There was an old Saturday Night Live game show skit that parodied '80s stand-up comedians, and Adam Sandler kept spouting the line, "Who were the ad wizards who came up with that one?"
I couldn’t help but recall that line when reading about Microsoft's recently pulled "puking ad" for Internet Explorer 8, which includes ex-Superman actor Dean Cain talking about IE8’s new “privacy feature” that lets users basically hide any Web surfing history from family members (let’s call it the anti-porn feature). The ad features a wife borrowing her husband’s computer and seeing what he was looking at, and basically vomiting for the rest of the ad.
After the online-only ad began making headlines across the Internet, Microsoft today pulled the ad from all Microsoft and third-party video Web sites - including the dedicated IE8 site, Browser for the Better.
A Microsoft spokesperson, via e-mail, said "We make a point of listening to our customers. We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."
This isn't the first time a Microsoft ad has created controversy, or at least buzz. Here's a list of some more (least?) memorable ad efforts from Microsoft:
Songsmith - GarageBand killer?
After viewing this ad, I want to slap anyone who even considers buying a copy of Songsmith (is it even out?) instead of GarageBand for creating music on their computer. I'd rather buy glow-in-the-dark towels.
Seinfeld and Gates: Ads about nothing?
Last year, Microsoft paid Jerry Seinfeld a lot of money to do ads with Bill Gates, and after one (or two?) ran, they ditched the ad campaign. The first video had Bill and Jerry buying shoes together, and the second one had Jerry and Bill staying at a "normal" family's house. The second ad is a bit funnier than the first one, but a lot of people watched the ad and went, "what does this have to do with buying a PC?"
Cute kids are smarter than you
I joke with my wife that my kids one day are going to be rewiring my home network faster than I can, but I don't really believe it yet. But maybe Microsoft thinks so with this ad, in which a four-year-old is showing how easy it is to edit photos on a Windows PC. But the implication I get from the ad is that this kid is a genius, and I'm not.
Laptop Hunters: Lauren gets a PC
As a way to combat the "Mac vs. PC" ads that Apple brilliantly produces, we get the latest version of ads from Microsoft, showing that PCs are less expensive than "cooler" Macs, and have better hardware. The first ad was from "Lauren", who goes shopping for a PC, walks into an Apple store, comes out and says, "I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person." She then goes to a Best Buy, finds an HP Pavilion for under $1,000, and an off-screen guy gives her the cash.
On the surface, it's a cute ad, but then it was revealed that Lauren was an actress, which leads me to doubt the "reality" of these people shopping for PCs. Plus, they never mention Vista.
"DOS is going bye-bye!"
At first glance, this looks like a parody ad, but you soon realize that this was a real ad touting the new features of Windows 95, complete with cheese, cheese and cheese. And it's almost 9 minutes!
Microsoft gets sexy
On the surface, there's nothing wrong with this ad. I'm just not sure that Microsoft is the first thing you think of when you think "sexy". I guess this was banned in the U.S.
Windows XP flirts with Madonna
I really like Windows XP (I'm using it right now). But Microsoft is obsessed with celebrities, and in this commercial they used Madonna's "Ray of Light" song to advertise Windows XP, along with flying happy people.
Steve Ballmer as Crazy Eddie (or Billy Mays)
Ugh, the '80s. Enough said.
Finally, there's Bob
OK, this is not an ad per se, but just watching this will remind you how awful Microsoft Bob really was.
Seriously, Microsoft needs some new ad wizards.
Here's an actual error message I got a few minutes ago. I'm not sure whether this should make me happy (at least they're being honest) or whether I should throw my computer out the window.
"Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. Microsoft Exchange is not available. Either there are network problems or the Exchange computer is down for maintenance."
While we certainly don't have the gobs and gobs of reporters that other sites and publications have at the E3 video game show in Los Angeles, we do have ways of getting some video reports and game trailers up. If you like video games and want to see some of the newest things, take a look at the following video playlist. Note: The last "Top 10 of E3" video was from last year's show, but it's interesting that the #1 game on the list still isn't out, and won't be out until March 2010 (such is the gaming industry).
Today at the E3 video game trade show, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, helped kick off the show with more details on The Beatles Rock Band video game, set to be released on Sept. 9, 2009 (9/9/09), along with the release of the entire, original, digitally re-mastered Beatles CD catalog.
The game explores the career of The Beatles, from the early days in 1963 Liverpool, to the final performance on top of the Apple Corps (not Apple Inc.) rooftop. The game will include three-part vocal harmonies to game play, and you’ll also be able to hear “previously unreleased authentic voice recordings from John, Paul, George and Ringo chatting between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road” more than 40 years ago.
The game will include 45 songs, with additional songs being announced at a later date. In addition, the entire Abbey Road album will be available for future download purchase. For Xbox 360 owners, the song “All You Need Is Love” will be released as an Xbox Live download, with proceeds from the download sale benefitting Doctors Without Borders.
The game also includes new hardware replicas representing instruments played by The Beatles, including the Rickenbacker 325 and Gretsch Duo Jet guitars used by Lennon and Harrison, and the Hofner bass used by McCarney. A Ringo Starr-inspired, Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drum set will also be available. The game is set to ship for the Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii systems.
While I’m mainly a ‘70s and ‘80s music “rocker”, the party game nature about getting your friends together to sing the songs of The Beatles make this one of the most-anticipated games of the year. It’s definitely going on my “must examine” list.
Check out this video on the MIT Siftables project, which is getting closer to commercialization. Each tiny block is an interactive computer with an OLED screen that can display graphics, sense movement and interact wirelessly with a computer and other Siftables.
I've wrapped up my podcast audio interviews here at Interop Las Vegas 2009, here's a list of all of the five interviews we did at the show:
Got this message when I sent an e-mail to a Verizon spokeswoman looking for more info on a new product:
"Thanks for your message. I'm on vacation on Friday, May 15 - even though my sweet BlackBerry Storm runs on the fastest and most reliable network in the country, I will not be checking e-mail."
Gotta admit, that's pretty funny, and a great use of the boring Out of Office message. Kudos to some originality in writing!
Nobody believes me when I say the robots will soon take over the world (I believe there's even a summer movie coming out that addresses this). Now the robots are fighting among themselves.
Take a look at this IDG News video, which talks about the Japanese Kondo Battle, where robots from across the country come to fight each other. The first rule of Robot Fight Club: Don't talk about Robot Fight Club.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
This week's big-budget Star Trek prequel will certainly make more money, but this parody version of what a Star Trek prequel would look like had it been made in the style of a 1980s or 1990s teen comedy is much, much funnier. All it needs is a training montage or a song by Katrina and the Waves and we're all set.
The big announcement is here! The Palm Pre has an announcement date! Whoo!
Oh, wait, it's in Canada. And the announcement is similar to the Sprint announcement. Never mind.
TORONTO, May 06, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today announced that Palm Pre(TM), the first phone based on the new Palm(R) webOS(TM) mobile platform, will debut in Canada exclusively on Bell Mobility's 3G high-speed mobile network in the second half of 2009.(1)
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I'm having a hard time deciding whether the guys in this video (see below) are cool or not. On the one hand, it looks like a bunch of IT guys who have a little bit too much time on their hands. In addition, the cool retro '80s video reminds me of when Herbie Hancock was leading the charts. On the other hand, it's a bunch of middle-aged guys singing about mini-vans.
Another clue that this is a setup is the "adult swim" logo on the bottom right, and we all know that Adult Swim on Cartoon Channel is cool. Right?
You may have heard the news about footage from the new Wolverine movie that was leaked on the Internet without some of the final CGI or music added.
Normally I wouldn't condone such actions, but after seeing some of the footage, I've felt that I need to share it with my readers to show how awesome the movie is gonna be. Enjoy.
I'm gonna leave work early and start waiting in line now...
As part of the marketing that's going on with the next Star Trek movie, the folks at Cheez-It (Ashland, Mass.'s favorite snack food!) and Oddcast have come up with "Trek Yourself", one of those "upload your photo and see something funny happen" types of Web applications. In this case, if you upload a good picture of yourself you can see what you'd look like as a Vulcan, the Captain of the Enterprise, a Romulan or other Starfleet Officer.
As you can see from my example below, I didn't have the best photo originally, but the app does a good job of trying to get your photo to fit into the final product. My mistake - Vulcan's don't smile, so my smiling mug was probably not the best choice for this purpose. The more I look at it, the more creeped out I'm getting. I look like a Vulcan serial killer.
If you're not too creeped out, try it yourself!
One of the companies I loved at DEMO 08 last year, and haven't heard much from since their demonstration is xtranormal, which pitched the idea of letting users create 3-D movies based on text. I happened to come across their site recently, so signed up for a free account and created a short "newscast" based on the script from our daily news podcast.
The evidence keeps mounting that someday the robots will control the world. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid at the end of March.
From the IDG News Service comes today's robot video, in which Honda's research wing and Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International are showing off a brain machine interface system that lets a person control a robot through thought alone (BUM-BUM-BUM-BUMMMMM) (emphasis added).
The groups have been working on the brain machine technology for about four years now, but the new system can measure the electrical activity in a person's brain using an EEG and blood flow measurements (using near-infrared spectroscopy) to create data that is then interpreted into control information.
Honda says the system has a 90 percent success rate – it also sees a day when robots will work alongside humans to help with tasks. Let's just hope the robots don't start taking over too much.
Enjoy the video.
I'm telling you, it's not going to be long before the robots take over. Now they're going to be stealing jobs from our fashion models.
On Monday, Japan introduced the HRP-4C robot, developed for about $2 million by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The model debuted as part of Japan's Fashion Week. The robot's shape is designed to match that of the "average Japanese woman," and weighs 43 kilograms (battery included) and measures 158 cm in height.
This is probably the best analysis of Twitter that I've seen in a while. Of course, I found out about this from someone in my Twitter feed.
Hmmm, embedded video code doesn't seem to work. Just go here.
Forget about Apple rumors – this one is straight from the company. Apple today launched a new iPod Shuffle, at nearly half the size of the previous version, along with new VoiceOver technology that enables the device to speak out song titles, artists and playlist names. The 4GB version is available now for $79 and comes in silver or black.
The third generation of the Shuffle is smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and includes controls on its earphone cord, Apple says. The VoiceOver feature can also speak in 14 different languages, including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. Apple says the device features up to 10 hours of battery life.
The new Shuffle comes with Apple Earphones with Remote, a USB cable, and requires a Macintosh system with a USB 2.0 port, OS X v10.411 or later, iTunes 8.1 or later, or a Windows PC with a USB port and support for Vista, XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later, and iTunes 8.1.
Plus, check out a slideshow on the evolution of the iPod: iPod...do you? A playful list of iPods
I'm sure there are more noble uses of both my time and of Twitter, but during my lunch break today I noticed a quirky item in my McDonald's value meal (see picture).
After a quick Twitter post and Twitpic upload that displayed the two "mutant McNuggets" that I got in my 6-pack (basically, two different McNuggets that had fused to create an 8-pack), I received a response from a follower that claimed the one on the top right looked like W.C. Fields, and suggested I auction it off on eBay.
While I had already eaten the one on the left, I decided to keep the W.C. Fields-like one and see if anyone else sees either that or some other image formed by this mutant, chicken hybrid. If someone sees either Elvis or a religious icon in the McNugget, let me know, because then I can maximize my return should I decide to auction it off.
At the moment I don't see W.C. Fields, but the more I stare at it I'm starting to see vague images of dinosaurs or toothless old men.
I found some free time to write down thoughts from the demonstrators at Day 2 of DEMO 09, in between uploading video interviews.
Purewire is offering a free online portal (PureWireTrust.org) where users can go to verify reputation information about individuals or Web sites. With more and more legitimate Web sites at risk for having malware on the site, the service can give users a good idea about whether they will be in danger when visiting that site. In addition to checking out sites, users can type in an e-mail address to verify the reputation of individual people, for verifying Facebook Friend requests, or Craigslist responders, to name a few examples. The technology is also being integrated into the company's Purewire Web Security Service, a software-as-a-service secure Web gateway that inspects outbound Web traffic for safety and compliance purposes, as well as inbound traffic for malicious programs.
Xandros showed off its Presto utility, which boots up your Windows PC or notebook without actually booting up Windows. It connects to your network (depending on your settings for wired or wireless) and includes applications like Skype, instant messaging and a Web browser (Firefox). It can access files stored on your system, and with OpenOffice.org integration, will let you edit those documents as well. It's a direct competitor to Phoenix Technologies' HyperSpace software (which I saw at this year's Consumer Electronics Show), but seems to have some additional features. In addition, the software will cost $19.95, versus the subscription model for HyperSpace.
SmartyCard is providing a way for parents of "tweens" to motivate their kids to learn by providing a rewards program. Parents can buy SmartyCard points, and kids can unlock these points by taking fun, yet educational, quizzes on the SmartyCard Web site. With correct answers (kids have to score 7 out of 10), a specified number of points are unlocked (quizzes range from easy to difficult, with harder quizzes earning more points). Kids can then take their points and use them to get rewards, such as virtual world time (Club Penguin, etc.), as well as Amazon.com books, DVDs, music, etc. The company also plans to sell SmartyCards through retailers (much like iTunes gift cards and other card systems). Some may say that this system is more like bribery, but I disagree. Kids are motivated to learn in different ways (I used to get rewarded by a trip to a favorite restaurants for good grades), so I don't think this is that different. In addition, we now live in a culture that rewards "points" and other such things for succeeding in different things (such as Xbox 360 Achievements in the gaming world), so it doesn't bother me here.
Finally, I will likely check out the Symantec MyGuru service the next time my mom or other family member (or neighbor) calls about a computer problem. The remote access service is similar to other such services I've seen that aim to let people connect to computers remotely and see if they can fix or solve problems, but seems to have a good balance between simplicity on the recipient's side for installation (very important for Mom), and enough technical assistance / information on the problem solver's side (very important for the "tech gurus" who are often called into service). Check out the video for more details from the Symantec team:
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