Coca-Cola Freestyle

This is very random for a blog post I know, but having decided to back off my Facebook use I decided to share more of these types of things that I find interesting here on my blog. Annie and I watched game four of the ALCS tonight (Go Rangers!) and when it was over I was flipping around to see what was on before I turned off the TV for the evening. In the channel guide I saw a listing for a documentary about Coke on CNBC that I thought I would check out. Having been to the Coke headquarters multiple times while visiting family in Atlanta I have a soft spot for the company. The show was standard cable TV fare, but what really got my attention was this "Freestyle" machine they showed off at the end of the show. This single fountain machine dispenses over 100 different types of Coke! Appearently the techology is based on medical equipment originally developed to deliver extremely precise doses of drugs. It stores cartridges with highly concentrated bases and flavors then mixes and matches them to create this wide variety of flavors in a single machine. The tech geek in me was... well... geeking out! I spotted an Orange Coke flavor when they were demoing it! Man, I would love to try that! I hope this thing catches on because I would go out of my way just to try this sometime...

HP TouchSmart Online Ad

I know it seems a little weird to say it but this is one of the coolest online ads I've ever seen. It's not annoying like those damn Facebook ones that take over your whole window if you accidentally pass the cursor over it. This one is activated with an actual click, what a crazy concept, but what makes it cool is after the click. It seems very dynamic. And it works the way an online ad should work. It caught my attention, not hijacked it, and then it piqued my interest enough for me to actually visit the site and check the product out in more detail. And as a side note it seems like a pretty cool product. I heard that hardware manufacturers had said they weren't going to wait around for Windows 7 before pushing touch screen abilities. It's also encouraging to see a PC manufacturer do some thing pretty innovative and take charge with it. Just thought I'd share...

A few words of advise for Apple on the iPhone

Apple announced a $200 price drop on their high end iPhone earlier this week. I think it's a fantastic move by Apple which I hope will only help cement their place in the smartphone market. Sure it sucks for early adopters... but it comes with the territory. A lot of people are griping over the $100 Apple Store credit being offered to everyone who purchased prior to the price drop saying that its not enough. Well frankly I think Apple is being generous. They don't have to give them anything really. But that's another story. The point is I think the iPhone is on the cusp of becoming something huge. Soon enough we will all be carrying an iPhone or some clone thereof.

I would love to get one and chances are very high that I will within the next few years. Here is a list of a few of the features I would like to see in the device before I want to take the leap though....

Larger Storage. This one is a given and its not a matter of if Apple will up the storage it's when. Currently the iPhone stands at 8 gigs, I would like to see them at at least 20 gigs of flash based storage before joining the ranks.

Audio Notebook. Voice recording would be great. I drive in traffic for more than 2 hours a day. It would be great to record notes and things I think of while I am driving. Often I think of many things I need to do or want to do or come up with good ideas for projects while driving to or from work and often they are forgotten. It would be nice to be able to record these things as audio notes.

Record Full Motion Video. This one is a no brainer. My Motorola RAZR can record video - the iPhone should too.

Open API. (Application Programing Interface) Apple needs to open up the iPhone to developers if they really want it to flourish. I want to see iPhone native apps from third party developers. Apple is pushing for web based apps but the browser is not the full Safari browser Apple claims it to be, if it were it would be able to support Flash, and you can only do so much with the limited browser.

True Wireless Broadband. And I'm not talking about wifi here. Wifi is fast but it's not always available. I have used the "Edge" network on an iPhone before and its slow... way to slow to be called broadband in my book. It needs to be faster.

Copy/Paste Functionality. This one is simple too. For the iPhone to flourish as a truly mobile web experience it needs copy and paste functionality. I want to be able to blog from the thing. A significant portion of the blogging I do involves copying and pasting. That's not the only reason to have it though. Email could benefit from this too. And it's completely feasible... someone created this video as a proof-of-concept that I think works very well.

Better Battery Life. Be it less power consumption or just more battery capacity in the same space or smaller, I want to be able to use it throughout the day without thinking or worrying about if the battery is going to die before I get home and plug it in to charge for the evening.

That's all I got for now. Apple, get crackin' on this stuff. My current contract ends in about a year. If you are not ready for me by then I'm sure I can go month to month on my plan until you are.

Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo

And from Microsoft no less?! Hopefully this isn't just some flashy demo to wow the tech crowd and they'll actually put this sort of thing into good use.

A description from the TED website:

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.