Here's an example of an unnecessary display of one's exorbitant wealth and high end exhibitionism. This iPod dock and speaker system is layered with fancy wood, precious metals, and crazy jewels. Surrounded by "Do NOT Touch" signs, this set up rings in at $68.000.00. I asked the young lady working (more like guarding) the booth to turn it on so we could all hear what $68K sounds like. She said no because "their not licensed to play music through the system".....I call bullshit! I bet this system sounds no better than a $68.00 clock radio with a top mounted iPhone dock. At the end of the day its playing back 128kbit, 192kbit, or 320kbit Mp3 audio sampled at 44.1kHz - or at best an AAC file. I don't care how expensive a speaker system is, it's not going to sound any "better" then the next guys system....just maybe louder. So the bullshit "not licensed to play music" excuse was just a smoke screen to keep from being called-out on the average sound quality at $68K (not including shipping and setup).

Here's an example of gimmicks used to get MacWorld 2012 attendees to visit your booth. The vendor was pitching audio gear - ear buds, headphones as well as other audio accessories. The snowboarding, back flipping, trampoline guy & gal repeatedly drew large crowds.

About an hour ago I was on my way back to my hotel after attending an iPhone Film Festival at MacWorld 2012 when I stumbled across a flash-mob dance party at the Powell St. BART Station. The entrance and adjoining tunnel was packed with people dancing to music from portable loud speakers which seemed to be part of a DJ booth with a guy spinning tracks and on the mic. I don't know when it started but watched for about 15min's before it finally ended.

Happening Right NOW! At the TWIT Live Meet-Up at the InterContinental in San Francisco. I ran into Leo Laporte at Union Square - we talked for a few seconds. He invited me to the meet-up....AWESOME! Several hundred people crammed into this side room / bar. Either way.....good times!

I'm at MacWorld 2012 iWorld iFanEvent and the hit of the show so far for me is the DLP Pico Pocket Projector that connects to the back of an iPhone 4 / 4s and projects a diagonal image up to 50 inches. Sells for $230 and will be available at BrookStone.com in about two weeks if not sooner.

Is it really necessary to force users to connect their Pandora accounts to facebook just so that they can add a photo to their Pandora profile? What if a Pandora user doesn't have a Facebook account, does that mean that they can NEVER upload a profile pic? Don't get me wrong, I understand the benefits of users being able to share their Pandora usage with their facebook friends if they want to, plus all the data swapping going on between Pandora and Facebook has got to be priceless....I get it. But what If I simply want to listen to music and NOT share in any way what I'm listening too - can I do that without conditions? I really don't want to give you all my facebook info so can you fix that? Ok bye!

Got an email from Vudu about two weeks ago. Vudu streams movies via the internet to devices like Blu-Ray players, TV's and other Internet connected devices. The email basically said that as of today Jan/03/2013 the Vudu service will no longer be available on Visio devices, of which I own two. We bought our Visio LED LCD 37" HD TV mid year 2011 as well as a Wi-Fi ready Visio Blu-Ray player with all the built-in apps like Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Vudu, Blockbuster, and more. I procrastinated for months before I finally set up these streaming services (Vudu and Blockbuster On Demand). Once set up both worked perfectly - HD movies streamed instantly without buffering or stalling.....it was AWESOME! The email was a shocker because I really enjoyed the service for the few times I used it, but it gets worst! Last week Blockbuster On Demand sent me a service discontinuation letter as well. So not one but two streaming services stripped from my device after less than a year ownership. I feel as if the functionality and features of my Visio Blu-Ray player have been taken away after I've already paid for it - it's the classic bait-&-switch! I'm considering writing a letter to Visio asking what happened and if they plan to replace the removed services with other options.