These 2 Things were absolute garbage this Christmas...

OK....

Christmas is over, on to the dirty business of who did it badly.

My 2 top picks for crappiest Holiday observations are a tie  between Google's Holiday Doodle and TWIT's holiday (or lack thereof) spirit.

Let's start with the the Google Holiday Doodle...

In previous years We saw everything from adorable polar bears to a toymaker's workshop.

This year we got this....

(Cllick on the image to see it full size)


WTF Google?  

At least last year showed SOME creativity.  This year's collection of noncommittal  imagery not only was limited to just 3 days instead of the full week we used to get, but was so bland and uninspired that it could have represented any day of the year.  

The Holiday doodles evoked no Holiday spirit of ANY Holiday.  The only variance you got was whether you were in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere and even then the words, "Holiday" or "Christmas" were nowhere to be seen.  

Now I get why some overheated Politically Correct busybody may get his panties in a bunch over the whole "Christmas" thing but all we got was a hover text that said, "Tis the Season."

Tis the Season for what?  Boring doodles that inspire absolutely nothing.  No warmth, no spirit, no soul.  I've seen Heimlich Maneuver posters with more feeling.

Even Muslim and Jewish folks can appreciate the largely secular traditions of the Holidays and let's not forget that Google has done Easter, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah doodles in the past.

Are we so afraid of offending some jerk with a Google+ page that we have to screw it up for everyone else?

Who's going to sue over a picture on a search page?  Besides, you're Google, you don't fear courts...

You know, I'm not especially religious but I do embrace the Holiday season. 

I'd someday like to visit New York at Christmas time to see Rockefeller Center and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  I'm not looking for some religious epiphany.  These are just places that most American's would find as iconic to the Holiday as Time's Square is to New Year's eve.  It's a cultural thing and Google is getting lazy about it.

We already know that Google can serve up regional doodles for different parts of the world so the whole excuse about offending non-Christian nations is BS anyway.  Last I checked, we were living in the 21st century not the 12th. 

Regardless of what some radical groups may profess, I firmly believe the world to be far more sophisticated than flying into an uproar over the image of a Christmas wreath.

It's not about disliking the design, it's about the vanilla, shareholder friendly dogma behind it.

I won't belabor the point any more other than to say,  Google, bad form dude...

Now on to my second pick for worst example of Holiday spirit.

It's our old Friend TWIT!

What more can we say about the newly "downsized" TWIT operation.  We should have known there'd be no holiday spirit this year after the mass takedown of TWIT related videos on YouTube IN VIOLATION OF THEIR OWN CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE that damaged more than one YouTube content creator, myself included.

This year we get virtually nothing but a crappy panel show recorded December 1st with the few remaining hosts at the round ( err... make that oblong) table.  All of which suckle at the breast of the dying bovine that is TWIT.

Somebody puts on a Santa hat and calls it Christmas....

What?  No TWIT Holiday special with all of Leo's famous "friends?"  In fact no special Holiday programming at all.  Just a bunch of boring "Best of's" Which is a pretty tall order for a network so short on talent and now apparently ambition.

It's a glaring statement of disinterest.  

For proof look no further than the December 21'st Windows Weekly and you'll be hard pressed to see anything on set that would indicate we were mere days from the Holiday.  

Windows Weekly and Security Now are done from Leo's office.  A spot much more secluded and private than the Brickhouse.  Now more lair than set, if you're looking for the real Leo, look at that set. 

If it aint there he don't care. 

There isn't even a holiday bug on the edited shows!  (that translucent icon thing in the lower right corner.) For a guy so concerned with copyright you'd think that bug would be everywhere!

A heartfelt, "Meh" not only from viewers but the network itself.

If anything ever boosted ratings it was the Holidays.  Do something, anything special at the Holidays and you'll get eyeballs even if they're attached to a face that doesn't necessarily hold you in high regard.

But good old Leo can't be bothered even to feed the sycophantic TWIT fanboys ( yes, I stole that from Totaldrama ) 

Not even a  New Year's Eve special.  

Yes, I'll say it.  It was the one show that TWIT produced, aside from the Holiday Specials with John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton that was actually worth watching.

Even if you hated Leo, watching it would at least give you the same sense of kinship with fellow geeks that normal people get from watching the Ball Drop in the aforementioned Time's Square

But we're not doing that.  We're sticking a Candy Cane on the set, putting a Santa Hat on the Channel Bug and calling it done.

Bad on Ya!

Neither Google nor TWIT has enough respect for their audiences to make anything but the most pitiful of efforts at the Holidays.

My rating for TWIT and Google's Holiday doodle's this year.

5 Heaping banks of Yellow snow....

South Park Sellout?

I'm of the opinion that South Park is a guilty pleasure for most people.  It's almost a badge of honor to be lampooned by the show that takes no prisoners in its satire and truth be told its targets rarely complain.

That is so long as you don't draw a cartoon of Mohammed.

The Internet, racism, video games, hybrid cars, politics and celebrities are all fair game.  If it's in the news chances are it'll show up in an episode of South Park.

Interestingly enough, it seems those kids from South Park with now familiar names like Cartman, Kyle and Butters never seem to progress past the fourth grade but still manage to remain relevant after almost 20 years.  It's a strange time warp that fans just seem to accept as the series that began in the Clinton Administration continues well into the latter half of the tenure of the first black President. 

The world's changed quite a bit since 1997 and the series has kept tabs on it.  Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have somehow managed to chronicle nearly 2 decades of popular culture while keeping the show fresh.

Over the years, the best barbs have been reserved for those who took themselves a little too seriously.  Tea party conservatives, tree-huggers, religious fanatics and the excesses of political correctness have all been frequent targets.

It's that last one, political correctness, that was the focus of the premiere episode of Season 19 last week. 

In it we find that the rest of the world has had it with South Park's politically incorrect behavior and have sent in a new principal of the school in the form of one Principal PC to correct the transgressions. 

Of course Principal PC is a ridiculous caricature best described as a mash-up between an overgrown frat boy and every politically correct tweet that's ever been feverishly beaten into a Smartphone.

For the most part the episode was a hilarious take on what is often an overheated politically correct culture that dismisses independent thought.

Except something happened at the end of the episode.

At the risk of spoilers I'll try to be somewhat vague in case you haven't seen it yet. 

The episode ended... Wrong....

Instead of staying with the theme of the ridiculous and driving the point home, everyone just kind of gave in.

I don't know if the show is starting to wear on Parker and Stone but this particular episode has me worried.

In the past, I've found myself, thrilled, bent over with laughter as well as grossed out and even offended but never was I lacking for closure when watching an episode of South Park.

I was on board with this one up until the last 3 minutes.  If ever there was a good excuse for an alternate ending this episode is it.

I'm just hoping all is put right with the world of South Park in episode 2 this season or I may be done with the likes of Cartman and Kyle.

My rating, 9/10 for the first 20 minutes, 0/10 for the ending.

Tablets on the rise as laptops fall

Article first published as Tablets on the Rise as Laptops Fall on Technorati.

Here we go again. 

The San Jose Mercury news is reporting that IDC (Intl. Data Corp) predicts 2013 will bring more bad news for the PC.  The de facto barometer of consumer markets has revised its latest estimate for yearly PC sales downward.  What was expected to be a 1.3% decline has now been  projected to be more like 7.8%.

The blame is placed squarely on an increase in tablet sales.  With 229.3 million expected this year IDC has gone so far as to predict tablet sales to outpace the entirety of the PC market by 2015.

Unfortunately, the news is both obvious and misplaced. 

Comparing sales of the Galaxy Note to a laptop is akin to comparing a fine wine to a 44 ounce fountain drink.

Tablets are consumer devices more on par with their Smartphone cousins than any laptop.   In a market sense they are disposable.  Conversely, laptops and the PC market in general operate on a much longer replacement cycle.  It's not uncommon, for example,  for the average tech savvy consumer to purchase 2 tablets during the lifespan of one laptop.

These days nobody would seriously consider paying upwards of $1000 for a laptop just to browse the web and check their email when a $300 tablet will do.  It's a given that such mundane mobility tasks have been ceded to the smart device market.    

As such, the decline of PC market share is to be expected but isn't quite the death knell the tech punditry keeps drumming on about.  Rather it's a realignment of markets defined by their functionality instead of their volume and that's as it should be.

A Surface Pro is not a competitor to any IPAD even though both claim a tablet form factor.  Their purposes are distinct and so are their customers.

In a sense, the  cheap, underpowered laptop of yesterday is the progenitor of today's tablet which now occupies it's place in the market.  A classic case of technological evolution and natural selection if ever there was one.

Apple revs up expectations for the latest IPAD.

Article first published as Apple Revs Up Expectations for the Latest iPad on Technorati.

I wrote an article last week in my Digital Dynamic Blog entitled, "It's Crazy".  I aimed it squarely at this week's IPAD launch and the media frenzy that accompanied it.  Seems I was right as we were treated to an avalanche of media attention and outlandish marketing sound bites.  Of course Apple's CEO Tim Cook wrung a bit more anticipation out of the crowd by first announcing the new 1080P Apple TV box before getting to the star of the show.   The new IPAD which is curiously just called, IPAD (not IPAD3 or IPAD HD) has the following specifications.

2048 x 1536 (3.1 million pixels) Retina display.

A5X processor, quad-core graphics

5 MP camera on the back

HD (1080p) video capture

Voice dictation (not SIRI by the way)

4G LTE capability For the IPAD LTE (73 mbps on LTE).

Wireless hotspot capability

10 hour battery life, 9 hours on 4G.

9.4mm thick, 1.4lbs.

Compatible  mobile carriers; Rogers, Telus and Bell in Canada, At&T and Verizon in the U.S.

Price Wi-Fi iPad: 16 GB ($499), 32 GB ($599), 64 GB ($699)

Price Wi-Fi + 4G: 16 GB ($629), 32 GB ($729), 64 GB ($829)

IPAD2 pricing will also drop by $100.

Availability: March 16th in the U.S. and Canada

During the event, Tim Cook boasted of more IPAD sales in the 4th quarter of 2011 than any makers PC sales.  That's a dubious statement considering most people don't use tablets the same way they use a pc especially when there's heavy lifting to be done.  While technically accurate, the statement holds no more distinction than asserting that more paperclips were sold in the same quarter than the total number of IPADS ever produced. 

The advent of the tablet is a welcome utility for many but just as your corner convenience store is not a threat to the supermarket the tablet is no threat to the pc.  Unfortunately, Ultrabook pc makers feel it is  leading at least one manufacturer, Acer to aim for a $499 price point.  This after admitting they currently make no profit at the current $799 price.   Considering a pc in any form factor will by its very nature will have more functionality than a tablet it seems a pointless goal.  More so when you consider that the top end of the IPAD food chain offers little more than a nice display and LTE connectivity at a $829 price point.  

Tablets have their place but limitations of storage, dependency on network connectivity for basic functionality and limited performance compared to even entry level PC's makes them more of a compliment than replacement for pc's.  That also calls into question the Apple price premium especially if you don't normally utilize their ecosystem.  Cooler heads suggest selecting devices based on your needs instead of marketing hype.