Archive for December, 2006

Take a cup of kindness for Lan Kwai Fong

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

Fourteen years ago tonight, I went out on New Year’s Eve for the last time. That was the year I spent New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong’s Central district. The area was packed with people, and most restaurants and bars were too crowded to admit more patrons by the time I arrived. So, I [...]

Take a cup of kindness for Lan Kwai Fong

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

Fourteen years ago tonight, I went out on New Year’s Eve for the last time. That was the year I spent New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong’s Central district. The area was packed with people, and most restaurants and bars were too crowded to admit more patrons by the time I arrived. So, I [...]

Speaking of Christmas…

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Back when I was at Engadget, one of the things that took some getting used to was the 24/7 nature of the site. But the fact is, news happens around the clock, and tech news often breaks first on the other side of the globe, when most people here are sound asleep. And in the [...]

Speaking of Christmas…

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Back when I was at Engadget, one of the things that took some getting used to was the 24/7 nature of the site. But the fact is, news happens around the clock, and tech news often breaks first on the other side of the globe, when most people here are sound asleep. And in the [...]

Christmas in Chinatown

Monday, December 25th, 2006

I posted something on the CR Shopping Blog today about where to shop for gifts on Christmas Day (hey, some of us really can’t get it together until the last possible minute!). One of the options I included was Chinatown, and I decided to do some realtime fact-checking this morning, with a trip to [...]

Christmas in Chinatown

Monday, December 25th, 2006

I posted something on the CR Shopping Blog today about where to shop for gifts on Christmas Day (hey, some of us really can’t get it together until the last possible minute!). One of the options I included was Chinatown, and I decided to do some realtime fact-checking this morning, with a trip to [...]

Does it matter that nobody’s buying from iTunes?

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

According to Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff, sales at the iTunes Music Store have dropped 65% since January, and the average transaction size has dropped 17%. Seems pretty bad, but does it really matter? Not to Apple. The company makes a pittance from iTunes; the profits are in the iPod (iTMS is important for Apple as [...]

iWant

Sunday, December 10th, 2006

I stopped in at the Apple Store at a local mall today to pick up a new USB cable for the old iPod mini I use to listen to podcasts in the car, and was reminded what a truly unique environment the Apple Store is. Mind you, this wasn’t the glass-encased Fifth Avenue flagship; [...]

Ad-supported CAPTCHAs coming soon

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

This is why I still think Seth Godin’s a genius. His latest business idea: making the now-ubiquitous CAPTCHA a free, ad-supported service. Instead of hazy and difficult to decipher alphanumeric strings, ad-supported CAPTCHAs would sport sponsor logos, which the visitor would have to identify. Of course, the system would have to have a huge number [...]

Exploiting 9/11 … and not

Sunday, December 3rd, 2006

Yesterday, Engadget had a scoop that I suspect will be picked up widely over the next few days, and may well lead to boycotts of a major consumer electronics company. The post was about BenQ’s new ad campaign, apparently running in Asia, which includes the image above. That’s right—they’re using a picture of [...]