Charlie Owen and I are talking about doing a geek dinner on Tuesday night (Sept 13) in LA in honor of the PDC.  Who's in? Any suggestions from locals on a reasonably accomodating location nearby the convention center?

"Sales of Media Center PCs have skyrocketed since July 9, according to a recent study by Current Analysis. For the week ending August 20, 2005, Media Center PCs accounted for 43% of all desktop personal computers sold in the U.S. retail market, based on data from a sampling of U.S. retailers."

71% of the Media Centers sold in the week ending August 20 did not have a TV tuner. Maybe they're all with Thomas Hawk waiting for Digital Cable support ;) 

Charlie Owen will demonstrating XBox360 + Media Center Extender at his PDC presentation on September 15.  The Meet Me At Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005 and Win A Media Center Keyboard has more details on place and time. 

Donate to Katrina via American Red Cross and win Media Center 2005

Media Center Show #25 is up. To me, Ian is the "Most Valuable Podcaster".  This is a guy who deserves MVP status- they're working on it Ian! :)

Embedded Automation made a bunch of Media Center app-announcments at CEDIA (that's the big pro AV/home installer show):

The products being showcased are part of tihe mHome product line and include a home automation software application, mControl; a media center PC solution, mTheater; a home automation controller, mServer; and a secondary display for media center PC's, mDisplay. For mControl, Embedded Automation will be demonstrating their upcoming release, v1.2, which offers new functionality. More here.

By now most people have probably seen this.  Just just in case, here's a good round up from Robert Scoble on coverage of the AppleMoto iPhone and Nano:

But not everyone was wowwed by Steve Jobs. TechDirt's Carlo Longino writes "iTunes Phone as iLame As iExpected." Ouch.

John Markoff in the New York Times has the details, although I doubt anyone missed these announcements yesterday since they were all over the blogs.

I like the ID of the new nano.  Pretty soon people are going to start complaining of papercuts from their iPods.  It's clear however that caged, unfed primates with soft drafting implements designed the moto phone.  I mean come on- stereo speakers?  On a mobile phone?  Will it kick like my 80's-style boom box?

iTunes 5 as a sync engine for Outlook.  Hrmph.  Someone please tell me what makes this iTunes worthy of a full point release?

[Ed. Fixed the quote- darn copy/paste!]

I've taken recently to replacing my MSN Messenger personal message with Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, sometimes abridged for space.  This is my way of responding to people who put interesting quips in their personal message trying to appear smarter or more serious. For this week, my quote is:

Note: For visitors of your site, this entry is only displayed for users with the preselected language English/English (en)

Scoble talks about the bugs in in-car navigation systems in his latest blog entry.  I have to agree. We own a Honda Pilot and a Toyota Prius, both with navigation systems that are widely disparate in their guidance, user model and their capabilities.  The voice navigation on the Prius is a gimmick IMO but certain features like "3 routes" helps you along by giving you control of which route you want to take based on distance and more.

When I have more time, I'll write an in-depth compare/contrast of the two. In the meantime, here's a thought for discussion:  Why don't DVD navigation systems support real-time traffic information?  It's about time.  Use a mobile data network where free data isn't available.  Now here is a good use for that SPOT technology :)

And yes, I traded in my Honda S2000  for a Toyota Prius.  I'm paying my dues with a kid-friendly/commute friendly car now that my son is over 2 and it's impractical to drive our gas-guzzling SUV all over. Call the $2000 tax rebate and savings on gas a downpayment on my next road rocket. 

I'll post more about the Prius later including hacks I've found. Time to get Phil Torrone at Make Magazine to hack a Prius to add Media Center ;)

You know the old adage- Microsoft doesn't create anything cool, it's design is uninspired blah blah.  Did you know some of the coolest industrial and interaction designers in the world work at Microsoft?  CA does.  Media Center recently won Communication Arts Interactive Annual Awards- for more see Interactive Annual 11: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Charlie talks more about the relevance of CA here

Communication Arts is the leading trade journal for visual communications. It's the largest design magazine in the world and showcases the top work in graphic design, advertising, illustration, photography and interactive design.    

Congrats to my friends over in Media Center land.

Next week I'll be at the Microsoft PDC (Professional Developer's Conference).  I'm very lucky I was able to get a hotel room- it seems every hotel room in LA is booked for the dates I'm trying to attend... in any event, I'll be there talking about my new gig, meeting with partners and customers. I'm excited that I will also finally able to talk about what I'm working on.

Care to get together? Know of a happening after-PDC party? Drop me a line- email link below on the left.

A few really cool keyboards, higher DPI mice, and more details on the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows.  I've held one of the new controllers and all I can say is it's a significant improvement over the first and second generation controllers. 

Pretty darn cool- Start.com is my new homepage- pulling in blogs, news sites, weather and more. Ad-free. More on this later.

Forget political affiliations, HurricaneHousing.org has the right idea- offer to provide a temporary home to hurricane refugees.  My wife wants to sign us up to host a family. The cynic in me says no way, the American in me said ok - to put it out there. 

30,555 beds offered so far. Over 120 homes opened up in the Seattle area alone. 

Words can't even begin to describe. Just give what you can please to the American Red Cross.  It's hard to imagine - 1,000,000 people displaced.  The term "American Refugees" sounds so foreign.  Our beloved city of New Orleans is gone... for now. 

Watching the NBC Nightly News last night, my wife and I were shocked at the "Lord of the Flies" lawlessness that's gripping the city now, the death and desparation; the lack of (or lack of coverage of) what seems like simple things our Government could be doing:

• Air-dropping Emergency Ration Kits into hardest hit areas in New Orleans. 24 hours was the turnaround for the Tsunami- why not here?
• Using loudspeakers on helicopters to reassure people- turn psyops around and help the people
• Direct refugees using a blimp w/ text banners There's a novel idea for communicating when normal modes of communication are out.

NBC is sending in their own security details to protect their reporters in New Orleans- is this Baghdad? I'm not there. I try not to judge but the lack of coordination, the desparate S.O.S. pleas of mayor of New Orleans the emotion reflected by the most war-weathered journalists (not just at NBC) warns the cynic in me that this is not being sensationalized.

We don't need the president in the city for a photo op unless he's offloading water and food.  Then it hits me- is it possible our military is really stretched so thin that the national guard can't mount a swift response?

I've been watching the mobilization of help internally at Microsoft and other companies. From servers and sites, hundreds of employees are working on everything from infrastructure to help bolster the American Red Cross' bandwidth and servers (see Red Cross servers under extreme load), to the Katrina Relief Auction on Flickr that my friend Thomas Hawk and others are doing.

Turkey, Morocco, it does not matter. Write a virus, you will be found eventually.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Authorities in Morocco and Turkey have arrested two people believed to be responsible for unleashing a computer worm that infected networks at U.S. companies and government agencies earlier this month, the FBI said Friday.

Farid Essebar, 18, was arrested in Morocco, while Atilla Ekici, 21, was arrested in Turkey on Thursday, the FBI said. They will be prosecuted in those countries, the FBI said.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050826/D8C7K9NO3.html 

New features include:

• Dynamic Backgrounds
• Voice Clip
• New Sign-In UI
• New Connectivity Troubleshooter
• Improved Voice Conversation
• Vodafone support* 
   
  * you need to be located in a Vodafone market (IT-IT, ES-ES, NL-NL) to experience.

Get it at http://Messenger.msn.com

You gotta hand it to MSN. Between MSN Spaces, Messenger, Desktop Toolbar, and Start.com, there's a lot of interesting and good stuff being churned out at a rapid rate. Others are taking notice.

You just have to love our friends at the FCC. The FCC requires that new devices registered in the US are available for public inspection prior to certification. Such is the situation with Moto's iTunes phone including photos, manuals, and test details.  According to PhoneArena, new details gleamed include:

* Bar form factor, stereo speakers on the side
* VGA built-in camera; Video Record supported
* Trans-Flash (micro SD) card memory expansion
* Bluetooth
* iTunes support
* Music key

Apple has stated that an iTunes-compatible phone will ship this summer.

News.com has a roundup of new PC designs and processors coming from Intel including one low-voltage-enabled CPU that purports to use less power than a current PC put into sleep/standby while still remaining on.

Sorry but the first PC looks like a Tandy from the early 1990's. I'm sure we can do better.  Also note to Intel- please put an object such as a ruler next to these super-small devices?  Otherwise we have no concept of scale on "first read".

But it's good to have a sense of  humor :)

I have a neighbor who is on her 3rd iPod.  Why? "The hard drive keeps dying".  Yes, she should sign up for the AppleCare progra, but the real culprit is how she uses it- she runs. A lot.  Truth be told, HD-based Portable Music Players just don't handle the g-shock of running very well. 

Enter Sony's new Walkman "Beans", three new flash-based players that look super-slick.  No mention of PlaysforSure support which has me wanting though- if they don't work with Yahoo's music service, MSN or Napster, count me out.  I hope Sony woke up and snuck a few podcasting features in like bookmarking.