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I found a great video of the Italian team practicing for the World Cup.  It just really made me laugh.

I shouldn’t have laughed so hard since I LOVE Italy, but it was just too funy.  The other reason I shouldn’t laugh is that now the US is pretty much hoping that Italy wins on Thursday or the US team is going home.  I’m afraid we’re all too close to packing our bags and heading home.  I can’t wait for Thursday’s game.

This is the freaking craziest gadget I’ve seen in a long time. A USB Air Conditioned shirt. It will also run on batteries and my favorite feature is that you can plug your shirt into your car to power it. Maybe I just like this shirt because I live in Vegas and currently have a car with no A/C while my sister-in-law is visiting us. I know a number of professors who could use this shirt. You can tell by the shade of their armpits.

Google just posted to their blog that you can now publish your Google Calendar to the web.  The best part of this is that someone who doesn’t have a Google account can still view the calendar.  Here’s an example Google Posted of a Calendar of the FIFA World Cup dates and times and an excerpt from their post:

Now you can get the word out to anyone, because we just added a new publishing feature that lets you show an interactive calendar to others — even if they don’t use Google Calendar. All calendars now have a simple web page that you can point people to, and you can even incorporate one into your own website, profile page or blog. A few quick steps and you’ll be ready to show others what’s going on in your world.

There was a great article about how the Colorado Rockies staff has implemented using the video iPod to watch game film before the start of the game.  It really is a unique concept and great use of technology.  With the video iPod, a pitcher can watch each of the batters he is going to face quickly in the dugout before the game starts.

What’s going to come next?  I have a feeling it’s going to be embedded chips in balls that are able to track motion and force hitting the ball.  Might be good information to see if an older player really is slowing down.  Would be an interesting way to scout players if you see that there bat swing is so much slower.  Of course all of this is just qualitative.  I’m sure Michael Jordan jumped high, but not the highest.  What made him special can’t be calculated with a computer.

It is finally unofficially official that Microsoft is working on a product to compete with Apple’s iPod. I think it is great that Microsoft enters the iPod fray. It never hurts for Microsoft to join as long as they don’t take over the market completely and that is never going to happen with the iPod cults that have come about. My real question is how different this iPod will be from a watered down version of Windows CE. Only time will tell.

Here’s a good list of ways that you can get good music legally. I don’t agree with all of the ideas, but I do agree that I don’t like giving a dime to the Music Industry. I love supporting artists, but buying CD’s supports the music industry and not artists.

One thing they didn’t suggest is instead of registering for these music services you should just use BugMeNot.

I ran across a very nicely written article comparing WengoPhone and Skype.  While the article is obviously bias to anything that follows standards and runs on linux I still enjoyed the comparison.  I think the point system deployed is a bit of a farse.  Some of the points weren’t worth giving.

More importantly, I think the article is right that WengoPhone could be a serious competitor of Skype.  I hope it is because competition can’t do anything but help us the consumer.  I love using Skype and have done so with great success.  The best part of Skype is that it is free in the US now so I can use Skype for long distance calls at work and not worry about having to pay my work for a long distance phone call.

I still think WengoPhone has a long way to go to build their user base and to build the featureset of skype, but they are well on their way.  VoIP is the best.

This just made me laugh. What is the world coming to?

I was reading an article today that Google is ready to launch it’s new Gbuy to compete with eBay and Paypal. This should be a really interesting battle and competition is always good for us the consumer. It should lower costs. I hope Google Gbuy does really well because I have a plan to create a website that would collect a lot of small sums of money. They transaction costs are killer when using a credit card.

Here’s an excerpt of the full article on the launch:

Google’s online payment system, Gbuy, is expected to launch June 28, further pitting the Internet giant against industry titan and rival eBay, according to a research note released Friday by a Wall Street analyst.

Gbuy is expected to be free during the initial phase, but merchants may eventually be charged a 1.5 percent to 2 percent per-transaction fee, Jordan Rohan, an RBC Capital Markets analyst, said in his research note. A fee of that size would be slightly less than that charged by eBay’s online payment system, PayPal.

Google was not immediately available to comment.

“The brilliance of Google’s Gbuy merchant-to-consumer payment platform lies in what Google may do with the transactional data it captures from the thousands of merchants that may ultimately offer Gbuy,” Rohan said.

Now if I can only find a way to get into the beta test group of Google’s Gbuy I’ll be set.

Update: Here’s a good set of screenshots of the process of paying through Google’s Gbuy.

Take this for what it is. I was browsing the internet to see what kind of coverage I could find on the World Cup. I ran across a website that says how to get WorldCup coverage in English. Luckily it doesn’t matter so much because it is being done on ESPN2 which is standard for cable these days. It is amazing that the technology is there to stream TV online. The next year or 2 is going to be amazing as the tv streaming gets even better and better. It will soon replace TV with internet TV like the IP phone is doing with regular phones.