Uncle Steve wants you to buy this thrice over the next 5 years.

So the world has as one lost its friggin’ mind over the launch of the iPad last week.

Yeah. And you may have noticed that I’ve taken my time to write about it.

Yeah. And that’s because I’m not that impressed.

No USB, no multi-tasking, no camera…

What the hell were Apple thinking?

They were probably thinking “We need to hype the hell out of this bitch because essentially all we’ve really got is a prototype – and we need to be first to market with this thing, so we can say we’re ‘market leaders’” or some shit.

Because that’s what this looks like: a prototype

It’s worth repeating: No USB, no multi-tasking, no camera...

And it’s not the first time Apple has done this. They did it with the iPod and the iPhone. It’s actually a beautiful idea: test your product (and your market) at the cost of the customers.

Ok I’ll agree that when you look at the iPad, you’re looking at the future of computing…except it’s about 3 iterations away.

Seriously. So don’t reach into your pocket just yet. Hang in there. Wait for version 2…or even 3. And maybe you won’t have to be embarrased by the dorky name they’ve given this one.

Wow.

It’s THE week when my Marghe marries.

This feels huger and huger as the time approaches by.

I am totally reflective today.

Remembering all of our lives together as bonding friends. Better say sisters from different mothers and fathers.

Yesterday New Orleans Saints took over in the SuperBowl the Indianapolis Colts. It was shocking me to catch the live chronicle on RAI2!!! In Italian! I survived only till it was 10-3 for the Colts. Then fell asleep But I ma happy for New Orleans town, that’s for sure.

I am planning anyway to learn about Payton Manning, mainly out from Kobe’s opinion on him.

I am all about music today, listening from iPod to whole albums by:

Garbage:

Delphic:

Cure:

and Mando Diao

Have all a great day.

Lotta Love, your Miss Z.

I’ve always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It’s no surprise to me that they returned to the elongated shape for version four.

I never wanted to upgrade to a bigger iPod, aside from storage space, because I liked the compact nature, and it was perfect for transcribing. When I had the time to complete Sidepodcast transcripts, it was a great way of listening, pausing, typing, repeat until complete. Now, though, I have no time for transcribing, and more time for playing with apps.

Mr C has had the iPod Touch for ages now, and I’ve been allowed peeks at it every now and again. Oh, who am I kidding? I totally comandeered it and bought games I wanted to play, to the point that Mr C was aghast at the things Genius was recommending him. “Farm Frenzy 2?” he would say, eyebrows raised.

After writing about our experiences with the teleprompting app ProPrompter, we were informed that a new version was out, that allowed remote control from one iPod Touch to another. That’s two, in the same house. Cue an order with Apple. Yes!

So, now I am the proud owner of an iPod Touch. I have only been using it for about two days and already, I am in love with the iPod experience all over again. Here are five things that have been revolutionary to me:

1. The skip back thirty seconds feature. I spend every spare waking moment I can with my ears plugged in and people are always trying to grab my attention. I naturally lose focus on what I’m listening to, but the scrub functions are so inaccurate. Skip back 30 seconds, and keep on listening. Genius.
2. Podcasts in the same order as iTunes. I’m not sure there is any adequate expression of frustration I could use to demonstrate my feelings about the Nano. The Archers is listed under A in the iTunes podcast list, but falls under T once it’s loaded onto the Nano. Suffice it to say, this is no longer a problem.
3. x2 speed playback. I can listen to double the output in the same amount of time? Sold.
4. Podcasts listed in date order, earliest first. I could never quite figure out why sometimes the Nano would go from one podcast to the next and sometimes it would stop dead at the end of a file. Nevertheless, if it did play straight through, I wouldn’t want it to because the podcasts are listed from most recent backwards, meaning listening to things out of order. Not really an option, and thank goodness it’s fixed.
5. Erm, did I mention the x2 speed? I don’t actually have a fifth, but I really do enjoy listening to half hour shows in 15 minutes. I have to pay slightly more attention when they’re talking fast, but it is very worth it.

I get the feeling I might be talking about apps a little bit more on this here blog, which makes me feel guilty towards Android. I’ll try and share the love.

Let me spare you the suspense: we believe in superstition because we have decided to believe in it. Everything else just snowballed from there.

Allow me to explain.

Hyundai Everywhere
Four years ago, I rented a Hyundai Elantra for a trip. Not that I chose it specifically; I just chose a price range and the price range chose the Elantra. Nevertheless, I accepted it, the trip was awesome…but that’s not the point.

The point is, after I got back from the trip, I noticed Hyundai Elantras. E-ve-ry-where.

I didn’t see them before. Some reasons: Either a) before that, all Elantras were painted to match the background thus making them invisible; or b) because I was such a trendsetter—after I rented one, there was a sudden interest in them.

Both theories suck. I made them up, obviously.

So what really happened?

It turned out that the Elantras were indeed “invisible”. To me, at least.

There’s this thing I would like to call selective recognition. If we were to pay attention to every information received by our senses, we will be overwhelmed by the massive amount of information. Instead, our brain filters, cross-checks and selects information worthy of our attention.

Who provides the filter? It is you, mostly.

If you’re an accountant, you would notice the KPMG headquarters you’ve just passed by. To your friends who couldn’t care less about anything accounting & auditing, the building would just be another building.

It would be invisible.

You might have this experience: once you bought or really want to buy something, you see it everywhere. In fact, you cannot not see it.

So, the only reason I saw Hyundai Elantras everywhere was because I’ve rented one.

The insignificant, faceless, invisible Elantras had been given a meaning (i.e. the trip) which allowed me to recognise it from a sea of cars. Well, at least while the meaning was still there.

Once I forgot about the trip, Elantras became invisible again.

iPod Even
In an iPod Shuffle, the songs are played in… why, shuffle mode, of course. The shuffle function should, in theory, select songs at random and play them.

In reality however, some songs are played more frequent than others. Some are played even before all songs are completed.

This seems to contradicts the notion of random selection of songs, right?

As you might have guessed (because our readers are very smart and intelligent), it is wrong.

That’s the way it is supposed to work. Random is not even.

In fact, even is the opposite of random. To be even, the iPod should choose the songs carefully as to not play the same song again without completing the playlist first. It couldn’t just select and play randomly.

Some iPod Shuffle owners have pointed out this “broken” feature. The more superstitious ones even decided that their iPods have preferences. They’ve decided to give their otherwise lifeless device a personality.

They have decided to believe in this superstition.

Of course, they’ve given some meaning to this particular situation – the iPod Shuffle prefer particular songs. On top of that, they believe in it and hate to be proven wrong. These compounded reasons trigger their selective recognition to quickly point out “See, I told you. The damn thing really loves Bohemian Rhapsody” whenever a “preferred” song is played.

And yes, those moment when “other songs” came up were easily ignored.

Stickiness factor
If we decided to believe in something—due to bias because we want to be right— those instances that we’re wrong will soon be forgotten; while those “See, I’m right” moments stick.

What worse is that, as in the iPod Shuffle case, we’ll miss the wrongs more than the rights.

This stickiness factor is the self-reinforcing loop that will only convince us of our original belief.

Forget the iPod Shuffle, extrapolate this to just about every superstition you can think of and you might find this loop.

Until we’re aware of this loop and question everything we know about what we know, we’ll always fall into this loop.

And that, my friend, is why we believe in superstition.

The new iPhone game called “The Treasures of Mystery Island” for anyone who is looking forward to spending hours in mysterious adventures. This new game takes hidden object games to the next level with some brilliant artwork and tons of mini games. The player not only has to find the hidden objects in a particular scene but also use the objects found to move from scene to scene.

Break the curse of an angry god and find hidden treasure of unimaginable worth in this thrilling new hidden object adventure! Your seek-and-find skills will be challenged as never before as you beat 20 thrilling episodes, play mini-games and earn a slew of trophies! Can you solve the mystery at the center of Treasure Island?

The main aim of the game is that Alex (you) was making just another routine run across the Atlantic Ocean in his cargo plane when his girlfriend’s lucky talisman started to glow. Moments later, he found himself parachuting onto the uncharted island. When Alex is rescued by a native on the island, he begins a new adventure that will take him into the heart of this new unchartered island, where hidden treasure and the curse of an angry god await!

The Treasures of Mystery Island is available as a Free Trial Game and a Full Price Game on the iTunes App Store for $3.99 / £2.39

Here are some more wallpapers for the iPhone. Just right click each image and SAVE AS.

How to download the above images and save them as your iPhone wallpaper.

1) Click each image to open up
2) Right click on image and click SAVE AS
3) Save the image to your pictures folder that you are syncing with the iPhone in iTunes
4) Next time you sync your iPhone the image should copy across to your iPhone
5) You should now see your custom wallpaper on the iPhone’s start-up screen as well as for incoming calls that do not have a contact assigned to them

Here are some more wallpapers for the iPhone. Just right click each image and SAVE AS.

How to download the above images and save them as your iPhone wallpaper.

1) Click each image to open up
2) Right click on image and click SAVE AS
3) Save the image to your pictures folder that you are syncing with the iPhone in iTunes
4) Next time you sync your iPhone the image should copy across to your iPhone
5) You should now see your custom wallpaper on the iPhone’s start-up screen as well as for incoming calls that do not have a contact assigned to them

BurpZ! THE MOST DISGUSTING APP I HAVE EVER SEEN!

“The most disgusting app in my iPhone” says Allison from Chicago.

We worked hard to make people says this.  Hours of burping with our “burp models” and a lot of work got us to this point.  Both the iPhone and Android versions are done as of Monday morning but thanks to Apple you may not see it for a while.

This app took a lot of help from friends and family to make happen and we owe them all!  Thanks guys for helping out and next time you need something (like a cool app) you know where to look!

Allllrighty then. I’m sorry for the posting silence. I’ve been working on a documentary. Sound cool? Well, if the topic is yourself it’s a whole different story. So I’ve been shooting, looking at and editing footage of myself every day during the past week for hours at a time. Trust me, it gets old real quick. I am working on getting it up on this blog. It will give you a better idea about what I’ve been up to..

Other than that I’ve decided where I’m going on my week off! Pucón, about 10 hrs south from Santiago, will be my chillout spot from February 22 to 26. I am going to walk on an active volcano covered with snow! Craaazzzyyy! It’s going to be packed with tourists tho, but I have no choice but to go there in the high season. My agenda is packed, and I want to save the northern deserts for a trip in a few months.

This is Chilean fastfood. It’s  chickenburger with palta (basically mashed avogado). They literally eat this sh*t uppp here !!! I like palta, don’t get me wrong, but this is A LOT of palta.

Chilean Fastfood

Oh and this kid played with my phone the whole time I was having breakfast in this restaurant, he called it an Ipod (It’s a Samsung phone), and when I tried to correct him he said, “yes we call that an Ipod too”… Way to go Apple branding!!

Boy playing with my 'Ipod'