Links for Wednesday June 16th, 2010
YouTube introduces video editor "your grandma could use": I was able to play with this new YouTube feature the other day, and it's solid. You can see the clip that I banged together — after some mucking around, it was pretty easy to figure out how to drop some clips into the timeline, trim them, and add some music. So kudos to Rushabh, and the entire YouTube team.
It seems like Flash is heavily involved in the UI, however. I'm not sure how easy it will be to remove that and go HTML5, so that this will work on Apple's devices.
Original iPhone owners can also keep their unlimited data with iPhone 4: As an original iPhone owner still on the $20/mo unlimited plan (for EDGE data access), I noticed this as well. When pre-ordering my iPhone 4, I had the option of 3 data plans instead of 2. I briefly toyed with going for unlimited, but I'm all about keeping my monthly costs down, so 200MB a month it is for me.
Let's Get Ready To Rummmmbllllle: Pretty good summary of the big 3 E3 keynotes. You can read the accompanying blog post, if you want something with a bit more depth.
My take: I actually think the Microsoft/ESPN thing is a big deal — getting live sports (especially niche stuff) over IP is huge. I'm not sure about Kinect, though. Nintendo totally killed it in terms of just having tons of awesome games that are going to ship this year, but they're still lacking a coherent internet strategy. I haven't watched all of Sony's talk, but it seemed fragmented — they were trying to hype 3D, Move, PS3, and PSP all at the same time.
BP Oil Spill Imperils Pregnant Gulf Coasters: Sounds like this oil dispersant stuff is bad news:
"One of the ingredients, 2-butoxyethanol, caused major health problems among cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. That, plus the oil itself, could spell major risks to pregnant women and their fetuses."
(via Heather Dale)Mac Mini Mid 2010 Teardown: Have I ever said how much I love iFixit? Anyways, it looks like the fan and memory are easy to replace on the Mac mini. But to replace the hard drive or the power supply (the two components most prone to failure), you have to remove the logic board, which doesn't appear to be super-easy to do.
Apple Mac mini (HDMI) - Full Review: Joel Santo Domingo for PC Magazine:
"I observed a low of 6 watts while I was reading a static Web page (mostly text and graphics, no Flash), which is phenomenal. This means that if you're using the Mac mini as a web surfing station, you're using less power than a night-light."
The whole power consumption, recyclability story is nothing short of amazing for this new machine. I'm impressed.Kevin Butler Interviews Marcus Rivers (YouTube): I'll say this about Sony — their Kevin Butler PS3 ads have been great, and their new "Marcus Rivers" ads are off to a hilarious start.
Best trailers from E3 day two: Wii Zelda, Portal 2, and more: The new Zelda looks good, and "Child of Eden" looks pretty trippy, but "Kirby's Epic Yarn" looks crazy-awesome.
Copland 2010 revisited: Apple's language and API future: Fantastic stuff from John Siracusa. He's pretty dismissive of HTML5 as Apple's next platform of choice, but I'm not so sure about that. The HTML5 demos that Apple released last week are pretty impressive.