Spamland is a unique series of short animation clips from The Brother McLeod that takes the “semi-sensical text found in filter-busting portion of spam emails” and brings it to life. The style reminds me a lot of Don Hertzfeldt’s work, which is definitely a good thing, and the words take on an eerie meaning that is almost poetically beautiful (if it wasn’t for their origin). At least someone is getting some good out of spam.
[Via: Cold Hard Flash]
CallWave Visual Voicemail is a free service that lets you manage your mobile phone messages on your computer. It’s designed to work with virtually any cell phone, and on virtually any network, and sends copies of your messages to your email inbox, where they can be played, paused, replayed, saved, and deleted. If you’ve ever lost a message after the 14 day period that your phone company gives you, this service is for you.
If a widget is more your style, then check out the Visual Voicemail Widget for Apple, Yahoo, and Vista. Each one alerts you to incoming calls, and gives you call details like the length, and when it was received. Give CallWave Visual Voicemail a shot, and think outside the Phone (or iPhone in this case).
Gmail, the Google email service that has sat in Beta for over 3 years despite its heavy usage and development, opened its doors today to all comers. Previously, an invitation was required from a current Gmail user to get a new account (though with 50 invitations given out per user, they weren’t that hard to come by). Now, just head on over and sign up, no invitation required.
And while we’re on the topic of Google news, it seems that the spell checker over at the Google logo lab has broken, because their special Valentine’s Day logo reads more like Googe than Google. Some would argue that the stem is the L, but some people will argue anything.
Also, I just noticed that if you click on the Googe logo, it performs an instant search for the term “Valentine’s Day”. I’ve never noticed this feature before in any of the other custom logos, but it’s a neat little Easter Egg to check for in the future.
Edit: Apparently Google is well aware of the omission, responding on their blog with this:
Very sneaky Google, very sneaky indeed.
[Google]
Though I didn’t expect any of my predictions to actually come true (I hoped they would, but didn’t expect they would, and I think I ended up with 0 out of 8 correct), Apple dropped a bomb in the form of the iPhone that caught everyone by surprise. I even got a few Apple fanboy goosebumps when the full specs were announced. Combining “a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching”, the iPhone will do it all and then slip away into your pocket. Features include:
Since this thing is already clogging all of the Internet’s tubes, I figure I’d give the readers of DYH a little something different. First off, let’s see how the 10 people whose reputations relied on the iPhone did.
What I find interesting is that if you combine everyone’s information and pick and choose the good stuff, you could have had a pretty good idea of the specs of the actual iPhone. Most got the fact that there would be two models in 4 and 8 GB form right, Kevin predicted the January launch date and the touchscreen, Rebecca got the pricing very close, the size close, the Cingular exclusivity right on, and the LCD screen size right on, and Think Secret got the GSM/EDGE thing right as well as the inclusion of a camera.
Besides the iPhone, Apple (as they’re now officially being called after they announced they’ve dropped the word Computer from their name) finalized the specs on the Apple TV (the now official name for the iTV). Designed to bridge the gap between your iTunes and your TV in a wireless way, the Apple TV features its own Intel processor, a 40 GB hard drive, 802.11n networking, and does 720p high def video. Plus, it’s scheduled to ship in February.
Lastly, Apple secretly updated their Airport Extreme Base Station to 802.11n specs and changed the form factor to a more Mac Mini style. Very sneaky.
Overall, some great stuff, though some definite shockers. No iLife update? No cameras in the monitors (Is that one really that hard to include)? I did like what I saw though, and Apple definitely managed to show that the first 30 years were just the beginning.
[Apple]
[Keynote Via: Engadget]