There’s not much we can say about these viral marketing videos from Microsoft that the videos themselves don’t already say, so take a look at the one above and the one below. We’ve picked out the best ones. Just what target is Microsoft hoping to hit with these “parental street cred” viral videos? Parents of kids? Kids who want their parents to buy an Xbox for them? People who enjoy attractive ladies dressed up in lab coats?
Apple’s just released a OS X Leopard 10.5.3 update beta to developers, meaning that the patch is at least stable enough for widespread testing. Among the things being fixed are several memory leaks in CoreAnimation and iCal, but the final release won’t be available until an estimated April or May. [Apple Insider]
This is what tools are for, my friends. Ronald Long of Deepwater, MO, was trying to install a satellite dish in his bedroom. He was having trouble putting the necessary hole in the wall and, thinking himself quite clever, decided to use his gun to get the job done quickly. Unfortunately, his wife was outside and caught the bullet in the chest. She was rushed to the hospital but was declared dead on arrival. On the upside, Ronald now has DirecTV. Silver linings, people. [KCTV via Boing Boing]
newVideoPlayer("kodakpussy_giz.flv", 475, 286,""); In a new spot for Kodak EasyShare printers, Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore takes a cheap HP out to the docks and yells at it for conning him into buying high-priced ink, before giving it a beating-and-a-half, Office Space style. After sending the printer off to sleep with the fishes, he welcomes the new EasyShare to the family. It’s a shame seeing the commercialisation of all the goombahs since the Sopranos ended, but at least this one is filmed with some dignity; if I were Paulie Walnuts, I’d be looking for whoever put me up to that terrible Denny’s ad and introduce their kneecaps to my baseball bat. [Kodak]
Anyone into heart-shaped boxes need look no further than the Just Kittyng Kit. In it is all the gear you need to turn your girlfriend’s lady-garden into something more, shall we say, ornamental. It’s got a bunch of stencils so that when you choose to transform her bush into a heart, star or arrow, it won’t look like something that Salvador Dali did. The three shapes are dull-arse dull, though. Whoever is behind this US$36 thing needs to start thinking outside the box. [Makeup.com via ALBOTAS]
Chase Sechrist and Dan Weatherford went to work on Toshiba’s HD-A1 HD-DVD player and, while it’s pretty much only good as a doorstop now, at least it says something nice. [Doom9's Forum—thanks Mazyar!]
The USB HDD Dock we saw a few months ago just got a USB hub upgrade. Not only does it still take 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA drives in the top like a Famicom cartridge, there’s an added 4-port USB hub on the front. Because if you’re going to take up one of your machine’s precious USB ports for something, it’s even better when that something gives you 3 extra ports in return. [Brando]
This many, apparently. This was the scene in North London yesterday afternoon, as 600 cops in scary riot gear marched up a suburban street on their way to knock some thievin’ heads together.
Boy Genius has details on “Manilla,” the code name for HTC’s TouchFLO replacement interface coming on some of their Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones. There’s the improved home screen (see above), as well as the improved dialer screens, skinning of the browser and skinning of the comm manager. Our intern tells us that a bunch of these new skins were already seen in gradual updates in some of the newer devices that are out already, such as the Touch Cruise, but “Manilla” seems to be a TouchFLO 2.0 that brings all the updates together. Boy Genius has more. [Boy Genius Report]
newVideoPlayer("hdglasses_giz.flv", 475, 376,""); With all the confusion around 720p, 1080i, 1080p, HD, full HD, Blu-ray, HD DVD, ACVHD and the pesky digital television transition, thank goodness we have the fine folks who make infomercials standing in the ready to soothe our tired brains. Before watching this very important offer, we had no clue that we’d only been seeing the world in standard def. How embarrassing!
