Getting a little bit of insider information from a Palm employee friend can really make your ears prick up when they seem to get excited about a new phone and phone OS that their own company has produced, especially it comes from a company that has been mostly doom and gloom for the last few years.

Even with an insider I couldn't get more information than anyone else other than to ensure I would watch the CES 2009 palm announcement.

Well I found the whole presentation on YouTube, and I have to say that it really does look like Palm could have pulled a last minute gem out of their pockets and saved themselves from oblivion. They really need that GSM version though, and more over, need to get the same silly over hype that iPhone had.

Everyone is going to compare this to the iPhone since that phone is the current market consumer leader. Apple introduced the multi touch, clown like interface with features very much oriented to the consumer such as better web browsing and integrated rich media support and social services. If I was forced to compare, I would say that iPhone had a bunch of people with a wish list of cool technology that already existed, and a marketing team that said "it doesn't matter how much it cost, we'll be able to sell it", and so the team went to work cramming everything they could to push an iPod to become the iPhone forgetting the odd essential on the way.. Palm however, seem to have thought about people actually using a phone which could do media and social stuff, and realised that a whole new OS was required to get better cross product integration and interface management, much like Google, Windows and Apple had done/are doing.

I believe what they have done is saved themselves, as long as they can scream from the roof tops over the echo's of iPhone this, iPhone that...

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Key stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet is the approx battery life, and they didn't talk about the new induction charger which allows the phone to be charged without having to plug it into a wire. You just have to leave it on the desk and it will charge.. Great for those that find that problem where the phone will ring then you find yourself wrapped in cables, or ear glued to the desk because the cable is caught or too short! Definitely well thought out, and they are working on the GSM version.

Here are the things I'm not so conviced about. The 3MP camera seems a little small for high end device when competitors are hitting 5-8MP now, and the screen resolution (number of pixels on the screen) is 320 x 480 that is better than the conventional 320 x 240, but I would really hope for a least 640 x 480 or as some devices are going 800 x 480. It makes for much better web browsing, esspecially when the device is oriented around that very feature.

 This has to be one of my favourite youTube videos. I vote Extreme Toothbrushing for the 2012 olympics!

This is a video of the fireworks display that the report put on during the evenings entertainment. In this case a beach party..

This has to be a brilliant (though geeky) viral video. Click on the image below to watch the video.

Click above to watch video

It concerns an IT admin being told what to do by a completely idiot of a sales guy. Typically, there is a communication breakdown when the sales guy tries to use technical terms he doesn't understand, which the IT admin then tries to resolve with disastrous repercussions.

This is a 5 year old who can play a piano from purely it's sound.. No lessons, and she can't read sheet music because she is completely blind.

Her brain is so good at hearing and dealing with pitch and tone that it can improvise a song in real time, and then remember the entire event and play it back. Having "perfect pitch" is quite rare, but you can find it in a number of people in varying number of degrees (some that don't even know it), and can be practiced like most things. This girl really has a unique capacity to deal with music that it is quite shocking..

The way she deals with the piano is facinating too.. She can't see the notes and her small hands means that she can't just reach spans that adults can. This means she is finding notes based on their exact pitch and using spacial awareness simultaneously to place her hand in where she believes that matching note will be found. Again, this isn't new as pianists do this through practice to read music, play without looking at their hands, but the way her brain is dealing with it seems much more raw.. as in she isn't thinking about the piano as a pianist does. What is interesting is that she can also have problems recognising tones at certain pitches. Those with perfect pitch have stronger capabilities within a certain range. Pianists generally will have their range around middle C and one or two octives out in both directions, but this is mainly because of tones they are used to hearing. She has a large range, but seems to find it difficult hitting towards the 4th octive up.. It's definately not hearing and remembering the tone is the problem, but the spacial awareness of where to find that note instead. It's a bit like someone that can hear music and remember it really well in their mind, but can't sing it when they try and so sounds like they heard it wrong.

Amasing.. It will be interesting to see if this girl continues to be televised and how things change as she matures.

Had a brilliant day out with the 2 Ford Siera Cosworth Helm racing cars on a very busy track day out at Donington Park. I have to say that the cars really did steal the awe of the people being the best properly kitted racing cars, rather than just modded road cars.

Videos to come, but i've put some photos up on my gallery here.

Sitting in these things was pretty scary (although you feel safe) purely because of just how damn fast they are. During the second half of the day as the weather cleared up and the slicks went on, you feel like your soul is left behind when accellerating out of the corners.

Mark and Jeff are two excellent racing drivers too. I'm now looking forward to the next race days. Not sure if my stomache will be as much though :-)

Once a year in Bristol there is a balloon fiesta. Bristol is very much used to seeing hot air balloons as soon as there is any nice weather and sunny skies it's almost inevitable that you'll see a couple or more balloons. However, this fiesta, apart from being a massive fun fair etc, has an awesome sight called the night glow, where hot air balloons are used like disco lights.

Here is a video of the finale for this year. If you've never seen it before in real life, its something that will make the eyes pop out of your head the first time you do see it.

I've got a very small set of photos too of the event in my image gallery here.

You can feel the heat of those flames in the crowd!

Well, I've come back from my trip to Las Vegas, and I'm not really sure what I can say about it except its a really surreal place where everything looks real enough, but nothing is.. Its kind of like being in one of those realistic dreams.

We stayed at the Mirage hotel, which is based around a tropical forest theme. You go into a place like that and wonder where the hell you are, and get instantly impacted by all the noise of the gambling machines beeping moronic tones at you.

Certain places like New York, New York, were just messed up. A place with a sort of Irish/English theme as it advertised outside. Instead you feel like you are in some sort of Wizard of Oz take off. You leave the place needing to be pinched just to check that that last experience you had was at all for real. The rollercoaster they have though was excellent, and I highly recommend.

Unforunately, because the trip was for business, I didn't have much time for slot machines or gambling. I had about two goes of a slot machine and have to say, it was so mind numbingly boring, I just don't understand how people can sit at those machines for days on end. Unsurpringly I didn't win anything, so came back with a massive loss of 2 bucks. Don't worry though, I'll just remortgage the house to claw some of the funds back.

Here is a video that Mark put together of the trip. Shows a few of the key sights, unfortunately it doesn't go down the strip as far as MGM grand and New York, New York.

I'm going to get some photos into my gallery of the place, but I doubt there is much that hasn't already been seen once before.

Well sort of.. This is a brief demonstration by my Jujutsu instructor, Sensei Andy Eitzen, and I. Unfortunately this was just recorded by a mobile phone so the quality isn't very good, but its funny anyway.

I'd like to point out, even though it looks quite harsh, years of practice, not only throwing people around, but being thrown around means none of this actually hurts at all. Please don't try these if you aren't trained or under the care of a professional, you will get injured.