hatred some people feel towards Justin Bieber, the board managed to get the search term up to #1 on Google Trends (although you won't be able to find it now). So, I stumble on this 2 hours later, and find rumors that CNN, FOX News, ebaumsworld and TMZ, among others, have reported this as true. While I didn't find any mention on TMZ.com or ebaumsworld, it's possible that a TV segment speculating the rumor came up on CNN and FOX.

Now, both Bieber-haters and -lovers were in an uproar. At least 40 questions on Yahoo! Answers were started within an hour of my discovery. Vast amounts of blog posts were made. And the number of visitors on this site doubled in less than an hour.

That's the power of the internet. Now that we've got information going at close to the speed of light over the Internet, it takes that much quicker for rumors to spread. Think of your average high school on Red Bull, speed, and steroids at the same time.

So I guess it'll be a return to tech news for me, now that my "15 minutes of fame" is done. Not that E3 is this week or anything...

The influence of 4chan

Wow. Just, wow.

So, I went onto 4chan for the first time in ever, pushed there by a TED talk from Christopher Poole, when suddenly, I stumbled along this:

So, I decided to do the search, just for sh*ts and giggles, and I find this:

I don't believe it. 4chan has managed to con CNN into thinking Justin Bieber's got syphilis. In less than 2 hours. Read down on that page and you'll see that Fox News has reported the same story (I'm assuming a bit here).

Wow. Good on ya, 4chan. Is it ironic that the talk I was watching had to do with the whole influence of 4chan deal?

UPDATE 11:33 PM EST: I just figured out that the certain thread on 4chan has just been deleted.

UPDATE 12:25 AM EST: Well, as far as I know, I'm the only one who confirmed this. There might be others, but they aren't high enough on google. Neither am I, I guess, if nobody else has commented on it. Just one last time before I go to bed: Justin Bieber does not have syphilis. I repeat, Justin Bieber does not have syphilis.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Twitter

ROCK BAND 3

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!

Rock Band 3.

Did I mention OMG?

It seems weird that, even though I'm basically flat broke, I can still get excited over new games, rare as it may be. But Rock Band 3 is definitely getting me excited.

For one, there's the pro mode. I'm a great Rock Band drummer, if you haven't noticed. I've also been messing around with the drums that we have in the band room at school, and I'm getting pretty good at those too. Pro mode for drums seems like a challenge that I'm willing to take up. Also, as a musician, I can see pro mode as a way to get people to actually learn how hard it is to play the actual guitar, or the actual keyboard. It isn't as easy as it looks. The option of having pro mode on helps the game keep its "party game" feel, while appealing to those hardcore, need-to-get-100%-on-Dragonforce players.

The vocal harmonies is a great addition, too. I loved this part in The Beatles: Rock Band, although I didn't get much of a chance to try it out. This was mostly because all of my friends hate the Beatles. Applying the three-part vocals to a wider variety of songs not only will appeal to more players (Flight of the Conchords, anybody?), but gives the crew at Harmonix more of a library to work with, while letting more people actually play the game. Seriously, after Rock Band 3, you're gonna have to work hard to get more people on one console.

Now, I'm a piano player. Naturally, when I listen to Baba O'Riley or Bohemian Rhapsody, I play along with the keyboard/piano solo. While I'm still neutral about the addition of keyboards, it has potential.

One of the things I have to give Guitar Hero credit for (after Harmonix got axed) was the ability to drop in and out of songs in the middle of the song seamlessly (well, that and having any combination of instruments). I like seeing that Harmonix has incorporated this into Rock Band 3 (which I feel is justified - hypocritically on my part - since Activision ripped off Harmonix here), which keeps it pretty laid-back.

Not that there aren't any flaws in this game. One concerns the addition of the keyboards. Now, whenever I get together with 3 friends and play 4-player Rock Band, I find it pretty hard to see my part. Of course, I could get a bigger TV, but I still need to get a job. Another instrument added in there would only make it more cramped and harder to see.

My other main concern is going to be the price tag. When Rock Band 1 came out, it cost me $200 for a guitar, drums and mic. With Rock Band 3, you're adding the Pro guitar, cymbals for the drums, and a keyboard. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole set came out to $300, maybe $350.

Since I'm going to be living in residence next year, this is pretty exciting for me. When 7 people can play music at one time, you've got almost the ultimate party game. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna look for a job so I can buy this.

----------------------------------------------------

Twitter