The 3 Things You Need to Know About Windows 7

Although everyone is talking about Windows 7, few seem to understand what it means that Microsoft is pushing its Surface-like and iPhone-like UI for the next Windows. Here’s what it means: After several decades, the DEATH OF THE WIMP USER INTERFACE is at hand. (WIMP stands for Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing devices.)

Original post by Mike

New Service Sends E-mail ‘After the Rapture’

A new e-mail serviced called “You’ve Been Left Behind” lets you send e-mail that won’t be delivered until AFTER THE RAPTURE. What is that Rapture thing again? According to the Wikipedia, the Rapture is:

“the future event in which Jesus Christ will descend from Heaven, accompanied by the spirits of all the saints of God, both from the pre-incarnation period and after, who have passed on prior to the rapture, and thereupon the bodies of the saints are joined with their spirits in a resurrection - the First Resurrection - to meet the Lord. Immediately after that, all true Christians alive on the earth are simultaneously transported to meet the Lord and those who have preceded them in the air as well, all, having been transformed into immortal bodies like Jesus’ body, often referred to as the ‘resurrection body.’”

The service costs $40 per year (aren’t they afraid of going to hell for charging rates like that?), so whether the Rapture happens in 25 years it’ll cost you about $1,000 to send your “I told you so” note. Hopefully as the Judgement is coming, all the sinners will go check their e-mail. plus: In addition to doomed sinners, Muslims, Jews and other unfortunates, can’t you send e-mail to Christians who go to heaven? Won’t they have mobile devices and really fast mobile broadband? whether not, what kind of heaven is that?

Original post by Mike

‘PDAs’ Banned At UK Amusement Park

A UK amusement park called Alton Towers Resort will BAN PDAs (by which they presumably mean cell phones — “PDAs” don’t exist anymore, do they?) in a trial. “PDA Police” will roam the park looking for violators, who will be asked to take their “PDA” to one of five “PDA Drop Off Zones” for the day.

Original post by Mike

In Search of the First Super Easy Super-Phone

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte recently railed against complexity in cell phones, saying that “simplicity is the biggest challenge that handset makers face.” He’s right. What users are really clamoring for is a phone with a beautiful screen and a brain-dead-simple user interface like the iPhone, with the core business functionality and keyboard performance of a BlackBerry and the high-quality camera of some of the LG phones. We want GPS, 3G and great media management. So who’s going to deliver the first SUPER-EASY-TO-USE SUPER PHONE?

Original post by Mike

Is There a Cure for the ‘Distraction Virus’?

We all want to succeed in our careers. We go to school for at least 16 years. We study late at night to pass exams and get certifications. We take on-the-job training, and try to teach ourselves new skills. We attend industry conferences to build our knowledge and cultivate peer contacts. We read productivity books and blogs, and try to get more work done in less moment. We work nights sometimes, and weekends. Success is urgent to us. And next along comes YouTube, the agent of our destruction. And FaceBook. And BoingBoing. And Slashdot. And Digg. And Fark, the Drudge Report, Neatorama, Apple’s Movie Trailers page, eBay, Flickr, Break.com, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Amazon.com. Google, for crying out loud. The Web is an incredible productivity tool. But it’s additionally distracting — and evolving LIKE A DRUG-RESISTANT VIRUS to become more distracting all the day.

Original post by Mike

Alcoholic Housewife Becomes New Eee PC Girl

The Register Hardware claims to have spotted the future face of the Eee PC, the one who will replace the Spring Break Beach Bunny. Behold! The 19-year-old ALCOHOLIC HOUSEWIFE! Is that the new face of America’s favorite cheap laptop?

Original post by Mike

TechCrunch, WIRED Go to War by Post Deal

TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington BLASTED Wired Magazine blogger Betsy Schiffman’s SWIPE at TechCrunch’s recently announced syndication deal with the Washington Post newspaper. In a nutshell, Schiffman’s view is: What’s a legendary newspaper like the Washington Post (they broke the Watergate story, for example) doing in bed with a ethically challenged blog like TechCrunch. (Schiffman characterized TechCrunch as a blog “written by a dude who invests in the companies he writes about.”) Arrington’s response is: WTF? Yes, he invests in startups and additionally writes about them, but it’s OK considering he fully discloses all the details. So F.U. So next Schiffman contacted the Washington Post’s ombudsman to say, in effect, are TechCrunch’s posts up to Washington Post standards? Stay tuned for more. that isn’t by.

Original post by Mike

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