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Items shared by Michael

Ten Cool Gadgets You Must Add To iGoogleToday

Who hasn’t noticed those little RSS subscribe buttons (Add to Google, My Yahoo, Netvibes) popping up all over the web like Starbucks in the suburbs? If you’re like me, you were drawn into the gadget-rich world of iGoogle by just one of these buttons.

One minute I was trawling for articles, blissfully convinced that Facebook was all I’d ever need to connect me to items of real time relevance. The next I was pulled into a vortex created by masterminds so ambitious and intrusive, they plan to index the worlds information. Yes, I’m talking about Google (and their latest uber-success, iGoogle).

iGoogle began its life with the name ‘Google Personalised Homepage’, briefly became ‘Google IG’, and a few makeovers later, emerged as iGoogle, a name that makes it sound like an Apple product (iPod, iTunes). Nobody seems to agree on what the most popular startpage service is but iGoogle is up there. Users are so passionate about their iGoogle pages that recent changes were met with uproar and violent protestation. The ‘changes’ were basically a new sidebar and the removal of some gadget resizing privileges. Yep, people are obsessed.

iGoogle isn’t just for accessing feeds from your favourite sites; there is a growing catalogue of gadgets from reputable developers. Google are also inviting pe

Joost Streams TV, Movies to Your iPhone [Featured IPhone Download]Today

iPhone/iPod touch only: Television and movie streaming service Joost officially finds its way to the iPhone and iPod touch. Joost started out as a desktop application, was quickly overshadowed by online offerings like Hulu, then recently moved to the web in an attempt to keep up with the competition. With its new iPhone/iPod touch application, Joost is back in the drivers seat, beating the likes of Hulu to Apple's popular mobile devices. Joost still doesn't offer as much popular content as Hulu, but its 46,000 videos—which include 400 TV series, 1,200 movies and short films, and 18,000 music videos—are a pretty good start.

The player can be buggy at times, but overall it's an impressive offering. Joost is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Joost [iTunes App Store via

Who gives a shit about toilet paper?Today

I'm sorry but I couldn't resist that post title.

On Saturday night I was in Times Square and came across the Charmin (and Duracell) pop-up retail restroom "experience", which apparently is in its third year now.

With trendy, good-looking hosts and hostesses and DJ-like Master of Ceremonies with pearls of wisdom such as, "Welcome to the number one urination station in the nation," how could this go wrong?

I just loved everything about this non-traditional approach which addresses two universal tourist (or visitor) needs when walking a metropolitan city: needing to go to a (clean) restroom and recharging batteries (of a cellphone or camera).

The connection between Charmin and Duracell if you haven't realized it already, is Procter & Gamble.

Moreover, this investment achieves an almost impossible objective: how do you get someone to care about toilet paper?

The only detraction in my opinion is that this isn't there 365 days of the year. Personally, I'd pay the rent willingly and forgo things like

"With Malice Toward None"Today

A reader writes:

Obama won't pursue war crimes. This is just based on my reading of the man, so obviously I could be completely wrong, but I don't believe that Obama will legally pursue anyone from the Bush administration for war crimes. And I think this comes out of some very deeply held beliefs on Obama's part.  I don't think it's because he doesn't understand the problem, or that he just wants to do what's expedient.

Obama is all about building bridges, and building up ties. When Obama's white grandmother made racial comments, Obama didn't write her off, or think of her as a terrible person. I think that instead he saw it as a kind of misunderstanding, or a rupture that had to be healed. Something that came out of ignorance. And that doesn't happen if you denounce people.

I believe that Obama is going to have a very strong instinct toward decency in our policies, and that he's going to try to rebuild the American polity so that it is more decent. Part of that will mean a rejection of torture; part of it will be more compassion for the poor and the working poor; and part of it will be about reaching out to people who disagree with him, and trying to bring them on board. I'm pretty confident that Obama is going to try to justify his new strategy in the war on terror by getting results. He'll do things the right way, and work hard to bring the consensus around so that people in both parties believe in what he's d

Nokia’s touchiest weekToday

We’ve arrived in Barcelona, Spain for Nokia World, a week where Nokia talks to its top customers.

When we got here a Nokia executive met me and bragged that the Internet has no clue what they will announce this week. I asked “what about the touch screen cell phone that I’ve seen rumors about?” He said that no one had gotten it right yet. The announcements are on Wednesday morning (it’s early Monday morning as I post this) so we’ll have to wait to see what they announce. He told me this is one of the only times he can remember when a big announcement has not leaked. He said that even internally only a handful of people have seen the new device they’ll be announcing on Wednesday. Does that tactic sound familiar? It should, and is only one of the reasons why this is Nokia’s touchiest week.

This is the week when Nokia either keeps its seat at the cell-phone-thought-leadership table or it will give up its spot to Apple and RIM alone.

Here’s some datapoints.

1. At the recent Salesforce.com conference CEO Marc Benioff asked the audience what cell phone they used. 35% answered iPhones. That’s incredible. Apple has gotten HUGE market share among enterprise users, despite having a huge wall setup against them.
2. RIM was used by almost everyone else at Salesforce. Nokia? Hah.
3. When I traveled to China the thought leaders there bragged about their iPhones