After being picked on a lot by Apple with its “I’m a Mac” ads, Microsoft is now getting back with its “I’m a PC” ads. These are nowhere the same as the Mac ads. They focus on destroying the stereotype that Apple has created and show how easy to use Windows is, rather than pushing down its competitors.

Here are a few of them. You can check them all out at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/watchtheads/

Also, Microsoft did the Mojave Experiment where they told people that Mojave was the new Windows, where in fact it was Vista to show people that what they thought Vista was isn’t actually true.

There are also a few other ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates in them which are funny, but I’m not sure they are very good ads:

I found this awesome video of Microsoft’s vision of the future. A longer version is available at istartedsomething.com. Enjoy!

CES was last week and quite a few cool devices popped up at the event. Here are some of my favorites.

Palm Pre

The biggest (in my opinion and CNET’s, is the Palm Pre. This iPhone competitor is a touchscreen phone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a cool new Palm OS called WebOS. This OS is filled with cool animations, gestures (multi-touch ones), and seems to be very intuitive. Now, I bet you are thinking along the line of: Doesn’t the iPhone have that already? True, but this Palm does have the ability for you to multitask and it has an actual keyboard (the jelly button kind like the one on a Palm Centro). In addition, it does have copy and paste. Multitasking (not just being able to play music in the background like the iPhone) works by having multiple “cards” on your main screen which you can flick back and forth from. And these aren’t just static views, they are live mini-views of the open apps and you can interact with them too.

Other tidbits: the web browser is also very good (comparable to the iPhone’s), the Pre comes with a 3 MP camera, and you can download music through the Amazon Music Store (similar to the G1). There is also GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone jack (yay!), and 8 GB of internal storage.

No details yet on pricing or release date. But it is supposed to be around the iPhone’s price and released in the first half of 2009. The Pre will be available on Sprint.

Palm Pre Video:

More info:

Palm Pre First Impressions on CNET

Palm Pre Photo Gallery on CNET

Official Palm Pre website

Palm Pre Info on Engadget

The Sony P-Series Lifestyle PC

This not quite netbook like netbook is going along with Sony’s general premium higher end feel for laptops. It has a wide 8 inch screen with a 1600*768 resolution, is less than an inch think, and weights 1.4 pounds. But it has no touchpad, instead, it has a pointing stick. It also has 3G mobile broadband (Verizon), 802.11n wi-fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. The P-Series runs Windows Vista and will retail at $900.

CNET article on the Sony P-Series Lifestyle PC

Engadget Hands-on videos of the Sony P-Series Lifestyle PC

LG Watch Phone

This futuristic watch is also a touchscreen phone. It uses iPhone like gestures to navigate through the TFT capacitive touch screen (1.43 inches diagonally). It looks quite cool though I question its usability as a phone. You would probably need a Bluetooth headset to talk calls since your other option is to take phones with speakerphone. There is also a camera built-in. But the main issue is that you can’t get it (no plans, yet), not unless you are in Europe. The LG Watch phone is scheduled for release later this year and pricing has not yet been released.

Hands-on video of the LG Watch Phone

A CNET article on the LG Watch Phone

So that is basically it for what I though was cool at CES. For more info about it, check out the CES Page at CNET (here) and the articles on CES at Engadget (here). Want to mention another gadget that was at CES that I didn’t mention? Tell the readers in the comments!

Images from CNET and Engadget.

I made (using Jing) a screencast of Windows 7 and its features. Please comment on this video. I’m curious to see what you think of it. Sorry that the video is a bit cut off at the bottom because of the video bar, I’ll see what I can do about that. Check it out below!

I know…. this blog hasn’t been around for too long (though the Funknowledge Blog has) and I’m already updating our core software! Then again, it isn’t that strange, when my blog starts and when Wordpress releases new versions have nothing really to do with each other.

So what is new? Well from your point of view, really nothing. The real update is the back-end. It has been completely redesigned to be easier to navigate and use.

Talking about new, I’ve also installed an automatic mailing system for this blog, so every time I write a new post, it’ll automatically send it to my subscribed readers without me doing it manually. Tell me how it works out!

Interested in finding out more? Check out this blog post on Wordpress.org. To learn more about Wordpress in general, check the about page on Wordpress.org.

Below is a video from that post from Wordpress.org showing what is new, so you can check that out too.

Today I attended a meeting at MIT’s Media Lab to meet people who use Scratch (a visual programming environment that does similar things to Flash). I got the great opportunity to talk with the makers of Scratch (Including a developer of the Scratch Website, see the video) and learn from other “Scratchers”.

I have a video below of the event. As I said, I interviewed a developer of the Scratch site, which allows users to post up their project for others to use and comment on. The video also interviews some kids who have been using Scratch.

The whole experience was very enjoyable and for those of you who have not tried Scratch yet, I would highly recommend for you to check it out.

Go to the Scratch Website at: http://scratch.mit.edu/

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

This is the new ad for Microsoft’s in-car voice command system.

This is an old Microsoft commercial advertising Windows 1.0. Enjoy!