A Denver District Judge has banned the gift-ban provision of Amendment 41. This was a constitution vote by voters last fall that banned gifts over $50 and banned all gifts by lobbyists.
Gifts are now allowed to be given to elected officials and their families until there is a trial and verdict.
This had drawn some controversy because it was interpreted to include the ban of giving scholarships to sons and daughters of elected officials. I think that is ridiculous.
Steve Jobs discussed the future of Apple last night at the D: All Things Digital Conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal.
It is an interesting discussion on where they are going. Things discussed include the Mac, iPhone, iTunes, and many other things.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: historic discussion live from D 2007 – Engadget
Everyone made fun of the fact that they would be on stage and it would be awkward for them and their hosts. But that is not the case. You have two really professional and smart people who both started their own companies and became quite successful.
It will be interesting to see how this is played in the media, but apparently it is a success.
Launch: Access your Google Reader feeds offline with Google Gears – Lifehacker
This is an interesting application from Google. This will help with all those Web 2.0 applications that require you to be online and allow you to step out of the connected to read or conduct work without being connected to the Internet.
Good Luck Google.
Be careful of Firefox extensions. There has been a vulnerability identified in some of the Firefox extensions, particularly the Google Toolbar.
You can read the story by Washington Post Columnist Brian Krebs, “A New Vector For Hackers — Firefox Add-Ons”
Google has since announced a fix for the security flaw that was identified by Chris Soghoian, an Indiana University doctoral candidate. He has documented many flaws in many of the popular add-ons.
Just be careful when you are updating extensions. Especially if you do it at a public hotspot.
Apple TV is getting an upgrade.
Coming soon is the ability to download and watch the more popular YouTube videos. YouTube will be encoding them in H.264 codec.
The YouTube videos will be the most popular to begin with, but YouTube will begin to convert all the videos to h.264 codec later this year.
Also coming soon is a higher capacity Apple TV. The current version, which I have, is 40 GB for $299. But they will have a 160 GB for $399. I guess that it what I get for being an early adopter.
Read the CNET article: “Apple TV set to download YouTube”
Read my earlier review of Apple TV.
Well Marriott announced it a while ago and now they are beginning to role out the new TVs and ways to connect to them.
They are putting in a 32″ LCD TV from LG that has a connection box attached to it so you can play your audio and video files. You can also even connect your laptop to it for one big computer monitor.
This is a tremendous move from a hotel chain because I travel a lot and it is impossible to hook anything up to the TVs. I travel with my own media and iPod and I like to watch my own stuff.
Well with this I can.
The connection box will have connections for HDMI, mini-plug, RCA jacks for audio and video, and a 15-pin VCA connector. This should cover most everyone and their travels.
I can’t wait until this is in all their properties. It will be nice to stay at a Marriott.
View more at: plugintomarriott.com
