We’ve just come back home after seeing the new James Bond movie and I must say I was pleasantly surprised how good I thought it was. We had a similar experience to Samiraisam in that the movie started 25 minutes after the announced start time, which was annoying.
After all the stuff that was written before the premiere about Daniel Craig not being a good Bond I think they can just be quiet. He certainly looks different from the other Bonds, but he has just the right attitude, and perhaps he looks different but he fits right in, I think. There are no gadgets in the movie, which is a departure from other Bond movies, instead the creators seem to have focused on character and story. Without giving anything away (I think) Bond gets to fall in love and lose the love he just found, all in the same movie. He has just been awarded the status of “00″ and the movie lays the ground work for future developments I think, especially in the relationship between Bond and M.
I for one really look forward to the next Bond movie and I hope it’s Craig again. It looks like the movie is getting good reviews so I’m sure there will be more movies. I just hope they don’t keep remaking old ones. Now they need to come up with new story lines and developments and not rehash hold ones.
Slashdot links to a guy who ripped all six Star Wars movies and played them side by side. He found some interesting (and many not so interesting) things during his experiment but more entertaining than his description is some of the Slashdotters’ comments. I really like technoextreme’s comment:
Buying books on PHP: $30
Buying robot kits online: $100
Visting robotics confrence: $750
Building a webpage: $75
Realizing there are people more pathetic than you are on Slashdot: Priceless
I think this falls in the category of having too much time on your hands 
[posted with ecto]
We went and saw Phil Collins in his “First Final Farewell Tour” concert in Dubai last night and it was both a very nice and a very bad experience. First the good. Phil Collins and his band were excellent. Phil looked not as excited as you would perhaps want him to look but I think that’s just the way he is. He’s not the jump-around-all-over-the-place kind of performer. He was backed up by very good singers and musicians making for a very nice musical experience. In total they played for around two and a half hours and they didn’t really stop. As far as we could tell Phil was only gone from the stage for around half of one song. During the first half of the show they performed many of their slower songs, like “Groovy kind of love” and “Feel it in the air tonight”. The audience was with Phil but at times not really into it 100%. That all changed when they heard the first bars of “You can’t hurry love” which really got everyone into singing and clapping along with Phil and the band. The up-tempo songs continued with “Invisibly touch”, “Easy lover”, and a string of other well-known pearls. All in all an excellent concert experience when it comes to the performance.
So to the very bad. The seats were too cramped and extremely uncomfortable. There were too few places to get something to eat and drink andj the queues were very, very long. Seems to us that when you sell around 15,000 tickets for a concert you should be able to figure out how much the crowd would want to eat and drink.
However, what was worse than the queuing for food and drink was the situation after the concert. We had taken a taxi to the concert thinking it would be a nightmare trying to drive especially back once the concert was over. Instead it turned out to be a nightmare trying to find a taxi. We asked a guard when walking out where we could get a taxi and he said “just go out”. Further on we asked a taxi driver standing by his car waiting to pick up someone and he said “further down the road” so we kept walking. After a little bit we came to the large roundabout on Emirates Road which was full of heavy traffic and soon of people wanting a taxi as well. Some really ugly scenes were played out where concert attenders all but fought physically to get a taxi while at the same time trying their best to get run over by the other traffic. We watched some really close shaves as people tried to catch a taxi. Soon the roundabout was almost at a standstill, truck drivers were growing increasingly impatient, and more and more people were trying to find a taxi. After about an hour and a half of waiting for a taxi, we had almost resigned to the fact that we would be there for a long time to get back to the hotel.
To our rescue in their large Ford Expedition came Margaret from Brazil and her daughter. The pulled up alongside us and asked if we wanted a lift. We obviously said yes and they took us to a hotel where we could jump straight into a taxi which took us back to the hotel. So the evening showed us the worst sides of people (those fighting with each other over taxis) and the best sides of people (Margaret and her daughter).
The company responsible for arranging the Phil Collins concert clearly didn’t do their homework very well. There were far from adequate parking at the venue and taxi-service was just all-but nonexistent. This is one of those situations when you cannot really think of bad enough words and expressions to describe something, it’s just that bad. You would think that the arrangers would know that a lot of people would want taxis after the concert and arrange, beforehand, with the taxi companies a taxi-line which should be managed by some security personnel. Then make sure there are plenty of clear signs for people to follow to where they need to go.
So summing up - Phil Collins and the band: A+, concert organization: F-.
[posted with ecto]
After a long wait Apple has opened up an iTunes Music Store in Australia. I wonder when there will be a iTMS for the Middle East? And while we’re at it, why not get a real (official) Apple Store in the UAE? Surely there must be enough fancy retail-space around for an Apple Store, and I would think there is a market as well.
[posted with ecto]
MyTV.PVR for Mac has just been launched and for $149 it seems like pretty good value. I wish they would make one that fit like an extension to a Mac mini.
[posted with ecto]
An article in the Gulf News today declares that the “popularity of tiny TV [is] exploding.”:
Television on mobile phones may be tiny today in terms of screen size and programme choice but it looks certain to grow rapidly in the coming years.
That was the upbeat message sent by leading TV and digital media executives taking part in the first ever ‘Mobile Day’ at the annual MIPCOM audiovisual trade fair that closes its door today.
TV on the mobile has been ‘one of the big successes of the last 12 months’, reality TV supremo Endemol’s chief executive Peter Bazalgette said in a keynote speech. In 2005, mobile phone fans of Endemol’s global smash hit Big Brother notched up over six million streamed minutes and 500,000 downloads across Australia, Italy, and Britain, Bazalgette told a packed auditorium…
Another worldwide sensation in 2005 was 24: Conspiracy, the first ever original live-action thriller produced exclusively for the cellphone by Fox Entertainment Group and distributed by Vodafone. The 24 serialised 60-second mobile episodes, or so called ‘mobisodes’, ran in 23 countries around the world.
The article also says:
Whatever the programming, it must be short, as industry experts believe three to five minute bursts of video are the maximum viewing time on the small phone screen.
In some ways this is obviously different from what Apple is trying with their new iPod, but if TV on the tiny mobile phone screens is such a hit, then why wouldn’t it be on iPods? The iPod screen seems larger and better than many mobile phone screens, and I’m sure the Apple-distribution system (the iTunes software and store) will prove to be better than what anyone else can come up with.
[posted with ecto]
It was an iPod video! I was wrong and most other people were wrong as well. Apple did release an iPod that can play video but we’re not talking feature-length movies here but rather select music videos, promotions and TV shows purchased and downloaded and from the iTunes Music Store (which is now up to version 6).
Now you can put all your music in your pocket and still have room for, well, practically everything else. Catch up on your reading with audiobooks. Browse your memories with photo slideshows, complete with music. Watch video podcasts, music videos and your favorite TV shows. Consult your calendar or look up an email address. Even check the time in another city or time your fastest lap. The new iPod keeps it all close at hand.
Apple also released a new iMac G5 with something called FrontRow Media Experience. FrontRow is basically a Media Center software for the iMac:
Dazzle your friends with an elegant full-screen media display. Front Row transforms an evening of home movies or TV shows into a blockbuster Hollywood premiere. Or preview actual Hollywood blockbusters from the Apple.com trailer website. Press ‘menu’ on the new Apple Remote to let Front Row take center stage with large text, intuitive menus and brilliant graphics. No setup required.
The iMac comes with a remote control that looks amazingly like an iPod nano:
The new Apple Remote makes it easy to navigate through all the digital goodies you’ve collected and created. Apple designers simplified the average remote from 60 buttons you’ll never use to just the six buttons you need. So you can navigate quickly through the Front Row interface, enjoying your digital media exactly as you wish. Pause. Skip. Crank up the volume. Whatever your pleasure, wherever you sit.
The iMac also has a built-on iSight video camera:
Atop the newly slimmed iMac G5 is a high-quality iSight camera so neatly integrated, you’ll hardly notice it’s there. That is, until you launch iChat AV or the new Photo Booth application. The moment you do so, a small green light tells you it’s time to smile. No need to worry about installing or configuring. (But you might want to dress up.)
So what’s my verdict on all of this? The video iPod is a little bit “so-what?” but thinking about it some more I guess that Apple is taking it in small strides, setting the stage for a later introduction of an iPod that can do feature-length movies which is undoubtedly where the real money and public-interest lies. Starting with shorter clips might just be the smart thing to do although it will mean that many pundits will declare this a lame duck. Personally I’m much more excited about the iMac with the iSight and FrontRow. We’ve used Microsoft’s Media Center for some time now and all the time I’ve whished for an Apple-alternative. With everything you get for $1,299, it’s a really good deal I think. It’s certainly not cheap but as far as I can tell, compared to Media Center PCs it’s not a bad price. One thing puzzles me though - why not put in a TV-tuner so you could record TV as well? I guess the answer might lie in Jobs trying to stay on the good side of media-executives. He wants to sell you that content through the Store instead of letting you record it yourself. Now I want to get FrontRow and put it on a mini (I’d buy another mini in a heartbeat if I could put FrontRow on it).
[posted with ecto]
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