Spiderman 3 - Product Placement (YouTube) I get the feeling this is black20.com's schtick and it's going to get old fast. But this is still pretty good. For now.
Good-bye to the Epcot Wand! (Mice Age) At the end of his weekly DisneyWorld report, Kevin Yee reports that the tacky, misguided Mickey-wand-hand-thing is coming down from Spaceship Earth! Finally!
WWDC 2007 Keynote News (Daring Fireball) DF takes a look at this year's so-so Steve Jobs Keynote, which was mainly stuff we already knew about Leopard and the iPhone. Safari for Windows was a surprise, but as DF notes, it mainly exists to make money. Did you know that the little built-in Google search bar in Safari generates $$$ for Apple every time you use it? I sure didn't. (I assume changing your search bar default to Google in Windows IE does the same thing, except the money goes to Microsoft.)
1957 Pontiac unearthed in Oklahoma (Yahoo News) So, fifty years ago, Oklahoma buried a brand new car as part of a time capsule contest to be recovered in the year 2007. Somebody (or somebody's heirs) will win the car, plus a $100 bank account that, hilariously, is only worth $1200 today.
"Also buried with it were 10 gallons of gasoline — in case internal combustion engines became obsolete by 2007 — a case of beer, and the contents of a typical woman's handbag placed in the glove compartment: 14 bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, a lipstick, a pack of gum, tissues, a pack of cigarettes, matches and $2.43."
Leaving aside the brilliant optimism that gas engines would be outmoded (hah!), what's with a bottle of tranquilizers being standard issue for a "typical woman's handbag"?
"Wii 2" could be here within the next few years, says Pachter (GamesIndustry.biz) Pachter is merely an industry analyst, so he has absolutely nothing in this but speculation... still, a terrible "Psychic Friends"-style prediction. OF COURSE there will be a Wii 2 in "the next few years." Gaming consoles last for five, four if you're Microsoft. Three and a half years from now is easily "the next few years."
But you know what? Say the Wii 2 does land in 2009... as long as it's cheap (and plays Wii 1 games), who cares?
The real meat in this article is that Pachter is responding to a Sega mouthpiece who downplayed the Wii's success, calling it a fad. Which is, of course, exactly what was said about the DS. When the industry keeps crapping out first-person shooters month after month, it's pretty ridiculous to suggest that the Wii is already repeating itself after only half a year. Mind-bogglingly, both Pachter and the Sega guy say the PS3 will "win" regardless. Not at $600, it won't. (Pachter says it should be $200, the angel.)
