9 to 5's latest Apple rumor is that the iWork suite, Apple's Office competitor, is going to the cloud.

Which is good news because I hardly use Office and find myself in Google Docs when I need to use a word processor or spreadsheet. If true, there's no doubt in my mind it'll require use of the paid MobileMe service, which is right now a bit over priced. Adding more functionality to the service is a great way to add value, but Google Docs is free. [9to5mac]

We'd like to share a personal story: it involves Amazon, Christmas presents, and three broken pizza stones.

We and our sister both asked for, and received, this lovely Old Stone Oven pizza stone for Christmas. They were bought through Amazon. Ours arrived on the the twenty-third, in several pieces, as the above picture shows. Probably because Amazon took the box that contained the stone, which was marked "FRAGILE," and stuck it in another box not marked "FRAGILE," and used a piece of paper as padding. Like this:

Putting a fragile package in another box in such a way that it isn't surrounded by padding probably means that it will break, which it did. Whatever, we called Amazon as soon as we unpacked it, told them what happened, and they assured us that a new one would arrive the next day, Christmas Eve.

It never came.

When we spoke to our sister, we found out Amazon sent her the same stone, packaged the same way, and it broke. We're currently on the phone with Amazon, asking where our replacement stone is, and they've told us that UPS has returned it to them because it broke. That's the third broken pizza stone, and we're they packaged it the same careless, ineffective way that they packaged the first two. Amazon is now out of stock on pizza stones for at least a month, and although we suggested they overnight us one from a Marketplace seller, they're demurred, instead offering to mail us a gift card for the amount sometime next week. No thanks.

Casio's 25 years of G-Shock celebration continues with a new set of characters designed by Shiro Nakano. Normally we don't pander to marketing gimmicks, but these toys might be cooler than the watches themselves.

Apparently, the Japanese think so too because they have caused quite a stir amongst local connoisseurs of rugged watches. Unfortunately, the robot characters themselves are not available for sale, which I think is a major oversight on Casio's part. These things would make for excellent bedside clocks. [IT Media via DVICE]

Microsoft's responded to the Zune 30GB failure with this answer as to why it happened. And a fix.

Ok guys here is the deal.

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you're a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).

We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience.

Q: Why is this issue isolated to the Zune 30 device?
It is a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30 device.

Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation?
This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.

Q: What's the timeline on a fix?
The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.

Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008?
There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.

Q: What is Zune doing to fix this issue?
The issue should resolve itself.

Q: Are you sure that this won't happen to all 80, 120 or other flash devices?
This issue is related to a part that is only used in Zune 30 devices.

Q: How many 30GB Zune devices are affected? How many Zune 30GB devices were sold?
All 30GB devices are potentially affected.

Riding the new Peak2Peak Gondola that connects Whistler's Blackcomb and Whistler Mountain summits, over a 2.7 miles, must be exhilarating. But jumping off it is insane.

Shortly after opening, these Two Red Bull sponsored lunatics rode a car to the mid point of the ride and jumped. That makes for a good preview of the fall, should one of these boxes full of 28 people ever fall out of the sky. (I couldn't help thinking of this, I have a decent fear of heights.)

The Gondola itself holds records for its unsupported span of 1.88 miles between the two furthest towers, and for its rise, measuring over a quarter mile above the ground at its highest point.
galleryPost('peak2peak', 3, '');

At 16 miles per hour, it makes the traverse between the mountain tops, in 11 minutes. Contrast that with the usual ski down one peak, plus a drive to the base of the other, plus a number of gondola, chair and tow rides upward, which easily could take over an hour or three.

I've been to Whistler once before, and remember two things: a 45 minute run down blackcomb's glacier to the village, and a Nintendo sponsored park. I guess I have yet another reason to go back.

Our friends at Consumerist have a new owner, and it seems like a great match: they've become the first addition to a new non-profit division of the company that publishes Consumer Reports.

Consumerist will remain the same great source of no-bullshit survival tips for navigating our capitalist universe, and will remain totally independent from its older corporate sibling. Seems like a great move for Consumer Reports, who surely hopes that Consumerist's well-earned cred will go a long way toward knocking off a few years from their geriatric reader base. As a non-profit, the new Consumerist will carry ads only for other Consumers Union related endeavors. Hopefully the deal also give them keys to CR's bad ass testing facility in Yonkers, and all the toys therein.

More details can be found at Consumerist. Congrats guys. [Consumerist, NYT]

Viacom is demanding that Time Warner Cable pay more for the right to broadcast its networks, but TWC has refused. Tonight at midnight, 13.3 million subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Cleveland will feel the effects of the stalemate first hand when Viacom makes good on its threat to pull all of its networks from TWC. Translation: no more "The Daily Show," "Dora the Explorer," "The Colbert Report," "The Hills," etc. But hey, there's always Hulu and BitTorrent, right?

Rather than doing any actual negotiating, the two companies seem to have been hoping the threat of an angry, alienated customer base would resolve the issue. It hasn't.

Time Warner Cable finally blinked last night, but it didn't help:

Viacom has rejected Time Warner Cable's request for a 15- to 30-day extension on the 12:01 AM January 1st deadline when the cable programmer pulls its 19 channels off the 2nd largest cable system operator. I'm told Viacom and TWC had no contact throughout yesterday until news of the Big Media battle broke. Suddenly, at 8 PM, TWC came to Viacom with an increase offer and the extension request. But Viacom rejected both out of hand. "It was bogus. The low-ball offer was clearly an excuse to ask for an extension and then use that in their press acrtivity today," a Viacom source claimed to me. "After we've been trying to meet with them for several weeks, we won't consider an extension unless they're prepared to really negotiate and come across with a reasonable offer."

So who's to blame? Bloggers at the LA Times choose sides, but we were serious about that Hulu/BitTorrent comment—it's possible that in this economy neither side will come out ahead by shutting the doors on its customers. Notice how both bloggers draw the same "maybe I'll just find another way" conclusion:

Anti-TWC:

Time Warner's dangerous gamble [is] that people can learn to live without what it's selling. I already have, to some extent. When Time Warner pulled Turner Classic Movies from its basic cable lineup—in Hollywood, no less!—and substituted the Golf Channel, I didn't bite and upgrade to premium. I've ended up buying a lot of the black and white classic films I love, and can now watch them on my schedule, not Time Warner's.

Anti-Viacom:

[Viacom is making] the wrong demand at the wrong time. And the big loser here could be Viacom, which needs Time Warner more than Time Warner needs Nickelodeon, MTV, BET and the host of other Viacom cable networks.

You could argue that recessions are good for cable operators—people spend less on entertainment away from home, raising the value of packaged home-entertainment bundles such as cable and satellite. But as the jobless rate climbs, it's hard to imagine Time Warner extracting sizable rate increases from their subscribers in 2009. More important, as Patt notes, Viacom puts its shows online, free of charge. So while it's asking Time Warner for more money for its channels, it's flooding the market with a cheaper version of the same product.

"Blackout looms in Time Warner, Viacom standoff" [Reuters]
"Unhappy New Year!" [Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily]
(Photo: Getty)

The new book The Race For a New Game Machine, by two IBM engineers, details how ridiculous the design process was when IBM was making Sony's PS3 cell chip. Microsoft basically got a free ride.

The WSJ pulls out facts like IBM employees trying to hide their work from people from companies in cubicles next to them, helping one team out (the Microsoft team) with their design process based on knowledge they had already gained from the Sony side, and most importantly, Microsoft got the chip from manufacturing BEFORE Sony did because they ordered "backup manufacturing capacity from a third party."

We're sure there's even more gruesome details in the book. [WSJ via PS3 Fanboy]

Today we learned that Viacom is threatening to pull their channels (Comedy Central, MTV) off TWC on January 1st if they do not agree to pay up. Would you leave TWC if this happened?

Would You Leave Time Warner Cable if They Lost Viacom Channels?
( surveys)

Electric cars and other fuel-efficient vehicles certainly have plenty going for them, but all that reduction in fuel consumption also has the side effect of reducing the money earned from gas taxes, which has prompted folks like Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski to turn to some some alternative solutions to keep those funds rolling in. In the case of Oregon, Governor Kulongoski is proposing a mileage tax that would eventually replace the gas tax altogether, and make use of GPS units to determine just how far each person travels and bill them accordingly (Oregon is proposing a 1.2 cent per mile tax). To assuage privacy concerns, that information would apparently only be collected when the driver fuels up, and actual travel information supposedly wouldn't be tracked. Obviously, that system would only work if everyone had a GPS, so the governor is proposing an increase in the standard gas tax in the interim, with drivers already equipped with a GPS unit eligible for a refund on the taxes paid. All of this also still has to pass the Oregon legislature to become law, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time that the state broke with convention.

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

Oregon governor looking at GPS-based mileage tax to fund roads originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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