Geekly Update - 04 Apr 2011

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

The Oxford English Dictionary released its latest words and phrases that included ambigram, heteronormativity, rozzle, and from cyberspace, LOL and OMG. But once again, ROTFLMAO failed to make the cut.

Dell’s Inspiron M5030 lays claim as the first Spanish language laptop in the US. While the model has been around about a year, this one features Windows 7 preloaded in Spanish with a special keyboard and is in a limited run in GA and FL for $499.00.

eBay says that they will be purchasing GSI Commerce, a marketing and e-commerce company to further connect its users. Apparently in an effort to compete more with Amazon, the company recently cleaned up its home page, cut upfront listing fees and improved its search engine.

Shades of Ma Bell from 30 years back. Sprint is hoping that the government will intervene in AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile. Vonya McCann, senior vice president of Government Affairs says the sale would reduce competition and that the merge would result in a "duopoly."

Nintendo’s 3DS was released this week at a price of $249.99 with about 20 titles to start out. Face Raiders is included in its apps that gives the user the ability to take a 3D picture of a friend, then shoot it over and over and over. Insert your own tasteless Columbine joke here.

In its newly found partnership with Facebook, Warner Bros. is offering five additional online streaming rentals. 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone', 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets', 'Inception,' 'Life as We Know It' and 'Yogi Bear' are available for 40 points, about $4.00.

What’s better than a $50.00 iPhone offered recently by AT&T? If you are the Blackberry type, it is the Curve 3G for a mere $29.99 with a 2 year contract, available online and in AT&T retail stores, along with four other smartphones for less than $100.

Amazon has climbed on the cloud bandwagon with Cloud Drive. Users get 5GB of free, online storage upfront, 20GB for those who purchase an album from their MP3 store. Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Android let you play your music from the cloud.

Those who wax nostalgic seem to be waxing onto Fujifilm’s X100 retro, a high grade digital compact camera. Released in Sept. of last year for $1,200, production has recently resumed for the 12.3 megapixel cam with 23mm fixed lens. (I still miss film.)

Google confirmed that Kansas City, Kansas will get ultra high-speed broadband that they claim is 100x faster than what exists now. Google Fiber will allow a connection of 1 gigabit per second to about 500,000 people. Dang... that's *almost* worth moving to Kansas for.