It's been a couple weeks since the last post... the semester ended, I'm home on break, and the Christmas hustle and bustle is in full swing.  Today I'd like to touch on a topic I haven't visited in a while: the tech world.  There's lots of news swirling around with Macworld coming up in just a couple weeks, and the Christmas wishlists are full of the latest gadgets on the market. 

First of all, last night I was out with the family doing some last minute Christmas shopping when I saw possibly the most pointless new piece of technology on the market.  I walked in the Sony Style store at Kenwood Town Centre and saw a flat circle table with a capsule shaped invention on it.  I was intrigued so I walked over.  Turns out, what I saw was a dancing speaker system called the Sony Rolly.  The Rolly is simply a mp3 player with 2 wheels around it and 2 flaps over the speakers that work together to make the Rolly dance to the music it plays.  I took a short video on my cell phone...

Interesting and entertaining, yes, worth the starting price of $399, not at all.  The Rolly houses only 2GB of memory (Apple's smallest iPod Shuffle is 1GB and costs only $49 and the 2GB model is available for only $20 more-Not to mention, infinitely more practical.), its sound quality is good, typical of Sony audio products, but it is nothing to rave about, it is far to big and heavy to carry in a pocket and doesn't even offer a headphone output.  On top of all that, in order to actually make the Rolly "dance" you have to download "motion files" from Sony's website. Sony's "ultimate conversation peice", while entertaining, is not anywhere close to being worth the pretty penny you'll pay.

Next on my list... Twitter.  I'd gotten out of the habit of using Twitter for a while because I got frustrated that nearly none of my friends used it.  It felt like a waste of time.  I found out at a birthday dinner last week that one of my cousins tweets.  I decided to get back on Twitter and follow him.  I've realized since that Twitter is good for so much more than simply keeping up with friends.  Find people that talk about stuff that interests you, follow them, and a wealth of resources and knowledge will be at your fingertips in minutes... and better yet... it's constantly being updated.  I even downloaded a new Twitter client.  Tweeter is a basic desktop client that allows for posting and uploading and gives a few other options for viewing your tweets.  Combine it with Growl and it works great.  It's options are limited and I'm not sure if it's the client I'll stick with, but it's worth a try.

Lastly, with Macworld just days away, the rumor season is in full swing.   Personally I don't think there's gong to be an announcement anywhere near as big and "tide-changing" as there has been the past couple years, one, because of the announcement that this will be Apple's last year at Macworld, and two, because Steve Jobs is not giving the keynote himself.  I think if anything huge was going to be announced, Jobs would break the news.  Now, despite my personal opinions, there are some somewhat interesting rumors roaming around about what might be announced at the Macworld conference.  In my opinion, the most likely of these rumors is that of an iPhone nano.  However, this leads me to ask, what would be the difference between the current iPhone and it's nano version?  Would it simply be smaller?  Would it have less memory? (the largest now is only 16GB which isn't that big, considering the iPod Nano is also offered in a 16GB model.)  Less Features?  On a smaller iPhone, how would one type?  The on-screen keyboard is already small enough.  So iPhone nano... maybe... but I've got a lot of questions.  Another rumor thats swirling is that of a new Mac Mini.  This based on a photo seen at Macenstein.  It looks nice.  Some believe however, based on an earlier photo on the same site that resembles the side of the new macbook, that this is simply a typical case of deceptive photoshopping.  Others have suggested that instead, these pictures could be of some sort of Mac server with a mini display or maybe even a small Netbook sort of Mac.  Possibly my favorite, but also one of the most farfetched rumors I've heard is that of a 3 screen fold out Macbook: a TriBook.  This Macbook would open and then two screens (each half the size of the main center display) would fold out on each side giving the user twice the viewing area.  I love the idea of more built in display space, however, there is an aspect of this concept I don't think will ever happen.  It is suggested that the touchpad on this TriBook would be the entire length of the keyboard leaving no where to rest your hands while typing.  That is unnecessary and it won't happen.  Regardless of all this... My friend Josh, author of the Updates in the Life of blog which is linked on the side of this page will be at the Macworld conference.  He'll be blogging and possibly even streaming live from the conference, and I'll do my best to keep you updated.

Well, that's all I've got for now in the tech world... comments? news? rumors of your own?