Thanks for the Apple Steve

Another genius who died too young. My first personal computer was an Apple. So thanks for the Apple Steve. You gave a lot to the world, from computers to animated cartoons and all they spun off. I was very excited by your NeXT computer and know you found a way to bring that vision back in the Apple Company you revitalized. We will miss you.

Copy Wars: China P88 vs Apple iPad, Dark Void computer game vs Avatar movie

You may have heard about the Chinese company, Shenzhen Great Loong Brother, that's threatened to sue Apple over some kind of claim that Apple's iPad is a clone of their product, the P88, which apparently has been on sale in China for the past six months. This Wired magazine article points out some of the silliness around the Chinese claim.

James Cameron's movie Avatar has also had its share of accusations of third-party influences, one the most interesting coming from those familiar with ayahuasca, a drug from South America that supposedly gives its users the illusion of being connected with the natural world. In Avatar, the Na'vi people of the planet Pandora achieve this feat through a direct physical connection by plugging the end of their hair braid into not only their Tree of Souls, but also into some animals. This Globe and Mail op-ed piece by Canadian filmmaker Richard Meech compares Avatar's symbiotic connection to the drug-induced, imaginary one of the Amazon "vine of the soul."

Now comes the computer game from Capcom called Dark Void. In Episode 1, Chapter 4, after falling through a long hole in a mountain, the hero (you) end up at the bottom and in a landscape that looks suspiciously like the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Avatar. In the movie the Na'vi use flying beasts to fly around and in Dark Void the heroes use rocket packs.

Apple iPad meets Star Trek

I swear I saw the new Apple iPad lurking in the background of the most recent Star Trek film. Apple's own advertising even displays the film being viewed on the iPad. Certainly the concept and design of a thin, large-screen computer tablet has been a prop in some science fiction films and TV shows (not that I can name one off the top of my head), so I hope the iPad does well. The pricing is certainly interesting.

I'd be happy to have one sent to me for review.

The Law of Unintended Consequences gobsmacks Google thanks to Android

This report from SearchEngineWatch.com strikes me as a prime example of the Law of Unintended Consequences: Apple and Microsoft are in talks about using Microsoft's search engine Bing as the default search provider for the Apple iPhone. Apple it seems doesn't want its phone competitor with its own Nexus One and Android operating system to have access to iPhone customer data. But hasn't there been talk of Microsoft bringing out its own smartphone codenamed Pink? So what then for poor Apple? Why can't it with all its creative talent develop its own search engine for its own products? And there's always Yahoo!