SAN FRANCISCO–Given the cult-film status of 1971’s THX 1138 in the George Lucas universe, it should come as little surprise that the total capacity of Lucasfilm’s giant data center is 11.38 petabits per second.
Granted, that number–which represents the value one would get by adding up the bandwidth capacity of all the company’s 1 gigabit per second desktop machines and its 10-gbps backbone–is purely theoretical. But in an environment like Lucasfilm, which is celebrating four Oscar nominations this week, and where self-referential history is a big parlor game, numbers like that are nothing to be messed with.
Continue reading ‘Inside the Lucasfilm data center’
Think that big old Exubera inhaler (pictured) is sorta comical? You’re definitely not alone. I was surfing around trying to get a clearer sense of how Pfizer’s much-hyped inhalable insulin device is doing. Are users liking it? Is it really easy to use? Etcetera. But I got sidetracked into reading about that inhaler. It’s big, it’s plastic, it’s bulky. The insulin bong. Come on, admit it. You were thinking the same thing! Here are some of the choicest comments I came across:
Spotted on one message board: “As a pharmacist, my biggest problem with Exubera is that the delivery system looks not entirely dissimilar to a bong. I just don’t see the conversation starter ‘excuse me, I need to take a hit off of my insulin bong’ to be a great opener.”
Continue reading ‘The insulin bong’
Yeah, right, Steve Jobs is going to get on the field at half time and announce a new iPod and Beatles collaboration with cheerleaders backing him up. Good one. Wait, what’s that? They’re going to announce a product by commercial? Yeah, that’s even more Apple-like. Uh huh.
Continue reading ‘Rumor: Widescreen Touch iPod, Beatles Edition, To be Announced at Super Bowl?’
There hasn’t been an official announcement from HBO of a seventh season of The Sopranos, at least I haven’t seen one. What does Netflix know that the rest of us don’t know? I’m very excited to know that there may be a seventh season as The Sopranos is truly my favorite television program of all time.
My new favorite beer. This stuff is great!
Netflix has launched a new feature called Watch Now that will enable subscribers, at no additional cost, to watch movies immediately on Netflix.com. The new service does not limit the number of movies a customer can watch, instead it gives users 1 hour of video for every $1 they spend monthly (18 hours of online video is free with the $17.99 plan). Customers can watch 5 minutes of a movie, decide that they don’t like it, and switch to another without penalty (many online movie rental options require watching a movie within a certain time period, such as 24 hours or 14 days, or the movie will have to be re-rented at additional cost).
Continue reading ‘Netflix Launches “Watch Now” Downloads’
Today was Steve Job’s Macworld 2007 keynote. It was badass. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but then again, it never is. I’m always pleasantly surprised with Apple’s new product announcements.
First, Sir Steve covered some updates about the iTunes store, as in how many movies, songs, and TV shows they’ve sold in the past year. This lead right into the Apple TV device. I’m not overly impressed with this device. It basically lets you stream content from iTunes to your TV either wired or wireless. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really neat, but it’s not really anything revolutionary, in my opinion.
Continue reading ‘New Apple iPhone’
