From the “Ideas I Am Intrigued About” file:  IBM has filed a patent on a new remote control that, apparently, automatically blogs what you’re watching on TV at the push of a button.

Part of me instantly thought, “Who is THAT lazy that they need a remote control to blog for them?”  Then I realized there’s a litany of programs that already do this!  You’ve got Last.FM for your music player, Raptr for your video games, Google Reader for the stuff you read online, and TweetFeed, FriendFeed, and any number of other things.  Why NOT a remote control that you can sync up to Twitter or some other thing that shares the activity?  Wouldn’t this be a slightly more accurate version of the Nielsen ratings?

The one thing that this would require, though, is a mute switch.  You wouldn’t want the TV to blog everything anyone watches on it, just the stuff you personally watch.  Otherwise people might get the wrong impression about your viewing habits.  After all, not everyone will own up to loving the SyFy Original Movies like I do.

I got a chance, briefly, to get my hands on Amazon’s Kindle.  A friend of mine picked one up for school and cheaper textbooks, and I have to say that the device is both incredibly light and incredibly easy to read.  I mean, seriously easy.  It’s just like reading a paper book, but not as heavy as your average text book.  Proving that Amazon had created a market, Sony has jumped into the fray offering both cheaper EBook readers (without wireless) and more expensive EBook readers (with the same capability as the Kindle).

However, the big deal is that EBooks don’t have a default format yet.  Sony’s new device will read PDFs (Amazon’s will not unless you have the documents converted via email), but Amazon has a specific format that some people claim are a negative mark for the device.

Really?

I seem to remember that Apple created a million-dollar music business without playing nice with other MP3 players.  Isn’t that the same thing?  Yes, NOW you can play your iTunes-purchased MP3s on other players, but it took years for Apple to loosen the proprietary purse strings.  If Amazon wants to take that model for the Kindle, they’d probably be pretty smart to do so.

I mean, it did work wonders for the iPod, but it would behoove Amazon to open up support for PDF files as soon as possible anyway.  The goal is to get the device in as many hands as possible, and this would only encourage adoption of the device.  Does the Kindle’s lack of PDF support keep you from buying one?

It’s funny.  When I first got a computer 10 years ago, it came with a boring gray felt mousepad.  So I spiced it up.  I picked up a pen, drew a little flying box, and viola:  Microsoft Mouse Pad 98.  Sure, it was goofy, but had I know custmoized mouse pads were going to take off, I would’ve figured out some way to get in on the ground floor.

Nowadays, the big news isn’t Microsoft (because they are everywhere) but Twitter and Facebook.  Hence, Meninos has rolled out some very impressive Twitter and Facebook-themed mousepads!  Not only are they pretty accurate representations of both Twitter and Facebook’s status boxes, they’re also very cheap at $17.99 for both pieces.

H/T: CNet

Image and Story:  Times Online

I love these sorts of videos.  I guess it’s a mash-up of Laurel and Hardy and The Gap Band.  I’m not sure if they’re really technically mash-ups, but I love using old film footage and synching it to new music (or vice versa).  Then again, I was sold the moment Laurel and Hardy were included, as I’ve been a fan of theirs since sixth grade when my old social studies teacher used to show us their shorts in class after tests and the like.

Going to the YouTube page reveals an amazing bit of circumstance.  The dance video (from Way Out West) syncs up to the Gap Band song “Party Train” perfectly, with absolutely NO edits!  That’s pretty impressive, no?

What kind of crazy mash-ups would you guys like to see?  I saw a video someone made of Charles Manson dancing to the song “Scatman” that just slayed me (pardon the pun).

Yeah, I’m excited now.  Can you blame me?  Playable werewolves, playable goblins, and Deathwing!

That deserted California elementary school you see above isn’t deserted anymore, as it’s officially Back To School Sales Frenzy Time throughout the land.  Every morning, kids get loaded onto the big yellow dump truck, and every afternoon they come home, backpacks loaded down with books, complaining about how they don’t have the coolest new gadget.  If your kid is older and about to go off to college (or just now getting settled in), you KNOW he or she is going to complain about a lack of cool gizmos to keep up with the kids.

That’s why I love things like Engadget’s back to school guide.  Not that I have kids in school (that I know about) or that I’m going back to school (SNORT), but that I love keeping up with the coolest in new gadgets and these lists are always really helpful for sorting out the bargains from the busts.  Not that I need one, mind you, but I’m seriously getting interested in getting my hands on a netbook.

What about you, readers?  Do you have any cool goodies you’ve got your eyes on during back to school sales season?

Hey you.  Yes, you.  You know that PlayStation 3 you’ve been wanting to pick up?  Well, don’t do it today.

Instead, wait until tomorrow (or buy it off Amazon now), when the price for the Sony PS3’s price drops to $299 dollars.  That’s the current full-sized 80GB PS3 AND the soon-to-be released 120GB slim version.  That’s good news if you’ve been looking for a PS3.

For those of us who are looking for a cheap Blu-ray player, this is probably your easiest to get option.  I know I’m tempted to pick one up for that capability, even if there’s not a lot on there games-wise I’m interested in.  Maybe, when they inevitably cut the price of the XBox 360, I’ll be able to pick up both of them.  That way I can play Blu-rays AND Left 4 Dead!

I was reading over the archives of the Daily Galaxy, and I stumbled across an article that raised a very interesting point.  Namely, that the internet is in the process of destroying the ability of humans to forget.  Just think about it for a moment:  digital records are easy to back up multiple times, and very tough to get rid of.  If you want to remove your presence from a social media website, it may take hours, days, or weeks of waiting and multiple confirmations on your part.  On smaller forms and BBS systems, you may not be able to purge yourself from user rolls.

The trail the average person leaves on the Internet is getting longer and longer.  From multiple old blogs to old forums to all kinds of retired email addresses, web profiles, and other detritus, there’s no limit to the amount of embarrassing online remainders we leave in our wake.  How do you deal with it?

In a way, I’ve been lucky and unlucky.  On the good side, a lot of my old writing for various websites and forums has disappeared into the ether when the sites themselves went belly up.  On the bad side, a lot of my old writing for various websites and forums has disappeared into the ether when the sites themselves went belly up.  Some things I’ve got backed up, but I’ve lost big chunks of my online writing history that I wish I had back.  None of it is as important as the Magna Carta, but I’d like to have kept it anyway.

Just how, exactly, did The Beatles join the Harmonix empire?  Considering that this is the last major band not to release songs on digital download, and how slowly the band embraced the compact disc, it seems odd that the Fab Four have become one of the first two or three bands to have their own branded music game.  Yet, here we are, with The Beatles Rock Band the most-awaited Rock Band game in history.  Here is how it happened.

There’s only one person to really thank, and that’s Dhani Harrison, son of George.  He’s the one of the Beatles ownership group that can speak, both as a video game fan and a musician, and bridge that divide between those who make the music and those who pick up plastic guitars and pretend to play the music.  The others involved had to go along with it, but as the story reveals, Dhani is the unsung hero in the whole operation.