After six months of what may have seemed like nothing was going on, I’ve worked hard in school and now can focus on Anime Bite again. Hopefully I can get it launched before I get really busy again.
Enjoy the spoils at http://www.animebite.com
The news today is that for the past few days – almost a week according to some sources – a large botnet has been orchestrating a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a number of websites in the US and South Korea. The attack is said to have been caused by North Korea or North Korean supporters. The Associated Press said the following in a press release:
In South Korea, 12 sites were initially attacked Tuesday, followed by attacks Wednesday on 10 others, including those of government offices, banks, vaccine firms and Web portals, agency official Shin Hwa-su said.
The targets were all sites that could be accessed by the public, including the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry and some banks.
The U.S. targets included the White House, Pentagon, State Department, Treasury Department, Homeland Security and National Security Agency, as well as the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post.
For those of you who haven’t heard the news, Google has just announced their own operating system, called Chrome, to compete against Microsoft’s Windows XP in the netbook market. You won’t need to run and download it from Google, as they don’t plan on releasing it until the second half of 2010. The operating system will be open source, and will be focus on being “cloud based”, or a focus on the internet. The operating system will likely incorporate Google’s line of web apps, from Gmail to Google Docs to Google Calendar.
I may dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but Google is taking the wrong approach to a netbook OS. Here are a few reasons why Google’s Chrome OS will fail:
iPhone 3GS sample picture
Apple’s newest iPhone offers a number of cool new features. Video capture and editing, voice recognition, a digital compass, and a higher resolution camera are some of the most advertised features. However, there is another feature which seems to be left out of the spotlight, the camera’s tap-to-focus feature. This new method of focusing allows for some stunning photos for a mobile phone camera, as seen in the image above from Wired.
A new feature is great and all, but what does this really mean for the existing markets of point-and-shoot cameras and other camera phones? The higher end, professional cameras are by no means threatened by this kind of feature, but that may not be so for the average consumer camera.
While reading through reviews of Apple’s new iPhone 3GS, I came across a review by Gizmodo where the reviewer stated “I’m a bit bored of the iPhone look and feel. If you’re looking for something new, something different and something you’re not quite familiar with, there’s the Pre or the MyTouch 3G.” It is a harmless statement, but it brings up an interesting point about evolutionary and revolutionary technology and how people react to each one.
When Apple’s iPhone first came out, it was the thing to have as it was “new” and “cool”; It was revolutionary. Now, the latest iPhone isn’t as exciting or appealing to most people because they see it as “just another iPhone”. So why the change in heart?
It is practically impossible to continually release products that are revolutionary, as we as a species just aren’t that creative. Also, anyone in their right mind would develop on something that works to make it more successful over just playing hit-or-miss with new products. The only downside to this is the fact that evolutionary products don’t stand out as much as revolutionary products. Consumers will always want the latest and greatest, and more often than not, these products are revolutionary.
We can look back a few years ago within the same industry of cellphones to find the last example of such a phenomenon. The Motorola Razr was what is now the iPhone, the coolest gadget around. It wasn’t the first of its kind, a clamshell phone, but the way in which it was implemented and marketed was revolutionary. As Motorola made new versions of the Razr, they didn’t pop out as much and “generic” branded clamshell phones saturated the phone market. Now, a few years later, Razr phones aren’t popular anymore, but most people will know what they are.
Will the iPhone eventually meet the same fate as the Razr? Maybe. Maybe not. Most technology is evolutionary and will meet the same fate as the Razr if it ever manages to gain popularity in the first place, but Apple has an excellent track record for consistantly releasing what could be considered revolutionary products. The rumor mill has ideas about an Apple media tablet which may end up overshadowing the iPhone, or it may push people into the Apple ecosystem. We can’t know for certain until after the fact.
Update: Text messages are $.20 each, not the $.10 each originally specified. This has been corrected.
Update 2: AT&T has released a statement regarding iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS upgrades and is offering standardized subsidization to qualified customers.
Following Apple’s announcement of the new iPhone 3G S, Apple’s exclusive partner here in the US, AT&T, has been under heavy fire from its users.The PR nightmare is only beginning now, and will only grow for the next couple weeks as people begin to use the new iPhone and iPhone OS.
I added a “Hire Us” page so I can open myself up for jobs in order to help pay for my college tuition. I offer very competitive rates for CMS’s so click the link to find some more information.
I’m currently moving to a new server provider to reduce costs. Currently only this domain has been moved over already. I’m still working on setting up the IP addresses so I’m able to move over the other domains.
EDIT: IP addresses have been setup and I am now in the process of moving over the data.
EDIT2: After all DNS settings have been updated automatically, all sites will have been successfully moved to the new server!
Utilities are the lifeline for any household just about anywhere in the world. Electricity, water, natural gas, telephone, cable television, and internet are just a few utilities that most of us have. What I want to discuss is not the utilities themselves, but the connections to the grid, specifically communication utilities (your internet connection).
Here in the United States and many “western” countries, almost everything is buried. People don’t want to see any wires hanging above their heads. On the other hand, there are places such as Japan where you aren’t able to see anything besides wires.
Check out that wiring job in Japan (from dannychoo.com)
Hello world!
I’m starting the Sugoida Designs company blog finally. My name is Joshua, but everyone else knows me as geoffreak. Sugoida Designs is currently just a small company owned by me that I plan on using to develop the many ideas that have been swirling around in my head for a long duration of time.
As the Japanese say, please be kind to me!
- geoffreak