First off, Spool, an innovative new add-on available on Firefox and Chrome, as well as being an app on iOS and Android. Think Instapaper but for EVERYTHING. Any media: video, text, pictures, all collected at the touch of a button and uploaded to the Spool servers, where you can enjoy them offline, on any supported device ‘in a clear format’. Using an innovative new ‘spoolbot’, all data is captured without the ads. Although the bot sadly has to watch all video before it can be uploaded, it’s still very impressive.
Even better; fretting about whether that video you just spooled was in Flash and so can’t be watched on your iPhone? Don’t! Spool automatically converts everything to HTML5 and so can be enjoyed on any device supported. We hope for a Windows Phone version as well as quicker upload times in the future. Best of all, right now it is in free, private beta. Don’t hesitate, join up now. If your interested, that link will give both you and me a shorter time of being accepted as the more people invited, the quicker the invite.
@Horse_ebooks is a Twitter bot designed and automated by apparently some Russian guy to sell worthless, horrible ebooks about horses. In order to avoid being detected as a spam bot, it occasionally posts a text snippet or two from one of its ebooks, chosen at random. I will never buy an ebook from it, but I will follow this Twitter account until I die or horses become extinct, whichever comes first.
Now, Ben Nyberg has developed a bookmarklet to spread the @Horse_ebooks hilarity all over the internet. When the Javascript is run, every image on a page becomes the trademark horse and all the text becomes delightful gibberish. Nyberg himself expected this to amuse people for about 20 minutes, but all I know is that I am doing it to every site I see. Here are some examples.
Ever wondered why the stock Android browser isn’t Chrome? We all certainly have, and now Google have gone and released Chrome Beta for Android. Over time it will become THE Android browser, but for now it is only available for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich. We will try it out when we get our hands on such a device, but for now we will read this review from TechCrunch and enjoy Chrome Beta on PC.
Google announced today that anybody old enough to have a Google account may now upgrade to their Facebook-killer of a social network Google+. This is something that we at Digixav have been waiting for since launch, so we hurried over when we heard the news and made ourselves a page. We will do the odd hangout to make podcasts and have lively tech debates and we will find a way for our posts to go into your feeds if you want to put us in a circle. So, if you actually use G+, head on over to our page and +1 us or something. You know you want to.
Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed US legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to giants like WordPress and Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including Digixav — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. From 1pm GMT today, Wednesday 18th January 2012, we will black out for 12 hours as part of the largest protest in internet history.
Action needs to be taken against SOPA and PIPA.
Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom, and sign up below to let the US know how you feel about the bills.
Technophobia is a column by James Hardy. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.
I woke up not so long ago, and thought I’d gone mad. About half the people on YouTube seemed to have mysteriously taken arrows to their knees, which meant they couldn’t do certain things which they’d used to be able to do. I did find it sort of weird, but then I thought hang on a minute, maybe the Mayans weren’t so mad after all. Maybe this was the beginning of the apocalypse.
Anyway, after trawling through YouTube trying to find explanation for this weird happening, I stumbled upon a few comments written by people I could relate to, who were equally bamboozled by this arrow to the knee thing:
WTF is this arrow to the knee?
Can one of u gay fags tell me what this arro to the nee thing is?
Or something along those lines. We all know how incompetent and horrible YouTube commenters can be.
Anyhoo, turns out it is something to do with Skyrim. Apparently one of the guards in it says that he used to be able to do something or other, but then he took an arrow to the knee.
Now, I haven’t played Skyrim. (OMG you haven’t played Skyrim? WTF! You haven’t lived man!) I don’t have a problem with it. But, I have to admit, I don’t really see the humour in this. I don’t know, maybe it is incredibly funny, and I just don’t get it. If so, please feel free to explain the joke in the comments below. But I honestly don’t get it. Are we allowed to do this with any game? Here is a (probably wrong) quote from FIFA:
‘And you have to wonder how on earth he has missed that.’
I used to (insert something related to video) but then I wondered how on earth he missed that.
Am I now an incredible comedian? I honestly don’t see how this is any less funny that the arrow to the knee thing.
And you will find it in the comments section of every single fricking video!
‘I used to shout Fenton but then I took an arrow to the knee’
‘I used to see trampolines fly past my house but then I took an arrow to the knee’
These will be repeated in some form in half the comments on the video! And people like this crap! Err…why? It isn’t funny, it isn’t original and it doesn’t make sense!
So please, refrain from quoting anything anywhere that is at all related to arrows, knees or Skyrim.
Sorry for the lack of posts but the start of a term doesn’t mix well with CES for a teenage blogger. We will get through the big stuff this week but it may take time!
At CES, Motorola announced 3 new devices based on the RAZR, a phone that is officially as old as Digixav. While it seems unlikely that they will ever hit the UK as none are featured on the Motorola website, it gives us an excuse to look at the phone that narrowly lost out on our Best Design Award. Despite it’s godawful screen that somehow manages to look bad in adverts.
On the left, we have the RAZR MAXX. As the name suggests, this is a RAZR that is fatter and equipped with a bigger and better battery of 3300mAh. This gives you (supposedly) 21 hours of talk-time and 6 hours of LTE video streaming. It is 8.99mm thick and is otherwise a bog-standard RAZR. This is coming soon for $299 with a 2 year plan.
In the middle, we have the purple RAZR. It is a RAZR. It’s purple. Along with the cut-price white and black models, this will be $199 on contract.
On the right, we have the Droid 4. It’s like a 4 inch RAZR with a sliding QWERTY keyboard and 4.6mm thicker. It’s what the Droid 3 should have been. Like how the heavily delayed and redesigned Bionic is a fat RAZR. The Bionic is like the RAZR MAXX, but with a worse battery. Pricing is currently unannounced but it’ll probably be $249.
All of these phones are Verizon exclusives in the USA and have ‘4G’ LTE, the same internals as each other, splash-resistant nanocoating and Motoblur as a skin. If you are in America and feel the need for Android, forget these and get a Galaxy Nexus. Or get a Windows Phone on AT&T. Made by Nokia.
Technophobia is a column by James Hardy. Views expressed are not necessarily those of Digixav.
So now, apparently, we have to make a timeline of our lives on Facebook. Well no, Mark Zuckerberg, contrary to your belief, most people that use Facebook don’t spend their whole lives on it. Yes, there may be a select few that do in fact have Facebook as their home page, and spend ten hours each day constantly refreshing their news feed waiting for one of their nine hundred friends to write some bullshit about their ex.
Which brings me onto another point: Facebook statuses. Only post statuses which most of your friends will be able to understand. These are genuine examples from some of my Facebook friends.
OMG that was actually soo funny hahahahaha
Why waste your breath apologising? #Idiot.
You couldn’t trust him but you never said no.
Fucking twat. Why would u do that?
Ur 2 good 4 him hun. Dont take his shit.
Really? Maybe to two or three of your friends these will make perfect sense. Who knows, you could be a comical genius. But 95% of your friends will have no clue as to what is going on. Don’t bother. Save your breath.
Don’t get arthritis. Just text the friends that will understand!
This leads (sort of) on to my next point. Facebook ‘friends’. I think I have added perhaps a dozen people on Facebook. Everyone else has added me. Because to be honest, I can’t be arsed. I don’t use facebook all that much, at least not compared to some. I have 200 friends. This is a tiny amount compared to most of my friends. I kid you not, the person who wrote the first status above has over 1000 friends. One thousand friends! That is quite frankly, ridiculous. Nobody knows a thousand proper friends. It is just a lie. If I meet someone while on holiday in Mongolia for a few minutes, and add them on Facebook, they are not my friend. Life doesn’t work like that! Having thousands of Facebook friends doesn’t necessarily make you popular.
In that respect, I like Google+. They have circles set up for acquaintances, friends and family. And really, most of your facebook friends would should go in acquaintances. You could have 1000 acquaintances. You don’t have 1000 friends.
Note: That was sort of bullshit. I don’t even use Google+. I just know they have acquaintances.
Anyhoo, back to the main point. I have looked at someone’s profile with the timeline thing. It is confusing! As human beings, we do not like change. That is a fact. So if, Mark Zuckerberg, you change Facebook every month, people are going to be pissed off. Stop doing it!
And finally, to people who aren’t on Facebook. I don’t think that you are some strange, messed up people. I salute you. You are the black sheep. You have resisted Mark Zuckerberg’s attempts to get the whole world on Facebook.
2012 is now here and Digixav’s first calendar year on the internet has come to an end. We decided that there was only one way to celebrate and that would be to give out some virtual awards to the techy things that have made this year great.
Digixav 