I Kissed a Nerd (and I Liked it!) [Music Video]

Kudos to Blythe Renay & Rissy Pelot from the Damsels of Dorkington for this awesome parody of Katy Perry’s “I kissed a girl.”



Apple Evolution: 30 Years in 2 Minutes

I personally am ambivalent about Macintosh as a brand, so I’ll skip the PC vs Mac part and focus on the amazing evolution of computer technology and the impact of design awareness that has become part of Mac’s identity. Here is an awesome video that shows Mac computers and laptops morphing through their various incarnations. I find it fascinating how the utilitarian tan colored plastic boxes eventually turned into a pieces of decor and eye candy.

[Via Geekologie]

Life Is Not A Beach With An E-Reader

As the beach season comes into full swing, I’ve been thinking a great deal about e-readers. (I’m a geek, I have a weird thought process, okay?)

I always read more during the summer months, and part of the fun is getting old used and rather beat up paperbacks, kicking back, and not worrying how much sun and sand will affect those pages. But buying an e-reader pretty much means that all my paperback spending money is going to downloads, and not to physical books. Not that I’m buying one, but I am thinking about the options.

See, the thing is, I’m even wary about bringing library books to the beach, let alone something like an e-reader. With this price war, though, Nooks now at $149 and Kindles $189, they’re quickly becoming some of the cheapest and most intriguing gadgets on the market. Which would stand to reason that they’re the sort of thing we’d want to carry around with us, even if some of them aren’t particularly built for multitasking. (Which, honestly, is the primary reason I’ve held out so long.)

But my favorite part about paperback books is that I don’t have to worry about them at all. Sure, they’re not exactly environmental friendly, but all my favorite books are paperbacks, worn with time and dog-eared.

It seems that there’s some kind of disconnect in the e-reader market; to me, e-readers are like very nice hardcover books (in a way, expense wise) and difficult to just chuck in your purse and go for a trip. It’s not a lack of portability, but a general concern about electronics in dangerous situations (my purse is a perilous place!). What’s going to fill that paperback niche?

How about you, Geeks Are Sexy readers? I figure we’re one of the main target demographics in this situation. Do any of you have e-readers? Do you risk bringing them down to the beach/camp/out of doors in general? Do you just rely on warranties? Accessories? Or do you think that something new needs to be created to fill the gap between casual reading and climate-controlled reading? The future of reading may very well be in our hands.

[Photo CC libicocco – via Flickr]



Cardboard Warfare [Video]

To produce this short film, Youtube users pwnisher and his team used:

– 254 program crashes
– 427 manual frames to rotoscope
– 59 layers of sound effects
– a BUTTLOAD of cardboard and box cutters
– and a katamari

[Via TechEblog]

iPhone 4 Problems? There’s a Lawsuit for That.

It seems the increased speed and efficiency of the iPhone 4 has been matched by the legal profession. It took just days from the new model going on sale for the first class action suit to come Apple’s way.

As regular readers will have guessed, it involves the reception issues caused by the way the antenna is built into the casing of the phone itself and thus more susceptible to interference (largely through heat) when touched by the user’s hand.

The lawsuit formally names Kevin McCaffrey and Linda Wrinn of Maryland as the plaintiffs. If the application to become a class action case is successful, there’d be a single trial where the outcome would apply to any US iPhone 4 buyer who added their name to the case.

Whatever the merits of the case, it’s fair to say the lawyers involved are going full throttle. They’ve come up with nine different claims against Apple:

  • General negligence (they should have known the problem would occur)
  • Defect in design, manufacture and assembly (they didn’t make a working phone)
  • Breach of express warranty (they said the phone worked)
  • Breach of implied warranty for merchantability (whatever they said, it should have worked anyway)
  • Breach of implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose (seriously, it’s a phone, it should still get a signal when you hold it)
  • Deceptive trade practices (it didn’t work and they took our money anyway)
  • Intentional misrepresentation (the dude in the commercial was holding the phone normally, and they didn’t mention the whole not working deal)
  • Negligent misrepresentation (OK, a little mistake we could live with, but come on, a phone that doesn’t work when you hold it?!)
  • Fraud by concealment (two hundred bucks, a monthly fee, and still it doesn’t work?)

AT&T is also on the hook for seven of the claims, all except the defect in design and the breach of express warranty.

Whether any of this makes it into a courtroom is another matter, but reading through it does look as if the countless advertisements showing people holding the phone in the “wrong” way will be the closest thing to a smoking gun.

I have a suspicion this won’t be the last of the claims, however. The fact that the problem disappears with a $29 accessory from Apple may not be a sinister and cynical ploy, but it doesn’t exactly look great to a skeptical lawyer.

A Second Opinion on Learning Disorders [Video]

Unfortunately, developmental disorders in children are often diagnosed by observing behavior only, but neuroscientist Aditi Shankardass knew that we should be looking directly at their brains instead. In the following video, she explains how a remarkable EEG device has revealed mistaken diagnoses and transformed children’s lives.