iPhone Hack Attack

God Love The Hackers!!!

Well, now it's all about speed!

How fast can YOU unlock your iPhone?

Cell Phone Karma

I love This!

Domino's Viral Marketing OR Do We REALLY NEED THIS?

Now you can track your Pizza from the moment you call it in to the moment it hits your door.

From those cats over at Information Week's Editorial section:


Editor's Note: Web 2.0 Gone Awry: Online Pizza Tracking
Alert! Alert! Useless implementation of Web 2.0 Technology in progress. Alert!

Across the country, bleary-eyed teens and college students -- strung out from late-night Guitar Hero III marathons -- will no longer have the added worry of wondering when their Domino's pizza will be delivered. The company has debuted a new system that allows the pizza purchaser to track an order -- from the moment it's taken to preparation, baking, boxing, and delivery. This "Pizza Tracking Service" (implemented within 3,400 Domino's and in all franchises by June) is accurate up to 40 seconds.

This bit of tech wizardry gravitates into the "is this really necessary?" category. Seriously, you already know the Domino's mantra -- pizza delivered somewhere in the 30 minute time frame (little old ladies crossing the street be damned). No one can be that truly desperate/starving that they need to know the exact moment the pepperoni slices are being applied ... can they?

Chris McGlothlin, technology chief at Domino's, seems to think there's plenty of anxious customers out there. "It's an emotional roller-coaster when you order," McGlothlin says. "Customers wonder: Did they get my order? Are they taking care of me? Will it show up?"

Now, to be fair, the new Pizza Tracker also lets the user rate the experience -- the quality of the food, the delivery time, and the courtesy of the order taker and delivery person, all with the goal of improving customer service and quality. Nothing that the use of a telephone or online customer service form/e-mail address hasn't allowed before.

I'm reminded of a few years back when early Web page designers learned a whole bunch of "nifty tricks" (music, animations, etc.) and plastered their sites with them. After the initial cool factor wore off, most folks agreed that using new technology for the sake of using it does not always make a better product. IT pros preparing to implement Web 2.0 apps should really take that to heart. Before adding a new tool to the site, ask yourself, "Is this really going to improve the quality of my user's experience or are we just adding a bunch of bells and whistles because we can?"

So what do you think? Is this Pizza Tracker like a piping hot slice chased by a cold beer or akin to anchovies gilding a black olive pizza? Please come to my blog and post a comment.

Tom LaSusa
tlasusa@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com

I Thought, with the Big Game coming up 2morrow & all, this might save the day ;-p

-b

Go Out & Buy A Box!

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Lego's colourful bricks that have inspired kids' imaginations worldwide celebrated their 50th anniversary Monday after resisting fierce competition from high-tech computer games that nearly brought the company down a few years ago.

On January 28, 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen submitted a patent for the interlocking and studded plastic brick that can now be found in almost every child's toy box.

The simple building block has become one of the most well-known and popular toys in the world.

The key to its success?

"The Lego brick doesn't age with time and continues to fascinate because it allows children, and others, to develop their creativity, imagination and curiosity and let it wander free," said Charlotte Simonsen, a spokeswoman at Lego's headquarters in the western Danish town of Billund.

The family company Lego, whose name comes from the first two letters of the Danish words "Leg godt" or "play well" in English, was founded before the invention of the famous block, by Ole Kristiansen in 1932.

The company's iconic toy allows an infinite number of assembly combinations. With just two bricks there are 24 different combinations, and with six there are 915 million possibilities, according to Lego.

A half-century after its creation, more than 400 million children and adults play each year with the bricks, spending five billion hours a year putting them together and pulling them apart.

The bricks made today can still interlock with those made in the first batch in 1958, note avid Lego fans.

And make no mistake about it, Lego bricks are not just child's play -- they also capture the imagination of adults.

South Korean adventurer Heo Young-Ho, who climbed Mount Everest in 1987, left a Lego toy behind in the snow after his ascent.

"I've kept a box in the attic with Lego from my childhood. They never go out of style and they box is full of memories of long hours spent building things with my friends," said 21-year-old Alexander.

Primo, Quatro, Duplo, Toolo, Technic, Mindstorm... New Lego bricks have been developed throughout the years to suit the needs of babies and adolescents, the pieces' perfect fit making piracy difficult.

After its planetary success, Lego experienced a severe crisis at the end of the 1990s, hit hard by fierce competition from interactive electronic and computer games which brought the Danish company to its knees for the first time in its history.

Named "Toy of the Century" in 1999 by US business magazine Fortune, Lego suffered through a dark period that last several years that risked relegating the plastic brick to the history books.

The company had diversified into theme parks and branded products, including clothing, books, watches and multimedia games, but reported millions of dollars (euros) in losses in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2004.

Some experts were quick to eulogize the colourful brick, including educationalist and toy researcher Torben Hangaard Rasmussen.

"Lego bricks belong to the industrial era when children liked to build things, playing wannabe engineers. Nowadays, the most popular toys are inspired by the virtual world," he said in 2004.

Then, at the height of Lego's crisis, owner and chief executive officer Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen tried to get a hold on the situation and save the family business from bankruptcy, injecting more than 800 million kroner (158 million dollars, 107 million euros) of his personal fortune into the business.

Several months later he resigned as chief executive, handing over the reins to 35-year-old Joergen Vig Knudstorp, who brought a breath of fresh air to the company. Determined to bring the company back to financial stability, he proceeded to lay off staff, focus on core operations and close down production sites.

The company began to prosper again, and in 2006 it posted sales of 7.8 billion kroner (1.04 billion euros, 1.5 billion dollars) in 130 countries and a 1.4 billion kroner net profit.

Seven boxes of Lego are sold every second around the world, and 19 billion components are produced each year -- enough to wrap around the Earth's circumference five times.

Think Twice About that Drink!

I'm not talking about Adult Beverages... I'm talking about that glass
in your hotel room.

Take a look at this video. I might start bring up own cups and stashing them next time I travel!

Fight Snoring?!?!

Treat Sleep Apnea with a Didgeridoo

"A didgeri-what?" you ask. While aborigines in Australia have been
playing this long wooden trumpet for centuries, it's just recently
been redefined as a modern-day medical device. Researchers reporting
in the British Medical Journal evaluated 25 people with sleep apnea--
a breath-stealing condition caused by flabby throat muscles--and
found that those who took 4 months of didgeridoo (DIH-jeh-ree-doo)
lessons had about 31/2 times less daytime sleepiness than the folks
who didn't blow their own horns. The newly minted musicians also
snored significantly less. Credit this uncommon cure to vibrations
that exercise tissue in the mouth and throat, says researcher Milo
Puhan, Ph.D. "When these muscles are strengthened, the tongue has
less tendency to obstruct the airway."

From: http://body.aol.com/health/cures-uncommon

The Best Laid Plans..

These Contractors are installing the steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking on the pavement outside a Sports Bar downtown.
They are now in the process of cleaning up at the end of the day and anxious to go home.

Brian
Thanks To Allen C for the Fwd