last week, apple took the wraps off it’s newest line of ipods with updates to the classic, nano and touch. the updates were more or less small incremental changes, with no major changes… with one exception - Genius, which is also a part of the new iTunes 8.
Genius has two parts - playlists and sidebar.
Genius playlists allows you to create awesome playlists instantaneously. once you enable Genius, your library information is sent to apple (anonymously) and analzed. once the analysis is completed, you simply select a song in your library, click on the genius button (in the lower right hand side) and Genius makes a new playlist of 25, 50 or 100 songs. it’s perfect for when you’re in a certain mood and what an entire playlist of similar music, or people who have tons of music and want to rediscover some of the hidden gems in their library, all within literally seconds.
Genius sidebar integrates with the iTunes music store and allows it make recommendations, preview and buy them. i haven’t tried this feature out, but I have recently been looking for more ways to find new music, so i’m also quite excited about this feature as well.
finally, also released last friday was iphone/ipod touch firmware 2.1, which adds support for making genius playlists right on your iphone or ipod touch when you’re on the go - shaweet! a little gem included in the update which hasn’t been widely mentioned, is the new ability to go to the previous song on your iphone by clicking the switch on the included earbuds 3 times. nice touch, apple!
one of my new co-workers had a very cool background on her desktop, so i asked her what it was, because it was very neat-o. it looked like some sort of anime character, but was very intriguing at the same time. apparently, it was a nudibranch, or a toxic “sea slug”.
today, said co-worker sent me a link to the entire series created and photographed by david doubilet for national geographic. i also found a pretty cool flickr set of nudibranchs as well.
so you may or may not know (depending if you wear a propeller hat or not) that jerry seinfeld is the new “spokesperson” for microsoft (even though he used a mac on his show).
anyway, the first commercial starring jerry seinfeld and bill gates has been released. if you can understand it, can you please explain what the hell is going on? i don’t get it.
well, that isn’t exactly news, but the fact they they have taken down muxtape (for now at least) is. just another notch in the RIAA’s axe. they just don’t get it. muxtape was a fantastic way to find, share and buy new music, of course, it was also wayyyyy too cool and useful for the RIAA to allow it to go on. pigs.
last weekend, crystal and i got into the saddle of our mountain bikes for the first time this summer (shameful, really) and hit the whistler bike park. it was a fantastic ride, with both crystal and i pushing our limits all day long. i guess the advantage of not having biked for so long is that you forget all your fears, earned by crashing and burning. :)
last week, apple took the wraps off it’s newest line of ipods with updates to the classic, nano and touch. the updates were more or less small incremental changes, with no major changes… with one exception - Genius, which is also a part of the new iTunes 8.
