Best. Transformers. Video. Ever. (MPG movie) [via Daypop Top 40]

Wow - a most excellent video! Wait until six-year old Brent sees this; it will start a whole new discussion of why you can't believe everything you see on the web....

Good Looking Games Go Mobile

"A British company is looking to woo mobile phone makers with technology it says can turn handsets into portable games consoles.

Cambridge-based TTPCom has developed software that significantly improves the graphic handling ability of a handset and makes it easy to translate games into a phone-friendly format.

The company said any handset maker or mobile operator adopting its software could attract new customers and generate more money from existing users who started playing and downloading games....

Danielle Jones, director of business development at TTPCom, said its engineers were prompted to develop the graphics software when they realised that the core of the chip powering Nintendo's Gameboy Advance was the same as found in 80% of the world's phones....

By the end of 2003 Dr Cronk predicted that people will see "incredible stuff" on the most expensive phones.

He said Arm has got Playstation 1 games such as Tomb Raider running on handset chips in its laboratory." [BBC News: Sci/Tech, via Lockergnome Bytes]

While it's true that you can already play somewhat decent games on some cell phones (in Europe and Asia, NOT in the U.S.), whichever company comes out with a Gameboy-quality smartphone will easily become a flagship product for Gen Xers (like me) and Net Gens (like my kids). This is going to be a huge market in the future.

"After stumbling across the Jackson-George (Mississippi Gulf Coast) Regional Library System's 'Top 10 Books' List -- and verifying that it's indeed a list of the most frequently circulated books in that library system at the moment -- I've decided to regularly post libraries' 'most popular' lists. If your library keeps such a list online, please let me know and I'll post a link to yours.

The Jackson-George 'Top 10 Books' list currently consists of:

1. THE SUMMONS - John Grisham
2. DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL - Mary Higgins Clark
3. 2ND CHANCE - James Patterson
4. THE SHELTERS OF STONE - Jean M. Auel
5. THE COTTAGE - Danielle Steel
6. THE NANNY DIARIES - Emma McLaughlin
7. SHORT FOREVER - Stuart Woods
8. VIOLETS ARE BLUE James Patterson
9. TISHAMINGO BLUES - Elmore Leonard
10. CITY OF BONES - Michael Connelly" [WPL: waterboro lib blog]

This is a fantastic idea (maybe give this its own page, eh Molly?), but what I'd really like to see is a compilation of the top ten circulation titles nationally. That's one way we could start proving our worth to the publishing and marketing industries and gain some of the clout we deserve.

I'm going to go ahead and brag about this because he starts in three weeks: The Laughing Librarian is going to be the new Head of Adult Services at my home library! I am, most naturally, thrilled! In honor of the occasion, I may finally break down and buy a t-shirt with my second-favorite librarian saying (you all know my all-time favorite), which is from Koans of the Zen Librarian:

"The Zen Librarian searched for nothing on the Web and got 2,456,803 hits."

"The Phobia List is exactly that: a list of phobias, in alphabetical order, from Ablutophobia (Fear of washing or bathing) to Zoophobia (Fear of animals). A few interesting fears in between include Zemmiphobia (Fear of the great mole rat), Syngenesophobia (Fear of relatives; there are specific words for fears of mother-in-law, stepmother, etc.), Pteronophobia (Fear of being tickled by feathers), and Liticaphobia (Fear of lawsuits)." [WPL: waterboro lib blog]

Interesting that there is no listing for "blogophobia." Yet.

"Dave Winer and I have been talking about audio blogs and how to set them up so that publishing an audio post will be as simple as a written weblog post.

We both agree that the telephone is the obvious interface for this, but we need a service that handles the audio.

The hardest part is not sounding like an idiot when doing a solo-post. I can see interviews working much better.

Anyway, I gave it a shot at about 1:30am and couldn't get it into an mp3, but if you're interested, check out the .au Audio Blog Post (about 800k) let me know what you think." [Adam Curry's Weblog]

I was expecting the audio file to appear as an enclosure in my aggregator, so I was surprised I couldn't hear it right from there. And speaking of enclosures, I was going to email Adam and ask if I've been missing posts to his Fresh Free Music feed, because I only got the one enclosure for Bari Koral back in April, but I can't find his email address. I know Adam's a busy guy (understatement), so I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything!

Addendum: Meryl rightly points out that we need to make sure audio blogs are accessible, but that should be fairly easy. If it's an audio version of an existing text post, then there's no problem. If the audio is new content, though, that presents a new problem that I don't think technology can handle quite yet. What we need is OCR for voice (basically voice transcription) and unfortunately a workable solution is still a ways in the future. Something to keep in mind, though.

"Glenn says: 'Sure. But it'll be like most Internet bubbles: the real bubble is in attention. Napster got a lot of attention a couple of years ago. That bubble has 'burst,' but there's actually more filetrading going on now than there was then. It's just not on the cover of news magazines. Similarly, someone will soon announce that blogs are 'over,' but weblogging will continue at a higher rate than it's going on now. It will just have become part of normal life. We don't hear much about the 'electric light revolution' anymore, but that doesn't mean we've all returned to candles.' " [Scripting News]

"For years, the notion of a cashless society has been a futurist's dream deferred almost everywhere -- except, to some extent, in Hong Kong.

Here, just about everyone carries an Octopus card -- a rechargeable, contactless card that is passed over a scanner to access almost every train, bus or ferry. The territory's 6.75 million inhabitants make nearly seven million Octopus transactions each day, worth about HK$48 million (US$6.12 million).

And while cash remains king in this commercial hub, an increasing number of retail merchants, from Starbucks to fast-food chains and 7-Eleven, accept the Sony-made card. Still, getting around on the city's sprawling public transportation network accounts for over 90 percent of Octopus transactions....

The elegance of the Octopus card is its simplicity.

It does not require contact to be read. At rush hour, women can be seen passing entire handbags over scanners, also made by Sony, as they race through subway gates. It's almost as easy for men, who don't need to remove the card from their wallet.

Each microchip-embedded card contains an electronic purse.

Unless a holder chooses a personalized card, his or her identity is unknown.

According to Tai, the contactless system takes only 0.3 seconds to register a payment, compared with one or two seconds for a contact card, not counting insertion and extraction time. He said each card has a potential life span of roughly 10,000 transactions.

Card value can be replenished several ways, and every transaction is settled by the end of the day....

'We're not out there to get the larger payments market. We see ourselves as a micropayments operator,' said Tai.

The next frontier for Octopus is as a security device. Already, some 30,000-40,000 cards are used as main door access devices for residents of the housing estates where many Hong Kongers live." [Yahoo News, via Slashdot]

Check out the Future of Money article noted in the Slashdot write-up, too, because it provides a little more context and history.

I agree with Jakob Nielsen that we just haven't figured out how to implement micropayments on the web yet, but cell phone wallets and electronic cash cards make a lot of sense in today's world, too. Sure, I'll lose my card a couple of times, I have concerns about privacy, and there are whole segments of the population that, for various reasons, can't pre-pay a balance, but for a large demographic, this would be a godsend.

Hong Kong has become an early adopter because of a confluence of events, but it will happen here eventually. I love the idea of just walking through the turnstile to pay for my train ride (it'd be right up there with the I-Pass system we have on Illinois toll roads). I know some of the vendors in the library world that manufacture checkout systems are looking at technology that lets a patron check out titles just by walking out the door. I already use the self-checkout lanes at K-Mart... what will be next?

Sony Brings On the Interactive Retail Storefront

"Sony Style stores have partnered with WideRay -- developers of wireless beaming technology -- to turn their retail storefront windows in New York, in San Francisco's Metreon--A Sony Entertainment Center and at the Sony Gallery in Chicago into interactive displays for Sony Pictures Entertainments' action-packed film and now Sony's new s2 line of sports products.

WideRay created a way for PDA users to download content from the visually engaging Sony Style store windows. Users point their handheld device, such as a Sony Clie, at the WideRay Jack in the store window and download the latest news, images and product information about Sony's latest s2 line. The windows recently featured downloadable Spider-Man content that included movie images, theater information, show times and other fun facts. For a look at the previously featured Spider-Man content and the new Sony s2 product line and what Sony Style passers-by currently download to their PDAs go to www.wideray.com/sony/." [allNetDevices Wireless News]

I'm going to try downloading this tomorrow at work. It's an interesting idea, one that could have applications in other settings. I know in the U.K., some record stores let customers walk up to MP3 kiosks, purchase titles, and beam them into their PDAs. Do they also beam free samples from new artists? The kiosks would probably be more popular if set next to the checkout lines so that folks could beam the ads/information to their devices while waiting in line.

And it's popular in Scandinavia to purchase golf balls, sodas, and pay parking meters with their cell phones. Advertising will be part of any new service like this, but if it's targeted, most people wouldn't mind getting it on their devices. For example, ever notice how you suddenly start noticing the car commercials on TV when you're about to purchase a new vehicle. The same impulse holds true for other purchasing decisions. Looking for a restaurant to go to tonight? Then you probably wouldn't mind an ad for a nearby Chinese restaurant showing up on your PDA, especially if it has a coupon attached.

Back to the idea of beaming kiosks, though.... The problem is figuring out which content someone is willing to literally stand for while information is beamed to their PDA. Info about the movie Spider-Man makes sense because it was pretty popular across the board, especially with the demographic most likely to own a PDA. But how likely am I to be in front of the Sony store to get that content? Better to send it to me wirelessly, either based on preferences I've expressed or because Geographic Positioning System (GPS) notes my location is near the event/store/whatever.

Of course, that assumes cell carriers move to a reasonable bandwidth model, rather than pay-per-minute plans, which they have been slow to do in the U.S.

In last week's commentary about the QuestionPoint virtual reference service, I forgot to note that those in the Chicagoland area can attend a workshop on September 19 at SLS to hear about the service from the proverbial horse's mouth:

Reference without Boundaries: CDRS/QuestionPoint at Library of Congress and OCLC

"Digital Reference Specialists at Library of Congress present the latest information on the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) partnership with OCLC to create the QuestionPoint program of virtual 24/7 reference."

Cost is a mere $30, so sign up now! Unfortunately, we don't have a streaming video service (yet?!), so you'll have to attend in person. Offer void where prohibited.

Addendum: here's another article about the service.

QuestionPoint Marks New Era in Virtual Reference

"In the history of computing, the date to remember is the one when IBM produced the first PC. In the history of the Internet, future historians may note the date when Mosaic became Netscape or perhaps when Bill Gates finally decided Microsoft would recognize the Net. It?s not the originating date, it?s the maturing date. The Virtual Reference Desk movement may have reached such a juncture with the launch of QuestionPoint by OCLC, the world?s leading library vendor, in a joint project with the Library of Congress, the world?s largest library. The production model of the service should go online June 23." [Information Today, via Library Stuff]

It's official, so now I can finally link to it. I'm a freelance blogger now since the Spartanburg Herald-Journal (in South Carolina) is syndicating some of my content to a blog on their site. Radio makes this obscenely easy on my end, and over at GoUpstate.com I'll be known as the Tech Goddess. Here's the press release.

Andy Rhinehart is the wizard behind the curtains here, and when we first started talking about this, I came to an interesting revelation. My undergraduate degree is in Journalism (University of Kansas, Go Hawks!), specifically Broadcast News. That's a capital "J," in case you're wondering.

But instead of becoming Holly Hunter in Broadcast News, I wound up being a librarian and then a techie librarian, but now I find myself at an interesting nexis of broadcasting and information. I see blogging in general, and the GoUpstate blog in particular, as a new type of "broadcast news," one that I doubt anyone ever imagined back when I was in j-school.

Doc Searls, Dave Winer, Glenn Reynolds, and others are currently debating the differences between "big J" journalism and "little j" journalism, and it will be interesting to see what piece I might be in this puzzle (if any). I don't lay claim to being a journalist in this role, but I am definitely broadcasting news, starting discussions, and informing readers. I'm not quite sure what to call that yet. I'm content to just do my thing and see where it all ends up.

So you can catch all of my posts here at TSL, or you can subscribe to the more techie stuff over at the TechGoddess. Same content, different focus. Down the road, we may try to figure out some unique content for the Herald-Journal's site, but right now we're still taking those necessary baby steps.

I can't say enough great things about Andy, so I'll just sum them all up in a big THANK YOU and note my eternal debt to him.  I think it's great that the SHJ is willing to experiment with blogs in this way (they'll be starting their own blog soon, too), and they deserve full credit for their initiative. While some folks are getting bogged down in labeling, it's nice to see others making the most of this rising tide.

Stay tuned, because it's going to be a fun ride!

"I really need that Palm Pilate. (Oops, Freudian slip)."  [God's LiveJournal, via blogdex : recent]

David Bowie, 21st-Century Entrepreneur

"His deal with Sony is a short-term one while he gets his label started and watches the Internet's effect on careers. 'I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way,' he said. 'The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing.'

'Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity,' he added. 'So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen.' " [NY Times, via Slashdot]

Two new library blogs of note:

• "Library Notes, by Sondra Clockedile. She also helps run the Wilton Library weblog, a great example of how weblogs can improve library web sites." [via Library Stuff]
   
• VR, a blog to announce news, share ideas, and practices for virtual reference in all types of libraries - written by a librarian who wishes to remain anonymous... [via Library News Daily]