|
Pay phones are destined for extinction
Eighty percent of people now own cell phones and the other 20 percent are standing next to eight people holding a cell phone.
Remember pay phones? Remember stuff that made you ask, "What is
that?" on the receiver of the pay phone? Remember having to insert more
money to continue the call? Remember being at the airport or mall and
searching like mad for a pay phone that wasn't in use?
AT&T announced this week that those days will be happy memories
by the end of 2008. The company plans to end the pay phone business.
I will be first in line for a vintage phone to put with my 8-track
player, phonograph, rotary phone, cassette tape, CB radio, typewriter
and film camera.
Microsoft replaces kill switch with nags
Microsoft
announced this week that the new Vista Service Pack 1 update scheduled
for next year will disable the notorious kill switch.
The kill switch, referred to by Microsoft as the "out-of-grace
reduced functionality mode" shuts off features like Microsoft games,
Internet access and limits the user to one hour of use if their copy of
Vista is not activated over the Internet within 30 days.
Microsoft is replacing the kill switch with nags. Nags are
ways that software companies use pop-ups, watermarks and other visual
annoyances to nag you into buying the full version of a product.
No specific techniques were mentioned by Microsoft, only that the alerts would be "very clear."
Microsoft claims that the anti-piracy measures of Windows
Vista have lead to a 50 percent decrease in piracy of Vista over XP. Of
course, they may have missed the point that people don't steal crap.
Flickr and Picnik officially join forces
Flickr is the world's largest photo sharing social network. Users from
all over the world, post their photos to share with other photographers
and wannabe photographers.
Picnik is an amazing online photo editing tool that runs like
standard software, but since it is Internet based, you can use it from
any broadband enabled computer in the world.
This week Flickr and Picnik joined forces to offer a tool that
lets you share and edit your photos from any computer in the world.
Both services require setting up a free account with a user name and password.
|
