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For anyone who wants a $500 cell phone that plays iTunes music you should read this. Cingular, the sole wireless service for the iPhone has confirmed that the release date for the iPhone will be June 11. This was obtained by some social engineering at the customer servicer manager level.

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is scheduled to start in San Francisco on that same date. That is also the time that others have predicted the release of another Apple product, OS X Leopard.

If you’ve always dreamed of seeing an egg cut in half by a katana…your dreams have been answered

The United States Post Office has announced a set of Star Wars stamps.  I’ve gotta go wait on line now.

Lawmakers in Washington on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are not happy with the testimony of the people directly involved with the analog to digital TV transition slated to happen in early 2009.

“I have a great apprehension that a great mess lies before us,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., said Wednesday.

On February 17, 2009 TV broadcasters have been ordered, by Congress, to shut down their analog transmitters to solely broadcast in digital. This leaves 15.4 million households who receive only over the air signal on an analog TV with no way to watch it. If you rely on getting local TV with your satellite TV service you are added to that total.
As talked about before Congress has set aside funds for people in that situation to purchase a digital converter box for about $60. There will be a window when the funds will be disbursed, boxes available, and when Feb. 17, 2009 arrives.
“If we don’t get this transition right, then (we will be) dealing with constituents,” said Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa. “The government has broken their TV sets.”

Right now electronics manufactures are working on a converter box. This is a little surprising considering that people have known about this transition for years now. But I digress…Couple that with the fact that not many consumers know that they have to buy these boxes AND retailers not 100% on if they will carry them in stores…we may have a problem.
In a committee hearing on Capitol Hill a VP at Best Buy has stated that he can’t guarantee these boxes will be on shelves in all of the blue and yellow stores. He stated in written testimony that Best Buy wouldn’t begin installing the coupon payment system until after this year’s holiday season. He then stated, “The time for retailers to make changes to their systems generally ought not to be the year-end holiday selling season. If any retailer is able to be ‘up and running’ early in 2008, more power to them.”

It appears there is a clear winner in the console wars.  Retailer GameStop has seen a 72% increase in sales.  That’s a real winner to me.

Here’s a link to a story about a school that has replaces some books with a PlayStation Portables (PSPs)

I first want to start out by saying that I’ve been waiting for this unit since I ordered it in October of 2005. My expectations were set high as I awaited Radiosohpy’s “Shipping Status” change over the past 19 months. When I saw it say shipping now I called right away to make sure my order was in.

As a quick aside: I called in and gave the person on the other line my credit card number. I was promised I’d have my radio by Friday. On Thursday I got a call from the person I spoke with and she said that she lost my order and credit card number. Appearance it made it’s way to the shredder.

I received the radio on Tuesday and plugged it right in. I used an external antennae in my house that I run up to my attic awaited it’s arrival. After scanning through the dial for an HD signal I only found one. When I did I read the song and artist info scroll by. When I tuned to the station’s HD2 signal the same text was scrolling along. I found out later on that the HD2 channel was not sending any data out. But why was the text still scrolling? I have a JVC head unit in my car. When there is no data being sent it says “NO TEXT”. This ensures there is no confusion.

On some stations I was only able to pull in the station call letters. The radio showed “false” calls on some stations. I noticed call letters like “KCRO”, “KCRP” and the like. Since I live on the east side of the Mississippi I figured it had to be wrong.

After fumbling my way to find out how to set the time (which wasn’t in the manual) I left the unit alone to bring in my car for the ride to work.

On my way in I used a power inverter to power the radio. When I plugged it in the wrong time was displayed. That means it didn’t hold the time I had set the day before. I used the internal antennae to see what stations I could pull in while driving. I mention this because on their web site Radiosophy sells a power supply that plugs into a cigarette lighter and audio adapter to plug into your existing car radio. This would mean they intend users to listen in the car.

Well, good luck trying to get an HD signal in the car. Unlike a house, which is full of insulation ladened with foil which hurts reception, a car should supply a better environment for pulling in a HD signal. I compared my in-dash JVC unit with the MultiStream™ HD Radio. The JVC pulled in many signals while the Radiosophy got none.

Since I work at a radio station I tuned into my station. I was stopped at a light about a mile from my station’s transmitter. I was close enough that I could see the tower. I pointed the internal antennae right at the tower and did not get the HD reception. Only until I was right on the entrace to the college where I work that I got consistent HD reception.

When I got into the office I tried using the external antennae provided and could not get any HD reception.

So I did not hesitate to call to Customer Service to get a return. The person on the other line was more than receptive to my concerns and ended the call with “I hope you’ll keep checking us out, I’m sure we’ll have a radio you’ll like.” While I’m waiting on that I’ll be happy with another radio that actually works.

Google likes to keep things under wraps (for the most part). They are not making a secret about how they want to get into the TV market. This is an attempt to sell what they sell best, advertising. There are two methods being discussed right now:

Linear Content- Which won’t work with Google’s current line-up of targeted marketing. The same 15 people watching Smallville don’t all want to see an ad for the new Spider-Man movie.

Set-Top Box- This method would seem to work best. They already has the content (thanks to YouTube) to push the video to the television. Now they just need a peice of hardware to get the content and play it back on your TV. Perhaps Google is watching how the AppleTV works itself out in the coming weeks.

Google has already hired a core staff of technicians to work on a solution.