Although a fair amount happened since our last issue, we aimed for full coverage, so we have only three ExtraBITS items for you this week, a welcome to Soren Thomas Kissell, the latest member of the TidBITS family; Rich Mogull's Science Friday appearance; and a note about the end of the "Get a Mac" ad campaign.
Soren Thomas Kissell Joins the TidBITS Family -- It seemed like all the other TidBITS staffers were getting them, so Joe Kissell and his wife wanted one too. On May 20, more than three weeks ahead of schedule, their long-awaited new product was delivered in Paris. Featuring a multi-touch surface, high-resolution video input, a fingerprint-resistant anti-glare finish, a 3D position sensor, wireless networking, and a (somewhat unreliable) sleep mode, this hardware-software combo has been providing them hours of entertainment and education. Frustratingly, it came without any documentation, and they've been unable to locate a mute button, but the developer promised that future
upgrades will include face recognition, speech synthesis, and a power source that can last more than two hours between charges. The user interface will also be localized in French and English!
Rich Mogull Appears on NPR's Science Friday -- Kudos to our own Rich Mogull, whose TidBITS article about protecting your privacy from Facebook landed him a guest spot on the NPR radio show Science Friday with Ira Flatow (himself a TidBITS reader). You can either listen to the audio of the show or read the transcript on NPR's Web site.
"Get a Mac" Ad Campaign Officially Over -- After 4 years and 66 ads, Apple's "Get a Mac" series of ads is no more. The last ads were produced in October 2009, and a comment by Justin "I'm a Mac" Long hinted that the campaign was done in an April 2010 interview. The URL to Apple's archive of the ads now redirects to the general "Why You'll Love a Mac" page. But if you're missing Long and costar John "I'm a PC" Hodgman, you can still watch all the ads at Adfreak.
