I Love China

If you haven’t updated your iTunes software recently, check out the latest version (8.0.1). It has a feature called Genius. Pick any song from your catalogue and hit the Genius button. iTunes will create a playlist with songs that go well with your selected song. It’s pure genius. Why? Because it often picks songs in your catalogue that you haven’t listened to for a while, but when you hear it you think “yeah, that’s a wicked tune man” (or “yeah, that tune is awesome” if you’re from Yankee Doodle land)!

In the above example, I chose Kanye West’s Touch The Sky and in less than a second, iTunes created a playlist of 25 tracks (you can decide how many tracks are selected) that included Dr Dre’s The Next Episode, Nas’ Hip Hop Is Dead, and tracks from Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, Nelly, Ashanti, Missy Elliot and Notorious BIG. It hasn’t just picked other R&B / hip hop tracks, it seems to have recognised that Touch The Sky samples Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up and subsequently selected quite a few other tracks that also contain sampling of other songs – incredible! I could not have picked a better selection to match the original track.

By the way, if you’re not a hip hop fan it doesn’t matter – you could pick a Sarah McLachlan song and iTunes would pick 24 other Tampon Top 40 songs to match it (of course including a couple of Dido tracks and Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To U)!

Check it out, yo!

One lucky man in the UK found several photos of a mystery girl on his iPhone when he unpacked it from the box. Apparently it’s a factory worker on the assembly line at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant (they make the iPhone’s for Apple as well as iPods).

This seems to have caused quite a bit of excitement online, partly because quite a few people think she’s rather cute, although it’s really not that big a deal, it’s (sadly) not as though she’s flashing a breast or something like that. Apparently all iPhones have their cameras tested before they are shipped and someone “forgot” to delete the image.

My question is – is there any other country where it’s required to make the V sign whenever you have your photo taken?

Only a few days ago I wrote about how some clever Chinese programmers had launched an almost perfect clone of Facebook in Chinese, so I thought it would be good to continue the theme of intellectual property theft, this time focusing on the technology sector. So if I may, I’d like to introduce you all to the latest in hi tech gadgetry, ladies and gentlemen, I give you – the Chinese made, state of the art, 4G ready HiPhone (if you’re not sure how to pronounce it, the “H” is silent!). I bet those sneaky bastards at Apple will be copying this baby in no time, or maybe they already have!

There’s a YouTube video clip here for those of you who’d like to see it in action.

UPDATE : Thanks to Seraph for providing the website which is very well done I must say. The phone itself looks like a piece of junk but after seeing the website, I almost want one! The Apple-esque imagery is hilarious, or is it a tomato. Come to think of it, it could be a lychee which would be ironic!