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MacWorld first thoughts
22Man, I wish I was back in SF right now! MacWorld, obviously, is one of my favorite holidays (I actually greet people on these days with “Happy MacWorld Day!”). I wasn’t let down, even though I was hundreds of miles away in Vegas at CES.
Crave liveblogging
Ryan liveblogging for Engadget
I’m pretty awestruck by the iPhone (yes! iPhone! Awesome!)… I’d love having Widgets right on my phone. Bummed that it’s Cingular, but that was to be expected. Hopefully I can try one out sometime soon! The Apple TV is also pretty groovy looking, except for the 720p, which is a little disappointing. The 40GB hard drive is a nice addition that we were all hoping for. You can be sure one of these will be in my house as soon as possible. A little delayed Christmas present to myself, perhaps.
Anyhow, CES is still going well. Last night we had a company party at the Playboy Villa at the Palms, and it was insane. I have never seen a hotel suite that awesome. There was a bed that rotated, a whirlpool tub that was so deep that you could drown in, and a pool outside with the Playboy bunny symbol that leaned out over the edge of the building and over the lights of Vegas. Unfortunately, I was so worried about being overtired that I left at 10:30. I know, I’m a giant lameo.
I also did some soundbites for G4 earlier today, so look for those in their preview of the Best of CES awards that we host.
I have pictures of a lot of stuff, but that media card reader is escaping me again. I’ll update with photo links later.
UPDATE: Here they are!
Best Buy = Big Brother
255 years ago
We were in Best Buy tonight, so I could buy someone in my family a quasi-expensive gift for Christmas. In case they read my blog, I’m not going to say what exactly I was buying there, but I will say that it was something subscription related. Maybe that makes a difference in the story.
Anyhow, we get to the checkout, and they scan my items (also got Rainbow 6: Vegas for XBox 360 as a house gift) and then this screen pops up. The checkout girl asks for my name.
“Why do you need my name?”
Girl: “Uh, the system makes me do it.” So I grudgingly give it to her. “Can I also have your phone number?”
“What? Why would you need that?” I ask. She tells me that she can’t make the transaction unless I give her this information on the screen. Ryan and I discuss how ridiculous this is, but I finally give her my work number. Maybe it’s some weird registering thing with this device.
“Can I have your home address?” WHAT? Seriously?
“Uh, no. I don’t feel comfortable giving my address, and I really don’t see why they would need that information. Anyhow, this is a gift, I’m not the one keeping it.” She tried to back out of the screen, but sure enough… it took the item off the list of things I was buying. However, when she tried again and went back into the screen, all the empty lines had “UNKNOWN” filled in. We just told her to leave it like that, and it went through.
Then with a smile, I said “Sorry, I’m in witness protection. It’s complicated.”
But why? Why do they need my name, address, and phone number? Especially when it’s going to be given as a gift? It seems very unnecessary.
Crave video podcast
10
James Kim and I are hosting the new Crave video podcast (http://crave.cnet.com) and the first episode is up in iTunes. Here’s the iTunes link. If you’re not an iTunes fan, you can see it on the site here.
This first episode was definitely all about figuring how we wanted the show be, and so the next one will be a lot better (improved set, as well). Hope you like it!