MEVIO Tech

The DTV Transition is Here.  How's Your TV Looking? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10262022-94.html?tag=rtcol;inTheNewsNow Well, you may not have noticed it here on the Internets, but this past weekend marked a significant day in the history of technology.  On Friday, June 12th, the United States Government and the FCC officially hit the switch on digital television transmission.  For nearly a decade, the FCC has planned to turn off analog TV transmission so that it could use those frequencies for other technologies.  In March of last year the government auctioned off a "spectrum" of these airwaves for a record $19.6 Billion dollars to communications powerhouses such as Verizon, AT&T, and Google.  But the big question is, are we ready?  Apparently, most of us are, but there are still close to 3 million homes in America whose service will cease to exist.  That's 3% of the entire television market!  Rural areas in the West and inner city markets are affected the most.  Let us know how the DTV Transition worked out for you.  Hit us up at twitter.com/meviotech with your stories.   Facebook and the Vanity URL http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/facebook-vanity-urls/ And in other game changing news, social networking giant Facebook switched the way you know see your page with its Vanity URL program.  Saturday morning at 12:01 AM, Facebook began allowing members to choose a URL based on words they chose themselves.  So now, instead of a long string of numbers, which made it impossible to easily point someone in the direction of your profile, you can use your name, your company's name, or anything you desire, such as facebook.com/sumidas .  Get your Facebook Vanity URL today...before someone else does.  If you're unlucky enough to share a name with a popular journalist, they may already have.  Editors at TechCrunch found a leaked memo last week which uncovered Facebook's "Priority List", which showed that Facebook has been playing favorites with certain journalists, close clients, and Facebook employees and allowing them to select their URLs before anyone else.  It will be interesting to see some of the choices some people will be left to make.   Some Journalists already have theirs... http://www.ozelwebtasarim.com/index.php/web-haberleri/16821-key-journalists-grabbed-your-facebook-username   Nintendo Talks Facebook...on the DSi http://kotaku.com/5287052/nintendos-reggie-finds-natal-ironic-talks-facebook-virtual-console?skyline=true&s=x   Facebook is SO popular that everybody is trying to get it onto their devices so that you can Facebook any time, any where.  By the way, I wonder just exactly when "to Facebook" will begin to appear in a dictionary near you.  It's probably not far off.  At E3 last week, one of Microsoft's big announcements was Facebook integration into its Xbox Live service.  Nintendo did something similar, but that announcement got caught up in all the hoopla that came with Project Natal.  Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime announced that Facebook will soon be coming to the new Nintendo DSi, which will allow access to Facebook via its wi-fi connection and will be able to upload and post photos taken from the DSi directly to Facebook.  Gotta love how things are all coming together these days.  All this tech talk makes my brain tired sometimes...or perhaps its the gaming.   Gaming Makes You Tired.  Duh? http://kotaku.com/5286938/gaming-instead-of-sleeping-makes-you-tired Yup.  It's official.  Playing an excessive amount of video games makes you more tired than someone who doesn't.  Maybe that's because you're sleeping less?  It took a recent study, though, to prove it.  The study, done at the University of Arkansas, concluded that excessive gamers, ie those who spend more than 7 hours a week playing computer games or using the Internet, spend less time in bed than non-gamers.  Thank goodness someone finally figured that out.  At least now I can rule out excessive watching of Dancing With The Stars or the entire second season of Dexter at 1 in the morning as a cause for sleepiness.  Well, seeing as all of us here at Mevio Tech certainly use the internet more than 7 hours a week, I think it's time for a nap.  It's time to log off kiddies.  After all, we wouldn't want you to lose any sleep over us...  ;) I'm Sumi Das.  See you next week.