iPhone ennui

The excitement in the queue for the new iPhone was maybe a little more muted than in previous years…..

The new arts for a digital age

There is no question that this is art being created, in its purest, & maybe most holistic, sense. Its ephemeral nature is a reflection of our modern world & lives. Watch this & you will be both impressed & moved by something new that will make you think about the nature of art in all its forms.

 

Moments in automotive history #46

In retrospect calling their new model the “Bunny” was only the first in a long line of marketing errors that the Chinese automotive industry fell into….

View from a Rhino House: nearer my God to thee….

Vatican officials say that Pope “Gangnam” Benedict, who is known not to love computers & writes all of his speeches by hand, will shortly have his own Twitter account, probably by the end of the year.

“It will be an officially verified channel,” said a Vatican official.

The tweets will be taken come from his weekly general audience (“An audience with Benny”?), Sunday blessings & comments on major Church dates. They will also include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters. So maybe we will see a few carefully worded complaints against his Boss, but don’t hold your breath.

The aging leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics will not, of course, write the tweets himself, but he will sign-off on them before they are sent in his name (not you notice, in the name of his Boss).

It’s going to be fun to try & watch “Old Wordy” squeeze the gist of a papal encyclical, most of which exceed140 pages, into 140 characters. More likely those tweets will probably be limited to a link to a url.

The papal handle has not yet been revealed but it is widely expected to be @BenedictusPPXVI, his name & title in Latin (nice to see a little class appearing amongst the twitteratti).

In a statement last year, the Pope said the possibilities of new media & social networks offered “a great opportunity”, but warned of the risks of depersonalisation, alienation, self-indulgence, & the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones (I wonder if you can have more “followers” than “real believers”?).

In 2009, an improved Vatican website, http://www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook”, & another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff’s speeches & messages on their iPhones or iPods.

Now when they tweet God’s #hashtag, mobile number & e-mail address, I’m going to be all over it like a rash – & let’s face it, it’s got to better than yet more Stephen Fry.

Christ, this new Samsung is heavy, I said we should have gone for the 7″….