Patrick

unscripted

With Warner finally abandoning HD DVD, Blu-ray (as I predicted long ago) has a clear mandate as the next-generation video and storage optical disk. This doesn’t fit the pattern of VHS vs. Betamax, however. Its lower price is often cited as the reason for VHS’ success in the 1980s, but Blu-ray is in fact more expensive. Apparently the better content and quality are enticement enough for most consumers (and studios).

In other news, the rumors of an ultra-thin Mac notebook and iTunes movie rentals were proved true at today’s Macworld. Though no one mentioned a 3G iPhone, the software upgrades to the current iPhone are worth a mention. I just fired up the new Maps program, which was able to pinpoint my location to within a couple of blocks. And the ability to rent movies right on the phone, while expensive compared to Netflix, is still pretty cool.

Life has it’s ups and downs — I had a fantastic weekend visiting friends in Arlington and Charlottesville but returned to Dahlgren to find my external hard drive (containing 20 GB of music) not working. I was able to restore iTunes store-purchased music from my iPod, but years of stolen collected music have vanished into the ether.

While near DC I did visit the National Archives. We still have a Bill of Rights, though it is a bit faded.

I guess it would have been difficult to surpass the earlier iPhone frenzy, but today’s offerings from Apple seem pretty bland. The iPhone Touch? An iPhone sans phone. The iPod Classic? Well, it does have 16 times the capacity of my first iPod (pictured at left). Sure, the old iPod had a low-resolution black-and-white screen and a battery that only lasted for a few hours, but until very recently it capably handled all of my portable music needs. And then I somehow misplaced it! I still have my trusty iPod Shuffle, and my shiny new iPhone, but I will always remember my first Apple product fondly.