Top 5 Disappointments With The 3G iPhone

The iPhone is an amazing device. It has blown existing smartphones out of the water with its innovation and ease of use. What's probably most surprising is that in the year since the iPhone launched, no competitor has really been able to emulate this amazing new platform. The new iPhone 3G and 2.0 software update have generally made a great device even better. Updates like 3G, the appstore and GPS were sorely missed features. The iPhone, however, still isn't perfect. Below is a list of the top five disappointments that people have noticed when upgrading to the new phone. By no means is the iPhone bad device, but as this list proves, the folks at Apple still have a little ways to go:


5. The App Store

The app store is an excellent addition to the iPhone/touch, but it still doesn't match the flexibility that developers are allowed on other platforms. A centralized store run by Apple means that many potential applications (ie. emulators and any application that doesn't terminate when the home button is pressed) may never be allowed on the phone. With Apple's approval needed for all applications, one would expect only quality applications, yet with over two dozen tip calculators in less than a month, we know the name of the game is quantity over quality. To be fair, the app store is new and a lot of promising apps are on the way, but it seems that the need to jailbreak (and void your warranty in the process) hasn't been completely eliminated.


4. 3G Makes Browsing Faster, But Not Lighting Fast

Unfortunately, the inherit limitations of 3G service and the iPhone itself mean that even with the latest iPhone, you wont be browsing as anywhere nearly as fast as you can on your home computer. HSDPA, the 3G technology of the iPhone, has broadband comparable speeds but also suffers from extremely high latency. This means that while large data files will download fast, it takes a long time for the network to recognize requests and dish out the data to your phone. The iPhone (and all mobile devices) are also no where near as powerful as your home computer, so even when connected to wifi, websites load much slower as the phone processes the information. Many tests out there show the 3G iPhone is faster than the 1st gen iPhone, but even websites like ESPN.com still take almost a full minute to load completely. If you were expecting the browsing speeds depicted in the Apple television ads, you'll be disappointed.


3. Apple's Bandwidth Restrictions

Apple seems to be restricting a number of services to conserve the amount of cellular data the phone uses. Even with 3G, you cannot use the music store application unless connected to wifi. The app store only allows downloading applications under 10 megabytes over the 3G network. Those excited to stream high quality youtube videos over the network will be disappointed to see Apple is still downgrading the quality when not connected to wifi. All these restrictions clearly point to the fact that AT&T and other carriers are attempting to limit the amount of bandwidth they have to provide. What this means for you is your phone is intentionally crippled.


2. Buggy 2.0 Software

The first thing many people noticed when using the 1st gen iPhone was how quickly and smoothly one could navigate the phone. There was no lag, and all features worked exactly as one would expect. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case with the 2.0 firmware update. The phone is still certainly usable, but lag is ever present and several new bugs have popped up. Contacts lists are sometimes painfully slow to load. Keyboard presses are often ignored. continuously crash out to the homepage. Hopefully these issues will be fixed quickly in a future update, but until that happens, users will be dealing with a glitchy expereince.


1. The Battery Life

There isn't really any way around it, the iPhone 3G has horrible battery life. Even people using the iPhone moderately are reporting difficultly getting through the day without completely draining the battery. All 3G phones are quite power hungry, but every other phone also has a user replaceable battery. It's true that most users wouldn't carry a spare battery on them, but the lack of user replaceable batteries means that there's no option to install a higher capacity non-OEM battery. A quick and easy way to boost the battery performance of the phone is to turn off 3G services, but that makes one wonder why even upgrade in the first place?

5 Cool Websites Still In Beta

It must be very daunting launching a new web-service post dot com bubble burst. Financial considerations aside, it often feels like everything worthwhile has already been done. The sites on the following list prove that assumption wrong, as each offers something new and fun to play around with (for free!). Now, keep in mind that these websites, while fully functional, are still in development. It's not uncommon to encounter glitches and just because they're free now doesn't mean they will always be. So what are you waiting for? Go check out the top 5 cool beta websites:


5. Finetune

Finetune is a very cool site that allows you to choose from 2+ million songs to create custom playlists. You can play these playlists from any computer with internet access. There's nothing to download (the webplayer is Flash-based), the songs are CD-quality, and it's free! The only downside is you can't choose the order in which the songs in your playlist appear, but you can skip curently playing songs and make as many playlists as you want. Finetune calls it the evolution of the mixed tape, but I like to think of it as an internet iPod stuck on shuffle. The best advice is to use the main website to setup your playlists, then play them using the Wii-version for an ultra sleek and simple ad-free interface.
Website: www.finetune.com
Wii Version: www.finetune.com/wii


4. Cha Cha

Cha Cha allows you to submit any question, and have a real person go out on the web and find the answer. You can submit a question via their website, SMS or even a their toll free number (1-800-2chacha). The answer is then sent as a text message back to your mobile phone. The service is free, and anyone can also join the team and be paid to answer other people's submitted questions. This obviously means there is a wide variety in the quality of answers, but if you've ever tried to use Google on your cell phone when out and about, you know the potential convenience of being able to call someone else and have them do the search.
Website: www.chacha.com


3. Ask 500 People

Ever wanted to know if people could pick a superpower what they would choose? Or what people's favorite kind of cheese is? These silly questions (and some serious ones) can be answered by ask 500 people. Just like it sounds, anyone can post a question, where it will be queued up and asked to 500 people on the website and "hundreds websites across the internet". Now, the results aren't exactly scientific, and because the service is in beta it's more like you'll ask 200 people. Nevertheless, this is a very cool (and once again free) service that can be a fun way ask questions and get your opinions out there.
Website: www.ask500people.com


2. Amazon Mechanical Turk

A pioneer of "crowdsourcing", Amazon Mechanical Turk takes those tasks which computers aren't really good at yet (ie. telling if two products are duplicates, or writing short product reviews) and connects them to internet users who are willing to complete them for money. Now, most tasks (called HITs for Human Intelligence Task) only pay a few pennies each, but most also don't take more than a minute to complete. Volume processing is the key to making any significant money while "turking". Some people have made hundreds of dollars, while others just find it too boring. Nevertheless, if you can find tasks you like, Mechanical Turk is one of the few legit ways to reliably make money on the internet.
Website: www.mturk.com


1. Tagcow

If you've downloaded all your pictures off your digital camera, you probably have a lot of filenames with titles like "dcm_10010" or other equally as descriptive titles. The solution is to upload photos to tagcow (or interface with its flicker widget), where the photos are magically processed and tags are added like "man", "child eating spaghetti", "disneyland", or whatever else appears in the photo. It isn't really magic, as the work is done by paid users on Amazon Mechanical Turk (see #4). The service is free to you though, and there's no limit to how many photos can be uploaded. Just keep in mind, anyone can sign up for Mechanical Turk, so make sure you're okay with strangers seeing your pictures. We wouldn't want that embarrassing photo of you at last years Christmas party slipping out now would we?
Website: www.tagcow.com

World Of Warcraft: Top 5 Most Controversial Moments

World of Warcraft has been immensely successful. It's easy enough that a newbie to MMORPGs can jump right in, but so in-depth that it keeps players busy for years. The game has attracted upwards of 8 million players, so it's not surprising it has had a fair share of controversial moments. Most of these issues are not unique to Warcraft, but the did receive a lot of press coverage because they happened in Warcraft. Nevertheless, here are the top 5 most controversial moments in World Of Warcraft:


5. Gold Farmers Invade

People in developing countries are often payed measly sums to kill monsters over and over to generate gold. This gold is then sold by the company to players who are willing to spend cash instead of earning the gold within the game. Gold farming is not exclusive to Warcraft, but it was brought to the attention of many because of the game's popularity. For it's part, Blizzard forbids the practice, and bans any accounts caught farming. However, with the ease in creating a new account, it's really up to the players to stop buying gold in order to end the abusive practice.


4. The Warcraft Funeral Crash

A Warcraft gamer died in real life, and a bunch of friends decided to host a mock funeral for the gamer's avatar. They staged a event where everyone lined up and "viewed" the body. Unfortunately, they did this right in the middle of a a PVP zone where anything goes. Another guild (ironically named Serenity Now) crashed the funeral and blindsided the mourners. Some say the attackers have no respect for the dead and mourning, while others say it it's just a game. I say it makes for good video drama and a great video.




3. The Corrupted Blood Pandemic

When Warcraft introduced the Zul'Gurub instance, it came with a nasty boss that inflicted the Corrupted Blood debuff, which dealt hundreds of points of damage to characters every few seconds, while spreading to anyone nearby. Through a bug, this plague escaped from the dungeon, and suddenly everyone was catching the "disease". Low level characters died in seconds, and skeletons lined the floors of any area where a lot of people congregated (ie. cities). The bug was fixed, but experts have since used the incident to study just how people would react should a large scale epidemic occur.


2. Warcraft's Gay Rights Issue

Back in 2006, Sara Andrews was recruiting for her gay friendly guild Oz on the main chat channels. A blizzard employee issued her a warning to stop advertising sexual orientation or she would be banned. This one little incident soon exploded and was being covered by mainstream media like CNN and the BBC. Critics accusing Warcraft of being anti-gay. Blizzard defended its actions at first, but then eventually issued an apology to Ms. Andrews and provided sensitivity training to all its employees.


1. Death by Warcraft

Warcraft certainly isn't the first game to directly or indirectly be involved in a death, but it does receive a lot of attention when someone dies. Most deaths are a result of sheer exhaustion as people play for days in a row with no break or sleep. An especially tragic story was that of a 4-month old South Korean infant that died while her parents were away at an internet cafe playing the game. Warcraft can be addicting just like so many other vices in life, so it's important for players to exercise moderation and self-control.

5 TV DVD Box-Sets Every Geek Should Own

What geek doesn't have a healthy collection of DVD box-sets? Whether you want to rewatch your favorite shows in HD or listen to them in surround sound glory, it's great to get to see episodes back to back and commercial free. The next time you've got some cash to spare, here are 5 box-sets that won't disappoint a geek:


5. Firefly

Firefly was a unique space opera, that blended traditional science fiction with elements of a western. It takes it's title from the Firefly-Class ship Serenity, which actually looks like a very big insect. If the show is starting to sound weird, it is, but it's also great. Firefly was only on the air one season, but since cancellation it has developed a huge cult following and even a spinoff movie appropriately titled Serenity. When it was cancelled, only 11 of the 14 episodes produced had aired. By buying the DVD set you get to see all 14 episodes. At around $20, you can't go wrong with this box-set.


4. Arrested Development

Another victim of unjust cancellation, Arrested Development was probably one of the smartest, funniest comedies on television. It followed Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) and his attempts to keep his formerly rich, highly dysfunctional family from self-imploding. This show pioneered the no-laugh track documentary-ish style found in other shows like The Office and 30 Rock. The show is best seen in chronological order starting from episode #1 to really appreciate the arcing storylines and continuing jokes. If you haven't seen the show, now's the time to get the backstory before the recently announced movie is launched.


3. Lost

A plane flight goes down on a remote tropical island in the pacific. Many people mysteriously walk away from the crash with no injuries and find they're on an island with polar bears, smoke monsters and a giant 4 toed foot statue. Lost's style of giving more questions than answers every episode can be hard even for the most devoted of fans to keep straight. Being able to watch multiple episodes back to back helps things out considerably. This might be one box-set to buy when the entire series is done though, because it's probably not going to be until the very last episode that were going to have all the answers. Pick this one up in Blu-Ray for the absolute best experience.


2. The Office UK

Ok, you don't have to be a geek to enjoy the NBC version of The Office, but you can definitely be a little geekier by having watched the entire original British Series. The first episode alone is almost scene by scene identical to the US version, so it's neat way to see the British versions of Pam, Dwight, Micheal and the rest of the gang. Rest assured, as the series goes on, it's quite a bit different (in a good way) than the domestic version. It's a great way to introduce yourself into the world of British sitcoms. The BBC takes a quality over quantity approach so even though the entire series ran for 2 seasons, only 14 episodes (of various lengths) were produced, It's a great way to spend a rainy weekend.


1. Every Star Trek Ever

This one isn't going to be cheap, but you really can't call yourself a geek without picking up every star trek boxed set there is. Relive Captain Picard's constant violations of the prime directive. Watch Janeway's captain skills increase as her hair gets better. Find out what really was so troublesome about those Tribbles. Put on Deep Space 9 and then change the channel to watch something better. One top of the classics there's also the original animated series, Enterprise all the movies, and the documentaries Trekkies 1 and 2 to get. Note: This website is not responsible for your failure to pay rent as a result of acquiring all episodes of star trek ever made.