The latest object to shoot high-def video from the edge of space is… an armchair. To promote its REGZA SV LCD TVs (LED backlight, local dimming), Toshiba trekked into the Black Rock Desert with a helium balloon. This is the result.

This is the first part of the ad. The second half for their Satellite T Series ULV laptops will come out next year. [Toshiba UK via Engadget]

Facts about the shoot:

• The shots were taken at a staggering 98,268 feet above the earth using Toshiba’s own cameras
• To reach the altitude required and to conform with Federal Aviation Administration regulations, the weight of the rig had to be carefully managed to a weight of no more than four pounds
• Tied to the rig was a specially created full-sized model chair made of biodegradable balsa wood – the chair was made by a company called Artem and cost about £2,500
• Launch coordinates of the rig were – 119 degrees, 14 minutes by 40 degrees, 48 minute (12 miles North-East of the town of Gerlach, Nevada)
• The quality of the footage from the Toshiba IK-HR1S cameras was: 1920×1080 pixel count; 1080i @ 50hz; 100 Mbps
• The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees when the chair reached 52,037 feet
• The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet where it broke and took just 24 minutes to fall back down to earth with the rig.

Aww, that description of stuff in the episode makes me almost not really sad about missing a joke about Windows 7 making it easier to insert tampons for deaf people during the Holocaust. Shucks. [Variety via Raw Feed]

I’m not a fan of Verizon, but their newest ad made me giggle like a little girl. It’s a nice little jab at AT&T through mockery of Apple’s “There’s an app for that” tagline. [YouTube via Digital Daily]

Sony’s corp-speak for its campaign is “It Does Everything”. Yeah, it’s got Blu-ray and Wi-Fi—but as Adam noted yesterday—it all depends on your setup. And anyway, the games are what’s important. See: PS3 Slim Vs. Xbox 360 Elite Hardware: Pretty Cut and Dry. [Sony]

Mi gusta chica mexicana, si. Ella es muy sweet. Mi no gusta Justin Long, porque es cojones obnoxious. Si? Claaaaaro. Los Mac-PC knock-off comerciales de television de cable company Yoo, however, es malo malo. Chingada. Tortilla. Tacos. Chimichanga. [Thanks Rodrigo]

I guess there are only so many ways you can sell a phone, but that’s pretty damn similar. And if mimicry is the best form of flattery…

[Pre Thinking]

Thanks, Rob B. for the inspiration!

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Back and Worse Than Ever

Some of us were near tears when T-Mobile decided to drop Zeta-Jones as their official spokesasshole, but the good news is that she’s back. The bad news is that as soon as we heard her nerve-grinding accent, we remembered that those were tears of joy.

Sir Richard Branson, Kind-Hearted Snob

It was difficult to deem Sir Richard Branson as a spokesasshole. He is such a nice man and only wants innovative technology to reach those from “all walks of life”—assuming that they make $US40 million annually, of course.

Laptop Hunters Lauren, Giampaolo and Lisa

Lisa, Lauren and Giampaolo are the biggest spokesassholes in the Laptop Hunters commercials. Lisa shatters eardrums with her exclamation of “WhaaaaAAAAaat?!?!”, Lauren followed the ads up with claims that they were unscripted, and Giampaolo is just plain smarmy.

Acer Timeline’s Metrosexual Model

Did Acer really have to hire Giampaolo’s brother to model for the Acer Timeline?
Maybe one day he’ll button up the shirt and put on some sunglasses that don’t look like they’re his girlfriend’s. I hope he didn’t quit his day job (waiter? male prostitute?) when he landed this gig, because it won’t last long.

Wes Mos? Why, Microsoft? Why?

Zune Spokesasshole Wes Moss nearly broke our douche point scale. If you can stand watching this Zune spot, after those Laptop Hunter ads, you’ll see why.

Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s Monster Mess

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are two ridiculously wealthy guys who decide, in their spare time, to become even more wealthy by peddling some overpriced headphones. Even if you ignore the fact that they’re distributed by Monster, and even if you admit that the headphones aren’t that bad—there’s no way the duo can’t escape the spokesasshole brand.
Photo by jakeludington

Hi, I’m Justin Long, Spokesasshole Extraordinaire

It’s not much of a secret that some of us here are Apple fans, but not even that stopped us from pronouncing Apple’s “I’m a Mac” guy and his smug attitude and thinly veiled disdain for PC as spokesasshole material.

Tamara Hope in the Return of the Stoner Commercials

The Palm Pre commercials started off terribly and only got worse until we stepped in with a remix. Though since it seems that Palm was really giving a nod to Ellen Feiss of Mac Switcher fame with these creepy “What is she on and where can I get some?” commercials, we’ll only rate actress Tamara Hope as half a spokesasshole.

And as for those 5 extra channels – what are they? Are they including ONE HD? Or is it five extra channels compared to analog TV. And if we want to be picky, it’s really only four, because switching to digital means you lose any community TV stations you might watch (at least at the moment).

All told, this is still a confusing shambles for the average consumer, and nothing more than a marketing campaign designed around maintaining a dying revenue model.

[Freeview]

Here’s a sample of the nearly two full pages of micro-font dickitude in the ad:

To remove unneeded bloatware first open uninstaller, select applications to remove, and uninstall. To remove optional components, click start, go to all programs and open control panel, select remove components, select components you want to remove, select next, when done, select finish. Once initial prep is complete, PCs may then be easy to use under certain controlled conditions and when properly maintained. In order for PCs to achieve optimal performance on a regular basis and for long periods of time, routine maintenance should include (but is not limited to) the following: download and install updated anti-virus software, run anti-virus software, check for system updates, clean out registry, defragment hard drive, free up disk space, remove temporary Internet files, empty the recycle bin, remove unnecessary programs, run error check utility and fix file system errors.

Ready the salvos, the Mac vs. PC war just got hot again and it’s only going to get steamier. [MacJournals via Macworld]

Apple has fired back, in an unsurprising way, at those new Windows ads we’ve been hearing so much about lately (you remember Lauren, yes?). The counterattack comes in four new, but familiar, flavours:

“Time Traveler” – During which the PC character goes to the year 2150 to see if PCs have become any less error-prone.

“Stacks” – PC is having trouble finding people’s faces in his huge photo stacks, so Mac pimps the new facial recognition software contained in iPhoto. This is an obvious shot across the bow of that cute little girl who showed us how “easy” it was to do photo editing on a PC.

“Legal Copy” – PC wants us to believe he’s easy to use, but the lawyers say otherwise.

“Biohazard Suit” – Can you say Conficker?

Apple has obviously decided to respond to Microsoft’s “un-commercials” with the tried and true “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” formula, and why the heck not, really. It’s ten times better than their catty initial response the other day, and the commercials are, at the very least, incredibly popular.

To be honest, I would have liked to have seen a Lauren cameo or parody of some kind, only because she’s actually on my TV right now as I type this. Hi, Lauren. [Apple]