—Sam Flynn, Tron: Legacy

HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica. $499. Wow.

Of course the HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica has a red LED eye. And of course he talks (one of 15 movie quotes, randomly cycled through). But get this: HAL 9000 also responds to your voice. That’s right, say something to HAL longer than 1.2 seconds, and it’ll activate a sound clip. OR, point almost any IR remote at him and press a button for a sound clip.

My birthday isn’t until April.

Can I wait?

via thisisnthappiness

Dr. Paul Jocobs of Qualcomm kicked off CES 2013, along with his Cirque du Lameness. Seriously watch the first 10-15 minutes and try not feel embarrassed for everyone on stage.

Qualcomm is a company that makes products, and they revealed their newest one, the Snapdragon processor:

Doesn’t command the same level of attention of a new iPad, does it?

The whole keynote felt like a bizarro dream. There were actors on stage dressed like raggedy hipsters, then they showed a Disney-esque animated short and then during the middle of the CEO talking about Microsoft, Steve Ballmer bum-rushes the stage and starts babbling about Windows 8 and their keyboards, then Guillermo del Toro comes on stage to talk about how he loves the Snapdragon chip. Then Big Bird comes on stage….

All these things actually happened.

The Verge does a lot of great things. Their site design is awesome (done by Code and Theory), they have some great reporting and tech scoops, but man, their product reviews can be real shit.

Take their latest review for the new Surface Pro by Microsoft. midway through:

It’s a great notebook computer that beats out the competition in a number of ways, but it’s also still all about compromise.

And then the very next sentence, at the beginning of the next paragraph:

Like the Surface RT before it, the Surface Pro isn’t the perfect notebook or the perfect tablet. It’s still difficult to use this device on your lap and the screen angle isn’t adjustable. It’s also a 16:9 tablet so using this device in portrait is comical. You could say these are obvious flaws in the product, but if you’re willing to forgive both of them for a portable power house with beautifully engineered hardware then the Surface Pro isn’t going to disappoint.

[Or said in another context: If you’re willing to forgive this car for its horrible proportions, awkward steering and bad weight balance for a beautiful paint job and solid chassis, then this hot rod won’t disappoint.]

Man up and take a stand on the gadgets you review.

Otherwise, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

—Soundgarden

Ponder that for a second.

This statistic is from September 2012, but I’m posting it because I’m not sure I caught it when it was first announced.

It’s also worth noting today is the iPhone’s 6th Birthday (via).

I’m trying to remember what Steve Ballmer said about the iPhone when it was first announced….. Oh yeah! Now I remember.

So Steve Ballmer made a surprise appearance at Qualcomm’s demonstration at CES.

Is it me, or is he looking more and more like Lex Luther?

He’s definitely a destructive force to his own company.

Update: Here’s a video of Luther in action. He definitely still has the original cheesy Ballmer in him.

—Mario Andretti

There’s many words and phrases I hear people misuse on a daily basis.

Today it’s being fired versus being laid off.

They’re not the same thing.

When you’re fired from a job, the connotation is that you, as an employee, did something wrong. You acted out in the wrong manner, or your performance dropped or your actions went against what is accepted and appropriate in the workplace.

What I find in most cases where someone says they were “fired” is the person in question is being terminated because of reasons other than their actions or performance. They’re being terminated because of downsizing, or redundancy due to a merger or a company closing it’s doors. A person being terminated in the last 3 examples I gave are not being fired, they’re being laid off.

“Fired” has a very negative connotation to it. If you use it, make sure it’s in the proper context.

A good rule of thumb to determine if someone was fired:

If there’s a really juicy story on why they were terminated, then they were probably fired.

Taken from The Combustion Chamber

via Automobile Magazine

My wife got us both Nike FuelBands recently and I started using mine today. Mike Mulvey enters the age of the quantified self.

The first step is setting up your Nike+ account, letting the system know your age, height, weight and sex. You wear the FuelBand around your wrist and it tracks your movements throughout the day via accelerometer sensors not unlike like the ones detecting orientation in iPhones and iPads. Your body stats, combined with your movements, translate to a Nike ‘Fuel’ score along with calories burned and steps taken.

Continue…

So good.

Jerry Seinfeld and Sony Pictures Television are doing a second season of “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee”.

Daily Exhaust rejoices.