There’s howling over latest iPhone upgrade

I just did a short video report and blog post on how Apple’s latest iPhone update has knocked some of the modified phones for a loop and zapped third party ringtones and software tweaks.

Pirated movies on Google Video

Google may be the world’s favorite search engine but it’s also a favorite destination for video pirates.

Despite its prohibition about the posting of copyrighted material and its claimed filtering systems for preventing the display of pirated material, it’s pretty easy to find and watch full length Hollywood movies on the site that were put there by apparent pirates.

Go on Google’s Video site, type in the name of a current release and chances are, you’ll find it available in pirated form for watching at Google. The National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group just complained to Congress about the proliferation of pirated movies on Google.

And to Google’s defense… they do try to remove them when they find them.

But they miss a lot the movies are posted under weird names, like alphabet soup. I easily found the recent hits Mr. Beans Holiday, Daddy Day Care, Knocked Up and The Bourne Ultimatum. But in the later, you could also see the silhouette of this guy seated in a front row as the pirate secretly taped the film.

Take an online personality test

Ever wondered why you do the things you do? What motivates you and why? I’ve found a Website that, in a very short time, identifies your personality type. You may or may not agree on the results… they’re usually right on.

It’s called 41 Questions and that’s just what it asks… simply… online. You click through some easy to answer situational and emotional questions. All this is based on sound behavioral science, in particular the famed Myers-Briggs test that has been used for more than 50 years to accurately assist people in identifying significant personal preferences.

You basically just answer the questions about how you feel, not what you want others to think about you. After you finish, the answers are categorized, analyzed and presented in seconds to tell you about your personality… in a way that helps explain who you are, what motivates you and what your hot buttons are that make you suited for particular people and jobs.

This isn’t meant to be exhaustive. But it’s pretty illuminating. And fun.

Peek You - A people search engine

There’s a lot of concern these days about online privacy and just how much personal information is out there abut us. If you use one of those social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, you’re being watched.

That’s the subject of tis week’s PC Mike segment for NBC-TV Newschannel stations around the country.

Now there is Peek You, which calls itself a people search engine. And if you have a profile on one of the many social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, it’s being tracked and aggregated and used to compile a sort of virtual dossier on you.

Think of this as the equivalent of the telephone white pages for people listed on social networking sites. Enter in a name and it goes out and displays everything it can find on that person - your websites, social-networking pages, photos, or anything else about you online
online.

What’s your “Real” Age?

The Internet is a great research tool. No doubt about it. But its ability to take personal information and instantly analyze it with vast amounts of data can also be a great motivator. So it is with my NBC-TV report for this week with a site that helps you find your REAL age.

This is a site you may NOT want to check, if you’re not interested in cleaning up your act. What it does is examine your various physical and lifestyle habits and then… tell you how old your REALLY are… and if you eat the wrong foods and don’t exercise or have a high stress job… your REAL age… how long you’ll live going the way you are… may not be good news.

But… here is the good news… the data this site returns based on the information you provide in answering a bunch of online questions… CAN help you reverse the aging process by following some easy to understand diet and activity suggestions.

Live long and prosper. Mr. Spock rules.

Test of webcam recording video

Bear with me. This is a short test of an application known as Conference Recorder for Apple’s iChat program from an outfit known as the Ecamm Network. It grabs video from the built in iSight camera and internal mic on my iMac. I can see it being used for podcast video interviews. Disregard my little demo of the gizmo I hold… I just wanted to see if the camera would pick it up.
This is a video, uploaded to YouTube, shot in the small camera setting and then, embedded but downsized from the normal 425 x 350 to 325 x 250. When blown up to the large image, it got noticeably fuzzy.

The application lets you choose between small, large and extra large sizes. The small one above is less than 1 MB in size. Here’s the middle setting of the large image setting, a 2.3 MB file, at the 425 x 350 size.

And here’s the extra large setting, a 23 MB file, embedded at the normal 425 x 350 size.

Looks to me like the large setting will work just fine. Now… to find tech people with iChat that I can do video interviews with. If you have a tech question, comment, tip or rant, let me know and we’ll set a time and do a segment with this that will appear here. For starters, I’ll be standing by for video chat on iChat at 1pm EST Tuesday Sept 4. My username is mwendland