Tuesday, June 08, 2010

The iPhone 4 debuts, beer-drinking kids in Philly and Iran v. the world at the U.N.

- Let the hoopla begin. Apple has announced the newest incarnation of its iPhone, the iPhone 4, and from the looks of it, this might be the most tricked-out smartphone yet. “We think it's the biggest leap we've taken since the original iPhone," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the audience at the company's annual developers conference on Monday. "We're really proud of it." Just like Apple’s popular MacBook laptops, the iPhone 4 will come in two colors -- black and white -- and will go on sale June 24 in the United States and four other countries. There will be, as is Apple’s custom, two models available: the 16 GB version ($199) and the 32 GB model ($299). Jobs billed the iPhone 4 as "the thinnest smartphone on the planet," with a thickness of 9.3 mm -- 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS. Other aesthetic changes will include a glass back and metal around the sides. However, the most noticeable add for the iPhone 4 versus previous models will be a front-facing camera for video conferencing. The video conferencing app, called FaceTime, will be available only from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 and will use Wi-Fi connectivity. "This is our new baby," Jobs said of the phone. "I hope you love it as much as we do." On the back, the phone will have a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and 5X digital zoom. In one of the funnier moments of the presentation, Jobs actually asked the audience to turn off their Wi-Fi base stations or he wouldn't keep showing demos of the new phone, as the WiFi for his iPhone 4 was cutting in and out. Prior to the conference, Apple had already announced the phone's new operating system, which Jobs called "iOS." It will allow multitasking, addressing a prevalent complaint about previous incarnations of the iPhone. Owners of the iPhone 3GS will be able to update their phones with the new software, which will be released for free on June 21. As for the iPhone 4, it will be available for pre-order (still a stupid concept) June 14 and will ship on June 25. A curious feature for the iPhone 4 is the inclusion of an iMovie app that will allow users to shoot, edit and share movies from the "device you carry in your pocket everyday." It’s curious because who can (or wants to) edit video on a small, smartphone screen? Editing video is something you want to do on a larger screen and by the way, even if you get the 32 GB model of the phone, video takes up a crapload of space and you’re not going to have all that much room to store footage on your iPhone 4. But should you choose to buy the iMovie app, it will cost $4.99. Oh, and the phone will also have a gyroscope, which measures motion on six axes and is sensitive to gravity. That will make the iPhone 4 much better for gaming, as will improved battery life. It is worth remembering that despite all of the adoration and slobbering over the iPhone from tech dorks, the BlackBerry, made by Research In Motion, remains the top-selling smartphone on the market. The BlackBerry still has the edge with customers who need a smartphone for business and don’t need all of the apps and touch-screen functionality that the iPhone offers. That would include apps like the new "Guitar Hero" app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that game maker Activision announced at the same conference where the iPhone 4 was unveiled. Well, unless you are a businessperson who likes to take time out of his or her busy day to bang out a few chords from “Smoke on the Water” before getting back to work…………

- At least no one ran onto the field and got a Taser blast this time, Philadelphia. Sure, having a young boy taking slugs from a longneck in the outfield stands looks bad on the surface, but at least this kid didn’t hop over the outfield fence, jump onto the field and run around like a headless chicken before stadium security sent a few dozen volts of electricity coursing through his body. The boy in question was spotted in a video clip from a Philadelphia Phillies broadcast in which he appears to drink from a beer bottle. While the quality of the video isn’t great, it has gone viral after first airing on Monday. Estimates have placed the child’s age at about 4, but even if he was 14, this would still be an issue. In the video, the boy raises the bottle to his lips and drinks, looking very much like he’s done it before. There are no adults around him paying attention when the boy takes the drink, which happened at Sunday's Phillies-Padres game at Citizens Bank Park. Of course, critics are trying to lump this incident in with previous incidents at the stadium earlier in the season, including the aforementioned Tasei-ng, the April incident in which a drunken fan intentionally vomited on an 11-year-old girl and another fan who ran onto the field the night after the Taser-ing incident. The Phillies issued the predictable response to the video, with team spokeswoman Bonnie Clark saying the team hasn't been able to identify the tot or the adults next to him. "Obviously, the Phillies, like everyone else, would not want a child to be permitted to consume any alcoholic beverage," she said. "We are confident that our employees and our fans would not allow this to happen if they were aware of it." In the aftermath, no one is investigating the incident, not even the Philadelphia police or the city's child-welfare agency. "If there was a report of neglect, we would investigate it. We have not received a report," said Alicia Taylor, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Human Services. Quite a classy joint you run there, Citizens Bank Park, quite a classy joint…………


- Anyone up for a vote on tougher sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program? If so, be at the United Nations on Wednesday, where the United Nations Security Council will vote on a new draft resolution to place restrictions on Iranian entities and individuals, including members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Additionally, a closed-door meeting was scheduled for later Wednesday to give Brazil and Turkey a chance to air their views on a nuclear fuel swap. That was confirmed by Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller, the current Security Council president. Leaders from both of those nations visited Tehran in May to broker a deal that the United States rejected as inadequate. Bearing that in mind, it’s not surprising that both Turkey and Brazil are strongly opposed to the resolution that the United States is pushing. Turkey is already riled up because significant numbers of its citizens were aboard the aid flotilla destined for Gaza that was raided by Israeli forces last week. The resolution needs nine votes to pass unless it is vetoed by one of the five permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council, which is not expected. The debate over the stricter sanctions will take place in light of comments by Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatening to cease negotiations with the West over its nuclear program if any new sanctions are adopted against his nation. Ahmadinejad made those threats Tuesday, warning that passing a resolution instead of sitting down for talks with Iran is a “grave mistake” by the United States. "Within the framework of respect and justice, we're ready to negotiate with everyone. Anyone who is going to resort to the language of force and aggression, the response is clear," the dictator fumed. Great, but force and aggression are what you’re all about, M. The first draft of the resolution restates the Security Council's demand that Tehran suspend enrichment activities and other proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities. Additionally, it stipulates that Iran cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resolution would also impose sanctions including: an expanded arms embargo; a freeze on assets and a ban on travel of 40 entities and one individual; and a requirement that nations prohibit Iranian investment in foreign commercial activities capable of delivering nuclear weapons. There are reportedly strong links between these entities and Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to two senior U.S. If nothing else, it should an interesting showdown at the U.N. tomorrow and in the days to come…………


- World, our dreams have come true. For too long, we have been terrorized by the menace that is Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt as a married couple (sorry, but I refuse to use cutesy celebrity couple names). Fact is, neither of them ever should have been allowed anywhere near a television camera, but the damage could have been minimized. Hypothetically, if the two of them had never met, we may have only been subjected to the indignity that is Montag as a public figure. Had she never gotten together with that asinine, IQ-deficient tool known as Spencer Pratt, that a-hole would never have leaked like a toxic oil spill into the gulf of our lives and the pain of watching these two vapid, superficial, socially dysfunctional fools would have been halved. Well, I am proud to declare to all of you that the next best solution to this problem has come to fruition as Montag has filed for legal separation from Pratt.
The surgically carved circus freak who remotely resembles Montag and is using her name filed papers Tuesday at a Santa Monica, Calif., courthouse without a lawyer. She listed June 8 as the date of separation and cited irreconcilable differences. (Apparently “Both of us are immature, ass-hated nincompoops whose heads are so far up our asses that we can see our lungs” wasn’t an option on the form.) In any legal separation, each party's earnings received after the date of separation will be considered separate property, meaning the two will only need to split what they actually accumulated during their tortured (for everyone) time together. The legal separation was something of a formality, as one week ago Montag announced that she had moved out of the Pacific Palisades home she shared with Pratt. "I needed some alone time," she said at the time. "There are so many lies out there about me and I just needed space — even away from my husband." Normally I couldn’t care less about celebrity couple news because who is dating, sleeping with or breaking up with whom doesn’t affect me because I don’t know any of these people, but this is a special case because these two have so ruined everything they have touched and become pop culture staples that I can't help but hate both of them with a burning passion. The only sour note from all of this is that Montag and Hills guest star Jen Bunney, who are now living together, are shooting a new reality show together this summer. Yes, another Heidi Montag reality show even with The Hills ending. At least she’s sticking with what she knows and not trying to branch out into things she has no talent for, like……well, everything else in life besides reality television…………


- Sweet, another ugly spill spewing thousands of gallons of unhealthy garbage into the water supply in the southern United States. No, a major international oil company didn’t f**k up and send millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico again. This spill is, by comparison, smaller and slightly less lethal to marine life. It occurred in Austin, Tex., where a large wastewater sewage spill on Williamson Creek sent more than 100,000 gallons of untreated sewage into the creek - literally, a ginormous pile of crap. Austin Water Utility crews finally have managed to gain control of the spill and placed blame for the mess on tree roots that blocked a 10-inch sewer main in southwest Austin. Personally, I still wonder if BP had anything to do with this mess and believe that we should probably just charge them for the cleanup anyhow as part of their penance for the oil spill in the Gulf. The sewage leak was initially reported at 9:40 a.m. and because Williamson Creek is not flowing, the spill was contained by the end of the day. Crews quickly went to work cleaning up the sewage before expected rainfall that night. Thankfully, no drinking water was affected and no water service was interrupted. Video telescoping of the pipe where the leak originated revealed the tree roots as the culprit and several local roads were shut down as part of the cleanup process. AWU officials also urged residents and their pets to avoid the area and Williamson Creek until crews can complete clean-up and recover the remaining wastewater. The spill comes one month after some local hooligans removed a manhole cover and filled a 15-inch water line with debris, releasing a torrent of wastewater into Barton Creek near Austin. At least this time, it was nature that started the mess………….

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