iPhones send beers and fists flying, CNN is still thinking about ‘Antennagate’, and magazines are struggling on the iPad. If I’m not mistaken, these are your remainders for Wednesday, December 29.
Mini fridge beer cannon (YouTube)
A tech-savvy YouTuber posted a video depicting a mini-fridge full of beer, an air cannon, and the iPhone that merges the two into a rapid-fire beer can dispensing machine. Via a Web app, the owner can check beer temperature, choose a specific beverage, aim the fridge using its built-in Webcam, and fire when ready. Not everyone at Macworld is 100 percent convinced that this is real, but we’ve concluded that were it faked, they likely would have gone with better beer.
The 10 biggest tech ‘fails’ of 2010 (CNN)
In its roundup of what it called the biggest ‘fails’ of 2010, CNN awarded Apple a full 20 percent of the ignominious honors. iPhone 4 ‘Antennagate’ and iTunes Ping made up two of the ten ‘fails’ on the list. I won’t argue that Ping deserves more love, but it’s hard to agree with Antennagate, since Apple’s sold more than 14 million iPhone 4s. Apple hasn’t responded to CNN’s dis—and likely won’t—but I like to imagine Apple would pinpoint CNN’s biggest fail for 2010 as “a once-prestigious news organization resorting to using ‘fail’ as a noun.”
Magazines Doomed Once Again as iPad Sales Slump (Gizmodo)
Don’t misread Gizmodo’s headline (like I did) and wrongly assume that the site is claiming iPad sales are slumping. Rather, it seems that iPad sales of virtual magazines are slumping because apparently all of us iPad owners are too busy playing Words With Friends. Gizmodo says that Wired’s numbers on the iPad are down 80 percent, and Vanity Fair, Glamour, and GQ are all down, too. From publishers’ perspective, however, Apple’s continued failure—see how it’s done CNN?—to implement a traditional subscription service makes them so mad that they want to punch someone.
Idaho passenger punches teen during airborne iPhone dispute (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Speaking of which, a 68-year-old Idahoan was arrested yesterday after punching a teen who refused to turn off his iPhone in preparation for landing. On a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas into Boise, the teen allegedly ignored crewmember instructions to turn off all portable electronic devices, and the senior citizen then allegedly took matters into his own hands. Or rather, fists. The legal statute that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas reportedly doesn’t apply once you’ve entered Idaho airspace.