Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

Cell Phone Voice Mail Shortcuts

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

Save time when leaving someone a voice mail by skipping their greeting and/or the automated voice mail instructions and go straight to the beep.

There are cell phone shortcuts you can use to bypass the greeting and start recording a message immediately. All you need to know is which carrier is used by the person you are calling.

If you call anyone on AT&T or T-Mobile, press the “#” button. For Verizon, press the “*” button, and use the “1” when calling anyone on Sprint.

from The Selling Sherpa (google search result)

“7″ also works for AT&T, which is my carrier. I’ll have to try ‘#’.

You may be able to use similar shortcuts on business phone systems.

And now, some LOL cats on the phone.

supervisor

nigeria

getsmart

Which reminds me, I can’t wait for the movie Get Smart to come out (June 20th). A throwback to the awesome Get Smart television series from the late 60s (created by Mel Brooks).

boring

Also, Watertown, SD, received 19″ of snow yesterday – the new all time record for one calendar day snowfall. It snowed last night and most of the morning here, but no accumulation, just windy and chilly at 40 F. It’s supposed to get down to 27 tonight!

watertown-sd

Posted in Electronics, Film, Humor, Minnesota, Snow, TV | 2 Comments »

Is Blu-ray’s Victory an Empty One?

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

IEEE Blogger Steven Cherry predicts that movies on disk, be it DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-ray, will become a thing of the past as they are replace by movie download services from Apple and Netflix.

And so when you look past the Blu-ray victory, the latest ­developments in digital movies are all about downloads, not disks.

At MacWorld, which directly ­followed CES, Steve Jobs announced a new download service for ­renting ­movies. As with music, Apple has struck deals with the major movie ­studios. You can begin a show on your ­computer or television and finish watching it on your iPod or iPhone. The service started in February with 1000 ­movies, ­costing US $2.99 to $3.99 each.

…

So do we really need to trudge out to Blockbuster, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart for a disk? Or wait for the now-­familiar red envelope from Netflix? A lot of ­companies, including Apple and Netflix itself, are ­betting no. Sony and the other movie studios, even though they get a cut from movie downloads, hope the ­competition is wrong. I don’t think they are.

One thing I’ve noticed that is missing from the online/download movies is the extra features that are usually on the DVDs. Plus downloaded movies lack the easy of portability that disks provide.

AppleNetflix

Posted in Electronics, Standards, TV, Technology, The Web | No Comments »

Blu-ray gaining support vs. HD DVD

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Is the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war almost over?

Best Buy and Netflix have both just announced that they will be promoting Blu-ray over HD DVD.

hddvd

That comes on the heels of last month’s announcement by Warner Bros. that they will stop selling HD DVDs and sell only Blu-ray disks in the future. It just so happens that Warner Bros. is Hollywood’s biggest seller of DVDs. Blockbuster had already said that they would only rent Blu-ray disks in the brick-and-mortar stores, while making both formats available for their online customers.

It’s too bad format wars like this end with the early adopters of the losing format getting screwed and stuck with obsolete hardware and media. Hopefully the industry standardization will bring the prices of Blu-ray players down, as they are currently much higher than the HD DVD players from Toshiba. My brief price research shows that you can get a 1080p HD player for $200, while a 1080p Blu-ray player is $350-400. Also, with HD DVD you can opt for a 720p HD DVD player for around $150.

Time to get a PS3?

Update: Toshiba waves the white flag of surrender.

Posted in Electronics, Standards, TV, Technology | 3 Comments »

So KITT really could drive into the 18-wheeler at speed!

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

I was a fan of the early 80s TV show Knight Rider and I always wondered if it was really possible for KITT to drive right onto the ramp and into FLAG’s mobile HQ 18-wheeler at highway speed.

kitt2

Fortunately, MythBusters recreates the stunt and satisfies my curiosity. It turns out it’s not even a big deal thanks to the Newton’s first law of motion – the law of inertia. Because KITT and the truck are moving at the same speed, the car simply continues at the same speed (relative to the ground) once it is onboard. Unless Michael hit the gas on the ramp, the car won’t accelerate inside the truck.

Here’s some footage of KITT from the show (exits the driving truck 10 seconds in).

Hopefully the new made for TV Knight Rider movie will feature better acting that the original TV series. Will Arnet has a great voice for KITT. The new Knight Rider will premiere on February 17, Sunday at 9pm.

Posted in It's Science, TV | No Comments »